Get a year-end bonus? Do something responsible with it
January 1st, 2010 | by mbhunter |No really, that isn’t a joke: Some people did get bonuses this year, and they weren’t even bank executives!
Got a tip to this CNN Money feature on how seven people will spend their year-end bonus. (One of the featured people is Danielle Liss, also known as The Frugal Lawyer.)
The bonuses for these seven ranged from $77 to over $50,000. Though it isn’t apparent from the captions on the pictures, all seven of them plan to do something responsible with at least part of their bonus:
- Replace an ailing dishwasher
- Pay down debt
- Pay bills or buy necessities
- Bolster savings for house purchase or just for a rainy day
- Invest in real estate
A year-end bonus is one of those small windfalls that can be used for prudent things, or just blown. What several of the people featured in this article did was allocate up to half of the bonus for “fun stuff” to alleviate saver’s remorse.
Doing something prudent with the windfall is good, because next year the year-end bonus might be “Congratulations, you still have a job” or “Here’s four weeks’ severance pay instead of just two.”
One Response to “Get a year-end bonus? Do something responsible with it”
By Danielle on Jan 2, 2010 | Reply
Thanks for the link. I loved the way this article was done! When I interviewed with the reporter, she said that they wanted to try and differentiate between what “real people” have to do with their money and what the fat cat bankers do. I was glad to see that everyone had such great ideas for their bonuses.