Majority of consumers using stimulus payments to tend to bills
This article originally appeared on KPVI
By Julian Paras
If you haven’t received your stimulus payment yet and happen to be behind on bills, you could use your stimulus in a few ways to help with payments.
“We ran a survey a few weeks ago in early January to about 1,000 consumers across the U.S,” said Jim Kreyenhagen at Doxo.
Jim Kreyenhagen at Doxo, explained different ways Pocatello residents can utilize their stimulus payment according to a report they put together analyzing the different bills people take care of in the Pocatello area.
“With Pocatello, we can see that the average utility bill is $303 or the average auto loan is $313 and that’s based off of the sample of bill payers within the Pocatello region,” said Kreyenhagen.
Doxo found that a majority of consumers plan to use their stimulus check for their utility bills.
“About 78 percent said they’re using those funds to pay their utility bills and that could be because the bill amount is right around the right amount to pay your bill. At $600 for the stimulus check that in Pocatello will cover an average set of utilities for two months,” said Kreyenhagen.
But all consumers are different, he said. Based on what you need taken care of, measure your bills by priority and what should be dealt with first.
“Consumers can use this $600 check and we see that to pay those billers that they are behind on,” said Kreyenhagen.
Kreyenhagen suggest consumers should contact their billers if they can’t make payments. Track how many bills need to be taken care of.
He also says information like this can help the consumer take control of their finances the right way moving forward.
“We think the information about the average amount the consumer pays for each type of bill enables them to manage their own finances better and make smart choices about how much they’re paying for their bills based off of the vendors they’re using and the services that they’re using,” said Kreyenhagen.