To Loan or not to loan

[gary markh]

Kick the home equity line loan back and forth between the credit card to keep the amount of interest you pay as close to 0 as you can. I used this strategy to pay off my home over 15 years ago, or maybe I am missing something.

[Timber82]

Just an update for everyone, I ended up liquidating my shares on Thursday (Missed a great Friday!) but I digress. I set up the Fund Transfer to my personal account which hit this morning I paid down the almost $14K bill before 8/31 hits and my normal interest rate kicks in. I have 15K sitting in the brokerage account now to pay down Credit Card $2 that was a 0% APR special offer that is good until 12/31. In between my stock gains and my aggressive contribution, Come New years (barring some economic meltdown) I will be Debt Free with the exception of mortgage, last car payment happens in Dec as well and paid off student loans a year ago. Then I will aggressively work with my wife to clear her debt then we will furiously attack the mortgage or invest (Mortgage is 4.25% I can say I should be able to do better than that but I have seen spreadsheets that would do the math for me.

One thing that I learned that I was not aware of was our progressive tax system, I never knew it was progressive, in that when you go into another Bracket you only get taxed that % on the money within that bracket. If you are reading this and you are confused.
Bracket 1- 10% : $1-10
Bracket 2 - 20% : $11-20
Bracket 3 - 30% :$21-30

Say you made $27 this year, $10 will be taxed at 10%, the 11-20 will be taxed at 20% then the remaining 7 will be taxed at 30%. Before I was operating under the assumption that in making $27 and being in the 30% bracket I would be charged 30% on everything.

[rmcdeepsea]

I didn't understand the progressive tax system until a couple of years ago either. So for most of my life when I heard "that would push me into a higher tax bracket....", they didn't understand it didn't matter, lol.

Sounds like you have a good plan going. First step is just to have one in the first place. That's better than 95% of Americans!

[sonofnthng]

I'm taking out a residential loan. I have 24 years left to contribute, and the loan money will be paid back over the next 10-15 years, plus 2% interest. Also, I will own a home that I can then sell for market value. I don't think the loan is the end of the world. If you take a personal loan to pay off debt, and then you are "debt free", then start charging again, well... maybe you need professional help. Taking out a residential loan to put $ down on a home is not the end of the world.