I’ll be the 1st to say I think it’s a stupid idea for the government to give everyone $600. The US is over 9 trillion of dollars in debt, which comes out to roughly 30k per person in the US. And then we decide to add another $600 per person to that debt? This financial strategy doesn’t make sense to me — shouldn’t we be focusing on paying down our debt rather than expanding it? To me, it’s pretty damn clear that the stimulus checks are a band-aid and will not solve any long-term problems with the economy, so why do it?

Though I clearly disagree with the stimulus payments, what is done is done and I got my check in the mail this past week. That said, how am I using my $600? Sure, I could go buy some new clothes or a new iPhone. Or I could put it toward either my car loan or student loan. But what I actually did was put the money to good use and donate it all to people who really need the money — via Kiva.org. Helping others less fortunate than myself realize their dreams just seemed like the right thing to do with free money from the government.