So this is a throwaway profile I’ll be using for posting this plea for advice and for replying to any that are kind enough to offer their opinion/suggestions on what I should do.
Here’s my situation: My wife and I are not big earners (we're both working on improving this), combined, last year, our adjusted gross income was less than 40K. We have a 2 year old and manage to get by because we both have flexible part-time work that compensate us for productivity, not hours worked.
I work from home and she works outside, one to two days a week. This enables us to not have to pay for childcare because there is always one of us that can be with our child at any given time.
A few years ago I was in a car accident (I was rear ended), suffered an injury that has been medically treated and that I have recovered from. Although the damage is permanent, it is not considered debilitating so there is no long term disability and because I was between jobs when it happened, there were no lost wages to be recovered. However, I can no longer perform light manual labor as I had, on occasion, prior to the accident.
That notwithstanding I now work a white collar job that does not require any appreciable manual labor.
My wife and I are both learning new skills (coding/web development) that will hopefully increase our opportunities for revenue earning. We are not incurring debt in this learning endeavor, except for the new laptops we purchased as the ones we had were seriously outdated.
We live in a low income co-op that we own shares in and even with our low earnings, the mortgage and maintenance are manageable, though we have no savings of any kind (no IRA, or the like). The apartment shares are currently valued at about $250k and we live in NYC.
We have an older model car with super low mileage, that is in very good condition; my mother-in-law and her well-off new husband gifted this to us, just prior to us having our child because our previous car was on its last leg (I know; we’re very fortunate).
Sorry for the long back story but I wanted to address some obvious potential questions about our situation.
Okay, so here’s the deal, I was recently awarded a settlement for damages from the previously mentioned injury suit (thus it is not income and not taxable) and after all is said and done I am walking away with about $50k. Our combined debt, including credit cards, and what is left of the mortgage is about $53k.
Needless to say this can be a very big help to us financially. It’s life changing, for us (I fully realize this is a paltry amount to many but in the league we’re playing, it’s a ton of money).
Anyway; here’s my initial plan (please tell me if you think this makes financial sense).
I plan on depositing the check into my regular checking account, then writing checks to wipe out any credit card debt and the remainder of student loans we have.
All that will still be owed at that point will be the remainder of the mortgage which will be about $8K at 5.6% (I have a little over two years of a 15 year mortgage left on it). The mortgage also happens to be our lowest interest debt. This will leave me with about $5k in cash.
What’s my logical next step?
Should I reduce the principle on the mortgage?
Should I try to invest some of the $5k? If so; in what? How?
What would a financially savvy person advise someone, in a similar situation, do?
Thanks in advance for any advice you folks can offer.
TLTR; I was awarded $50K from an injury suit. I have $53K debt, including $8K remaining mortgage (at 5.6% with about 2 years remaining of a 15 year mortgage): want to pay off everything except mortgage and do something financially sound with the $5K I’d have left over.
What should I do?
Submitted July 15, 2018 at 12:26PM by pfth0waway https://ift.tt/2mirJxu
