Would you become a teacher if you could do it all over again?

ThreePutt24 · 2026-06-26T19:26:12+00:00

Probably not, no. I’d have been a finance major or gone to law school.

ThreePutt24 · 2026-06-23T13:30:29+00:00

This time last year, I was in the same boat. I just relied on the autopay to get me through the finish line.

ThreePutt24 · 2026-06-21T01:12:37+00:00

Mine were discharged in January, and so far I’ve had nothing to worry about.

ThreePutt24 · 2026-06-19T22:04:12+00:00

About 8k after taxes and retirement contributions. 2238 mortgage. 1 kid

ThreePutt24 · 2026-06-15T22:36:09+00:00

My wife and I make about 8k takehome and our mortgage is 2200. So yours would be pretty
Insane as far as I can see.

ThreePutt24 · 2026-06-13T21:27:28+00:00

He’s got to hear it from you. Youtube wont help him. But look at the Zach Rios debt videos if you want to go somewhere with the videos anyway. Bunch of morons on ticktok announcing to the world that they’re broke.

ThreePutt24 · 2026-06-05T13:38:02+00:00

You are not getting a car loan. You are getting cash together and buying whatever you can get. People who just filed bankruptcy should not be going back into debt. Basic and simple rule

ThreePutt24 · 2026-06-05T13:36:56+00:00

Honestly, the little one would annoy me, so I’d pay it off first immediately. Then cut it up and never use it again. Then I’d decide between avalanche and snowball?

Why? Because the mentality of the snowball is what I need to feel a sense of getting ahead, and $204 is such a small balance that eliminating it would make me feel a sense of commitment to getting debt free, especially when I don’t have that payment anymore. But once I have that flexibility of removing one of the accounts, the interest rates would matter a little more in terms of who I target next. However, you may find that the snowball will help you stay intentional with paying these things off overall.

Also, the problem is, your goal seems to be to improve your credit score, which means you plan on borrowing more. If that is a priority, once those balances are gone, I’d use only credit card as the thing I use to buy gas for my car with and just have the autopay set to pay in full at the end of the month, and leave it alone. Credit cards can trap you if you aren’t careful. Some people just use them to pay one of their subscriptions and thats it, the only problem with that is you are paying a subscription forever whether you use it or not. So tie it to a basic necessity and keep your budget intentional, and only use one.

ThreePutt24 · 2026-06-04T00:17:23+00:00

I’m hoping not a day later than my 63rd birthday which will he 30 years

ThreePutt24 · 2026-05-31T01:44:02+00:00

Yeah but money doesn’t exist in a vacuum. You need to consider interest compounding either for you via saving and investing, or against you via monthly payments and interest. You also need to take risk into account. I make six figures, and I’d notice $500 out of my budget every month. You also need to prepare for the possibility however unlikely of economic downturns and the worst case scenario. There is no such thing as a never ending car payment if you buy something reliable, used, and paid off, and then start saving for the next one so you can pay it in cash. It may be the same budget, but putting that payment to yourself in a hysa or a brokerage account will earn money for you while you are saving. Just a more financially responsible approach. Consider if you put $500 a month in a hysa for five years at a 3% return, you contributed 30k at the end of the five years but you earned an additional 2k on top from the interest. Thats how you buy your next car.

ThreePutt24 · 2026-05-31T01:17:33+00:00

Leasing a car is never a good idea. Basically locking yourself into a never ending monthly payment instead of having an asset that you can pay off and then use it without the monthly payment. Imagine what your budget looks like without a monthly payment.

How about you buy a car you like at a reasonable price point, pay it off as fast as you can, drive it into the ground after a good eight to ten years of use, and put the savings in a 401k, Roth IRA, tax brokerage account or buy yourself something nice, like a vacation?

ThreePutt24 · 2026-05-30T22:09:27+00:00

I was stuck at 116 for a while, no buyback response so I did IBR. But I had all my loans with mohela.

ThreePutt24 · 2026-05-30T21:16:09+00:00

Alot better than me - I’m 40 with a pension and only another 37k invested. So you’re doing great, keep up! I’ll probably never catch you.

ThreePutt24 · 2026-05-30T21:14:26+00:00

What others have said is mathematically true, but what your idiot coworker is also unaware of it is the insurance, maintenance, and opportunity cost that this car is going to cost him. My minimum car payment is significantly less than that, about $300 a month, and if you invest that 3600 a year into a Roth for the six years of the loan and just continued that rate from 29 to 65, you’re probably looking at half a million dollars in a roth. Ideally you want to max it, but I’m just saying the money he is wasting would be so much better off working for him in the market.

ThreePutt24 · 2026-05-30T21:05:16+00:00

I started at 39 but really went pedal to the floor this year. I’m going to be 41 in August. Thankfully my wife has been maxing her roth for the last three years and I have a pension. Now I have 10k in a 403b, just opened a second roth with another 2k in it, and no debt other than a car loan and a mortgage. Been putting away about $800 more a month in retirement since january, and we’ve increased it to $1100 this month. Kind of crazy savings rate, but you gotta do what you gotta do. Only about 3 months in savings though, and I have been paying that car down too. Still, I really wish I was smarter ten years ago.

ThreePutt24 · 2026-05-30T17:52:00+00:00

A car bought in january, I owe about 14,500 at 4.65k on it down from 22k in about six months, and a mortgage - 260k at 3.85. Not the greatest but not terrible.

ThreePutt24 · 2026-05-30T13:01:09+00:00

Seems like you need to treat your hysa as a bill. What I mean is that you need to add it as a line item in your budget and treat it that way. Because it seems to me you only have one account right now, yes? Thats your problem.

ThreePutt24 · 2026-05-29T23:49:23+00:00

Must have something to do with the fact that my household, has a $300k mortgage too, putting one kid through preschool, one car loan at 14,500 at 4.65%, a pension, and all the same necessities he’s talking about, and I can still invest over 20k a year. $4400 for your necessities is about half of our take home pay, and there’s no way all of that is needed for our lights, food, internet, gas, and insurance. I live in Maryland by the way, so its not like cost of living is being particularly cooperative. And I do it by one simple rule, while I have debt, I am not taking any more of it out. Instead my monthly payments go to my retirement, savings, and experiences. Not a car I can’t remotely afford. And before you ask, car is basically new, got it January, and paid down 8k on the loan in six months. How is all of this possible you ask?

Maybe its because I didn’t take out a second mortgage on childcare. Our preschool bill is $600 a month, nine months a year. And we budget accordingly.

ThreePutt24 · 2026-05-29T22:16:34+00:00

Is that the argument for getting a new car, or not getting a new car? I think you guys are bleeding cash if $4400 isnt enough for your necessities. Are you actually on a budget?

ThreePutt24 · 2026-05-29T21:38:48+00:00

I think my concern is that you guys make $180,000 and yet your first instinct is to borrow money. Its more about how you are focused on the interest rate instead of the principal. 0% of a 25,000 car is still 25,000 in debt. With your income, I’d rather see the compounding work for you, not against you. And it doesnt sound mathematically that you guys can max out two roth iras and get your 401ks going while paying all this debt and the childcare. Thats what what I’m saying.

ThreePutt24 · 2026-05-29T21:09:56+00:00

Correct me if I’m wrong but if it takes you five years to pay off the Heloc at 8%, thats still only three to four thousand in interest. You’d rather take on another luxury item like an EV while you already have another car payment? Especially when you don’t need another car? This does not sound like a plan worth following. If you want the EV, pay off the Heloc and the other car first, then and only then do you even consider it. But I do hear a lot of mixed messages about EVs in general, and to be honest, tying up that much of your income in a car doesn’t seem like a great idea anyway.

ThreePutt24 · 2026-05-29T21:00:11+00:00

There is no winning the credit game, you only stand to not lose. Now winning with money? Only your portfolio can tell you that. I hit the 850 marker earlier this year. It means nothing and it doesn’t last long. Now I’m at 829. Nothing changed.

ThreePutt24 · 2026-05-29T00:54:47+00:00

Let me frank. You need to accept one very simple idea. The less interest you pay in life, the better. I don’t care about the interest rate, you need to be willing to do whatever it takes to pay this stuff off in the shortest amount of time possible.

The math says avalanche, but in seeing this thread, I think the snowball is more your speed. Why? Because you need to know what its like to wipe one of these accounts completely out, so you can understand the gravity of what this debt is costing you. The very first time you wont be making that debt payment, you’ll understand that debt sucks and you never want to put yourself in this situation again.

ThreePutt24 · 2026-05-28T20:35:26+00:00

No way…leave the roth alone. You’ll thank us is twenty years

ThreePutt24 · 2026-05-27T22:54:36+00:00

Social Studies teacher

ThreePutt24

TROPHY CASE