To agree or not to agree with DH....

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
To agree or not to agree with DH....
2
Thu, 08-04-2005 - 1:33pm

August is our budget review month and always a difficult one since DH & I have different spending habits-here's our debt

CC #1-12,000 at 2.99% for life of the balance
CC #2-0 DH uses this card for work. He travels with about 20 college students every weekend, charges hotel rooms, etc. and is then reimbursed. He's a college debate coach.
CC #3-0 I charge photo finishing by mail, cable, cell phone, etc. on this card and then pay if off each month
CC #4-0 DH has had this one forever. We don't use it unless something strange comes up. i.e. I lost my purse on vacation-we cancelled the CC I carry and then DH overnighted me this one.

Student loan #1-8,000
Student loan #2-5,000-both of these have an interest rate of 5.85

Car-I'm not sure how much is left I know the interest rate is 6%

Second mortgage-6,000 at 8.65%

DH would like to take one of those convenience checks that come with the CC's and pay the second mortgage essentially shifting 6,000 to a credit card. The interest rate would be 4.99 for the life of the balance and there are no additional fees (he's grilled them extensively on this issue-I'm so glad I'm not a customer service rep for a CC company!)

I'm a little concerned because Chase is not one of the companies that has increased minimum payments yet but they could do at any time. DH asked how much the minimum payment would be and we could handle the increase on it but would have trouble handling an increase on both CC #1 and CC #2 both are Chase.

Other questions/concerns I should raise with him? This is our target debt so we pay more than the minimum each month (not a lot more though) and DH calculates that the change in interest rate would knock 1 year off repayment.

Taleyna

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-19-2003
Thu, 08-04-2005 - 1:43pm

Ok I read the post pretty kick but I would pay off the second mortgage with a cc. Two reasons I say this 1)Lower interest rate, and 2) Most importantly it takes the liability off your house.

I would then make the debt with the lowest balance my new Target account. How long have you had your car? Are you close to the last year of making payments to it?

Shannon

Shannon


Pregnancy%20ticker
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
Thu, 08-04-2005 - 2:39pm

Obviously, this decision is yours to make, but I think paying the second mortgage with the cc check is a good idea, especially since your dh has really done his homework on it. I'm generally in favor of anything that takes the liability off your home, and if you get a lower interest rate to boot, well, it sounds like a good deal.

Probably your minimums *won't* increase too much for you to handle, but if they do you can deal with it then. If worse comes to worst, you can probably take out another home equity line with good conditions on it, since interest rates are so low right now. But hopefully it won't come to that and in the mean time, you've taken the pressure off your home and put it on the ccs.

I say, go for it.