where to start?

[rocrusso]

Sorry if this is addressed elsewhere, but there are a lot of posts and its somewhat overwhelming...

anyway, my wife and I would love to jump in with this but just not sure where to start.

about us:
I am 42 and my wife is 41. we have 2 kids (6 and 8) and live in a suburb of NYC in NJ, a very high cost of living area.

current situation:
we have a mortgage
we have 1 car loan (1 car is paid off)
we have 1 personal loan (for a bathroom renovation 3 years ago)
we have 2nd mortgage (to pay off credit card debt we got in to, usually we pay in full every month)
we invest in our 401k (she does %6 which is the limit her company matches, i do %10)
we invest $50 a week ($200 a month) to Betterment ($30 for us, $10 for each kid account)
we have 2 kids (6 and 8)

we have eliminated some expenses from our budget (dog walker and house cleaner) and took that money to make extra payments to the personal loan, which has the higher interest than the car loan.

I am just not sure what or where to start:
stop 401k for a year and pay off 3 loans (car, personal and 2nd mortgage)?
or up 401k to the full %15?
or stop Betterment investment and pay off loans with that money?

there may be employment changes in our future so for the past 6 weeks we have cut down on spending and looking at everything in a new light as to what to do next.

anyway, thanks in advance for any advice or links to other posts/articles that might address this.

[TheAnonOne]

Hello!

First off your going to want to do a case study for your situation. (There is an area for those on this forum with a predefined set of information you need to provide ect ect)

That being said, eliminating 50 bucks a month from investing to paying off debt seems so small it can't hardly make a dent.

So, i look forward to seeing the bigger picture with the case study!

Also, WELCOME!

Sent from my SM-G935T using Tapatalk

[tarheeldan]

Welcome!

I think this is really helpful, see post by MDM:
https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/investor-alley/investment-order/

[Shiernian]

Most people here will suggest you cut down on expenses so you should expect advice along those lines once you do your case study. It sounds like you have started to cut some expenses already - very good. Maybe it's time to cut some more! :-)

[MDM]

...links to other posts/articles that might address this.

rocrusso, welcome to the forum.

As others have noted, the "Investment Order" already linked and How To: Write a "Case Study" Topic are good places to start for a couple of this site's "chef's specials."

[FrugalFisherman10]

The Investment Order post is great, but more importantly for now I would say to focus on your expenses first - understanding them and then trimming them. It's relieving/invigorating to realize how much money you may be wasting, and thus can get back by being more mindful/prepared/intentional.
Maybe that's not the case and you have a trimmed budget already - in which case I would start considering the questions you are asking about debt vs investments etc.

Do you have a good way to track your expenses already? (for example, If I were to ask you how much did you spend last calendar year, would you know? What about the year before that?) I would suggest using something like PersonalCapital.com for this if you are not already..it aggregates all your purchases and then you can see everything in one place. which is awesome

[rocrusso]

thanks all for the replies and am checking them out!