topic Re: pay it off faster or save? in General Credit Topics

pay it off faster or save?

Anonymous — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 04:16:11 GMT

I am moving in with family in a couple months. This will allow me to concentrate on my debt and saving up for a house again. My question is: Should I pour everything I have into paying off my high interest credit cards or should I pay some on the cards and put some into savings? Cards now, save later, pay off faster or cards and savings now, take longer to pay?

Re: pay it off faster or save?

Anonymous — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 04:20:20 GMT

I say everyone should have at least 2 months of cash reserves-

Pay the cards off first- then put put it all in savings-

Be sure to allocate some $ to pay for a additional expenses placed on the family- even if they don't ask for it-

dragonjaze wrote:
I am moving in with family in a couple months. This will allow me to concentrate on my debt and saving up for a house again. My question is: Should I pour everything I have into paying off my high interest credit cards or should I pay some on the cards and put some into savings? Cards now, save later, pay off faster or cards and savings now, take longer to pay?

Re: pay it off faster or save?

Junejer — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 04:24:05 GMT

I agree with Timothy. Pay off the high interest CCs, then throw it ALL in savings. But, to me, it doesn't make sense to put money in at 2%, while paying out 25%.

Re: pay it off faster or save?

SmartCookie — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 06:09:18 GMT

The total picture should be taken into consideration IMHO. How long are you welcome to stay... how much you are saving by not paying rent etc.

If you are welcome to stay for a long period and have a high amount of debt... I'd say go for a more organized plan of putting some cash into savings each month and making sure you chip in weekly in whatever way you decide on to help the household.

I'd definitely check into seeing what you I could to to maximize it all. You could call your ccc's and see what they could do to lower interest, check out BT offers you might have on your cards etc. You'd be surprised at how much you can save each month by taking the time to do things like that. Set aside a weekend morning to make those calls and also compare rates on things like your cell plan and auto insurance etc. We cut our cell bills down by 1/3 and auto insurance down to almost half by just taking the time look into it, which helped us a lot when we were doing the hard core uber frugal get outta debt thing.

So I think that with the right gameplan, you could be able to get the same results as putting every penny into cc debt while still saving and contributing.