in need of some financial advice...credit card debt, mortgage?

I would say only pay on the house closing costs. People become wealthy by paying as little as possible on their house. Because of current low interest rates and tax deduction, houses are the best investments on earth as long as you do not put money down or into them outside of closing costs. With your good credit scores you should be able to get a good interest rate on a 30 year fixed interest only loan. Below are some ideas on how to decrease your expenses so you can save more. Then invest extra money in real estate--rentals.

The biggest ways you can do this are in expense categories that are recurring--those you must pay every month that represent a big part of your income. The quickest to address are downsize your car expenses ASAP. You can do this by selling what have at top price as listed on KBB.com private party value. If you take your time selling you should be able to get "Private Party" value for your car. Then plan to buy a lower cost, reliable used car that Consumer Reports rates as most reliable. That way you can minize your repair costs--this is typically a huge ongoing expense for most people. I have four older cars that are of these types that Consumer Reports recommends most reliable: Honda civic and Odyssey, Ford escort and Suburu (mine has 284,000 miles on it). Also, these cars get good gas mileage. Another priority when you buy to help you save $. When you buy use KBB.com and try to find cars selling for well under the Private Party value. I always buy well used cars this way. I wait until I see one advertised well below the private party value, then I call asap, give seller a $50 deposit and write up a contract I will buy it subject to my mechanic finding no major problems. You want to buy an older car for cash (like $1,500) so you don't have to pay any collission or other extra insurance and that reduces your expenses more. I have a Ford Escort wagon (I like wagons and vans because cops pull you over less on these family cars--we have way too many cops, not that I get tickets. But I just like to be left alone, I digress . . .) I bought my Ford Escort wagon for $1,500 five years ago and it has 180,000, miles and looks great, drives like a dream and has had the lowest repair cost of any car I owned. That is my dream car because you can buy them so cheap, about 1,000 for a 1993 easy. Then be sure you shope insurance coverage among various companies--Geico tends to have cheap coverage--to get lowest cost insurance. If you own a home, you can do that same idea by looking for a bargain house. With the depressed market this is a great time to buy a fixer upper well below market to reduce your housing expenses asap. Sell your current home at market rate. If you rent, you need to own because you reduce your expenses by deducting the payment from your taxes. If your credit score is above 500 you should be able to get a loan or find a lender who can help you get your credit score up. By the way, better to buy one of those well used cars with a loan to reduce your car expenses. In general you need to become a serious bargain buyer on quality cars and on houses. You can find bargain houses on the HUD website of foreclousres using a realtor. Just be sure to bid way low on HUD foreclosures--realtors will suggest you bid too high. Be cheap, cheap, cheap and you will reduce your monthly expenses on these things.

One other point, if you find yourself overspending on consumer stuff you buy, you need to get self control. Best way to do this is not a budget but fasting. Start skipping a meal and then work up to where you skip food one day per week. I fast a day a week regularly and am unbelievalbe disciplined. I must be because I provide for a family of 6: with 5 older girls, two in college, etc. Talk about expensive! But I never buy anything in a store on impulse because fasting has trained me to be way disciplined.

Also try monthly reviewing a list of your recurring expenses to see where you can save.

Source(s):

KBB.com used car values

Zillow.com home values. Multiply the value they give you by 1.15 and you will be close o market value. Also look at comparable sales on that web site for a per square foot value to apply to the home you are considering. Watch out with realtors. They tend to push you to pay too much but you must use a realtor to buy a HUD foreclosure. You can shop other bargain houses with motivate

6 days ago - Report Abuse

It sounds like you're in pretty good shape overall with the exception of the 14K in CC debt. I would agree with the above that you should use the 30K to get rid of that right away, since just that alone would remove probably hundreds a month in interest you are paying, although not really "feeling" right now. The key is you should be borrowing relatively cheap money, not expensive money like credit cards. Maybe you and the other half can split that 14k if he has 7K laying around anywhere so you don't such a big hit but at the same time if you're married you should be open to seeing your money as together, unlike friends who will tend to split everything. Ownership in case of divorce will have to do with whose name is on the mortgage which would be both of you so who makes the downpayment is not relevant as far as I know. I wouldn't put down 30K though, if you can get a loan at a low interest rate with as little down as possible, that creates for you the ability for long term growth of your other monies. In other words, if a guy is gonna lend you cheap money, take it and make more in another area such as investing or home improvement. I would focus on losing that 14 k in debt.

First off, right now judges are not empowered to do much with your mortgage. This is a super controversial issue that is receiving much heat because it does not prevent someone, like yourself, to buy more house than they can afford and simply go to the bankruptcy court to make it affordable. It would reward bad and irresponsible behavior! As for the credit cards, again this is another sign of you being financially irresponsibly so your options may be limited. Credit counselors are mostly scams however there are a few good ones. My advide would be to see a bankruptcy attorney and talk out your options.

You can sit down with a debt management counsler, or a financial

planner.

Both can help you plan out what to do next, or decide how you want things done.

If you want to do it on your own, draw up a budget, pay off the low bills first, so you have a lower debt-income ratio, and then work on the bigger ones. The less debt you have, the better for buying a house.

Look for a home loan with low down, or no down. If your country has a 1st time homebuyers program, use it.

You should use your $30K to pay off the $14K. I hate to think of what kind of interest rate you're paying on unsecured debt. Then, with the $16K remaining, use as little as possible towards a down payment on a home and keep the rest in a money market account for emergencies. Don't buy a home you can't afford, and when you buy on credit, always pay the bill off the next month so you don't incur interest charges. You should spend $350 to see a lawyer about your concerns of joint home ownership. In the U.S., the laws differ depending on what state you live in.

Keep putting money in the 401k. Just pretend like you don't have it. Don't forgo the 401k contributions so you can have more money for a bigger, better house. You'll be glad in the long-run.

I'm going to keep my advice short and to the point:

- If your 30k is enough for a down payment, then you don't need to accumulate a lot more mony to purchase a house.

- Keep contributing to your 401k. It's awesome that you're already doing that, don't drop it.

- Set aside an emergency fund. 4-6 months of living expenses is recommended, but any amount you can start with is better than nothing. You should try to set aside 1 month's worth of expenses between now and when you get the house

- Set aside some money for move-in expenses. There's lots of things you don't think about that you need. Tools, lawn mower, snow shovel, etc. Good idea to get that set aside up front

- Use any additional money to pay down your debt

Bad credit is one of the worst problems to have... however there exists a solution.

I will hereby talk from my personal experience.

I did debt consolidation a couple of years ago, however If I had to do it again I would pay to some minor details,

if someone wants to get out of debt today it is pretty easy with a debt consolidation plan, however it may get a bit tricky at times, I suggest you get as much information as possible online on this first,

a good place to start in my humble opinion is astraight to the point ebook with question and answer I found :

http://umgarticles.atspace.com/debt-consolidation....

if it helps kindly remember me in your voting!.. cheers!

You could reduce what you're contributing to 401k and use that extra money to pay down your unsecured debt.

As to the inheritance money being used to make the downpayment and who will own the house in case of divorce - you're married so most consider the house to be equally owned by the both of you, especially if you're in a community property state. Even if you don't have both your names on the title or the loan papers it's still a communal asset when you're married.

I live in Canada, so can't help you with US answers.

However, where we are in Canada, ANY inheritance money put into a marital home becomes community property.

It may be best to have spouse SIGN for a loan of $15K (with witnesses) to protect you from any breakup later on.