Coronavirus Stimulus Checks Are Coming! Here's What To Do With Yours

all of that is true. But I think we're at the point now where we know this is going to be life as we know it for at least the next month and probably longer if we are realistic. And I think it's time for us to stop practicing like in naive optimism or like radical optimism to the point where I think it can almost be hurtful to people, you know, like we're not going to pray our way out of this, and there's not a ton of silver linings. I mean, there are definitely positive outcomes to this whole

error that we're in right now. You know, you're forcing us to be closer to your family. You're forcing people to rely on one another and help each other.

But even if you have a house, like your spouse, your child or children, your work, it's like, you know, if it weren't already clear, it's just it's throwing everything, all of the different dynamics of work, life balance, inequality for men and women. It's throwing all that into the mix. It's throwing who holds the bulk of childcare and the relationship,

is throwing that in the mix. And it's also like you're working with people who are also dealing with the same crap that you're dealing with if they have kids at home or you know, their worlds are upended, and it's just such a bizarre time to it's almost like the people want I think we're at the point now where people's expectations that we can just pretend like this business as usual that is doing more harm to those

of us whose work and home are so intertwined. Now, Like we need to acknowledge this is crazy, this is not normal.

You know, maybe you have a nanny that comes. No, no, this is like oh yeah as of tomorrow, you in the four month old or like you and your two year old, Like it's so cute because like people on our team have little ones and they join they're like, hey, so we don't mind. But that doesn't work for everyone's job.

decided that was too risky. But even if she hadn't, you know, worked in the arena of healthcare a little bit, like even people who had nanny's who even would agree to social distance, you still can't trust that people aren't encountering other people who could have the virus. So a lot of people just got rid of their childcare plans. So so, yeah, the baby is here, and it's.

lot of couples has been Okay, whose job. It's like that it's the first week. Really last week when we were spending you know, both of us expected to work all day, you know, with with our respective jobs. For the first time, we really had like a power struggle of whose meetings were more important, who was better at doing X, Y Z with the baby, and you know, we it was just a hot damn mess. That's all

I'm going to say. And I don't know if you and Superman, Well, Superman, he's still going out to his job, right, I mean, bless him for being out there, but that is that makes things a little bit easier.

that getting fixed. If folks have to have you know, people there to help run these you know, these apartments. But I'm always worried. I mean, they one thing they have done at his job is that they give them three days on two days off now, so he only works Monday, either Monday Tuesday Wednesday or Monday Thursday Friday to kind of limit his exposure. And they only you know, if they're going into apartments now to do anything. They

only can go in if it's an emergency. So it's like, you know, not like if something light is wrong, you know that has to wait. But still it's frightening because I three hundred units, times how many people per apartment or per townhouse. I mean someone he's running to has corona, you know what I mean. Oh, like, and so it's just just no way that they don't. And especially in New Jersey and Essex County has the highest cases. So I always think of that, like, I don't know, it's

just it's a lot, it's a lot. And yeah, I love He has this great article on her her blog and it's called I think she called a toxic positivity, Yes where you know she was like, look here, Auntie, right, we don't need you to like you know, like the we can plead the blood of Jesus. And I'm not saying obviously, I mean I believe in God, you know, or higher source. And but that's not that's not how that ever works. You know, if that ever worked, then

no one would ever die. Yeah, you know, babies wouldn't get sick, your grandma wouldn't pass. That's just not how that works. And pretending that well, if you would just pray, this would go away, it's actually more harm than good and so.

you guys to look into getting help. A lot of therapists it's sort of forced them to adopt virtual therapy solutions, which I think is great because I feel like half the battle is just finding the time in your schedule to go to a therapist, and I think it's easier than ever now and mine has been doing virtual sessions anyway,

So talking to someone has definitely helped. But for those who are struggling with a spouse and that tug of war over childcare and working the what's really helped me is to one give myself and give him a break.

I was really expecting complete and total cooperation with whatever my you know, schedule was, and I was expecting for him to just know exactly sort of what was needed with the baby when he hasn't really been required to be home alone with the baby and alone time, and I was being really hard on him and really hard on myself and what I've tried to do and what I've talked to him about is like we were both just judging the other person, and like we were really

like judging how we did the baby stuff and how we did the work stuff, and why do you have so many meetings? And doesn't your you know, and at the end of the day, this is not normal, Like nobody knows how to do this right, and the fact that we were criticizing the way each of us was doing it, I was like, no one knows how to do this. This has never been done. So we just

need to give each other a break. The laundry is not going to get done all the time, the dishes are going to be dirty, the you know, our jobs are not going to be one hundred percent. They're not going to get one hundred percent of us like they usually do. We need to like get our teams, our respective managers, talk to them and let them know what they can expect from us, and then just be a lot easier on one another. And so far the last couple of days of last week and then today, it's

been so much better. But it was fucking it's so hard. And yeah, homeboy, I have to tell you this funny story really quick. Just I was on a conference call last week and I had to hold the baby for whatever reason. Uh, he was being fussy and husband dropped him off of my lap and I was muted and everything was going great. Baby was just chilling. As soon as I unmuted my button, he took the largest, loudest dump, the biggest poop in my lap and it was so loud.

comic relief from the baby popping in. But anyway, all that being said, if you're out there struggling with children at home, you're trying to homeschool, or you're you know, struggling with your spouse or your partner over who takes care of the kid. Now while you have a meeting, like there's no right way to do it, and the sooner you give yourself a break, the more happy you'll be. Just we all just need to give each other a break.

make herself cereal. She can make herself a sandwich. So the only thing it has been hard has been like with IVF, I'm like ah, and I still haven't like a manday and I talked about it offline. I still have not called. I don't know why. Sometimes I get whenever I get overwhelmed or afraid, I freeze, like I'm like I could be the super gold Gator or I can be the like endless procrastinator. I'm like nowhere in between.

So when I get I noticed that about myself that when I get when I'm afraid of something, or you know, or I become really overwhelmed. I revert back to the like super procrastinated, where I'm like, I'm not doing anything and for some reason, I don't know, I'm afraid of what the IVF the answer is going to be, so I haven't called, even though I'm like I should call, and I'm like tiviny neagivew I'm actually I'm gonna make it tomorrow. I'm going to promise myself when to because they're closed now.

So I can kind of like you know, like work. So that's actually been like put a blessing but also a little bit exhausting some days. But because you know, like all the press and the media and everybody wants to talk about the stimulus or the crash or the this or people you know online or like hey Tiffany, you know, should I save my money? Should I budget now?

And so it's giving me like a nice little reprieve from like thinking about my own self and helping other people always helps me to kind of like forget, at least for a little while, any kind of stress I might be experiencing. So, like I said, that's been both helpful but then also sometimes overwhelmed me because some of the questions people ask, I'm like, wait what, you know, like, I'm not equipped to solve your life in.

have been thunding in your questions. I hope you go back and listen to last week's show with Sharon Epperson CNBC when we spoke about some of the most common money questions we've been getting from you guys on today's show, we are definitely we're going to unpack that giant piece of legislation that passed last week in Congress and two trillion dollars, which is such a big I don't even know how I can't wrap my mind around that number.

Two trillion dollars worth of emergency relief that Congress has passed, and we're going to unpack what that means for you, how much money you can expect to be getting from the government, if at all, and a couple other updates, whether you're a small business owner, you're someone who has a mortgage payment, or you're someone with student loan debt, and we can talk about maybe some assistance programs or

some steps that you can take toward finding relief. So we take a quick break right now and we'll come back and talk about all of that good stuff. Okay, we're back, So Tiffany, let's unpack what our government has done for us, because we give them a lot of crap. But Capitol Hill, you know, Congress really came together last week and finally passed the third of three different bills.

This one is really meaningful for people because this includes the check cash money, the stimulus check that many many Americans will be receiving, but not everyone. So let me just run down really quick how much you can expect and who's actually getting what. So, if you earn less than seventy five thousand dollars as an individual, you can

qualify for h check of twelve hundred dollars. That amount decreases a little bit all the way up to ninety nine thousand dollars worth of income for an individual.

be clear where you're going to find that number. So eight B on your on your tax for your ten forty tax forms.

getting your stimulus funds. And yes, like Tiffany said, it is based on your adjusted gross income. So if you really want to know if you qualify, you can go to your last year's tax return or call up your accountant and just double check. For couples, So going back to how much of a check you'll get, so that

was all for individuals. For couples, basically double that. So if you're a couple earning one hundred and fifty thousand dollars jointly, then you can qualify for twenty four hundred dollars and that's gonna max out at one hundred and ninety eight thousand dollars of joint income, so and again twelve hundred dollars is the max, and then it'll it'll decrease a little bit all the way up to that those thresholds ninety nine thousand dollars for individuals or one

hundred and ninety eight thousand dollars for couples. When are they going to get those checks, Tiffany, They.

mean hopefully for a lot of people. I mean it's obviously twelve hundred dollars is for a lot of people a meaningful amount of money. We got a question on the Gram from a listener who wanted to remain anonymous, asking, you know, if we get a stimulus check, what should that money go towards. Should we be using it for our next house payment, or should we be putting it toward debt? Should we be stashing it away for savings? Do you want to take that tonique?

one or two ways. So I would say, I believe it was last week or the week before where I said that I wouldn't be aggressive in debt pay down right now because it's much more important that you have some emergency savings saved. But the caveat is I would for student loan because right now, if you have federal student loans, you're your interest rate. The interest component of your federal student loans has been paused until September, which means every single dollar you pay to your student loans

is going to go to your principle. So that's huge. So I would consider if your whole and you're not laid on any payments and you don't need money for that, I would consider if I had federal student loans, putting some money toward them because and being a little bit more aggressive only because all of your money is going to go toward what you owe, so that's huge. And second,

I would use some of that money. If I don't have three to six months ideally six months worth of emergency savings, I certainly would be putting the money toward my emergency savings because we still don't know what's going to happen. I know we have the stimulus, the purpose of the stimulus is to stimulate the economy. And what you did to think of, like I was sharing with some dreamcatchers, that the money is like literally blood flowing through the economy, which is a boy. So when the

money stops flowing, then the body. Parts of the body start to die and then eventually it just all dies. And so that's why the federal government is giving us money because we are low on blood. And if something doesn't pump blood through this economic body, we're susceptible to an economic collapse, which is a recession and at worse, a depression, which we don't want. And the depression is

a series of recessions. And when our economy drops by I think it's like ten percent or more consistently for two years or more. So we don't want that. So as a result, yeah, we're getting that money to kind of flow through the market, to throw through the economy. So I would save it, I would pay my bills if I needed to. Then I would save or and or aggressively pay down student loan debt if I had federal student loan debt. And if you don't have any of those things then and you're told you have six

months worth of savings. Then I would also look into am I in short enough, I'm not going to. I mean, it's a little scary, are we. They don't know for sure what percentage what the death rate is quite yet of COVID nineteen, it's looking around three or four percent, but without accurate testing, they don't know for sure. But that's significant because the flu is er point zero one percent. So do you have adequate life insurance? I might put some toward that if I had those other things covered.

And if you do, then quite honestly, I would look to use this excess money for investing. So if I checked off all those other boxes, then I might set aside that money and say, huh, you know, have I maxed out on my on my retirement account? And if I have, you know, maybe I can open up an investment account that's outside of retirement. So those are kind of like the order that I would go in with with my money if I was getting the twelve hundred or twenty four hundred dollars.

businesses and things like that. But I worry that people are or I wonder if people are just going to be so afraid that they're just going to hang on to it, which I completely understand, and like Tiffany said, in some cases it probably makes more sense to do that, but time will tell. I did want to clarify, so on the student loan interest waiver, that's just for federal student loan debt, like Tiffany said, and it's being waved

through September thirtieth. Okay, just FYI for those of you who have student loan debt, So if you were considering refinancing your federal student loans right now, it really doesn't make sense. Right now, you're getting zero interests in your federal student loan debt, so I would leave them right

where they are. And like Tiffany said, that just means that whatever you pay on them is going towards your principle, which you know, short of debt forgiveness, it's not a bad plan b so at least it's something a couple other things. So if you are a lot of this is being done at this style. But there may be ordinances from state governments preventing landlords from evicting people for a certain period of time. So some states have a

complete ban on evictions through May or longer. Just in light of the fact that a lot of people, whether they lost their job or their income or whatnot, lots of people will be struggling to make payments on rent as a result of this economic shutdown. So check with your state and see what sort of relief programs they

may have. And I just also want to say, whether it's your mortgage, or your credit card bill, or any sort of loan, call your servicer and just ask them if there's some sort of forbearance or some sort of relief program they have in place in light of what's

happening with the COVID nineteen crisis. I know, in our research at lending Tree, we've found a lot of different banks already have pages dedicated to what kind of assistance they can offer borrowers in light of this outbreak so, but at the same time, they're not calling you up. They're not going to be like, oh, hey, you know, Tiffany, we know you have you know this auto loan, or this this credit card bill, We're going to take care of that, don't worry about that, or hey, we won't

charge you interest. They're not going to come out and tell you that you have to be proactive pick up the phone and call them. I think one of the worst things you can do is just hope that things will figure themselves out. I really encourage you guys to pick up and call people, even.

the banks are concerned because they're learning too. So I had to give them a little bit of grace because I was like, so what does it look like? How do I apply? I will say I did find the application online.

and I believe it's up to ten million dollars. So what it looks like is they are going to look at last year's operating expenses, so that means how much did it cost to run your business every month? And they're going to multiply that by two and a half time. So let's just say, for the sake of ease, that it costs you ten thousand dollars to run your business a month. So that's twenty five thousand dollars you are

potentially eligible for to receive an assistance. The key is they're wanting you to use that money to maintain your staff. They do not want people to be let go and so the way it works is that it's a loan that twenty five hundred dollars with just that fictional twenty five hundred dollars. It's a loan as long as you maintain your staff and I believe it for eight weeks. And so if you do that, then that loan becomes

a grant. And if you don't do that, and let's just say you have to let go fifty percent of your staff after taking this money, then you will owe back fifty percent of that money given to you, and they're going to give you ten years to pay it back. And I believe the interest rate honors anywhere from two to four percent, so still really really low, you know, really low interest on paying that back. The purpose of that part of the stimulus package is to keep small

businesses open. And because small businesses account for about half it's not more than half of all employed people. So they're wanting small businesses that they open, and they want small businesses to contain and you to employ their people even if their people are home. And so they I mean, I googled it to find like the application. It was

not easy. I'm like, sheesh, it's just woop child out here, and so I googled it and so literally it's at on the SBA Small Business Association Association dot gov website. So I'm sure if you go to SBA dot gov you should be able to find all these applications that you're looking for. So, like I said, you could be ten ninety nine, that means you're a contract worker, you could be a sole proprietor you can be you know, as long as your business is under five hundred employees,

you can even be a nonprofit. So yeah, there, And what I love too is the paperwork is really light, so they're not doing you know, normally when you're trying to get a business loan, you have to give your firstborn and blood and none of that. They're being really light. They're like, you know, did you fire taxes. Let's take a look, and what it'll look like is that you file this application online. So my friend actually did this. You file the application online. Then she went into her bank,

the bank that she uses for her business. I called my bank and they were like, no, girl, But she went into her bank and they let her do kind of like a pre application. So some banks are already kind of like up and running and geared for it. I don't know why Wells Fargo is not. So she already had kind of like her her meeting with her banker, and she's pre approved. She just has to wait for the funds and a couple of weeks when the funds

are released by the federal government. I don't know what it's looking like for some of these bigger banks, but there are banks that are pre approved to disseminate these funds, and so we're honestly, I'm just waiting. I was on the phone waiting for Wells Fargo for like an hour today and it was like, we don't have the funds yet, and I'm like, well, how come her little bank in Florida is already ready up. I guess, you know, sometimes when a ship is so big, it's hard for them

to turn it. And her bank in Florida is like a small, kind of like one off bank, so I guess you know, they were more prepared. But there's a lot of money coming to us. But the only thing I worry about. I don't know if you worry about this, Mandy, but I do as a finance geek, is uh, what about inflation? They're printing a lot of money a girl. Well, that's just tomorrow's problem. I saw, I saw, meaning that it's like, who's going to pay for this? Oh, Tomorrow's children.

You ask Rio about it when he's when he's voting. But I did want to just clarify, so just to recap, and I will put as many resources as I can get my hands on for you guys. If you check the show notes, whether you're a small business owner, you have student loans, or you're just wondering how much of a stimulus check you get, check the show notes.

the lights on right now. Then there's the loans, which Tiffany mentioned can be up to ten million dollars per business and could be potentially forgivable depending on some eligibility requirements. And like tiff said, you have to keep workers employed et cetera. And then lastly, there may be some relief if you already have a small businesslan There's also a chunk of cash in that bill that would cover up to six months of payments on for small businesses that

are using SBA loans already. And again, be proactive. Like Tiffany said, I'm going to put the link to that SBA resource in the show notes. You guys can start that paperwork, and I just my heart goes out to all the small business owners out there, just like people that I'm desperate to give money to, like my hair dresser and the really nice lady who is doing my post natal massages that I miss so much. But for you know, it's not safe to work with people that closely.

So these people out there whose businesses relies on contact with other humans, you know, they're really really struggling. So hopefully, hopefully this can provide some much needed relief for them.

she ay, but she can't really sing. No, these books can sing, you know, Like it looks like a real book, like the book that you would get at like Barnes and Nobles or Target. I can't wait to send them out. And I just got it word from the distributor because I know people have been hitting me up because they don't really fully understand how kickstarter works, which I get it because I wouldn't know unless I was using Kickstarter, you know, when I kickstarted the book. So the way

kickstarter works is that you do your Kickstarter. I think the kickstarter ended, I want to say the beginning of March, and then they make you wait three weeks for your funds because for two weeks they try to make they try to charge people's cards that are on Kickstarter. They don't charge you right away. They only charge people's cards if the kickstarter is fully funded, and then they charge your card, and so for two weeks they charge your card,

and so not everyone's card got charged. I think about forty people, you know, I guess they're just the funds. Weren't there no judgment, judgment, no, but so it wasn't a significant amount, which was good. And then they take their Kickstarter feed and they take their credit card feed, and then you wait another week and literally the money from like a month ago was just deposited into my account,

which is like yay. And then on top of them, I had ordered books months ago because I knew I didn't want you guys, to wait, and books take about two or three months to print, so I ordered books like three months ago, and then this kind of I guess memorandum went down where it's like right now we are not shipping non essential items, and so it was touch and go, and I was just like, am I going to get these books? Like, what's happening? I know

people are waiting. So finally they came in a couple of days ago and I was just hitting the distributor. So I ordered about three hundred from my house. Because some of the books some people ordered like a or chose a reward tier with their books. They wanted their books signed, and so I want to, you know, I wanted to. I have to ship them out myself. But the vast majority of the books, well over fifteen hundred of them, are going to be shipped directly from the distributor.

But they didn't even have them yet. But I know people are a little bit frustrated, but I'm like, I can't say what's not here, So I've been trying to keep open lines of communication. So they literally just emailed me probably like an hour ago saying, hey, we finally have them here, and I'm like, finally, so I say all that to say that hopefully within a week, we're gonna start shipping out your books. We're just waiting for

your bookmark. So that's another week. But if you if you ordered through Happy Birthday or if you order through the Kickstarter, please make sure you go back into Kickstarter and fill out the backer survey because that's how I get your address. So if you have not given me your address, I don't have a place to send the books. I sent out a message, but I know how it is. You know, it might have gone to spam or whatever. I send out a message through Kickstarter asking for your

mailing address. So if you're hearing me and you're like, I never gave my mailing address, go back into Kickstarter. There should be there. There'll be like it'll it'll pop up and just give me your mailing address and all the information I'm asking for because within a week, you know, hopefully we'll have some good news in your hands. So that's my I know, that's my brown boos. Honestly, Mandy, it's so beautiful. I can't wait for you to see it. It's just like I just I can't believe it's real.

It's like a real book. It doesn't look like one of those Oh you're self published, that's so cute. Now it's like a real book.

of work, but like joyful work, you know. So it's a little bit of a little ray of sunshine in these dark, boding times.

and of course text messages. But I really like this app called Marco Polo, which is not necessarily a new app, but it is really really easy if you're trying to find a quick way to like send a video message to family and friends, and you can create groups and it's sort of like that annoying group chat that you're in on your on your text messages, which I love my little my family several family and several friend group chats, but they can be a little much and I like

having a separate app to put them on. So if you're looking for a way to connect with family and friends, I really recommend Marco Polo. And just this week I've noticed like everybody and their brother has been signing up for it, and I think it's just everyone's flocking to find like a really good way to communicate with their

loved ones really quick messages. And then you don't, you know, need to have need to go digging through your text to like find that message or getting a million message alerts from your text, you know, from your group threads. So highly highly recommend it. And if you don't want to download another app, I I'll do a brown Brown boost for just calling people. Don't bother leaving a voicemail though, like I did for Tiffany because she won't listen to it.

But I have been using and a lot of my friends have been loving this app called Calm Clm Calm app, which has meditations and like even if you have trouble sleeping, because the anxiety and troubles kind of float into your brain right when you're trying to go to sleep. At least that's my problem. They have like little stories you can listen to that help you drift off to sleep.

I think they have. It does cost I forget how much it costs, but I think it's worth it, especially if you are looking for something just to help you relax and take away some of the stress. That's going on in this world today. I highly recommend the call app.

communicating better, we're helping each other more. And just give yourself grace out there, like I've been watching the Today Show because Hodah is just I just love me some Hoda and she's just like everyone's aunty right now, is what I feel like. And just be nice to people, and I don't know, go for a walk, I mean, do whatever you can to take care of yourself, because it's not something that's going to be over tomorrow. We need to start learning how to cope with this.