Student loans: paying off loans with different interest rates
Student loans can come with different interest rates. Is it better to pay off students loans that you owe the most on, or that have the highest rate first? Look to question No. 6 of the reader mailbag.
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We need a larger house (we are about to have our 3rd child and our current house only has 2 bedrooms), we need a new-used car as one of our cars is about to die and is too expensive to keep fixing (neither one of us can take public transportation to work as there isn’t any) and I’d like to start adding more to our retirement and 529 plans. My plan is to pay off the credit card debt first, then tackle the car loan and then start to pay down our 2nd mortgage on our house. This would free us up to one day rent the house to cover the mortgage. Then save up for a down payment on a house. Given where we live we’re looking at a HUGE down payment to get the 20%. We can’t count on selling our current places to make up for the down payment.
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The Simple Dollar is a blog for those of us who need both cents and sense: people fighting debt and bad spending habits while building a financially secure future and still affording a latte or two. Our busy lives are crazy enough without having to compare five hundred mutual funds – we just want simple ways to manage our finances and save a little money.
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Can you let me know if my plan is a good one or should we be putting our focus on something else first?
- Patricia
We have three children in our current home and use only two bedrooms. It is certainly doable, particularly when the children are younger.
That being said, I think your plan is a good one, but expect that it will take a few years to reach it.
My recommendation is to do what we did. Put a free-standing loft (with a railing) over the crib in the children’s room and have the oldest child sleep in the loft. This has worked wonderfully for us and still will even when the crib becomes a toddler bed.
Q10: Gencon thoughts
I know you went to Gencon this year. Did you see any new board games that you really liked?
- Mark
My favorite game I saw at Gencon this year was Eminent Domain. It’s a card-based game where you (and one to three other players) are exploring a previously-unexplored region of space. You’re looking to colonize (or conquer with your military) the planets in this region and utilize them for resources. It’s very thought-provoking with little downtime for any of the players (meaning you’re not sitting around waiting for others to take their turn) and plays in about forty five minutes.
Honestly, though, I spend most of my time there actually playing games. When I’m not doing that, I sit in the auction room looking for bargains. I don’t wander around the relatively expensive dealer hall too much or else I’ll start convincing myself to buy things I really don’t need.
At least in the auction room, if I convince myself to buy things I really don’t need, I’m only out $5 or so. I usually bring along a certain amount of cash I allow myself to spend on games and it lasts much longer in the auction room.
Got any questions? Email them to me or leave them in the comments and I’ll attempt to answer them in a future mailbag (which, by way of full disclosure, may also get re-posted on other websites that pick up my blog). However, I do receive hundreds of questions per week, so I may not necessarily be able to answer yours.
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