I have two kids, and I am putting each child's $300 share into a college savings fund. My share will pay down credit card debt.

I have had this dilemna for a few years because my children are adopted from foster care, so I got a big tax refund for each of the years their respective adoptions finalized. Since I would have had a very small refund were it not for that, I really felt like it was their money. At the same time, I could do a lot more for them recreationwise (dance lessons, vacations, toys) if I didn't have so much credit card debt. So I rationalized that splitting it in half between my debt and their college funds was a fair solution.

That sounds good.  Since we are adopting internationally, we are looking forward to the credit from the adoption year to ease the pain of the money we put into it.  But there will definitely be a chunk of that for all the kids.

That's a great idea, putting the part of the rebate we get b/c we have a child into her 529--I hadn't thought of that!  Thanks!  But yeah, the rest of it--not planning any spending sprees, just paying stuff off like usual.

I guess I'm figuring that whatever we spend or save, the kids get the benefit of it too. I'm SURE They don't care about the new dining room set, but they'll thank us later, right? Or that could just be me rationalizing to make myself feel better :)

Hoping the rest of it will be stimulating our savings account, to be honest.

I'm hoping we'll buy a couch... or save... or take care of some random  things

Let's see

-renewing paperwork for adoption

-trimming overgrown trees and pulling out diseased tree

-major dental work hubby needs

-new glasses long overdue

the list goes on and on and on and on :)

Suffice to say, stimulus $ is spent already.

Does your agency have local social workers or did you have to go through a separate agency for that.  Our agency, Children's Hope International doesn't even have a California office.  So we have to do our homestudy stuff through someone else.  For that we are going through Across the World Adoptions.

Okay this is funny!
We have probably spent it 70x over in our heads!  LOL

I am hoping that we can put it towards a new computer!!!  We need a pricey one for our business so it won't even cover the whole amount!!!  We want to get the top-of-the-line Mac Book Pro plus Photoshop & other software.  I wouldn't do our work on anything but a Mac, but geesh it's sooooo costly!!!

This is one instance where I feel I can go out and buy a next gen game console and some cool games, and chalk it up to 'doing my part to help the economy.'  But truthfully, probably nothing more than sending it straight to covering a small part of our debt.