discussion on the actual return you can be earning on your money if you don't loan it away interest free. If you put it in a savings account earning .05% interest, it's not going to be a huge difference. And of course there are other options that can pay more.

But what about the psychology here? How many people view that big tax refund as a huge windfall and go and blow it in a weekend on furniture, a car down payment, vacations, etc? How many people clean out their savings account once per year to buy stuff after they have watched it grow over the course of the year?

I think that difference would be much larger than tens of dollars regardless of the return earned on the savings.