Make Money with Your Money

Tax season is upon us. For some it's a time of dread and panic, scrounging for the up to date paperwork and frantically scribbling calculations at the last minute, praying that all the numbers add up. For other's tax time is the one time of the year where it feels like free money is falling from the sky.

With a job that allows me a little bit of spare computer time and an early W-2 form, I had my taxes prepared and filed on the first day that I was allowed to submit them with a nice little return check deposited into my account within two weeks.

I was ecstatic when I found out that I would be getting almost $600 back from the government, I'm a college student so I don't make much.

Like a lot of other people, the majority of that money had already been earmarked and spent before it ever arrived. I had a car to license, dogs that needed shots, and a bit of leftover credit card debt from the holiday season to pay off.

As my meager paychecks have begun again for the New Year, my enthusiasm has waned as I've watched large chunks of my income disappear back into Uncle Sam's coffers, not to be released back to me for another 12 months.

Looking over my last check and seeing that over $60, $61.22 to be exact has gone into the great unknown sparked an idea in my head. Why not earn money with my money? Sounds strange right?

Try to think of it like this. Basically all of my working life I have been giving the U.S. government an interest free loan ever year. And it's not just me that's doing it. You are too! What a world it would be if banks and credit unions handed out interest free loans to everyone.

They don't, and here's one sentence that sums up why. There's big money in interest!

If the big lenders don't do it, then why should you?

No good reason yet? I don't have one either.

So what good reason is there to be paying extra money from each check and then waiting and entire year just to get it back? Seems a little silly when I put it that way doesn't it?