Top 10 ways to spend that stimulus check

The government promised, we’ve been waiting, and now it’s time for us to start receiving our stimulus rebate checks. And since we all know it is our patriotic duty to spend, spend, spend, we at the Kansan would like to offer our Top 10 suggestions for disposing of this extra moolah.

(Just a note before we get started: Since different people will receive differing amounts, we used $300 per person for the purpose of estimating. If you’re one of the lucky ones who will get a larger rebate, you will be able to tackle multiple items on the list.)

10. Go out for a fun night on the town. You’ll have just enough for dinner, a round of mini-golf and a tank of gas. However, if you want enough gas money to get home, you had better take a date — and their stimulus check.

9. Buy a year’s subscription to the Kansan ($124.23 with tax for most locales) for you and 1.41 of your friends. You’ll keep up on all of the latest happenings plus have a hefty supply of fire-starting material for those chilly Kansas winters.

8. Make a contribution to the political campaign of your choice. This will ensure your television will continue to be inundated with insinuations, rhetoric and other constructive commentary for months to come.

7. Buy 375 red, reusable shopping bags at Dillons. Because you’ll save 5 cents each time you use the bags, by the time you use each bag 16 times, or a total of 6,000 bags of groceries, your investment will pay for itself. It’s the stimulus check that keeps on giving.

6. Buy enough groceries to fill four of the aforementioned shopping bags.

5. Purchase a plane ticket to some exotic locale. Granted, the airline you buy the ticket from likely will go bust between now and your departure, or you may end up flying Andorra-Azerbaijan-Aircongolmerate LLC. Make sure to snap a photo of you holding the Kansan wherever you end up.

4. Buy 600 copies of The Newton Kansan when the Graduation 2008 special section comes out. Cut out pictures of all your kids, grandkids, friends’ nieces and third cousins once removed and mail them a copy. Cut out pictures of people you don’t know and mail them anyway, just for something to do on a Friday night.

3. Pay your Newton water bill.

2. Grab up 731 “Forever” stamps before the May 12 1-cent increase. This will save you $7.31 in the long run, which, in today’s economy, probably is one of the soundest investment strategies around, second only to the reusable shopping bag initiative.

1. And now, for a little group project: If all the residents in Newton between the ages of 18 and 65 would combine their stimulus checks, that would yield a fund of about $4.5 million. With that chunk of change, the city could build perhaps 24 percent of an overpass or underpass across the railroad tracks on Main Street, meaning as long as the federal government continues to give us checks for three or so years, and the city could agree on a plan, our children might not have to wait on trains.

Happy spending.

— The editorial board