Your Bucket List Debts !(pay ’em off before you retire)

Kewho Min

As time goes on, you’re closer and closer to retiring. You’ve likely

been counting down the years in anticipation of this time that you

can finally relax and not worry about having to get up and go to

work every day and spend hours at a job. Even if you love your job,

working for decades on end means you’ve earned a well-deserved

vacation from it. Unfortunately, the truth for many people over the

age of 55 is that they’re in debt in some form. It might be your

mortgage, credit card debt, or student loans you took out for your

children. These are threes types of debt you should look into taking

care of before you retire.

StudentLoans

While it’s great that you helped your children out with

their student loans, you need to make sure that your

kids are ultimately responsible for taking care of this

debt. Since it’s likely you co-signed these loans and

don’t want to leave your children out to dry, begin

paying them off as soon as they’re due and paying

more than the minimum payment. Pay off the interest as

soon as you can, so you don’t accumulate more. Also,

once your child gets a job after graduation, have them

begin contributing to paying off the loans, even

completely taking over the responsibility for payments

if they’re financially able to do so.

Mortgage

MortgageYou can lower your mortgage by paying money toward theprinciple, but some financial advisors say that mortgage debt isn’tnecessarily a bad thing since a house is a solid investment. Thehousing sector currently has a pretty low interest rate, so you cantake advantage of this trend by refinancing your mortgage andreaping benefits from that. If the mortgage is so high that you can’tdo anything to lower it to a realistic level, you may need to considerworking longer than planned or downsizing your home.

Credit cardsCredit card debt is one of the biggest debts that many families get caught in. First off,avoid charging expenses to a credit card more than you need to. To manage your creditcard debt, focus on making more than the minimum monthly payments, which will helpyou save on interest since it builds up every month. Pay off the card with the highestinterest rate first and then work from there. Find out where you can trim spending in yourbudget to put more money toward fighting debt.

a presentation by Kewho Minkewhomin.org