"While it's tempting to use a tax refund to treat yourself to some special purchase, in many cases it's more important to use the money to pay off bills or make necessary purchases."

Maximise Your Tax Refund from The Dollar Stretcher 

If you are getting a refund, are you planning to put it towards debt, emergency savings or other things that help you to meet your financial goals?

I'll be using my refund to live off of so... I guess that's considered staving off debt. (It's not much).  

 Making it from one week to another is an important financial goal too. It's a rough situation to be in. Is there any light showing yet for hoping things change in the near future?

Our refund will go towards property taxes, and what is left we will either bank or have fun with. A dryer might be in the future also. E

First to debt reduction (credit card), then to planned large purchse (replace sliding back door - the track is going). 

 Ours is a toss up between paying down debt or adding a second bathroom in the basement.  The bathroom would be best because of SIL and her four girls living with us, but honestly, DH and I are terrified of a project that size!  I also have been eyeing a larger fish tank....but would have a hard time justifying that purchase.

 Our tax refund is several thousand dollars- will be split between one credit card paid off and closed, and then split three ways for education- tuition for the year for two kids Lutheran school, school for oldest dd for college, and train school at a technical college for dh-

And then we always go out to dinner!  Usually an Indian place, this year I'd like to go somewhere new.

I won't have much left for living expenses, but we will also have one less payment, the credit card, and not be going in debt for schools.  

Dinner suggestions for a crew of vegetarians?

I am posting to say that we got our Federal tax refund but the state refund is held up again. We initially debated what we planned to do with this since we felt it was best put to use covering some of the many things we need to do finacially. Trying to decide the priority of needs was the hard part.

We have decided to use the refund to help us afford to get into housing. We should be able to pay off the truck later next month.

 Brandy, that sound wise. You need to be able to get different housing with out extra stress.This should help . Living closer to DH work should help too. Less driving time for him.Have you started looking for a new place? Babs