Re: 401k: Cash out to pay credit card debt?
Thanks to you both for your very quick responses. Moreover, I appreciate you explaining the "Don't do it" issue to me in terms I can understand.
Although I know Roth IRA contributions are taxable upfront, I wasn't aware that you couldn't roll over a 401k to a Roth IRA. I definitely want to roll it over so I can have all my banking with the same company (USAA), so I'm guessing that I can open a traditional IRA to roll over the 401k, then eventually roll THAT over into my existing Roth IRA. Or can I only convert the traditional IRA into a second, separate Roth IRA account? Hmm...
Theresa, thanks for the book suggestion. Lucky for us, my husband works at Barnes & Noble so he gets a 30% discount on books! I'll definitely look into that one. I have "Personal Finance for Dummies" which has been a great resource in the past, but given our situation it might be a good idea to seek out other forms of guidance.
Diolla, I totally know where you're coming from. I have just applied for a new job this week -- fingers crossed! -- which will (hopefully) bring in a bit more income. We also have some stuff that we can sell on Ebay; we just need to get in gear and do it!
We're still getting 0% APR offers, several a week, actually. However, I have really high standards when it comes to offers, and read the fine print ruthlessly. I left my last job as a call center supervisor for Capital One because of work-related stress, but if there's one good thing that came out of that job, it's that I know what to look for in the fine print! I'm also a firm believer in trying to space out credit applications by 6 months to a year. The last credit card we got was in January, so if we can get a 0% offer towards the end of this year, we might be able to move the remaining Citi balance right before its 0% expires. That would be ideal.
Oh, here's another question: Once we've paid off the two cards that are at 0% right now, should we keep the accounts open? They'd each be a year old at that point. Or should we just close them and be done with it?
~ Jenney
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