I found out last week that I am getting a 10% bonus this year, which is really, really cool. I should see it in my next check, and so over the past week I've been thinking about what to do with it.

It really isn't that hard of a decision for me. I could go get a new LCD TV and a wii, or maybe schedule a vacation (what's that again?). But of course, that wouldn't be the responsible thing to do *sigh*.

I haven't given any debt updates recently, and part of that is because we've got into some trouble over the last couple months. Firstly, back in November and December I had to put new tires on both mine and my wife's cars (~$800 total), and then I had another $700 or so of work that needed to be done to my car to pass inspection. On top of that, I bought new MacBook laptops for my wife and I for Christmas, and put them on my 0% credit card. Admittedly, buying the laptops was partly in anticipation of receiving a bonus.

So, essentially I've done what one should never do and spent my bonus before I had it, or even knew definitively that I was getting one. It worked out for me this time, since my bonus should just about cover the outstanding balance on my card (and just in time, since my 0% rate is about to expire). It would have been a very bad situation, though, had I not received a bonus this year, or had it been less than I was hoping for.