How to spend your $600 check from the feds?

[Tennessee Riddle]

I'll have a working couple, two kids rebate. Hopefully, it will go towards closing costs on our first house. Yeah.

[purplefdu]

Originally Posted by Gootsy

If I were an Americam, anyways. So you all should take trips up to Canada and spend the money here lolololol show Bush who's boss

But then it wouldn't go as far since the loony is stronger than the dollar (I live in Maine and I hear about it all the time, lol).

We are planning on using our normal tax refund to pay on loans, so the credit will most likely go towards savings/IRA and some smaller fun thing. I don't think I made enough last year to qualify for one so we will be losing out, as usual.

[farley2k]

I am actually planning on being very unfrugal and buying a new HD TV. Should be fun!

[Megan]

Originally Posted by farley2k

I am actually planning on being very unfrugal and buying a new HD TV. Should be fun!

Hey, that's what the feds are hoping you'll do, so spend spend spend!

I'm trying to not get my hopes up too much, since it's not official yet whether or not this is going to happen, but I can't help but think about all the ways I could spend $600.

[Rapuccini]

We plan to save/invest ours. We certainly were not expecting the money, thus it does not make sense to spend it. Hopefully we will be glad years down the road we did.

Of course, this certainly wasn't the purpose of the credit (spend, spend, spend!).

[72Tiger]

By the way, it was my money in the first place I am getting back, so the Fed will not be getting any thanks.

[frozemud]

It's going toward the purchase of a front-load washing machine. My old top loader was bought used for 100 dollars about 12 years ago and it still runs, sounding like a helicopter landing in the basement. Hopefully a front loader will save money and water.

[rstlne]

Originally Posted by Rapuccini

We plan to save/invest ours. We certainly were not expecting the money, thus it does not make sense to spend it. Hopefully we will be glad years down the road we did.

Of course, this certainly wasn't the purpose of the credit (spend, spend, spend!).

That's where I differ about the point of the tax rebate. Sure, spending the money will stimulate the economy, but so will saving or investing the money. The money doesn't disappear just because you save it. It just gets loaned out by the bank to someone else who has an immediate use for it. Similarly, if you invest the money by buying stock, you're buying the stock from someone else who's selling it, so the money just changes hands. It doesn't just vanish. The way politicians try to distinguish between spending and saving, saying one will stimulate the economy while the other won't, tells me that they don't fully understand the economy.

[beren]

Originally Posted by farley2k

I am actually planning on being very unfrugal and buying a new HD TV. Should be fun!

What a great country we live in when being patriotic means buying a new HD TV.

Originally Posted by rstlne

The way politicians try to distinguish between spending and saving, saying one will stimulate the economy while the other won't, tells me that they don't fully understand the economy.

The whole concept is pretty unsound. Sure it may stimulate the economy in the short term, but in the long term we are just borrowing more money from China, money our children would have to pay back.

[kav122]

Originally Posted by rstlne

That's where I differ about the point of the tax rebate. Sure, spending the money will stimulate the economy, but so will saving or investing the money. The money doesn't disappear just because you save it. It just gets loaned out by the bank to someone else who has an immediate use for it. Similarly, if you invest the money by buying stock, you're buying the stock from someone else who's selling it, so the money just changes hands. It doesn't just vanish. The way politicians try to distinguish between spending and saving, saying one will stimulate the economy while the other won't, tells me that they don't fully understand the economy.

Yeah, thanks for pointing that out, because I totally didn't get why they thought that saving (in a bank, or somewhere else) wouldn't stimulate the economy.

Money is like matter, it doesn't disappear, it just changes forms *snort* I'm a science nerd