Stimulus: That didn't go to plan

My family received the stimulus payment on the 15th, as I suspect most people did. By Friday it was gone.

We were supposed to spend it on necessities, I suppose. Or, just spend it frivolously to provide jobs for people. As it turns out, we put away money for next month's rent and the rest went to pay down credit card debt. We did splurge a little on takeout on Friday evening.

Rent, eventually goes to the bank. Our landlord has to pay the mortgage on the property. Landlord ends up with more equity. Bank ends up with cash that it can't lend because credit is getting trashed.

Credit card payments go to the banks that issue them. Their interest payments are drying up. To our benefit, paying down credit cards frees up cash flow and leaves the cards as reserves in case of emergency.

I was fortunate to get lined up with a line of credit before all this financial madness kicked off. Through that line of credit, I am making short work of my credit cards using velocity banking. Within three months, we shall be much better off financially. The credit cards will be zeroed out.

We are fortunate to have relatively good job security. Our income should not be disrupted other than through illness or non-pandemic related outside factor. The stimulus payment was a good boost. What is really going to help is having our student loans paused. That is a considerable amount of money we can divert to debt reduction.

Looking at legislation that is being proposed in Washington D.C., we may have some more windfalls whether it is a second round of stimulus payments or having rent stopped for a few months. Either way, we stand to make a dent in correcting some financial problems that we were tackling prior to all this.

I almost feel bad that the money isn't really circulating through the economy as was intended. Some of it is even being parked in crypto as a hedge against devaluation. Really, the only people benefiting from our stimulus payment are my family.

I wish I had the imagination to think through how our financial well-being is a net benefit to the overall economy. So far, we have mostly benefited banks and a handful of cryptos. Maybe others are picking up our slack by buying consumer goods or dining out.

^{Originally posted on Shaine Mata's Blog. Hive blog powered by ENGRAVE.}