Paying for the trip to Disney next month for the wife and I, two kids, my mother-in-law, and my mom. The rebate basically covered the plane tickets, the hotel, and the rental car. So that makes the trip only slightly insanly expensive instead of prohibitivly expensive. So yeah, we’re stimulating the economy all over the place!
Same thing I do with all my money - give it to other people. Once the bills are caught up I might have enough to pay my bar tab - and maybe go to White Castle afterwards.
I bought new prescription glasses, so all of my $600 and then an extra $28 went to stimulating the economy.
I don’t have any debt, so I had my heart set on a refurbished iMac for my kid ($949, and I got $900). Unfortunately, I just found out I probably won’t be getting any more child support ($800 a month drop in income), so I squirreled away the $900 into savings for emergencies.
The IRS must have known that I intended to stimulate the economy more than the rest of you lot, because they gave me a bunch more money – $2,100. And, in fact, I’m going to buy a new car in the next few weeks. So there!
We’re getting twelve hundo. I plan on hoarding it, like I do all my gold.
Actually, we’re getting a new awning, soon, so it kind of looks like we’re spending it on that, but we were getting the awning anyway.
I’m putting money in the market soon, so I guess it will get heaped together with that.
I’m spending $415 of my $600 on a root canal. The rest will probably go into savings.
I cracked and got a Wii a bit before the refund came in, so I guess you could say I used part of the refund for the payment.
I also upgraded my desktop with an extra GB of RAM to keep it going. Third thing was a new external HD (WD 250GB Passport Essential) to back up mission critical data. (Newegg is crack.)
I lent it to a friend out of the country because he needed a down payment for a new apartment. He had to move because the landlord of his current place broke in while drunk and stabbed him. So I guess I’m stimulating the economy of Slovakia. Probably not what Shrub had in mind.
He’s supposed to pay me back in the next couple of days, if so I’ll probably send most of it to my remaining credit card bill and buy a thing or two off my Amazon wish list. And the earbuds for my iPod broke just this morning so I’ll have to replace those too.
My $600 is going to cosmetic home repairs (powerwashing, shutter painting, landscaping, new storm door, etc.) because I’m putting my house on the market.
Mine will probably be converted to hockey tickets.
So far, my $600 has mostly gone for groceries and a couple of restaurant lunches. I also got some used books as well as about $50 worth of kitchen gadgets and hand weights from Amazon, and $30 to Barack Obama. I might get a polo shirt or two. I need a new mattress and I oughta go to the optometrist and the dentist, but I don’t know if the money for those will come from this.
I wonder if this is gonna do any good after all the money is spent…
I am due $600. It was supposed to be in my account on Friday, but it’s not here yet.
There is a ton of stuff I want/need - new computer, new TV, etc, but I think I am going to be a bad little consumer and put it in savings. I really need to pad my little nest egg more than I need any more stuff.
(Cue next week when I am bragging about my flamingo pink Dell (I really want a pink computer in the worst way) or my brand spankin’ new XBox 
)
The plan now is to use it pay down my last remaining credit card. My wife is planning on doing the same with her half.
I really want a Macbook Pro and briefly considered putting the $600 towards it. It can wait a few more months though.
Pay off debt.
Would you not have bought the groceries without the $600? I ask this because there are many news articles saying that many people will use the rebate to buy “necessities”. I find this hard to believe. If they are really “necessities”, they would have bought them anyway and ultimately the money is being used to buy things they would NOT have bought, or to pay down debt, or to add to savings.
It’s sitting in my savings account; waiting to make sure my brother’s income has stabilized (he has a newish business and should have a steady income in the next two months). I’ve been trying to maximize my rainy-day fund just to make sure I can help him out if he needs me to.
I’m assuming that a lot of people are scrimping heavily on the necessities and not buying what they normally would buy in a better economy. So, it makes sense to me if people are getting a windfall that they would make up the shortfall with it.
Give it to the church for their building project.
(Actually, probably not. I’ll probably spend it on clothes or neccessities, and not really use it to stimulate the economy. But my church is doing a fund drive for a “minor” building project and they really are encouraging folk to donate their stimulus checks or a portion thereof to the building project, and promising that all money so donated will be promptly spent stimulating the economy).