The Money Mustache Community
Learning, Sharing, and Teaching => Ask a Mustachian => Topic started by: jojoguy on September 13, 2018, 09:28:31 AM
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I'm very new to true savings/investing methods suggested on this site. I am already hooked. I currently owe $70k on my house and can manage to pay $1500 to $2000 a month to pay it off in 3 to 4 years. However, my wife wants to buy real estate in southeast Asia(where she is from) by sending a thousand each month to her family to do this. I am wondering if it would be wise to scale back on the house payment by $500 to $1000 to open a vanguard acount to invest in index funds?
P.S. The wife is already on board as long as we can send money to her country.
P.P.S. We are saving 65 to 75% of our income with this method.
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Investment order post (https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/investor-alley/investment-order/msg1333153/#msg1333153)
You didn't specify your mortgage interest rate, but most likely you're better off investing than paying extra on that (https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/throw-down-the-gauntlet/dont-payoff-your-mortgage-club/).
Sending money to relatives to buy real estate on your behalf (am I understanding correctly?) sounds pretty sketchy as far as investments go.
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I'm at work, so I can't check, but my interest rate is very low from what I remember. The lowest fixed rate in 2012.
We're specifically want to buy houses to rent out in Indonesia. We plan on retiring there eventually. The houses can go really cheap(15 to 20K dollars), and many places are growing economically.
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I don't get why you would send 1k per month to relatives to buy property. If I wanted to buy property down there I would save up the cash and make a trip down there every year or two, meet with the family (who has been looking out for properties for you) and purchase the properties at that time.
Was this your wife's idea or your wife's relatives?
If your wife wants to send charity back home that is an entirely different thing.
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A little bit of both wife's and family's idea. We do take care of them financially. We send money they need and they deposit what they don't use into an 6% APY account.
Thanks for the info you guys have provided thus far. I am especially happy about the mortgage info.