As this is a holiday and another round of stimulus payments was just issued, I’m going to repeat most of a post from June of 2020. Even though the payments are smaller this round, the principles still apply.

Many, if not most of my readers either have received or will receive stimulus payments. The stated idea of the payments was to jump-start the economy. I am distressed that the government has borrowed to give out money. While things are tough right now, borrowing money is just pushing the country into more debt, and that’s putting it mildly.

Personally, I would urge all of my readers to be careful with this extra money. It’s really just a repayment of taxes that were taken from us along the way. If you were wondering what to do with the extra money, I would say that the first thing to look at is paying down any debt that you have. If you are still working, you still have the income you were running on before the pandemic. If you were laid off, the majority of those getting laid off or furloughed are actually getting more money than they did when they were still working. In other words, a good-sized portion of the population really didn’t need the payment. So what would I do with the extra money?

1. Pay off debt with it.
2. Or, use it to add to or start an emergency fund.
3. Or, use it to help support worthy organizations (your church, ministries, non-profits in your community). Most of those have been hit hard by the financial upheaval of the pandemic.

We did the second and some of the third options. We have no debt and have an emergency fund. We have been following the principles that we’ll be discussing on this blog. I suggest you pray about where you can help and do so. Thanks for reading.