My office at home has been in disarray for months. Piles of papers over my desk - so bad that I had started using the dining table to work from, rather than sort through the mess which I just kept adding to.

This weekend I had decided that it was all too embarrassing to keep like this so I set aside a couple of hours to sort through and file everything. Amongst the unopened bank statements and articles I had copied I found an envelope which looked suspiciously like it might be a HECS debt statement reminding me of the thousands of dollars I owe should I ever again earn enough to start paying it back. I tore it open anyway.

It was from the ATO - a cheque for $250 - a remittance for the fines they had imposed, and then retracted, for lodging my tax form late (which I pleaded was due to extenuating circumstances).

So I'm $250 richer because I got off my arse and tidied my office.

I'll remember that one.

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