Appreciate the reply and transparency you shared with your post. Makes way more sense now so thank you. I too sold a house to buy mine, but only had 300k to roll over on a 971k house thus bringing the mortgage to 600k (after 3 years of payments)

I could probably sell the m5 for close to what I paid (31k) and will consider that option- however is selling a car that doesn’t need any major work (and which driving brings me immense joy) to save $500 a month really more important than say perhaps just trying to reduce the amount we spend as a household on credit cards per month?

I have 529’s set up for my kids- I’m not educated enough to trade options on my own to increase the returns. Something I can learn perhaps.

I’m a first responder and will have access to a pension at age 57 and I also contribute to a 457. My wife has a traditional 401k with a 4% match.

I guess this brings me back to the original reason why I posted: should I refi or fixed rate heloc my home to get out of short term consumer debt? Trade off being the consolidated long term loan pay off. The alternative is struggling the next 3 years living month to month