What to do with my Stimmy Bucks from Uncle JoeB?

Office Hours
#1

Hello gang,

I received my Stimmy Bucks and since we’re 4 in the fam, I got a whooping $5,600 (not bragging) , but now I’m in a dilemma on what should I do with this money that fell into our lap.

If I went by the Ultimate Checklist, I would be encouraged to pay off debt, which at the moment, I only have 1 debt which is a Car loan at 0.9% ( one tenth less than 1 percent) Interest. I currently owe $27k on this loan and have 3.5 years left to pay it. Of course this would just be lowering it by 1/5th.

Or should I just put all this money into the Brokerage account and buy more TDIF , specially since it seems to be a “SALE” going on right now thanks to JPow … and hoping for my returns to be better than the current 0.9% interest rate of my car loan.

I’m looking for all types of comments and criticism is well received as well.

#2

If I were in your position: $4600 towards paying off debt. $1000 towards an ETF(VOO, VTI, QQQ) for the children.

#3

Fernando,

If you don’t already have an emergency fund for at least 6 months of expenses for the family, then I would recommend putting that money towards an emergency fund in a Money Market Account or High Yield Savings Account.

If you already established the emergency fund, then I personally would pay $1k towards the debt since I feel that is your top concern, then invest the rest because you could earn so much more than 0.9% interest. Investing it in TDIF would be good for your retirement, no doubt. But, if you plan on helping your kids pay for their college and you don’t have a plan for it yet, I would recommend investing in a 529 plan to help with your kids’ college fund (tax free if used for educational expenses).

#4

I’ll cover this in tonight’s office hours (3/24/2021) with the recording available afterwards on the course site!

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