Surgery for a child, car loan, electric bills: We asked Americans how they’d spend $1,400 stimulus checks, and this is what they told us

The House of Representatives could vote as soon as Friday on President Joe Biden's proposed $1.9 trillion relief package, which would include $1,400 stimulus checks.

For them, a stimulus check is more than cash. .

But a stimulus check would be the only certainty in the middle of chaos, her only means to chip away at the spiraling costs for Isabell's medical expenses and other bills. .

Misty Mcdade swore she would never put her three kids back in a trailer.

When her savings ran out, she moved the family from a 2,500-square-foot townhouse in a great public school district to a mobile home in the country.

Against a backdrop of abuse by her former husband, Mcdade says, she put herself through college, holding jobs in fast food while on public assistance.

"I never wanted to have to tell them I don't have the money for that," Mcdade says with a cracked voice over the phone, "And I'm saying that about cereal.".

Tiffany Velez, 38, plops herself on the bed to begin her nightly COVID-19 ritual. .

"All I need to do is find a little extra," Velez says.

A stimulus check would settle the balance, Velez says. .

The family from Vineland, New Jersey, began struggling after Velez quit her Instacart shopper job when her 16-year-old twins and her daughter in college were sent home from school in March.

The family now spends more than $1,000 a month on groceries.

Velez has cut out almost all meat and makes a lot of pasta.

The U.S.

"I hate what this virus has done to me," Velez says.

Thinking all the time.

By the time his sentence was up in 2017, he had no surviving family.

Thomas was assigned a private room that allowed him to quarantine, a job as part of an outdoor cleaning crew that allowed him to save money and help to secure a rent-controlled apartment.

The apartment has a bed, sofa, small dining table and TV purchased with the help of a local nonprofit. .

If he received the stimulus, Thomas says, he would put it toward the things in the apartment that show he isn't going anywhere: summer clothes to hang in the closet, picture frames for the photographs he takes of Central Park, and kitchenware. .

Even for Americans like Chelsea Ratterman, 28, who have their basic needs met, a stimulus check can help a dream come true and fuel the economy.

It's the first time she'll be living on her own. .

The information about how the virus spread was scant, and she wasn't sure what the financial hit would be when everyone was ordered into quarantine – let alone if her job at the University of Central Oklahoma would be spared.

By the time Ratterman was ready to start looking again, prices for single-family homes had soared as low mortgage rates kicked off a buying spree across the country.

"It's the dream of getting to build a home that reflects me for the first time," she says, "a refuge from the world.".

The Fergusons decided they weren't going to let a health crisis go to waste. .

"COVID took away my village," says Hullinger, who was volunteering at the High Rocks Academy for Girls as a member of AmeriCorps, a program funded by the federal government that pays participants' education in exchange for their service

Without help, she had no choice but to stay home and put everything on hold to take care of her kids

Although Hullinger qualifies for subsidized child care, the wait lists for licensed facilities can take years for a spot to open

A stimulus check of $1,400 would allow her to pay for 7½ weeks of care and allow her extra time to pick up a class online

Being a single parent is scary, Hullinger says, "but COVID has made it exceptionally so."

The certification costs about $7,000

A stimulus check would contribute to lowering the price tag – and Krupp’s anxiety

If he receives a stimulus, he hopes to help his mom fix up their family home and invest in a set of hand controls for a car he would be able to drive himself.