My Financial Journey

I’ve been filing my returns electronically for the last 4-5 years and each year the process gets smoother and smoother.  This year I filed by taxes electronically last Sunday.  My state return showed up in my bank account on Wednesday and my federal return showed up on Friday.  I was impressed to file and get my money back in the same week.  Maybe I hit a dead spot, but either way it with that fast of a turnaround it makes me think that things are getting more and more automated so even in peak times I would think turn around should be pretty fast if done electronically. 

In case anyone is wondering I took my tax money and then some and used it to pay down my HELOC.  I haven’t talked too much about my HELOC on this blog partly because I’ve been pretty diligent about paying it off on my own.  I took it out 1.5 years ago when we purchased our house and the balance was at $16,500.  After yesterdays payment I only have $1,000 remaining, I’m still trying to estimate my cash flow out for next month and may be able to just go ahead and pay the entire thing off as I’ve seen to had a good string of luck lately running into unexpected money.

Edit: I actually just paid it off entirely. Feels good to pay off debt

Back to taxes - remember you have until April 17th this year to file your taxes, but if you are getting a refund you may want to go ahead and get your money back before then, it’s painless and quick if you file electronically.

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Step 1: Rack up some debt on your high interest credit cards

Step 2: Start paying your credit cards off.

Ok I know what a lame post, but to be honest if you have credit card debt and (more…)

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I recently had a reader who wanted me to write an article on whether it’s better to pay down debt or invest. Seeing as how I was recently profiled over at No Credit Needed I figured now was as good as anytime to tackle this subject.

What’s better, paying off debt or investing?
My theory is that I’d rather have less debt because I don’t like owing money even if the interest on debt is less than the return on the investment.

Regards,
John

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Well I’ve been out of college completely now for over two years, but the student loan people just finally figured that out. I graduated with my MBA in Dec of 2004, but for whatever reason the student loan company thought I was still a full-time student. Which was nice because all of my student loans were being deferred and the government was still paying the interest on the subsidized loans. Well I got the bad news today that they figured out that I am no longer a student and will have to start making payments come next August.

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When we bought our house last summer, I ended up taking out a $16,500 Home Equity Line of Credit to satisfy the 20% down rule and eliminate any PMI charges and secure a lower rate on the 30 year fixed mortgage I was taking out. Well I’ve widdled this down to a little under $6,000 in the first year, but I’ve kind of hit a wall now. Basically last two months I haven’t been able to make anything but the minimum payment on my HELOC and well the damn interest rate keeps going up, so I am thinking about playing the balance transfer game to pay off the HELOC for at least the next 12 months go give us some breathing room and save us about $42 a month in interest charges stemming from the HELOC. On top of that technically my HELOC will owe my Roth IRA accounts about $8,000 come Jan 1, so my HELOC still has some bite in it at this point and I’d be earning interest off of some credit card companies money rather than paying the mortgage company hard earned cash each month.

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