Hey everyone (posting with understanding of the face punches that will come my way)
Wife and I have $5k of credit card debt, and every time we make large payments on it, we end up getting cash strapped and have something come up, and blamo, credit card gets swiped.
So, I talked by my bank about a HELOC. $5k HELOC at 5% interest, $100 a month payment (min payment is 2% of balance) is all. This would allow us to stock quite a bit of money away, and know that we aren't paying absurd interest rate on absurd debt (that we shouldn't have, and rarely have). And, in doing this, we will be putting the credit cards away, until we are extremely financially solvent, and can use them to our advantage, which we obviously haven't done recently.
Debt was due to maternity leave, less income than expected, and some car troubles. Regardless, it's there now, and we owe it, and I'm trying to find the best course for us to follow. I like this idea because then we have an open HELOC if something were to happen and we needed the funds, and the interest rate is cheap, and the minimum payment is cheap. Thoughts?