ABC Good Money Windfall, Raise Credit, Target Date Retirement, Pay Off Debt Mail Bag

Ramit Sethi answers viewer questions on handling a $30,000 inheritance, refinancing mortgages, raising credit scores, and tackling credit card debt. He recommends building a six-month emergency fund first, automating bill payments to improve credit, and using target-date funds for Roth IRAs. For high-interest debt, he suggests balance transfers to credit unions or lower-rate cards.
Questions this video answers
30-year $350,000 mortgage at 6.7%.
About $70,000.
Inherited $30,000; approximately $8,000 needed for a new roof, leaving about $22,000.
Expecting his first child in three weeks.
About a four-month unemployment stint.
Chapters
For those who are just joining us, I'm here with Ramit Sethi, personal finance contributor as well as author of I will teach you to be rich. In this segment, Ramit will help answer some questions sent in by our viewers. Are you ready to go?
Let's do it.
Alright, let's do the first question. It's from Mario of Belleville, New Jersey and he writes, I am 32, own my own home while the bank owns it. With a 30 year $350,000 mortgage at 6.7%, I have about $70,000 in my 401k and am expecting my first child in 3 weeks. I recently unexpectedly inherited 30,000 DOL. I need about 8,000 of that for a new roof and the rest to pay off credit card and my remaining school loan. So how should I leverage the remaining 22,000? My credit is a little dented by writing out a four month unemployment stint, but I'm gainfully employed now. Advice. Welcome and hey, congratulations to Mario. With a new baby on his way.
This is a great situation to be in. So you have some extra money. First of all, he should calculate exactly how much he needs for for six months in case he loses his job. Calculate everything and put that away in an emergency fund in a savings account and don't touch it unless you absolutely need to. Now if he still has money left over, this is great. What he can do is he can contribute to a tax advantaged retirement account like a Roth ira and he may have so much left over that it may take him one or two years to do that. But that's a great thing to do because you're going to start investing for the long term.
Okay, now the interest that he mentioned, 6.7%, 5%, it seems awfully high. Would you recommend refinancing?
He could. I mean he could certainly look at doing that and look at the numbers. But with this kind of money, you know, that's kind of a separate issue to do.
All right. Now I think something that is going to apply to a lot of people and he mentioned his credit score. How do you go about improving that? Because there are a lot of people out there, they've been unemployed for a.
While now and now they're starting to realize how important their credit score is. The largest percentage of your credit credit score is how often you make your monthly payments on time. You want to do it every month. If you miss even one payment, it can lower your credit score over 100 points. So the best thing to do is automate your payments and just Give it time. Make sure that you're paying it off as much as possible.
All right, let's get to our next question. This one is from chelain of Milford, Connecticut. And the question is, you talk about opening Roth IRAs, but there's different types on funds within that. Is there one you recommend? What do you think?
A lot of people open up a Roth ira, which is great, but then they forget that they have to do something with the money in it. There are great types of options. You can invest in virtually anything. I like a type of investment called a target date retirement fund. These are funds that are low cost and they adjust with your age. So my investments as someone in my 20s is going to be very different than someone in their 70s. These target date funds will simply change as you get older. And all you need to focus on is funneling as much money as possible into them.
Now, what's the difference between a Roth and a traditional?
Well, there's a slight difference in taxes. So typically, to make it, to simplify it, people who are younger are typically going to want to look at Roth IRAs. People who are older are going to want to look at IRAs. Traditional IRAs, they're called.
All right. And that's something you can do even, you know, up into December before, you know, if you're looking at tax season ahead.
Right? That's exactly right.
Okay, let's get to the next question. And this is from Josie of Atlanta, Georgia. I share a credit card with my daughter. I suggested she asked Citi to reduce the interest rate on our credit card and they said no. How do we ask them again? Most of the time we pay the minimum amount. We owe about $15,000 on the credit card and I think we pay about 20 plus percent on interest. This is our only credit card.
It's a pretty steep interest rate. It's good that she's asked them to reduce it. That's the first step for most people. Unfortunately, this credit card can decide whether or not they want to lower it. And frankly, they're making pretty good money off her, so they probably are not going to do it. She does have a couple options. One, I would suggest looking at a local credit union and seeing if she can get a better interest rate and transfer her balance over to there. I like these local credit unions because they're consumer friendly and they're local. If that doesn't work, she can open up another credit card with a lower interest rate and pay it off. But you want to be careful of your credit score there. Ultimately, I Have to be pretty blunt with her. A lot of people try to play all these tricks, transferring money around. Best to save your energy and focus on paying off that credit card as fast as possible. If the tricks don't work, if you can't do this, just say, how can I examine my budget to find an extra 100, 200 or as much as you can find every month and just funnel it towards that credit card debt?
Okay, now you know the question I'm going to ask you and how do you feel about sharing a credit card with one of your kids?
Yeah, that's the other thing. So I wouldn't necessarily advise doing it. Your credit will be shared and that can be good or bad. In this case, I'm not so sure how good her credit score actually is. If it were me, and I were either the daughter or the mother, I would actually sever the relationship, start weaning the daughter off and let her get her own credit card. Or if she can't, she can start with a secured credit card.
Okay, now let's say this daughter goes off and let's say she's just out of college. What kind of credit limit should you put on your credit card? I mean, do you recommend them?
Well, I mean, if you're starting off and you have sort of bad behavior, you may want to say, you know what, I just want a 500 or thousand dollar credit limit. Once you are in pretty good behavior, it's actually, it actually pays to get a higher credit limit because it will improve your credit score the more credit you have available to you.
And then how do you feel about credit cards that you have to pay off every month, like an American Express card?
They're fine, they're fine. Ultimately, you want to focus on getting at least one regular credit card and then you can talk about charge cards as well. But you should be paying off your credit card in full every month, especially when you're starting in your 20s and you don't have these huge expenses. Right.
And how about a secured card?
Those are, those are good too. Those are good to start. You only get a secured card typically if you apply to a credit card and they say you don't have enough credit. So then you'll get a secured credit card. Like training wheels.
Okay, and tell me what it is. I'm not really sure.
It basically means you put up $500 as collateral, you just give it to the bank and they'll give you a credit card with a small credit limit and you kind of use it. You just use it show them you're responsible. And, and after six months or 12 months, you can graduate to a regular.
And how much credit can you build on something like that?
You can build enough to get your first credit card, and then your credit card will help you build more credit.
All right, Ramit, thank you so much. Great advice. Lots of information there. Thanks so much. Appreciate it. Thank you. And if you have a question for Ramit or any of our other personal finance experts, go to our website@abcnews.com and click on the Money page to ask your questions. We'll do our very best to answer them right here on Good Money.
Sam.










