When I woke up this morning and checked my email/bank account, I received a very pleasant surprise. Not only did I receive my regular biweekly paycheck from my job, I also received a deposit labeled, "ACH CREDIT IRS TREAS TAX REF ON 04/15." At first, I figured this was some sort of glitch since I had already received my federal government tax refund. Then, I remembered seeing a news headline that said that coronavirus stimulus package payments would be coming out soon...
How Much Should People Expect to Get Sent Their Way?
The LA Times put out a good article the other day detailing the stimulus package. Below is a summary:
- As long as you aren't considered "high income" (meaning $75,000 AGI from tax returns), you are eligible to receive the maximum payment amounts of $1200/individual or $2400 for married couples filing jointly.
- In addition, you will get $500 per qualifying child under the age of 17.
- For us, all of this added up to our family receiving $3400 as a direct deposit into the bank account for which we use to receive IRS federal tax refunds when we file our returns.
Timing for Issuing Payments
It appears that the federal government is first issuing payments to folks who employ direct deposit for their 2018 or 2019 tax refunds starting this week. Paper checks will start to be sent out in May.
How I Plan to Use My Family's Stimulus Money
As mentioned in a recent post, our family has been lucky in the regard that our employment has not yet been impacted by the coronavirus. As such, we have a little more flexibility in using the stimulus money than people operating more in a state of emergency.
Below is my plan for using our stimulus funds:
- Get to $0 balance on all of credit cards.
- While we never carry-over balances on our credit cards month-to-month / incur interest, we do currently have around $1500 in revolving monthly spending balances built up on our credit cards. I'm using the stimulus money received to get those balances to $0.
- Buying some building toys to keep our kids busy / learning during the coronavirus stay-at-home.
- Top up our Ally Bank online savings account balances.
- Although I'm continue to invest in my 70/30 asset allocation as I would normally using our regular income, having this stimulus money seems like a good opportunity to bulk up our immediately-available cash savings accounts.
- We currently have online cash savings accounts at Capital One, Ally, and Dollar Savings Direct. All are great options, but I am electing to top off my accounts at Ally Bank right now. The current annual interest rate on my savings account their is 1.50%.
***Photo courtesy of https://flickr.com/photos/armydre2008/3714583594/in/
