After months of my mother being concerned over my family's finances, my father has just revealed to my mother that we are 30,000 USD in credit card debt after a long argument with her.
This was a huge shock to me and my sister because my family pulls in around 225K USD a year before taxes (I'm not sure how taxes work).
This was especially a very large shock to me because I have used over 4.5K USD worth of money on my parents' credit card (starting June 2023) to invest in something I was interested in. I am aware that this was a terrible thing to do. However, my parents never seemed to notice, and I thought we were comfortable because they always acted as if we had a lot of money. I will not try to defend my actions- obviously they were ethically wrong. Feel free to call me a terrible human being or whatever in the comments.
Despite my father telling me not to worry about the debt and to focus on my classes, I am definitely responsible for the debt, both because my parents have spent crazy amounts of money on my learning/tuition and because I, to put it bluntly, stole from them. As such, I feel that I should take responsibility and do what I can to help them.
That being said, neither my sister and I can work at the moment. I am 16, and she is 14. Although I can technically get a job on the weekends, my schedule is very, very full, and taking 5 AP classes and 1 Honors class this year leaves no room to get a part time job.
Fortunately, I used the 4.5K USD I stole over the summer to invest in CS:GO, and my inventory currently is worth ~9K (cash price) in just 3 months. I just transferred 1,150 USD to my parents' bank because that is the money I have on hand right now (after selling a skin).
However, I'm not sure what to do now. Should I continue investing, or should I try to help my father pay off the credit card debt as soon as possible? My mother told me that the interest is around 10%. Although that is definitely a lot, I feel as if I can definitely make more money continuing to sell and invest instead of trying to pay off the debt as soon as possible, especially because I made around 4,000 USD in 3 months. However, there is always risk involved with investments.
I feel very torn right now because I really want to help my parents as soon as possible, but I am confident I will make more money if I wait, especially because prices are likely to rise when CS2 comes out. Prices are also typically lower during the summer because of various reasons, and winter is often the best time to sell, according to past price trends. I apologize if this is too specific and if most of the people here are unfamiliar with the CS:GO market.
Honestly, I'm just not too sure what I should do. I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask, given that the CS:GO market is very specific. However, I would appreciate any advice (even if it is general) because I'm young and inexperienced with a lot of things.
Thank you very much for your time.
Submitted August 23, 2023 at 04:35AM by rychaithescienceguy https://ift.tt/gz9LY8C
