The IRS says it just sent out a second batch of $1,400 stimulus checks, with an official pay date of March 24, and says more will follow on a weekly basis.
But no matter how many batches go out, Warren Buffett will never get a payment.
Not that anyone would shed tears over that. The investing legend’s net worth recently brushed $100 billion, and his annual income — including a $100,000 salary and billions from dividends — puts him way over the limit to qualify for the third stimulus check (and the fourth, if that comes).
Even so, Buffett is a good source of advice on what to do with your relief money. He’d tell you to start by tackling one big priority.
The best use for stimulus cash, according to Buffett
Buffett has some simple advice on how to use any extra cash that falls your way, like a $1,400 stimulus check. If you’ve got credit card debt, “the first thing I’d do with any money I had would be to pay it off,” he says.
During an online shareholders meeting last year for his company, Berkshire Hathaway, Buffett said people should “avoid using credit cards as a piggy bank to be raided.”
The billionaire businessman told the story of a friend who’d come into a windfall and asked his advice on what to do with it. He learned that the woman also was carrying a credit card balance — at 18% interest.
He told her to ditch the debt first thing. “It just doesn’t make sense,” he told his shareholders, according to a transcript. “You can’t go through life borrowing money at those rates and be better off.”
But what if your $1,400 stimulus check won’t totally erase your credit card debt? You could make your remaining balances more manageable and affordable by sweeping them up into a debt consolidation loan at lower interest.
But don’t use your stimulus check for your mortgage, Buffett would say
Though Buffett acknowledged at the shareholders meeting that “the world is in love with credit cards,” he’s strongly opposed to carrying balances and not paying them off.
But he doesn’t feel that way about all debt — and would not tell you to put your $1,400 payment toward your mortgage.
Though he could afford to pay cash when he bought a Laguna Beach, California, vacation home in 1971, Buffett took out a 30-year mortgage instead.
In a 2017 interview with CNBC, he called the 30-year mortgage “an incredibly attractive instrument for the homeowner.” That’s truer than ever now, with mortgage rates still at historically low levels.
Buffett says his home loan made smart financial sense: “I thought I could probably do better with the money than have it be an all-equity purchase of the house,” he told CNBC.
No credit card debt? Then invest your stimulus check
In fact, he says he took the cash he would have used pay for the house in full and spent it on stock in his own company. Buffett purchased around 3,000 shares of Berkshire Hathaway at roughly $40 each — an investment he said had mushroomed to $750 million by the time of the 2017 interview.
If you don’t have credit card debt or other pressing needs to address with your stimulus check, then take a lesson from the legend. Consider investing your $1,400. Maybe even in Berkshire Hathaway.
Berkshire’s stock has enjoyed average annual returns of more than 20% since the 1960s, versus just 10% for the S&P 500, according to multiple media outlets.
Buffett has famously never split his company’s Class A shares (BRK.A), so the stock is notoriously expensive — approaching $400,000 per share. But you could get a sliver of Berkshire using a popular stock trading app that allows you to buy fractions of shares with as much money as you can afford to spend.
Another way to invest your stimulus check is by opening an account with an app that lets you build your portfolio using “spare change.” When you link the app to a credit or debit card, your everyday purchases are rounded up to the nearest dollar — and the difference is dropped into your investing account.
