well the few of you that have known me for a while all know that i come from a good family, not wealthy in the least but got by ok. i have worked for everything i have ever owned and have never been handed a thing. now i have stumbled onto this great job making to me a lot of money. money is such a relative term. i want to make the right steps financially and would like to hear some advice/ horror stories people have to offer.


i have about X grand a month in bills and about 2X is unsecured credit through various creditors, normal house payment, couple car payments, only owe like 2X on my truck.

payin the bills is not any bit of a problem, i make 4X before taxes and bring home 3X it just seems like know when i make more money, of course i waste more money too.

my question is say i had 2X thousand saved up, without the obvious buy a turbo answer, what would in your opinion, be a smart next step to take financially

pay off truck?? pay off credit cards?? buy another home?? put it all in savings?? EFT or stocks or mutual funds?? just some honest answers to see what you guys think. thanks in advance

 

I think most people would say to pay off the credit cards first.

After that, I think it depends on what's important to you. It was very important to me to always have a place to live. Sounds simple, but I wanted to make really sure, so I paid my house off. It probably wasn't the best financial decision I could have made, but it was very important to me.

Your age also enters into the equation. The younger you are, the better it is for investing... time value of money and all that.

 

Pay of the one that has the highest interest rate first. It's costing you the most money.

 

yeah i am 29, not old not young, i figure that i would pay off the credit debt first, thats the plan, just seeing if anyone has another route that might need a little bit of money to start up, all in all the credit debt doesnt cost me too much per month right now, but i know in the bigger picture i am spending more money...

 

The obvious is to pay off the debt charging the highest rate of interest first(only I would qualify that into sub-categories). Pay of the credit cards first but not necessarilly the highest credit card rate first. If it would take you 2 months to pay off say the card balance with the 3rd highest rate, pay that off first so you can take the additonal cash flow to start paying down the next in order of quickest to pay off in the sub category of credit cards. Then move on to your next order of sub-category (truck, student loan, house, etc.) I have always liked the saying, "you can eat well or you can sleep well, that is the choice to make". Regards, Duane.

 

Actually, I would recommend putting the max in a Roth IRA and start saving for retirement BEFORE paying off the credit cards. The hardest thing for people to do is save for retirement.

Do you have a 401K plan too? If so, max it out too.

 

It depends on the interest rate of everything...
just do the math and see what saves/makes you the most money.

Truck is almost undoubtably lower than C/C. So the decision lies in:

How much do you owe on C/C along with the interest rate (how much you losing each month)?
How much could you be making with an IRA or other saving method?

if you will be losing more than you could make, pay off your debt. Otherwise make the payments but put the rest in svings.


As an example I was in kinda the same situation. To pay off my car or to not worry about it and save money. My car interest rate is under 4% and almost ANY savings method will return higher than 4% even a standard savings acount. Therefore it was better for me to not go nuts on the car as ever penny I put into it would only save me 4%. Instead I have a money market savings and a maxed 401k.

 

first, pay off credit cards. If you can't, then consolidate them into one and close the other ones. Only keep one. Do not waste putting your money in a savings account. The interest it pays is less than inflation. So you will actually be loosing. If you have any leftover, invest in the housing market. Your money is more secure there and will grow faster than inversting in the stock market. Hope this helps some.

 

Pay off the CCs. The interest rate for those things are like 12-18%. More if you have bad credit. If you can find an investment that will guarantee a return of 12-18% or better, then do that. I doubt you'll ever find anything like that so pay off the CCs now. You'll be amazed at how much money you'll have accumulated in a few months.

 

First off I can't believe you asked this question on a car forum but its ok.. Everyone will have debt at some point in their lives, if you are smart you will get out of it at some point in your life as well..Sounds like you have a mortgage which is a fantastic start.. The best investment in the world is your house.. You need to fix the house to the best that you can so the re-sale value of your house is solid when that time comes.. Cars are liabilities not assets remember that.. You want to put more things into your asset column in your life not your liability column.. Cars, turbos, mods all that crap only makes makes money fly away unlike a house that fly’s out once and comes back to you doubled from what left you the first time get my drift?? Don't waste 2 grand on a Turbo when you can put 2G's in a mutual fund and double your money or try and buy land... Stock market is risky if you don't know anything about it, start of with a mutual fund and then try and invest into a private business that you believe in your mind will make it..

 

this is actually the Florida G35 section of a car forum, our club has a lot of respected people in it who have made some great financial decisions in their life. i asked this to hear some of there opinions from some of my friends. its not just any ole car forum, its actually a club forum where we can ask stuff like this and not get people responding like you have....


to everyone else, thanks for your opinion, i think i am just going to go and buy a 2 thousand dollar turbo if i can figure out where 2FastG354U gets them at.....

 

^ +1

 

I wasn't tring to be a jerk about it, but I apologize to you and your club.. I live in south florida and I would rather have other G35 owners as friends than enemies...

 

http://www.miamivice.com/main.html

 

Everyone here should already be doing this now! If not, this is the way to go. Next, pay off credit cards. My feeling on cars is that they are so depreciable, if you get a great interest rate and have set up your loan to essentially break even on the car in a year, do it. If you totalled the stupid thing, what good would it do you...

Remember, buying second homes involves insurance, maintenance and if you are renting, rarely are you turning profits without several properties and always being on top of your tenants which is a total pain...