How Would You Spend $1000 – Survey Results!
Yesterday I asked what you would do with $1000 dollars.
And then I made it not as fun by only giving two choices of what to do with it. Because I’m that taskmaster. Oh yes.
Here are the results.
I am thinking I’m not the only one that finds it totally ironic that 50% of the responders said to split it down the middle!
Here is my favorite answer for the “Since you said it depends…what does it depend on?”
It depends on the interest rate I could get. For instance, if my debt is at 2% (student loans), and I could get 5% on a CD, I’d go for the CD. Make the $$ work for you. Debt itself isn’t evil. Being over your head in debt is.
Plus, I need a “cushion”, I’d rather have a debt at a low interest rate, and have a cushion so if an emergency came up, I wouldn’t have to take on more debt.
I can see where you’re coming from. having a cushion is really important (especially if you don’t have credit cards to fall back on like many who say to pay down CC debt first and then institute an emergency fund.)
Here are some of my favorite answers for “Why did you choose the choice you did?” I don’t know about you but I just love knowing what people are thinking. it makes me happy.
Financial experts say you should have 3 mos. emergency expenses saved before you even consider making more than minimum payments. I don’t agree at all.
- If you pay down your debt and then experience an emergency where you have no savings, you can always use your charge cards and then be no worse off than you were prior to paying them off.
- Basic math: Paying 7 to 20+ percent interest on your cards v. collecting .5 to 3 percent interest in a savings account?
However, I am a big fan of the book “Richest Man in Babylon,” and his plan is to always “pay yourself first.” His recommendation? Take 10 percent of your salary before you do anything else, and put it into savings. Then pay down your charge cards.
In this instance, I’d just split the difference and pay down debt/bills and sock some away.
The only case that I wouldn’t is if that $1000 would allow me to entirely clear one portion of debt (ie, a late bill, one credit cards, a car loan). The purely psychological benefits of having one less bill, of actually “zeroing out” a card outweighs the benefits of putting anything in savings.
I see this thought process…if you have credit cards. I cannot be the only freak out here that is not rocking a credit card. I have plastic cards, but they’re debit cards.
We love Dave Ramsey check this out http://www.daveramsey.com/etc/cms/baby_steps_2867.htmlc. also make sure its a high yield savings. we have one with ING and its one of the highest. Does that make you right or wrong?????
shannon
Vogue Mum
Rock Star Maternity Blog
What is a high yield savings account these days? My bank savings account pays out .02% – Is 3% with ING really high yield? How crazy is that we’re getting excited over 3% when we would have laughed at that five years ago. This shows how fast times change when it comes to money. Shannon, I plan on starting a savings account with ING in a week’s time. I just need a freelance paycheck to come in, because I promised my husband we’d catch up on that one last past-due bill (it was the gas bill and at one point this winter it was $1200 dollars. Gak!) and then we can start pounding money into savings as fast as possible.
Here are a few more of my favorites (there are four different answers here, I used the bold to break it up for easy reading.)
Maybe not split it down the middle 50-50, but put a significant amt. towards bills (esp. if they’re cc bills and it meant bringing the balance to zero, which could then be used in an emergency anyway, if it came to it.)
It is very important to have an emergency fund – you never know what can happen. I’ve also had a certified financial planner tell me to pay what you can on debt for now but get an emergency stash started!
I’ve been in the position of having to pay down a huge debt and now that I have, I feel better knowing that I don’t have all that debt hanging over my head every month. I had accumulated about $30K in credit card debt in college (over and above my college expenses for tuition, books, etc.) and I felt like I was literally drowning. I took a 4 hour course at the community center on how to pay off debt, and applied the principles I learned. I worked with the credit card companies to get it paid off, and learned that they will work with you if you’re willing to take the steps and be proactive.
I said split it down the middle because I know it’s so important to have an emergency fund so $500 to start one is a great start. But $500 to pay down debt, past due bills, whatever can be a good thing too.
I see where everyone is coming from. I think that’s my problem. Not having any strong opinions and just wanting to do the right thing makes it tough. We also had a lot of Dave Ramsey fans in the answers, but I didn’t hear one person mention good ol’ Suze Orman. I wonder why that is. Maybe she just doesn’t have as much pull with bloggers.
I’ll keep you updated on what I’m going to do. I think I’m going to start doing Financial Fridays or Friday Finances because, man, I need to get control of when I talk about what on the blog. I’m a disaster over here. LOL
Maybe Current Event Mondays…that just leaves me three days. I can do that.
Thank you all SO much for your responses, if you weren’t listed in my favorites, I apologize, but you probably said something really similar to the answers I did pick. I just chose the meatiest ones. Nothing personal I promise!
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