Help me decide what to do with money please

si_jennifer · November 2014

Hello,

I was hoping I could get some advice about what to do with extra cash we'll have after closing on our new house. We'll have about $15,000 left over in cash after the closing. Here are my debts:

(1) Mortgage @ 4.15% : $315,000 ($2,600/month for 30 years)

(2) Student Loan 1 @ 6.8%: $15,000 ($185/month for 10 years)

(3) Student Loan 2 @ 3.4%: $11,000 ($115/months for 10 years)

(4) Car Loan @ 1.7%: $24,000 ($485/month for 5.5 years)

I have approx $4,000 in my retirement account and contribute 6% + 3% employers match per paycheck (employer match is maxed)

My husband has approx $20,000 in retirement and his employer contributes approx $10,000/year in a lump sum, no monthly contributions

I need to use some of this money for an emergency fund. All bills monthly total about $6,300 (for everything, bills, gas, food, childcare...).

Our combined monthly take home income is about $8,400/month

So I guess my questions are:

(1) How much of this do I keep as an emergency fund?

(2) Do I keep the entire emergency fund as "cash" or should I put it in some kind of account?

(3) Should I use any of this money to pay off any of our debts?

Thanks so much for your help in advance!

lifeonthehill · November 2014

There are some differing opinions on debt payoff vs. emergency fund here so you might get a variety of answers.

Personally since you have a kid and a house and the debt I would keep it all as an E-Fund. Our goal is to have 9 months worth of expenses saved for an E- Fund which we are working on now. 15k is a great start and covers more than 2 months of your living expenses. Ideally I would have a 6 month E-Fund but H wants 1 year. 9 months is our compromise.

We keep ours in a general savings account with our regular bank.

Sisugal · November 2014

You need 6 months of expenses in an emergency fund.
Fund a ROTH IRA
Anything left goes to the 6.8% student loan

als1982 · November 2014

What to do in your situation really depends on how both risk and debt adverse one happens to be.

Personally, IMO your retirement savings seems really low. So if it were me, first I'd take $11,000 of that and open two ROTH IRAs during the 2014 period. (We bring home roughly the same amount as you, so I'm guessing that even if you're taking the full amount available pre-tax for child care @ $8,400 take home a month, you should still be under the income threshold of $180,000. If you do happen to be over that amount, then go ahead and put it in a traditional.)

Then, I'd look for a high interest savings account to park the leftover $4,000 for emergencies.

From there, I'd start tackling your debt, starting with the higher interest student loan, followed by the other student loan, and finally, the car. If you put the leftover $2,100 a month plus any raises or extra that comes in you could be debt free except your mortgage in less than two years. From there, I'd continue to build savings, and wealth.

hoffse · November 2014

Yeah I agree that your retirement is crazy low. You need to open a Roth IRA ASAP and get those contributions up. Contribute $11,000 for 2014 right away. I would put the other $4,000 into an emergency fund which you keep as cash. As a general matter, H and I keep $5k cash in our emergency fund and invest any long-term/emergency savings over that amount. However, we can afford to live off of one income (from either of us) if we had to, so for us to need our emergency fund, we would have to both lose our jobs simultaneously. That's why I feel comfortable investing anything over $5,000. If we were a single income household, or we didn't each make enough to support our household individually, then I would probably keep more than that liquid.

For retirement accounts, look at opening a Roth IRA. Even if you make more than $180K, there are ways to get that money into a Roth IRA. It's called a Roth conversion. It's not right for everybody because the amount of money you have sitting in other, non-ROTH IRAs plays into it, but any investment bank would be able to talk you through it to see if it's something that makes sense for you (Fidelity, Schwab, Scottrade, Vanguard, etc.). If you are over the $180K income limit and have to fund a Roth IRA through a conversion, you really need to get on that before the end of 2014. Most people who fund Roths directly can do it until April 15 to have it "count" for the previous tax year. However, if you are funding through a conversion, the "conversion" part has to be done by December 31 for it to "count" for that year. So if you wait to do it in the spring you will have missed 2014.

If you make $180K or less combined, then you don't have to worry about the Roth conversion (yet). But do read up on it if there's a decent chance your incomes are going to go up and/or you'll be getting bonuses, etc. that put you over that income limit.

I would not pay off your debts. Your interest rates and balances are low enough that I would make saving your top priority until you get that up. I mean this in the nicest way possible... but you guys make way WAY too much to have so little saved for retirement. That needs to come before your kids' college funds, before any vacation funds, before eating out.... look at a retirement calculator and see how much you should have saved, given your current incomes and ages (I like the AARP retirement calculator). There's a good chance you might need to both increase your retirement contributions to over 15% to catch up, depending on your age.

It also sounds like you have a surplus of $2400/month (which is great!). Where is that going?

si_jennifer · November 2014

I know we don't have much in retirement. That's because we're still fairly young (mid and late 20s) and we were both in school for a long time. I've only been out of school a year, my husband 2 1/2 years. I think we'll bump up our contributions now.

I think we'll do the Roth IRA and contribute left over money to an emergency fund.

I appreciate everyone's input!

CuriousKiddosMama · November 2014

Hi Jennifer! The only thing I'm going to add, is feel free to post your budget here. You make a great income and should really be able to attack these debts so that you can start saving and giving more. If you post your budget we maybe able to help point out things you may not consider/ like your car insurance is high, so shop around or whatever!

simplyelise · November 2014

Honestly, if I were you, I'd sell the car and buy something for around 5k. Then I'd pay off the higher interest student loan and put the rest of the money towards the smaller student loan and then pay it off as soon as possible.

Then at that point, you're taking in 785 more a month and you could save up an emergency fund super quickly combined with your other monthly surpluss. Especially since your monthly expenses will go down.

Being on the line for over 700 a month in debt is like having a negative emergency fund. You've got 50k in debt (not including your mortgage). I'd worry about bringing that down before throwing everything at retirement/kid's college funds.

hoffse · November 2014

simplyelise said:

Honestly, if I were you, I'd sell the car and buy something for around 5k. Then I'd pay off the higher interest student loan and put the rest of the money towards the smaller student loan and then pay it off as soon as possible.

Then at that point, you're taking in 785 more a month and you could save up an emergency fund super quickly combined with your other monthly surpluss. Especially since your monthly expenses will go down.

Being on the line for over 700 a month in debt is like having a negative emergency fund. You've got 50k in debt (not including your mortgage). I'd worry about bringing that down before throwing everything at retirement/kid's college funds.

**STUCK IN THE BOX***

Getting retirement up in your 20's is super important if you want to be able to afford the lifestyle you hope to have in retirement. Most people who start in their 20's can put away 10-15% for their careers and have enough. If you start in your 30's, you may have to put away 20% for the rest of your career to have enough. Those extra 5-10 years in your 20's makes a huge difference. The single most valuable thing that 20-something have is time.

I do agree that the car is probably more expensive than necessary. We pay about that per month for my H's car, but it's a 3-year instead of a 5-year loan.

That said, OP also has $2400 leftover in her budget per month, with that car payment included. That's $28,800 per year of extra cash sitting around. She can afford the car payment and she can afford to get her retirement contributions up before worrying about non-mortgage debt. Her non-mortgage debt is actually quite low for her income and age. And it's all pretty low interest. Once her savings are on track, then maybe she starts tackling debt. Or she uses the car loan to snowball the remaining non-mortgage debt once that loan is paid off.

I don't know - I just think that debt shouldn't be the #1 financial priority for every person. OP is a high-income earner and can afford her debt without breaking a sweat. Her savings needs a lot of work right now. Every year she doesn't contribute to an IRA in her 20's, she's potentially lost tens (or even hundreds) of thousands of dollars in retirement.

brij2006 · November 2014

I'm anti-debt so I'm going to go against the grain a bit here.

But I would put $1k aside in an emergency fund, then apply $11k to the smallest student loan, $4k to the $15k loan, and then start chugging away at putting your extra $2,800/month + the $11k payment you had, toward the $15k loan.

That would put you at $3,100/month going toward the $11k balance on the $15k student loan. You would have that done in 5 months. Then snowball that monthly amount to the car loan, and you would have it finished off in less than 7 months. So in 1 year you will be 100% debt free and have an extra $3,585 in your monthly budget, and $785 less in monthly payments.

$6,300 in monthly obligations - $785 (no more debt payments) = $5,515 in new monthly obligations. An extra $3,585 in your monthly budget, over 5 months of putting that aside, you now have a 3 month emergency fund and are debt free from everything but the house.

In all of that, you have not stopped your current retirement contributions. After your e-fund is funded (3-6 months, whichever you're most comfortable with), then bump up the retirement to 15%.

All of these figures are with you still living your current lifestyle. Want it done quicker? Cut some extras out and you could probably have both the debt and e-fund both finished up by Christmas next year.

Erikan73 · November 2014

I say emergency fund the money & put a little away in savings for things that will come up that you need for the house that you may have not planned for.

simplyelise · November 2014

I agree that retirement is important to start early. But you could pay off your consumer debt and loans within the next 4-5 months if you wanted. That kind of delay isn't going to affect your long-term retirement goals. But should you lose your jobs or have a health emergency, those debt payments could sink you.

hoffse · November 2014

simplyelise said:

I agree that retirement is important to start early. But you could pay off your consumer debt and loans within the next 4-5 months if you wanted. That kind of delay isn't going to affect your long-term retirement goals. But should you lose your jobs or have a health emergency, those debt payments could sink you.

I think you're forgetting about the timing aspects of it. If she doesn't contribute to a 2014 IRA then she's lost that opportunity forever. There is literally no way to "make up" that difference later because the tax rules prevent it. If she's contributing to a regular IRA she has until early April to contribute for 2014. If she has to do a conversion, she only has until December 31. Either way, knocking out the debts first probably prevents her from contributing to an IRA for 2014.

That $11,000 that she could contribute to an IRA for 2014 would be worth over $63,000 in 30 years with a 6% return each year. The stock market has averaged about a 10% annual return over the course of its entire history. If she also averaged 10% per year for 30 years, that $11,000 is now worth nearly $200,000. Either way, it's an awful lot of money to give up just because of timing issues.

I also think that taking care of debts are important, but I think that at her income level they come secondary to being to take advantage of tax-advantaged accounts each year. At minimum, I would wait and work on debts AFTER the 2014 IRAs are funded - and then I would make sure to hold enough back to fund IRAs for 2015 too while working on those debts.

When you do the math, taking care of her debt first also has her risking her 2015 IRAs. It's going to take her more than 4 or 5 months to knock those debts out. You're looking at at least 12 months to do it, and she may not be able to save enough for her 2015 IRAs in time. If that happens, then she's pretty sure to be out over $100,000 in future retirement earnings. It's quite possible that she would be out several hundred thousand dollars. Maybe it's just me, but that seems like a pretty big deal.

hoffse · November 2014

And OP, I'm sort of a retirement crusader, so I'm certainly biased. H and I have been putting away 20% of our gross income into tax-advantage retirement accounts since we were in our mid-twenties. We're probably going to end up with way more than we need and maybe we should save less and pay down debt more quickly.

People who hate debt tend to want that gone, and the sooner the better. So they are going to give you answers that reflect those inclinations.

Neither perspective is necessary right because you would have to be able to absolutely predict the future to know for sure which has you coming out better in the long run.

Whatever you choose to do, it's important to sit down, do some math, and see which works best for your family. It's also important to take things like job security, raises, bonuses, health, etc. into consideration. There's no way to know for sure if you are making the best decision (and believe me, I get how frustrating that is... it drives me crazy), but at the very least you can make a more informed decision if you run the numbers.

simplyelise · November 2014

She said she's in her mid-20s. If she sells the car for 26k and buys a replacement for 5k, she could put that profit and the extra 15k towards the larger loan and pay off the smaller loan with the 2770 surplus they have each month (without the larger loan payment and car payment now). If they got serious about it, they could have it done in 4-5 months.

Meanwhile, if she and her husband lose their jobs, they are on the hook for a whole heck of a lot of debt which they could not pay off by cashing out a year's worth of investment in their IRAs.

OP, you guys need to start figuring out what your financial priorities are. Obviously there are different perspectives on this.

I don't think someone in your financial position should be 50k in debt when they could quickly be free and clear of payments to start putting money towards your long-term goals. Waiting ONE year to invest in retirement if your 25 is not the end of the world so long as you stick to the plan. However, living life like you can keep going into debt as long as the monthly payments are affordable could bankrupt you in the long run.

formerlyGDaisy09 · November 2014

I fall into the no-so-debt-averse bucket here. OP does not have anything I would consider as "bad debt" she has a couple student loans (not near as bad as I've seen), a mortgage, and a car. no credit cards, or outstanding utilities or medical bills.

She has a nice buffer of "extra" money every month, I'm not sure what she is doing with that, but that could certainly go a long way towards snowballing to pay down some debt and/or building savings.

Based on what I've read, I agree with Hoffse that she should consider investing a good portion of that money ($11,000 to fully fund two roths sounds good to me). Depending on OP's job stability situation (can you live on one income or do you need both your and your H's job to get by?) I would either aim for $5K in liquid savings or building a 6-month e-fund, depending on what kind of situation a job-loss would put you in.

Don't sell your car, there are plenty of valid reasons to own a newer car and to take out a loan to do it. H and I have done this, we hemed and hawed for a long time about the payments and the additional debt, but the reality is that we live in a place where a safe (read newer), all-wheel-drive, mid-size vehicle is necessary to us being both successful at our jobs (not showing up because of weather is NOT an option). around the time we were deciding what to by I also had a family friend who got into an accident in their "beater" car (a car with 10-15 year old technonlogy...still passes inspection and is considered "safe") the technology available in a newer (like last 5-6 years) car would have prevented lots of injury, hosptal, and rehab time, that's stuck with me. Because we have no "bad debt" (we also have SLs, a mortgage, and one car loan) and we had space in our budget our situation was such that it seemed more beneficial to have a newer car that we could depend on and would get us to work in most weather with a car payment than to have no car payment.

I'd say, fund your retirement for the 2014 tax year, then focus on an e-fund ($5K or 6-months) then in addition to funding retirement in 2015, use a good portion of the $2,400 you have in surplus each month to focus on Student Loan 1 (I like to focus on things by interest rate first, unless the balance is low enough it can be paid off in a month or two)

Sisugal · November 2014

For the future - when purchasing a vehicle, do NOT finance for longer than 3 years. IF you cannot afford those payments - you are buying too much car for your budget.
You might want to consider selling it and buying something much less costly (5K, 10K or5K range) and finance for no more than 3 years.

Hopefully you are not underwater with your car???

brij2006 · November 2014

Based on her income, I honestly don't see a reason to sell the car. If their total value of motorized vehicles is less than half of their gross income, and they can get the car paid off within 2 years, then it's fine to keep the car if they want to.

However, it would all depend on what their financial plans are. If they would rather get rid of debt in a year, then it would definitely take a huge chunk away if they were to sell the car and buy a $5k car with some of the cash. If they love the car and want to keep it, it isn't outside the realm of what they can afford for their income.

hoffse · November 2014

Yeah I'm not touching the car thing.

I'm willing to cheap out on all sorts of things, but not that one. Driving is the single most dangerous thing that most of us do on a daily basis, and safety technology has come a long way in the last 10 years.

A close friend of mine was in a wreck where a drunk driver crossed the median on the interstate, and my friend had to swerve to miss a head-on collision. Well when he swerved, it caused his car to flip because he was driving at interstate speeds, and then he nearly slid through guardrails on a bridge that was right ahead of him. Luckily, the guardrails prevented the car from going over the bridge, and the airbags absolutely saved his life.

Sisugal · November 2014

5.5 years remaining on the car loan - (even at 1.7% ) is just plain too long.
Hoffse - you can get a perfectly safe and reliable vehicle for 15K - even 10K.

hoffse · November 2014

Sisugal said:

5.5 years remaining on the car loan - (even at 1.7% ) is just plain too long.
Hoffse - you can get a perfectly safe and reliable vehicle for 15K - even 10K.

Yes, I won't argue with that. But selling what she has to buy a beater makes no sense to me. The fact of the matter is, 5 years is too long on a car loan. But she can also easily afford the payments at her income level. I wouldn't sell a safe car and buy a less safe car.

simplyelise · November 2014

Yeah, my car is a 2010 hyundai elantra and it's worth about 9k private sale. It's less than 5 years old and it has all of the airbags you could ever need.

Before this I had a 2008 Mazda6 which I got for 10k and it was incredibly safe even when I got cutoff on the highway in pouring rain and the car flipped and landed on the far side of the outer road resulting in a broken axle. My only injury was a concussion.

formerlyGDaisy09 · November 2014

simplyelise said:

Yeah, my car is a 2010 hyundai elantra and it's worth about 9k private sale. It's less than 5 years old and it has all of the airbags you could ever need.

Before this I had a 2008 Mazda6 which I got for 10k and it was incredibly safe even when I got cutoff on the highway in pouring rain and the car flipped and landed on the far side of the outer road resulting in a broken axle. My only injury was a concussion.

So you drive cars that are less than 5 years old and are worth more than 5K. I agree that you can get a good safe car for less than $20K....however I'd doubt that you can get a safe car with new technology for less than the $5K you were recommending that someone with space in their budget to handle their car payment sell their newer safer car to purchase a "beater" simply to be free from debt, when you drive newer, safer, more expensive cars yourself.

brij2006 · November 2014

Guess I'll touch the car subject.

We sold H's $13k, 2011 vehicle to buy him a $3k, 2004 and not have a payment. It still has side curtain airbags, 5 star safety ratings, and is rated one of the best mid-sized sedans on the market (Mazda 6). We both feel comfortable with him making his 100 mile commute each day in it, and for us to put our child in the back seat and drive anywhere.

Just because a car may be a "beater" doesn't mean that it isn't safe or have any safety qualities. You can spend $30k on a Ford Mustang convertible, and its going to have much different safety than a used 2000 Toyota Camry that you can buy for $3k. Just because a car is $20,000, doesn't mean it's safer than any other car out there. That's just a gimmick that the car salesman is trying to get you to believe so that you buy a vehicle of greater value. The minute they hear you care about the safety of the vehicle, is the minute they try to get you into a "safer" more expensive one. Then you wind up with a $30k car loan for 6 years.

There are many cars out there for under $10k (and even a $1k beater) with great safety ratings and specs. The same as how there are $30k vehicles with horrible safety ratings and others with great ones. The value/price of a vehicle only goes so far. It does not mean that a car payment = safety.

Xstatic3333 · November 2014

Gdaisy09 said:

simplyelise said:

Yeah, my car is a 2010 hyundai elantra and it's worth about 9k private sale. It's less than 5 years old and it has all of the airbags you could ever need.

Before this I had a 2008 Mazda6 which I got for 10k and it was incredibly safe even when I got cutoff on the highway in pouring rain and the car flipped and landed on the far side of the outer road resulting in a broken axle. My only injury was a concussion.

So you drive cars that are less than 5 years old and are worth more than 5K. I agree that you can get a good safe car for less than $20K....however I'd doubt that you can get a safe car with new technology for less than the $5K you were recommending that someone with space in their budget to handle their car payment sell their newer safer car to purchase a "beater" simply to be free from debt, when you drive newer, safer, more expensive cars yourself.

This. Especially since if they sold the car, given that there is 5.5 years left, they probably wouldn't profit.

OP, I would probably either do the e-fund, the Roth IRAs, or a combination with your money. Then, moving forward, I'd prioritize finishing the e-fund and make sure you're giving 15% to retirement and maxing out your Roths, which should be totally doable at your income. I think choices about debt are really personal; leveraging low-interest debt works great for some of us. It seems like you could be in that camp. Though I'm not debt-averse by nature, I'm in more of a middle income couple, and for us we're finding more and more as we go through married life that freeing cash flow is important for us. Therefore, we're working to minimize our debt, though not in a gazelle-intense fashion. We also both have jobs that are subject to federal funding cycles, which have been CRAZY lately, so I'm especially motivated to both build a strong e-fund and avoid new debts that could hurt us in a layoff situation. You may be more secure.

I am very much in the "don't sell your car camp," though I do agree with the advice about 3-year loans in the future. The value of the car seems pretty reasonable given your income, and you still have plenty left over at the end of the month.

I know you're getting a ton of conflicting advice, which is par for the course around here. I hope you'll stick around; even though we don't always agree it's a friendly group, and I've really benefitted from learning different financial perspectives! At the end of the day, we're all moving in the right direction.

formerlyGDaisy09 · November 2014

brij2006 said:

Guess I'll touch the car subject.

We sold H's $13k, 2011 vehicle to buy him a $3k, 2004 and not have a payment. It still has side curtain airbags, 5 star safety ratings, and is rated one of the best mid-sized sedans on the market (Mazda 6). We both feel comfortable with him making his 100 mile commute each day in it, and for us to put our child in the back seat and drive anywhere.

Just because a car may be a "beater" doesn't mean that it isn't safe or have any safety qualities. You can spend $30k on a Ford Mustang convertible, and its going to have much different safety than a used 2000 Toyota Camry that you can buy for $3k. Just because a car is $20,000, doesn't mean it's safer than any other car out there. That's just a gimmick that the car salesman is trying to get you to believe so that you buy a vehicle of greater value. The minute they hear you care about the safety of the vehicle, is the minute they try to get you into a "safer" more expensive one. Then you wind up with a $30k car loan for 6 years.
There are many cars out there for under $10k (and even a $1k beater) with great safety ratings and specs. The same as how there are $30k vehicles with horrible safety ratings and others with great ones. The value/price of a vehicle only goes so far. It does not mean that a car payment = safety.

There are also plenty of places where a sedan simply will not do, I'm not sure where OP lives but it's possible that there are circumstances that require a larger more powerful vehicle. we have 2 cars, a 2007 mazda6 which we own outright and plan to keep as long as we aren't pouring hundreds a month into repairs, I love that car, it's safe, efficient, and fun to drive (its the 5-speed sport model)...I happily let H drive it around and would put our theoretical children in the back seat. HOWEVER even with snow tires on it that car will not make it up the hill to our house from anywhere with more than an inch or two of snow on the ground...we've tried several times and have had to find places to leave the car and walk home, or call the other for a ride, while the streets are plowed, and even a couple times had to leave the car (illegally risking towing and always getting ticketed) because the snow plow plows our road only a couple times a day and if we don't time it right we're stuck for 8-10 hours.

those conditions that happen here frequently from november until april necessitated us purchasing our 2011 subaru outback that I consider safe to drive in almost all weather conditions, and so far has never failed to get us back to our home in bad weather. we spend $340/month on car payments on that car, the term of the loan is longer than I'd like (however we've got a savings account started to pay it off within 3 years), but H's job is such that not showing-up is not an option.

I've actually heard of people in our area being turned away from car dealers because the dealer knows the vehicle they want will not make it to their house....A family member of mine wanted to purchase a brand new, fully equipted, all the bells and whistles prius...the dealer ended up selling them a pre-owned subaru because the prius literally wouldn't make it up their dirt road during mud season.

It's maslow's higherarchy of needs...if H and I were at risk of loosing something basic (being delinquent on paying our utilities, mortgage, SLs...) we'd sell the subaru for something cheap in a heartbeat (at risk of not making it to work in the snow)...but we're comfortable, we pay our bills, we pay extra towards our debt, the car payment keeps us from building savings as quickly as we'd like...but on our higherarchy of needs making it to work when expected trumps paying our student loans off faster...we're not debt averse, so our higherarchy of need is different from those whose goal is to be a zero debt. It wouldn't surprise me if OP is in a similar place since her family has $2400 wiggle room each month.

brij2006 · November 2014

@gdaisy09 We have that same issue too. H's job is 50 miles away and he takes back roads to get to it year round. From Nov-April we have snow and the roads he takes drift shut. However, he does not have an option to not go to work. I have the option to work from our sister office that is a 3 block walk from our house, if the weather is bad. So if the weather is bad, then he takes my 2011 AWD Ford Flex to work and I work from the other location.

P.S. he has the 5 speed manual too, and loves it. Not going to lie, it's pretty fun to drive with the windows down and sunroof open. I love that little, zippy, paid for car.

However, we have discussed getting rid of my car because it is the biggest debt we have. Because we would need a larger vehicle still, we have discussed buying an older Yukon or Trailblazer that is 4WD to get us through the snow. So yes, even if you need a certain type of vehicle for extenuating circumstances, you can still find a safe and reliable one for a reasonable price that doesn't have a payment.

formerlyGDaisy09 · November 2014

brij2006 said:

@gdaisy09 We have that same issue too. H's job is 50 miles away and he takes back roads to get to it year round. From Nov-April we have snow and the roads he takes drift shut. However, he does not have an option to not go to work. I have the option to work from our sister office that is a 3 block walk from our house, if the weather is bad. So if the weather is bad, then he takes my 2011 AWD Ford Flex to work and I work from the other location.
P.S. he has the 5 speed manual too, and loves it. Not going to lie, it's pretty fun to drive with the windows down and sunroof open. I love that little, zippy, paid for car.

However, we have discussed getting rid of my car because it is the biggest debt we have. Because we would need a larger vehicle still, we have discussed buying an older Yukon or Trailblazer that is 4WD to get us through the snow. So yes, even if you need a certain type of vehicle for extenuating circumstances, you can still find a safe and reliable one for a reasonable price that doesn't have a payment.

I wish our mazda had a sunroof! Love driving that thing in the summer with all the windows down.

unfortunately my H manages packaged distribution for FedEx in our area...no way to do that remotely, and the mail still moves when it snows...he has lots more that he needs to be there to deal with when it snows. he loves to drive the mazda, bu he steals the subaru from me when the weather is bad and I work from home.

It all has to do with debt tolerance. we could have gotten something with fewer bells and whistles (the subaru does have a sunroof) but our tolerance for debt is such that we decided that the heated seats, back-up cam, etc. was worth it (I was so glad we got the heated seats every day I got in the car last winter)...not to mention it's no much easier to get the dog's hair and any dirt off leather...Dal hair has a way to get it self all embedded in fabrics, my yoga pants haven't been hair free since we got the dog.

Help me decide what to do with money please

Re: Help me decide what to do with money please

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