Daria: Hi everybody! I am going to talk to you today about money dilemmas. Not that you don’t have money and you can’t pay something but rather, the good kind of money dilemma. You have some money left over at the end of the month. We get this question all the time. well, not as often as I’d like to get it but it would mean you all have money left over at then end of the month but often enough that I thought it was worth talking about today.

Now that I have money left over at the end of the month, should I put it against my credit card balance? Should I make an extra mortgage payment or at least put more against my mortgage balance, or should I invest it?

You know, it is a dilemma for some people. You don’t want to do the right thing you want to do the really smart thing and it can be a problem. Here’s the order to keep it. If you carry a credit card balance that is always number one on your priority because depending on what your credit card balance is, you are making an investment in yourself. If you only have an eight percent credit card interest rate, you still get an eight percent return on your investment because now you don’t have to pay eight percent out. You can’t find to guarantee the investment right now paying eight percent. If it’s 18%, oh! You just made a fortune in your investment because you will invest it in paying down your debt at 18%.

Second step would be if you are enrolled in a 401K or you have an IRA and you’ve been contributing a little extra, do it. Work for your retirement at your second choice when you have money left over.

And the third choice would be my last choice and particularly in this kind of an environment with real estate prices is still falling and still having further to go lower. In our opinion here at Dolans.com is that would be the last thing to do. Pay off a little bit extra on your mortgage.

So in order, money dilemmas solved, no more dilemmas for you just find the money at the end of the month- Credit card that first, invest second, pay down mortgage third.

I hope you can get to do all three in one given month.