The wildest ways people spent their tax refunds

If you’re like me, the thought of tax season makes you clammy. We’ve all worried about messing up our taxes and getting arrested by the IRS, or whatever happens when we don’t get our papers in order.

But if there’s always one thing to look forward to every tax season, it’s those fat, juicy tax refunds we get when we overpay the government. To make tax season just a little more bearable, I asked people to reminisce about the best or wildest things that they’ve bought with their tax returns. Some of them preferred to go just by their first names to avoid shade in their professional lives, which makes sense. They’re all stars in my eyes.

“I bought six Telfars on the bag security program last year — three for myself and one for each of my sisters and my mom.” - Jackie Anyanwu, 23, New York City

“I got my Shiba Inu puppy, Osito, who fathered his own batch of Shiba Inu puppies two years ago.” - Jonathan Perez, 36, New York City

“When I was living in New York, I used my tax refund to take mental health vacations to Estes Park, Colorado. I also used it to start a business.” - Ashton Brooks, 32, Denver

“I knew my tax return was coming so I bought flowers for all my single girl friends for Valentine’s Day.” - Rebecca Oh, 26, Richmond

“I was dating someone and she wanted to get her body done, so I kind of just used the money for a down payment for that. She wanted to do, like, a BBL. We split, so it ultimately didn’t get done.” - Juanito, 29, Los Angeles