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It’s easy to let the priority of taking care of yourself fall by the wayside when you’re working your hardest to manage everything else in your life. Now that your tax return has come, you’re probably thinking about how to invest that money. A great idea would be to invest in yourself—something many people may not think to do.
4 Ways to Invest Your Tax Return in Yourself
Invest in Your Sanity
So you have no debt to pay off, and you’re generally pretty diligent in contributing to your retirement savings—you deserve to splurge a little on yourself! Book a trip and take a little vacation to someplace you’ve always wanted to go. Taking time for yourself to reward all of the hard work you put in every day is important for your mental health. Unplugging yourself and getting away from work/the internet is a great way to recharge, allowing you to come back refreshed and ready to take on everything that comes your way.
Invest in Your Health
The best way to stay healthy is to stay active. If you don’t already have a regular routine for personal fitness, consider spending your tax return on joining a gym or another fitness program. Yoga, hot yoga, pilates, and boot camps are all increasingly popular fitness activities that not only keep people healthy and in shape, but are fun and give you the opportunity to meet new, likeminded people! Another health investment is to enroll in a high-deductible health insurance plan if you don’t already have health insurance. Saving your tax return to cover your deductible in a health savings account is a wise way to make sure that you’ll always protected in case an accident happens.
Invest in Your Career
Depending on your industry, you may be missing out on a lot of money by not being certified in different specialty skills. For example, if you’re a medical assistant with a CPR certificate, and your coworker has an EMT certification, she may be making up to $10,000 more a year than you! Certain certification programs also offer deductions off your taxes the following year, so it’s smart to look into any ways you can advance professionally now that you have your tax return to spend.
Invest in Your Happiness
Is there something you’ve really been wanting, but couldn’t justify spending the money on it? Sometimes you owe it to yourself to just splurge a little on something that’ll make you happy. There are also investments that may seem a bit extravagant initially, but could wind up saving you enough in the long term that they’re pretty practical. For example, if you go to Starbucks every morning for a Caramel Macchiato, you’re spending a pretty penny on that caffeine fix. Shelling out a couple hundred bucks on an espresso machine might seem like a lot up front, but if you’re spending $5/day on coffee 5x/week, you’ve made up for a $200 espresso machine in just 8 weeks! Crazy, right?
