i should have clarified, I compared a taxable account with a Roth account (tax deferred growth). Still, I find there to be some advantage of the tax deferred growth. YMMV. especially considering which assumptions you input.

Eagle thanks. After posting here and talking it over with my wife I've decided to move both accounts to my rollover IRA. I'll have 41K in there. The rep advised that I can take out money from the IRA and not have to worry about fees provided that I pay the amount back within 60 days.

Well guys here are some updates. This past month I've also had the privilege of remodeling my master bathroom which was pretty cheap before I got help on doing the remodel. I did all the demo and put the new wood down for the subfloor. Then I had to get help on the shower drain replacement and tile install. its going to cost me about 5K. I wouldn't have done this if it didn't need to be done. I had black mold growing in there and had to get rid of it safely for my family.

Additionally, some joker did some fraudulent activity with my debit card and charged over $200 at a gas station. Luckily I check my account everyday and was able to cancel the card the day after it occurred. In the process now of getting the money back. Sigh.

What?

Spam Troll stannius, just ignore it.

This actually might be written by someone who doesn't speak English as their first language.

Translation:
"Your debt is not as high compared to other people. You should be able to pay it down. It's really just about money management. Might consider the order of your debts so you don't overpay interest." Or something to that extent...

Or maybe it's just a troll. Lol.

No, it was auto-posted by a bot. It's just a piece of software spammers use to "test the waters" of various forums to see if they're hospitable for auto-posting spam. No actual human is behind the post - it's just fragmented, auto-generated text, tangentially related to the thread topic to try and avoid being deleted.

Sometimes they do it to build up the requisite post count before they're allowed to post links, sometimes they come back months later and edit the posts to add a spam link (after the post has fallen off the "new posts" list, and thus off the radar of moderators)

We delete dozens of posts like this every week. I'm not sure why this one was left, but since it's generated a little discussion on it, I've left it.

That's why I left it... stannius had already posted before I noticed it.

Darn bots

Well good news folks. I was reimbursed the money that was fraudulently taken from my account. Getting a new check card soon.

The bad news is that I've had to use my Credit Card in place of my Debit Card since I had to cut it off. Also had to use some of my money market account to fund my remodeling project.

Current funds are as follows:

Money Market: 1500.87
Checking account: 7348.75

Mortgage: 343,608.12
Credit Card: 1,597.58
Car 1: 16,487.06
Car 2: 20,948.78

Current pending payments:
mortgage: 2886
Labor bath remodel: 2250
Car insurance (Bi yearly): 1650

My next check will be on the 20th. As of right now I think I'll be okay to get Car 1 down to 10K. As long as I pay no more than 500 a month on the CC I'll be okay. So if my calculations are correct the CC will be paid off in the same month that I reach my Car 1 goal.

it's hard for me to imagine the CC interest rate is the same/lower than the interest rate on a car. Why not wipe that CC out and then get after the car?

I don't keep up on HARP, but are you trying to refi? That is a killer mortgage payment. My P&I on a similar size loan is ~$1500. PITI is ~$1800 something. That is $1000 less. I'd keep trying (assuming you have cash to refi). Lock down the credit (which you seem to have done).

It's good you're focused, and I enjoy your updates. Thanks.

If you were just using your credit card in place of your bank card then why cant you just pay it off with the money from your checking account? At the very least you should have enough from your reimbursement. At 25% interest, you'd pay only about $30 in interest for a month so that does not seem like a major factor.

It sucks that you had the hassle of getting defrauded but I don't understand why you can't just pay off the credit card and put it behind you!

My bad! I did know that spammers do that but this one seemed closer to plausible (english as a second language-y). Do they use Markov chains?

Bichon and DoingHomework: You guys are right, it wouldn't have been logical to do that. So i'll get the credit card paid off in a few days. Hopefully my debit card will be here by then.

Bichon as for the refinance, I've touched on it a little here in this thread. So here's the rundown:

1. I was a victim of predatory lending and was very ignorant to the way buying a house works back in 2006.
2. I had a real estate agent that I trusted, but that didn't go well as you can tell by my mortgage payment.
3. When I first got my home I had an 80/20 loan with 11% and 9% respectively.
4. The following year I was able to refinance at 7.25.
5. Finally the economy went to crap, I couldn't refinance to save my life.
6. HARP went into effect but was only geared to save those who didn't have PMI on their loans so I was still stuck.
7. Finally this year HARP 2.0 came out that was geared to people that had PMI. So I was close to closing out on a refinance deal with a company called AIMLoan.com, but two things prevented this from happening. 1) My wifes car went to crap so we bought another car. I got a really good deal on it. I knew that if AIMLoan found out that I bought the car before getting the refinance then it would've been tough for me to get the loan. However, I didn't buy the car until during the time that I went to closing so I figured that it would've been okay. However, AIMLoan.com runs a credit check right before they payoff the loan even though everything was approved and I went to closing and everything. 2nd) AIMLoan.com even though they knew that I had bought this other car by running the credit check they never told me flat that it was going to be a problem. They kept dragging their feet with the whole deal by saying that they needed more paperwork. So another month goes by and I kept checking in asking when they were going to payoff the loan. They hit me again with needing more paperwork and another credit check? So at that moment I sent a pretty nasty email saying that they needed to uphold their end of the bargain. Needless to say they finally came back and told me that since they ran my credit and found that I another car added that their systems came back with a caution to loan to me. So with that being said, all those credit inquiries are hurting me right now with getting a refinance done. So i'm going to wait a year before I try again which is next June.

I'm going to try to say this as nicely as possible:

You seem to be painting yourself as a victim for everything.
- A victim of predatory lending in the first place
- A victim of a real estate agent
- A victim of circumstances with the car breakdown
- A victim of fraud
etc. etc.

Now, you might just be the unluckiest person in the world. Or perhaps you need to be more proactive in these matters. It is YOUR responsibility to read everything before you sign it and demand an explanation for anything you don't understand. It is also your responsibility to do your own due diligence.

You have until next June before you attempt to refinance, right? By that time you ought to have read 4-6 books about the real estate settlement process. You should know exactly what your rights are. You should also have enough cash saved in addition to the money needed for the transaction so that you do not need to spend anything on credit for at least 3 months. When the lender tells you not to use your credit cards or take out any loans until after closing, DON'T!

We've all made mistakes. But it is important to learn from them and not repeat them. Your mistake was not buying the car. Your mistakes were 1) not understanding the settlement process and 2) not having adequate cash reserves to cover a failed vehicle during that period. You can avoid these mistakes next time by educating yourself and by saving up a large emergency fund.

Good luck to you.

Hmmm, that wasn't nice at all. I accept responsibility for my actions. No denying that. I even mentioned that I've been ignorant to the house purchasing which backs that claim. However, not sure that I mentioned that the lender told me not to buy anything until after closing. Oh yeah that's right cause they never did. So trust me, if I would've been advised of this then I would not have made that mistake. Well I guess that goes with "Understanding the Settlement Process" even though that part was never disclosed to me. Well whatever, lesson learned let's move on.

The standard forms every lender uses require that there be no material changes to your credit between approval and closing. A major purchase is a material change. They probably did not tell you not to quit your job or commit a felony either but those would also be material changes. They don't have to disclose the obvious although I'd bet a paycheck that you were disclosed not to take out a major loan or make a major expenditure with cash. I've bought a house recently and I sure was on the standard forms.

But the point is not to be mean or to beat up on you. My point was to get you to see that you made a bunch of mistakes and should learn from them rather than blaming everyone around you. There are few people you can truly trust. If you hire a lawyer that is one of them. In some situations a real estate agent has a fiduciary responsibility but that has been severely weakened in the last decade or so since they've been able to get kickbacks. But, as cynical as it sounds, you can't trust anyone else. You must put in the effort to read everything, research the rules, and look out for yourself.

I think I gave you a workable plan - save and read!