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Should I pay off my credit card or pay for my wedding?

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John931
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Should I pay off my credit card or pay for my wedding?  Reply with quote  

Just to keep things simple lets say our wedding will cost about $5,000 (we're keeping things very simple). Our credit card debt is also around $5,000. The wedding is in about 10 months and I will have an extra $500 a month to put towards saving for the wedding or to pay extra into the credit card. If I pay off the card, I will end up having to put about $3,000 back onto to the card in order to pay for the wedding.

Should I just make the minimum payments on the card for the next 10 months, pay for the wedding in cash, and then make the larger monthly payments on the card after the wedding or pay of the card as fast as possible, resulting in me having to actually use it to pay for some of the wedding? Deposits are already in for the venue, dj is paid for and photographer so putting off the wedding isn't really an option. Thank you for any help or advice!
Post Fri Feb 19, 2016 10:19 pm
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SCEngineer
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What were you planning on doing with the money you save for the wedding?

If the plan was to put it into a savings account you are asking is it better to pay 23% interest on a loan while earning 0.25% in a savings account or pay down the loan to reduce interest now even if that means putting it back on later.

So pay off the credit card debt. It is killing you. Even if you put it back on later, that will save you in the long run. Also note that even if you put $3000 back on, pay it off as soon as you can. Credit card debt is among the worst kinds of debt you can have. It's litterally right next to borrowing from the mob.
Post Sat Feb 20, 2016 1:19 am
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GardenCat
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Congrats on getting married!' May you have a great future.

Best to pay the credit card(s) off. You are probably not paying the 23% mentioned above, but you are probably paying more than you need to be paying.

The best use of credit cards is to only put on them what you can afford to pay off completely every month so that you are paying NO interest! This way you are actually using "borrowed money" without paying any interest on it.

On another note, be sure you two are putting aside, accruing an "emergency fund" that will be used for unanticipated expenses, ie car repairs, medical expenses, etc. Once in place, try to keep this account funded to cover your required living expenses for 6 months in the case of job loss or whatever.
Post Sat Feb 20, 2016 4:32 pm
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oldguy
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quote:
The wedding is in about 10 months


Well, that means that no one is pg. (That often plays a big part in the scheduling, lol)

Does your Significant Other have a job? A good job? Lots of debt - student loans, car, etc? Those things will probably play a way bigger part next year than a $5k credit card loan. Are you going to co-mingle all money, all debt, all incomes, at the outset? (That's what we did, DW came with a 1965 VW Bug loan, that was our first debt payoff. I don't think either of us had CC debt, maybe that wasn't invented yet?)
Post Sat Feb 20, 2016 4:47 pm
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littleroc02us
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5k for wedding costs is a great accomplishment, that means your being creative to keep your costs down. I saw that the average wedding these days is around 30k. Crazy!!! My wife and I had cost saving ideas like giving students at a local school a free dinner to shoot our wedding with digital camera's. They just gave us the images on DVD's that were burned. Our venue was a country club out in middle of a farm field for $150. The wedding was in a Civil war mansion for $100 reservation fee. The DJ was my buddy and we paid him $400. Her dress was $500 and it looked great. The food was our biggest expense at around $1,500. So these people who spend 30k on a wedding, I'm not sure what they are buying.
As for you, I'd just pay off your cc now and then put 3k for the wedding and pay it off asap.

Risk comes from not knowing what you're doing. (Warren Buffet)
Post Mon Feb 22, 2016 2:16 pm
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John931
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Thank You Everyone!  Reply with quote  

First off, a sincere thank you to everyone that took the time out of their day to leave a reply. I wanted to give a little more backstory and thought this would be easier than replying to everyone individually. We have been together for about 8 years and living together for almost 7. When we originally planned for the wedding, our only debt at the time was the usual stuff. Mortgage, 1 car payment and some student loans which are thankfully almost gone. We had everything set and planned with plenty of time to have enough money cash in hand to pay for all the wedding stuff as they came along and then some for the honeymoon. Unfortunately the universe had other plans with emergency car repairs and emergency veterinarian bills (when you have a pet you should always do your best to take care of them, no matter the cost. at least that is what we believe). Any who, that led us to having to use the credit card to cover what we could not afford out of pocket. By my math when looking at the real numbers, not just the dumbed down ones I used earlier, we will have the card completely paid off in only a few months after the wedding. Even with putting some of the wedding on the card. We aren't in a really tight spot or anything, I just wanted to know the best way to handle this as far as the long term costs would be and it seems most people are in accordance with paying off the credit card first above all else. So thank you everyone for your advice! You guys rock.

John
Post Mon Feb 22, 2016 10:30 pm
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