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Hello All,
I'm looking for some advice on want to pay down first. Here are the numbers:
$6,600 Credit Card 9.78% interest rate
$11,300 Student Loan 6% interest rate
No car payment or mortgage or other substantial debt. I do have one other credit card with a balance of $189.00 which I will pay off in a day or two before it closes for the month.
I'm about to receive a lump sum of money estimated between $5,000 (low estimate) to $8,000. What should I do with this money??? Put it towards the student loan or pay off the credit card? My initial idea is to pay off the credit card first.
Also, I have a friend who suggested I dip into my retirement to payoff the student loan and use the extra cash to payoff the credit card? I've always heard to let the retirement sit. His argument is that I could quickly "repay" myself once all the debt is gone. Thoughts and opinions, please!!!
Thanks for your insight!
@Anonymous wrote:Hello All,
I'm looking for some advice on want to pay down first. Here are the numbers:
$6,600 Credit Card 9.78% interest rate
$11,300 Student Loan 6% interest rate
No car payment or mortgage or other substantial debt. I do have one other credit card with a balance of $189.00 which I will pay off in a day or two before it closes for the month.
I'm about to receive a lump sum of money estimated between $5,000 (low estimate) to $8,000. What should I do with this money??? Put it towards the student loan or pay off the credit card? My initial idea is to pay off the credit card first.
Also, I have a friend who suggested I dip into my retirement to payoff the student loan and use the extra cash to payoff the credit card? I've always heard to let the retirement sit. His argument is that I could quickly "repay" myself once all the debt is gone. Thoughts and opinions, please!!!
Thanks for your insight!
OP, I moved your question to the General Credit Topics board and deleted your duplicate post. As a general reminder, cross-posting in multiple forums is against our Forum TOS.
As for your question, I think it makes more sense to pay off the debt with the highest interest first. I also don't recommend dipping into retirement funds in this situation, since the tax penalty may outweigh the benefits.
Are the student loans now in deferral?
Hi sorry for the duplicate posts. I'm new here ![]()
No, I currently pay $200.00 a month which is a little over the minimum payment.
Do not dip into your retirement fund!! Any financial advisor worth anything will tell you not to do that. So your first thought on that is completely correct. What you do with the lump sum will depend on how fast you want the first debt you attack paid off. You could very likely wipe out your credit card debt completely. That will free up that minimum payment and you can use that to pay off the student loan faster.
When I was paying off debt, I paid off the smallest one first. I found that I worked harder to get the debts paid off faster that way. It's just a mental thing. According to debt payoff calculators, regardless of interest rate, it would have taken me five years to pay off all of my debt. I did it in 11 months because I saw so much traction right away. But it's a hard decision, because if I had received a large sum of money, I actually would have paid it on my account that had the largest balance, just to give me some relief on that minimum payment. It was $225 dollars, and I was paying $100 in interest a month! It was also my lowest APR card. So there are so many factors to consider than just balance and interest rate. That debt was costing me the most amount of money by a landslide.
Good luck with getting your debt down!!
I'd tackle the highest interest route first (CC) then worry about the student loan. As long as you are making your regular payments or slightly more as you have been on the student loan you'll be fine and can throw more at that balance when you can in the future.
| Total CL: $321.7k | UTL: 2% | AAoA: 7.0yrs | Baddies: 0 | Other: Lease, Loan, *No Mortgage, All Inq's from Jun '20 Car Shopping |










@Anonymous wrote:$6,600 Credit Card 9.78% interest rate
What's the limit on this card?
Interest is one consideration but so is revolving utilization (balance[s] / limit[s]). Many here tend to focus on revolving utilization only for scoring purposes but it can be a risk factor as well. Generally, revolving utilization on revolving accounts is seen as more of a risk than the balance to loan ratio on installments like your student loan.
@Anonymous wrote:
Also, I have a friend who suggested I dip into my retirement to payoff the student loan and use the extra cash to payoff the credit card? I've always heard to let the retirement sit. His argument is that I could quickly "repay" myself once all the debt is gone. Thoughts and opinions, please!!!
I would generally advise against it. It's not just a matter of the penalties but the early stages of saving for retirement are very important. Pay off the card debt or as much as you can with the lump sum. Then chip away at the student loan. Make sure your budget and spending allow you to pay every credit card statement balance in full so you don't slip into the trap of accumulating credit card debt.
Thanks everyone for your input! It is very helpful.
@takeshi74 The credit limit on the card is $10,000. My overall all credit line is $14,300. I was considering asking for a credit line increase on one of my cards that has a zero balance. Would you all advise doing this or opening a new credit card to increase my overall CL?