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Money Questions: Stimulus checks have wide range of uses

By Helen Huntley, Times Personal Finance Editor
In print: Sunday, June 1, 2008

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We asked

How are you spending your economic stimulus income tax rebate?

My lovely wife and I will celebrate our 35th anniversary on a cruise out of Tampa at the end of June.

Frank Giordano, Tampa

I spent mine on season tickets to Tampa Bay Performing Arts.

Mary Thomas, St. Petersburg

Whenever I get the tax rebate, I'll be spending it on my health insurance. It won't even cover three months of it.

Greg Fudala, Largo

I'm buying a new refrigerator. The current one was in the house when I bought it more than 11 years ago, and this is a good opportunity to use the rebate on something useful.

Adrian Nenu, St. Petersburg

I spent my entire rebate on air conditioner repairs (plus about $300 more.)

David Vaurio, Trinity

I likely will be saving the income tax rebate to a reserve fund to pay a small part of this fall's out-of-control Florida property taxes.

John McBaine, Indian Shores

We plan to pay down some of the 21 percent nondeductible credit card interest.

Joy and Al Hilkene, Oldsmar

We have already spent our $1,200 rebate on a TV and laptop computer.

Mike and Susan Wildfeuer, Clearwater

I purchased a pool waterfall.

Joe Trangata, Holiday

I divided my tax rebate among a friend's wedding I participated in (costly), paying off a high-rate credit card balance and a recent traffic ticket. Whatever was left went into the savings account.

Andrew Butler, Port Richey

I'm paying unexpected repair bills for repairs we had to have made on the electrical wires in our home and on some plumbing we had done.

Gerald Raposa, St. Petersburg

I am flying out to Eurkea Springs, Ark., for four days for a blues festival.

Joanne Vrecenak, Indian Rocks Beach

You asked

Why did they do away with the stock listings in the business section of the Times? I used to be able to look up my stock.

Fewer and fewer people were using the stock pages, making it costly and inefficient to deliver two pages of newsprint (three on Saturdays) to all our readers so a small percentage could each look up a few stocks. Newspapers all over the country are eliminating their stock pages for the same reason.

The Times' Web site (money.tampabay.com), along with other Web sites such as finance.yahoo.com and money.aol.com, allow you to look up a stock by ticker symbol and even to set up a portfolio for all your stocks so you don't have to enter ticker symbols each time.