Yahoo Finance I Spent My Stimulus Check on a Garden: Why I Don’t Regret It
Gigi Alexander planned to walk across Japan and teach classes abroad, but then a global pandemic hit and a multiple sclerosis diagnosis ended her career.
To alleviate the financial strain Alexander and millions of Americans felt during the pandemic, the U.S. government issued over 476 million stimulus checks totaling $814 billion in three installments.
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Many individuals and families used the stimulus money to fill income gaps, stock their pantries, pay down debt and stay afloat during the global health and financial crisis.
Alexander made a different choice.
GOBankingRates talked to Alexander about why she has no regrets about spending her stimulus check on building a garden.
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‘Frivolous’ Spending
For years, Alexander won acclaim as a travel writer, publisher and teacher.
Before the pandemic, students traveled from all over the world to her classes in Mexico and Uganda. Then, Alexander found herself competing to sell in the increasingly crowded field of online classes sold during and after the pandemic while dealing with a multiple sclerosis diagnosis.
“At that point, I knew I couldn’t fly anymore,” Alexander said. “COVID made it so that you couldn’t be a travel writer anymore, and the pain from the M.S. was just killing me every time.”
With few options left, Alexander decided to build a garden, spending $5,000.
“The garden was such an incredible thing to do and frankly incredibly frivolous because I did not even have the money to pay my rent,” she said. “For me, it was just an incredible experience to build something like that because it was like making a piece of living art.”
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Investing In Family
Making smart money moves is crucial, especially during financially turbulent times. However, money management is also a mindset, said Olivia Dreizen Howell, a certified life and success coach.
“When we manage our finances, we have to leave to leave room for spending on mental health and self-care, or else we can burn out,” Howell said.
Howell explained it was also important to budget and save to spend on experiences that improve the quality of your life for yourself and others.
That’s what Heather Thornsley and her family did during the pandemic when her husband lost his job. Thornsley used the stimulus money to rent a condo in Lake Tahoe.
“Every day, my daughter and husband skied right outside our door,” Thornsley said. “I met them at the bottom of the slopes for a sunset drink and then we went to the condo to make dinner and watched movies. We loved our house in Oakland, but we needed a different view.”
Thornsley said her family’s decision to go to Tahoe felt extravagant to them, their friends and their family.
“But it was totally worth it,” she said. “Working while watching it snow was a needed mental health shift.”
Saving Lives
Building and maintaining the garden saved her life, Alexander said.
“It helped me manage the fact that I had multiple sclerosis, which was one of the most isolating things that ever happened to me,” Alexander said. “I chose something that I thought would save me and it did.”
Alexander began saving other lives by using her home as an animal sanctuary. However, she ran into issues with her neighbors because people kept leaving dogs on her doorstep, and she had only nine days to move.
“I lost it all,” she said. “I had to dismantle the whole garden and of course all of it died. That was one of the most painful things I ever went through.”
Alexander said she plans to start a new garden at the animal sanctuary where she lives. But this time, Alexander said she’ll use seeds because she can’t afford to buy plants.
“It (building the garden) was a really good thing to do,” Alexander said. “It saved my soul.”
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This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com: I Spent My Stimulus Check on a Garden: Why I Don’t Regret It
