by Tricia
Thanks Sherri for the heads up! She left a link to a story about the economic stimulus payments coming out a little earlier than expected:
President Bush said tax rebates will start going out Monday, earlier than previously announced, and should help Americans cope with rising gasoline and food prices, as well as aid a slumping economy.
Via [sfgate.com]
It looks like the official IRS payment schedule site has been revised as well:
People who use direct deposit also will be among the first to receive the payments starting April 28.
Via [IRS.gov]
The payment schedule itself appears to be the same as before President Bush’s announcement. If all goes well, it looks like we will have our check by mid-May. That’s exciting, because that will put our debt under the 5 figure mark!
To be honest, though, I’m starting to feel a little uneasy about food prices. We may spend some of that payment after all, to stock up on necessity/pantry type items. I’m still considering it.
Tricia, this article says the direct deposit rebates will all be completed by May 2 (http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Taxes/Advice/SeeWhenYouWillGetATaxRebateCheck.aspx). I have no idea if that’s accurate or not so I don’t think anyone should in anticipation of getting the money.
I refinanced my house from a 30 year, 6.125% loan to a 15 year, 5.25% last week. I got about $900 in cash back (didn’t want it, but I upped the loan a little bit to make sure I didn’t need to pay anything at closing) and I used some of that money to stock up at Aldi’s. I now need to go and totally rearrange my pantry to try to fit it all in. It was worth it to me for my piece of mind. I also spent a few dollars on food for the homeless pantry at church. The rest of the money will go in the savings account to pay for next year’s heating oil!
Okay, I just saw another blogger, Don’t Mess with Taxes, that says the final direct deposit will be made on 5/12, which makes more sense because it spreads them out over the same 3 week schedule, just moves them up a few days. Whatever, right?
I read about the checks goign out early, too. Has anyone read about if you are married and filed a joint return? Would you get a $1200 check, or would it be 2 $600?
I think there’s some inconsistency going on regarding the stimulus check. Some of us should see it appear as early as April 28, but they will all be done by May 2. So if you did direct deposit on your tax return, it will show up this week.
basic: If you file jointly and paid at least $1200 in taxes, you’ll get $1200. This is given you meet the requirements and such.
I wasn’t too worried about food prices at first – I figured that it’s just me, so how much of an effect can it have? And then I started noticing just how much my grocery bills were going up when I’m buying the same things I always buy. I’m going to have to rethink my budget.
Yep, I’m feeling the impact of grocery prices too. I too did not expect to feel it given that I don’t have children, drink milk, eat eggs, etc (all the things people say have increased in price). But even in the span of a week some things that I buy that were 1.99 the week before were 2.29 that day. Crazy.
Just checking out your sidebar. Under $11,000 remaining on the debt pay off! Congratulations and continued success!
Great little post. I work for a company that manages gift cards and we blogged about this issue a few days ago on savvywallet.com. There are retailers who are offering 10% bonuses for IRS stimulus checks. Be careful. Consider this: $100B was spent on gift cards, and $8B was lost/unredeemed. My advice? Spend it, save it, put it towards education funds, our ROTH IRAs.
i’ve been hearing lots of people haven’t received their checks yet. i think this amounts to the premature mission accomplished speech bush made. this time it was early rebate checks. i just want our $1200 because i feel a little poor having just bought a new macbook pro.
good ole’ government………married couple getting 1200 yeaaaaaa right. we got 705.00
nothing is cut and dry with the government….