How are people using their stimulus checks?

This week, millions of Americans will receive promised stimulus checks from the US government, so long as they earn under a certain amount. The checks are sent by the government to taxpayers to boost their spending power and spur economic activity.

In total, there were 280k English-speaking Americans talking about their stimulus checks on social media. The first stimulus payments arrived on April 15, and more have arrived since.

We found 24.4k people talking about using their stimulus cash to improve their financial situations. More than 7k mentioned using the money to pay bills, 6k said they’d use it to buy groceries, 4k mentioned rent, and a further 4k said the cash would go towards paying off debt.

Plenty are looking to treat themselves, too. 12k Americans were talking about splurging the money on a purchase, aiming to fill time, build skills, or just have a bit of fun. We found thousands of people talking about buying video games, books, and sneakers.

It isn’t all spend, spend, spend though. We found over 3k authors discussing putting the money away for a rainy day. We have seen a huge uptick in people talking about saving recently and, for those who can afford to do it, now seems the time to do so.

Lockdown gardens are blooming

Much like the sourdough starters we covered previously, tending to houseplants is a lot easier when you’re spending more time at home. They’re also excellent for brightening up the room, and your mood.

We looked into the topic by creating a query to pick up mentions of houseplants, and used Image Insights to find pictures of them, too. it wasn’t surprising to find that conversation has been steadily growing since the beginning of March.

As we can see, a lot of people have taken to posting about houseplants in the lockdown. The growth has been pretty steady, most likely as it takes a bit of time to get your plants in, set them up, and get them looking healthy.

The increase in interest is pretty significant. Between June last year and February this year, there were (on average) 103k posts about house plants per month. In comparison, March saw 160k, while April has already gone above the average. It seems like the trend is still on the up.

April was also given a boost on the 13th when K-pop band BTS posted a picture of a houseplant, prompting their army of fans to share their own pictures.

But where is the trend most popular? Here are the top countries, by houseplant image per 100k people. Japan and the UK are way ahead of the rest.

Snacking reigns supreme

Yesterday we covered strange dreams and disrupted sleep routines in our daily bulletin. This made us wonder about how the rest of our daily routines have been impacted, especially our meal times. We used our Consumer Research platform to investigate.

In March, conversation surrounding breakfast, lunch, and dinner, decreased by 39% compared to the same period in February. This was a surprising finding, given that our survey research shows people are reporting eating more than normal. So if not in meals, how are people consuming so much food?

To make up for missing meals, we found 297k people talking about how they’re turning to snacks. Half of these mentions were attributed to boredom.

Peanut butter was the most popular snack, with 59k mentions. Fruit and cheese chased behind with 29k mentions each, while chocolate followed with 27k mentions that were boosted by the Easter weekend.

According to our latest Weekly Consumer Insights report, parents reported buying more chips and snacks for kids, while adults also mentioned they’d been buying more junk food for themselves.

When we do talk about them, how do we feel about our meals? Unsurprisingly we’re still pretty positive on the subject. Of the meal-related conversations that were emotionally categorized, 58% of were joyful, driven by anticipation for meals.

Breakfast was the biggest driver of this – it’s the most discussed meal, and the most photographed according to our Image Insights tool.

As we all know, it’s a stressful time for people and their routines are adjusting. These conditions have meant snacks are having a real moment.

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Stay safe,

Brandwatch Response Team