OK, I haven't done a Case Study yet because I wanted to also formulate and submit a plan along with it. The short story is that I have some consumer debt (HELOC - $7K @ 1.9% until 2/2015, then 4.99%), student loan debt ($9K @4.35%), 2013 purchase of a 2014 model car loan ($17K @ .9%)...so my hair is on fire. The good news is that with the help of this site, I've zero'd out some credit card debt ($2K) and struck down the student loans quite significantly. Revenue has been freed up by finally losing some emotional ties to a classic car (and selling), using some savings, and just plain adding some frugality. This all has happened over the last 4-5 months.
In the interest of examining ALL available sources of funds to pay down debt, I'm planning on breaking up with an old motorcycle and selling ($4K), finally selling off an inherited coin collection (~$8K but will take some time to sell on eBay), and selling some more stuff on CL that has value but just sits (~$1K).
Which brings me to the subject of this thread. We've had a Cap One Rewards/Miles card since 2004 and have used it for all purchases that we can. We pay it off every month. We've billed three airline tickets on it two years ago, but other than that it's just building miles. Currently we have 455,000 miles accumulated, so that's about $2200 if one were to take the cash out (or account credit) that could be utilized to pay down debt. However, I think I read somewhere that this option is the worst value, compared to actually using it for travel-related costs, correct? I should have mentioned that we would never use it to buy the "stuff" they offer (TVs, electronics, etc). For comparison to the $2200 cash out, 455K miles would fly our family of three to most anywhere in Europe, with another flight for three to many shorter domestic destinations. That's approaching a $4K flight value that we could utilize, post hair on fire time, so I'm struggling with the cash out option. For the record, in country, we proven that we travel relatively cheaply. :)
I'm looking at options:
1. account credit/cash out and pay down debt
2. transfer to a better card and keep building miles (haven't researched IF there is a better card that the miles could be transferred to. Current card pays 2 miles per dollar on every purchase)
3. cash out and invest in IRA after debt is paid off
4. just keep it and use it for a designated vacation fund, but only AFTER we extinguish our hair
5. ?
Would love some feedback. Please and thanks!