What to with a "gift"

[dyna]

What I did with my 10,000 gift that actually did happen. It was at a time when we was paying off bills quickly and had a game plan for those. 1st put my gift into a short term CD that was not going to hurt me if I cashed it in. Continued with our paying off bills plan got the bills paid off.

Then used my gift to buy me a nice mobile home in FL 30 mins from disney (site unseen) it actually worked out well, home was what it was pictured to be an more. We are in a 55+ community with very good neighbors etc it has worked out really really well.

We did have a water emergency last year but the problem is now fixed an it could have happened most anywhere we would have bought.

 

[juliebug]

Me, I would open an Roth IRA for myself!

 

[ccgirl]

Say you get a 10K gift,
would you put it ALL down on your mortgage or pay off a few smaller bills and put the majority in savings ( to increase an emergency fund) ?

This has not happened to me but it is more of a disagreement with my MIL....I know lots of factors play in but just wanting a few other opinions

When I get any unplanned monies, be it from bonuses, gift, tax returen etc, half always goes into savings. The other half is used to pay down debt. Personally, I would leave the mortgage for last and pay all other bills first. If the only debt I had was mortgage, then I would start chipping away the extra there.

Hope that helps.

 

[2disneyboys]

ugh... my MIL brings up these "hypotical" What - if type sceniero's all the time... I leared real soon to just bite my tongue and remember it's "NOT REAL" anyway, lol! Good Luck with all that OP!

now, for the question... I agree, depends on stage of my life. DH &I have paid off all debt, are working towards a 12 month emergency fund, and a "buy it for cash" car fund, we are paying extra (a little each month) on our mortgage and already max out our 401K contributions and are working on college funds for our boys. (We also have about 10 years before our oldest will be looking at colleges) We'd prob use part to open a Roth IRA and part to do some home rehab. There's nothing wrong with putting all or most of the money towards your mortgage, but that would be my last option and only after I felt my "security" blanket (ie emergency fund) was nice and thick!

Either way it is a very personal choice and there's not really a wrong answer.

 

[ZehnJahren]

In your case, I'd send the majority to mortgage and the rest to savings or other big bills. In my case, I'd send 75% to my school loan, save 20%, and blow 5% on fun stuff. I don't care what anyone says - it's better to have your big bills like a mortgage or student loan paid off than be getting a measly tax advantage for a few years. Why would you pay tens of thousands of dollars in interest over the course of a mortgage, simply to get some small "extras" during the years you're paying? It's not good math to keep paying interest, regardless; pay off big debts as fast as you can.

Better to not have to pay $1000 a month in a mortgage than to have $5000, $6000, or even $10,000 in tax breaks. Just adjust your holdings and thank God you're out from under that huge debt!

 

[luvtheworld16]

This actually happened to me a few years ago. I was a low income single parent at the time. I was struggling to make mortgage payments. Fortunately I had (and still don't) no credit card debt. I used the $10,000 to pay off my mortgage. My car was already paid for so the gifted money eliminated all my debt.