http://frugalbabe.com/2007/04/21/what-to-do-with-a-tax-refund/ A rich life without a lot of money Sun, 20 May 2012 21:50:00 +0000 hourly 1 http://frugalbabe.com/2007/04/21/what-to-do-with-a-tax-refund/#comment-1538 Frugal Babe » Our HELOC Repayment Plan Wed, 25 Apr 2007 16:23:54 +0000 http://frugalbabe.com/2007/04/21/what-to-do-with-a-tax-refund/#comment-1538 [...] The HELOC is tied to our checking account, and we move money back and forth to it all the time.  When we get paid, the money goes first to the HELOC until it’s needed for bills.  So that reduces our monthly interest payment for the HELOC, but we still pay nearly $200/month in interest on that loan.  Having it tied to our checking account has been nice in some ways, but the downside is that we just view it as a money storage account, and we’ve never actually paid it down.  The money that we put into it each month invariably comes back out again.  The end result is that balance in that account is only a few hundred dollars lower than it was when we got the loan.  Now that we’ve paid off almost all of our non-mortgage debts (the only one left is our Discover Card), we need to take a hard look at the HELOC.  8.35% is not a terrible interest rate, especially compared with credit cards, but it’s still pretty high when you owe more than $28,000.  The bank is happy to have us keep using the account as our short-term savings account, since they’re getting $2300/year (!) in interest from us.  But this has got to stop.  [...] [...] The HELOC is tied to our checking account, and we move money back and forth to it all the time.  When we get paid, the money goes first to the HELOC until it’s needed for bills.  So that reduces our monthly interest payment for the HELOC, but we still pay nearly $200/month in interest on that loan.  Having it tied to our checking account has been nice in some ways, but the downside is that we just view it as a money storage account, and we’ve never actually paid it down.  The money that we put into it each month invariably comes back out again.  The end result is that balance in that account is only a few hundred dollars lower than it was when we got the loan.  Now that we’ve paid off almost all of our non-mortgage debts (the only one left is our Discover Card), we need to take a hard look at the HELOC.  8.35% is not a terrible interest rate, especially compared with credit cards, but it’s still pretty high when you owe more than $28,000.  The bank is happy to have us keep using the account as our short-term savings account, since they’re getting $2300/year (!) in interest from us.  But this has got to stop.  [...]

]]> http://frugalbabe.com/2007/04/21/what-to-do-with-a-tax-refund/#comment-1518 tanyetta Mon, 23 Apr 2007 04:47:26 +0000 http://frugalbabe.com/2007/04/21/what-to-do-with-a-tax-refund/#comment-1518 Yeahhh!!! you're on your way to being Discover Card Free :) Yeahhh!!! you’re on your way to being Discover Card Free

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