My brother in law told me to stop paying off my credit card first and it broke my brain
So I've been chipping away at a $6,200 balance on one card for about 14 months, throwing every spare dollar at it, feeling pretty proud of myself. Over Easter dinner my brother in law, who dug himself out of about $30k in debt, asked me what my card's interest rate was and I honestly didn't know. He pulled it up on my phone, it was 24.9%, and he said 'you're paying them $130 a month just to keep a number going down slow.' He told me he saved a $1,000 starter cushion first before touching any debt, because every time his car broke he'd put the repair right back on the card and undo 3 months of work. That part hit me because I've done exactly that twice this year, once for a $580 transmission fix. Now I've got $700 sitting in savings and it feels wrong, like I'm going backwards on purpose. Has anyone else tried this and actually stuck with it, or did the pile of savings just tempt you into spending it?