Consumers mark tax rebates for bills and savings

By Nick Carey

GIBSON CITY, Illinois (Reuters) - The first batch of taxpayers has already started to receive their federal tax rebates as part of the economic stimulus package, but very few consumers interviewed by Reuters in the past week said they plan to spend them on anything other than necessities.

Chief among those necessities is fuel, as record-high oil prices have translated into pain at the pump.

"You see that? That's where my check is going," said Amanda Burger, 46, pointing to the price of regular gasoline -- $3.55 a gallon -- at the Phillips 66 gas station in Gibson City, a town of under 4,000 people in rural Illinois.

Burger lives near here but makes an 80-mile daily round trip to her job in Champaign. She estimates that between her job and ferrying her children to and from school, her monthly gasoline bill right now is close to $600.

"Don't think I'm ungrateful, extra money is good," she said. "But a $600 rebate won't stimulate my economy much."

According to a recent survey, some 70 percent of people said they planned to save their rebate or use it to pay down debt.

But people like Morgan Lawson, 58, who works at the Time-Life Building in Manhattan supervising newspaper deliveries said higher food and energy prices would wipe out their rebate.

"The likelihood of saving it is slim," Lawson said.