Staying in check after tackling Debt, 1 year later

[Tree0164]

Here is what I would do

1) $600 per month that you are saving I would save that for the next 3 months and put that towards the 401k loan

2) $600 car saving account than you have $5k if you have save over the next 9 months.


3) Get your emergency fund up to atleast 6 months closer to 8 months if this is a single income family. You have $1000 (600 plus lease payment) to put towards this.

4) Get rid of the home equity loan put the $1000 per month towards that you have you efund.

5) bump up your 401k/retirement to 15% of your income. Open a roth for your wife

6) 529 plans for the kids

[familyof4]

Originally Posted by Granite

Have you thought about turning the lease vehicle in early and buying a mileage car in lieu of such a high payment?

Well we have thought of that, called dealers to see about trade in values and also looked into the used car market value. what we have decided is that with free advertising, we will list the vehicle at or just below the current pay off value and see if it sells private first. If it does not or someone wants to give us within 2k to 2500 loss, we will probably sell.

If it does not sell, we will simply run it to the end which is another 11payments now. it does not make sense to pay the full loss when we can at least run the vehicle and pay the same amount as if we did not run it. we will just need to watch our miles and revisit the sale every 3 months until it makes sense.

Other wise, the 401 should be paid off within the next 4 paychecks (bi-weekly) and then we will start to apply that payment elsewhere.

I think we are doing an okay job and I feel good about the direction we are heading.