Hello all! I recently took a vested retirement from law enforcement and have $56K in that account. I also have 45K in credit card debt which has me paying around 950/month in minimum payments. I am 39 years old and my new job has me currently at $75k a year and my wife makes $42K. Would it make any sense to withdraw the pension funds to pay off or a large chunk of the credit card debt? I know that I will be taxed on it. My thoughts are that even with cutting back it will take a good bit of time to pay off the credit cards and I will struggle to make minimum payments. Once the debt is paid off, I could use that for a large emergency fund and eventually put into my new company's 401k.
I do have a student loan payment, as well as an SBA disaster loan that I could make additional payments.
I appreciate any and all advice!