What will you do with your extra 13 bucks?
Posted on February 17th, 2009 – 3:37 PMBy Kara McGuire
President Barack Obama just signed the stimulus package, including a teensy, weensy, mini, itty-bitty windfall for average folks.
Last year’s stimulus rebates obviously didn’t turn the economy around. So for round two, the delivery method is changing from a lump sum to a little bit dished out in every paycheck. The government is making this work by withholding less tax from our paychecks.
I’m not sure exactly how it would work for Americans who don’t work or are out of work, but will share more details as they come.
CPA Todd Koch doesn’t qualify for the “windfall,” which he said amounts to about $13 per week. But he’s still curious about what readers are going to do with their extra $13 per week you’ll see in your paycheck starting in June.
“Will they spend it on Big Macs or make monthly payments on a new washer or will they pay down their credit card? Or will they just not notice and change nothing?”
My guess is that I’ll be in the camp of “change nothing.” I might notice, but it’s such a small amount I can’t imagine that I would go out and spend more money because of it. I’m not getting a raise this year and take some unpaid maternity leave, so if anything, the extra money will help to make up any shortfalls.
I guess we could institute family pizza Fridays or get a Netflix subscription. But knowing my family, the stimulus will expire by the time we pull the trigger.
What would you do with an extra $13 a week? And do you think this will stimulate the economy?
11 Responses to "What will you do with your extra 13 bucks?"
How insightful is someone who can’t even set up a proper headline. $13bucks is redundant.
What would I do with an extra $13 per week? if I qualify, not much. it’ll be post-bills section of my budget, which mostly goes to savings and pre-paying my car loan. $52/mo isn’t going to change my discretionary spending.
Would married couples receive $26 extra per week then if you both have paychecks? How does that work? If so, an extra $100 or so a month would add up big time for us.
I probably wouldn’t make big purchases, but maybe I wouldn’t feel guilty about buying small things here or there.
I think Gene Walden’s piece this Sunday said all I wanted to say about the stimulus and the bailouts. While I’m all for some strategic investments, I think the gargantuan debt we’re shoving onto our children and grandchildren is beyond irresponsible. It’s a recession! The economy will recover. What will we do if there’s a REAL crisis?
I won’t get it…but if I did I would give it to my kids. They’ll need it.
Every time I get a raise, I increase the amount I put into savings so that I always have the same amount to spend in my account. So presuming my paycheck goes up, I’ll just transfer more to savings every two weeks.
Changed electricity plans to 100% renewable (I live in a state where you can choose). I realize my laptop is probably not being powered by a wind turbine exactly, but I’m increasing demand for the right kind of energy and putting a little extra into the economy.
This is Behavioral Finance 101. Obama has a guy named Cass Sunstein on his team. He co-wrote Nudge. He’s a big proponent of giving people a little bit a number of times versus one big check.
Bush’s stimulus checks were either saved or used to pay down debt- neither of which are stimulative at all. The way to give people a decent chunk of change and to get them to spend it is at $13/week. Then, we’ll go buy our lattes, Chipotle’s, or whatever and, voila, the economy is stimulated.
The bottom line is that, because of the dollars involved versus the size of the problem, the dollars will get spent and it will have absolutely no noticeable impact on the economy.
Oh Elmer, I’m a busy gal who makes a mistake every once in a while. I’ll change the title just for you.
My husband and I were just addressing this last night. We will more than likely save the money. I suggested that we take the extra 50 bucks a month and re-institute a date night. 
the extra $100 that we as a working couple will receive is substantial enough to spend on something! we’ll probably go out to eat again (gave it up almost entirely last year) once a month. i hope all those little stimuli will help in some way.
