I need help on what to put my money towards each month ... Help please?

Question

I receive 1384.00 monthly.

I have 1 visa credit card at 5,900.00 balance.

I have a best buy bill for 600.00.

And a monthly car payment of 360.00

(Both bills which i receieve once monthly)

I want to put some towards the credit card but have enough left over to last me the month to where i wont have to use it as much, and to my best buy bill, and my car of course. How much should i put toward each in order to have enough left over to last me and my 2 kids during the month? Any advice would help

Answer 1

It depends on what your total monthly expenses total up to. But here goes:
$1384 - $360 (car payment)=
$1024 - $100 (Best Buy bill) =
$924 - $150 (Visa) =
$774

Then, after your Best Buy bill is paid in full, add the $100 to your Visa payments. Then every month you will put $250 towards the Visa, instead of the $150.

If need more than $774 to last you and your two kids, then lower the payments a little, until it works for you. Good luck.

Answer 2

You didn't mention what the interest rates are on these loans. After you make the required payments (car payment and minimum payments on your Best Buy and Visa accounts), in general, whatever else you have left left to pay for bills should go towards the bill with the highest interest rate. Look at www.debtsmart.com for advice.

Answer 3

All of the above are good answers, but I want to add something. At one time, I was deep in debt. In order to get out of debt, I would send every extra penny I earned to my credit cards. However, what ended up happening was everytime I had decreased my total debt by a few thousand, something would go wrong. Car breaks down costing $1,500 to fix, house needed new roof, $6,000, etc. After four or five years of paying on my credit cards, I was no closer to having them paid off. To me, that was psychologically draining. What ended up working for me was, instead of paying every extra cent to the credit card bills, I would just pay the minimum plus $20. Then, the extra amount I had went into a high interest savings account. I was able to build up enough in the savings account so that when an emergency happened, I could pay for it in cash instead of charging to the credit card.

Financial advisors will tell you to pay off your credit cards first before building your emergency fund. Normally, this is good advice because the interest you pay on your credit cards is higher than the interest you could earn on your savings. However, that never seemed to work for me. I didn't find success in conquering my debt until I had that emergency fund built up.

High-interest savings accounts (no minimums, no annual fees):
http://www.hsbcdirect.com
http://www.emigrantdirect.com
http://www.ingdirect.com

Answer 4

I am totally ripping off the other three answers, BUT...combine all three previsou answers intelligently...figure out your finances...then figure out your interest rates. Obviously, as stated, the rent, food for your children and the car loan come FIRST an FOREMOST. next comes your credit cards...tackle the one with the higher interest rate first to get rid of it (your paying more in finance charges and interest paid for that card). The quicker route is apply most of your money left towards the BB card (as stated again) and pay the minimum on your higher balance card. that way when your BB card is paid off you can apply the heavy money you were paying that card with directly to the higher balance card to pay it off quicker without having to restructure your finances because in essence you would be spending the same money in total as if you still had that BB card...make sense...sorry if that is confusing...just combine the other three answers together and there is your solution! (sorry for being a hack guys)

Answer 5

In my bank account. No, just kidding. Paid the minimum on your Visa, paid more than minimum on your best buy, of course your car and rent come first as for food apply for food stamps you qualify.