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Windfall gains sweep us off the feet but the key lies in not wasting them on immediate consumption.

Windfalls from many sides: An unexpected big amount of money can come from many sources such as sale of house, the long due provident fund corpus from a previous employer, annual bonuses, accruals from a money back policy or sale of old mutual fund units as a part of annual portfolio balancing exercise. The immediate fall-out of a windfall gain such as a salary hike is that the cash in hand, even after paying taxes, will increase.

What most people do, is to start consuming more if income increases but the consumption does not fall if income actually falls. This, according to economics, is called the consumption ratchet.

Save now to spend later: After a salary hike or when a bonus comes in, most individuals experience a corresponding rise in family spends. "It is as if the extra money finds a way to be spent. Preparation of a monthly budget and constant monitoring of the same prevents such spending. We have also seen the young salaried tend to spend the extra income now by telling themselves that they will save later. Later doesn't come.

Big uses for big amounts: With big-ticket amounts such as bonus, one should look at investments in infrastructure bonds.

Straightaway Rs 20,000 can be invested in the infra bonds. Another option is to take a re-look at your annual insurance premium corpus. Many people delay saving monthly amounts for insurance premium purposes. A big amount like Rs 50,000 can take care of a year's annual insurance premium needs.

Tax refunds: According to tax norms, refunds are due to come after six months of submission. But they hardly come by six months given the long list.

It takes around 9-12 months to come. This will either come through the electronic clearing scheme (ECS) or the direct cheque option depending on the option you have selected.

But the amounts are not huge which is where the risk of frittering away lies. It is best to invest the tax refunds into tax-saving instruments. A tax refund is likely to be around Rs 5,000 to Rs 10,000 but it can still be used to pay off small credit card debt, point out experts.

Happy Investing!!

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