Opinion: Save tax return for dive camera or dive trip?

[sberanek]

If you already have a digital camera you could look around and see if they make a housing for it. That's what I did... well, it was more of an accidental coincidence. I bought a Nikon digital camera to use for work, fun, vacations, tormenting the dog, etc. and a few months later after borrowing someone elses underwater digital camera I poked around the internet and found that there's two companies who make a housing that is for my camera. I plan to buy it once I get my good ol' government tax money back too.

--Shannon

 

[1_T_Submariner]

Well, at this point the dive is scrapped anyhow because my right arm is fubar'd right now and I can't lift over 2 pounds with it per the doctor, so I'm uncomfortable making reservations for a charter...sure I can cancel it if it looks like its not healing fast enough, but that's just too risky for me, I'd rather just put the money in my money market account I have set away as my "dive stash" and wait for a better opportunity...for that matter I guess the tax refund is going in there too at this point, so there may be close to a grand in there once I get my tax refund. I dunno, I might just save up a little more and go to Cozumel or the Caribbean. Or I might just dive for a week straight in Channel Islands, I dunno yet.



I love my life, actually. The pay for my job is laughable, however, AMR pays far more than any other ambulance company...I make $9.50/hour right now and I don't do 911, however, AMR pays anywhere from $12.00 to $14.00/hour depending on the county you work in here in California and they obviously do 911, so for a college job, 12-14/hr is respectable. I'm planning to go to medical school anyway so money won't be an issue once I'm a doctor. I honestly don't think I'd make a career out of the ocean even if I could...I love medicine, but on a different level. I have a romantic love with the ocean that I don't want to degrade by making a job out of it...I have more of a companion love towards medicine in the sense that the honeymoon's over and I realize medicine is an unholy, evil bitch, but I love it anyway, so I'm not cheapening it by making a career out of it. ;P



I don't have any credit card debt, for the record. I learned my lesson from my brother and never made the mistake of going thousands of dollars into debt...I just use my rewards credit card for my living expenses and I pay off the balance every month so I get air miles towards free air fare.

Sounds like you have thought this out pretty well. You really don't need the advice on what to do with the $500. Funny how much advice/thoughts change when you give more information. Hope your arm gets better and you do well in college. IMHO you will make a great ER Doctor having actually worked in the field prior as an EMT rather than just in the academic world (Don't want to start a disscussion on that).