20+ Things To Do With A Mini Financial Windfall

I recently had a small sum of money fall into my lap. It’s quite common in personal finance writing to see articles that say “What To Do With $1,000…$10,000…$100,000 Right Now!” And if you have that kind of money, the answers are usually the same – invest it.

You’ll always see a recommendation to invest in your retirement account if you haven’t already maxed it out for the year. That recommendation is the bread and butter of personal finance writing! But you might also see a recommendation to invest in your house, via home improvements. Or your education or career, by taking classes or getting certificates or even getting a new degree. You might even see a recommendation to invest in a rental property if you happen to have a spare $100,000 lying around.

(I’m assuming in those cases it came from an inheritance and not that these people got a $100,000 bonus at work…because, jeesh!)

But what do you do if you get just a little bit of money? Like, $100 or less? I don’t see a lot of those kinds of articles, so I thought I’d write one! Blogger’s prerogative and all. So here is my story, and some ideas for you.

My Mini Windfall

On a recent work trip (TDY for my mil readers), I was overcharged about $40 by the rental car company. The error was caught but it took about two months for the company to refund the money to my travel card, and then to get the money from the travel card to my own bank account.

Now, typically what I do with TDY money is that any per diem I don’t spend goes into my travel fund. I love funding personal travel with excess money from work travel! It feels like a double bonus!

However, in this case by the time I got the $40, I’d gone through my travel budget for the year and realized I was already fully funded for my trips for the year. Plus a little extra. So adding it to the travel fund just seemed…unnecessary.

What I Decided To Do

A week later, I came across a deal for severely discounted classes on Udemy. If you follow my Facebook page, you might have seen me post that they were having a sale where all classes were $10. Some of the classes are normally $200, so this was up to 95% off normal prices. I’d been considering doing some online courses anyway, so this seemed like a perfect fit.

I ended up purchasing four courses with my $40. Well, five if you count one that is a free course. They have those, too! I signed up for two finance courses, and three blogging courses. The finance courses were chosen so I can not only learn more, but also so I can use them to your benefit. I plan to review each course here on the blog so any of you who might be interested can have a good idea of what you are getting into before purchasing. The blogging courses don’t have quite the same direct benefit to you, but hopefully I can use them to up my game on this end to make the blog better for you!

Ways To Spend A Mini Windfall

With the thought in mind of how I was going to spend my unexpected money, I put together this list of ­­­ 20+ things you can do with $100 or less to make your life a little better, financially or otherwise. In no particular order other than #1:

• Take a class (obviously had to start with that one)
  • Community College course
  • Workshops
  • Webinar
  • Certificate course
  • Language or cooking class
• If you don’t have a fully funded Emergency Fund, stick it in there
• Buy a new pair of running shoes – and use them
• Hire a house cleaner for a day. Ahhhhhh……
• Buy that book you’ve been wanting to read that your library doesn’t carry
• Host dinner at your house for the friends you don’t see often enough
• Open a 529 plan for your children
• Pay off some debt
• Buy a piece of art from an up-and-coming artist
• Spend it on someone else
  • Buy a gift for your parents
  • Give to your favorite charity
  • Have a special date with your significant other
• Use one of the myriad low-entry investing services now available. No more $5,000 minimums!
• Peer-to-peer lending
• Build an emergency kit for your house and/or car. Seriously, you should have one.
• Purchase some really great budgeting software, such as Quicken or You Need A Budget
• Start a blog! Why not?
• Give an extra nice tip the next five times you go out to dinner. Or a really nice tip to the next server you meet.
• Buy some plants
• Attend a conference – for your job or Comic-Con, whatever floats your boat
• Membership to a local museum
• Lessons – golf, piano, public speaking, whatever
• Spend an hour with a financial planner. Or a life coach. Or an organizational specialist. Whatever your life needs work on, spend an hour (or more) with an expert who can put you on the right track.
• Staycation or day trip

What are some ways you’ve spent small amounts of money that really improved your life?