Best Way To Use Bonus

[jmight]

My SO got a $30k bonus, which left about $22.5k after taxes right before x-mas..

 

We've spent a majority of it paying off all my credit card debt (since I have the higher FICO scores to begin with.. and a few of our accounts are joint)

 

My SO has about 22k in personal CC debt that I am not connected to but has been reporting for the last 4 to 5 years... and for the past two years it's been late, etc etc and before CB all those accounts were closed with balances still owed..

 

In an effort to pay them off they were enrolled with a credit counseling service, and the interest rates all dropped from like 29% down to 1-3%...

 

I know the usual thing said is to use the money to pay them off but ING is offering 3.8% which is .8% higher then what we pay now...

 

I've thought about investing into a cd laddering scheme, because we'd get between 4.2-5.2% which is a bit higher, but not sure.. either way we'll still have to make payments cause the amount left won't cover paying off the accounts in full..

 

Is there a better way to invest this money? Or should we just apply it all straight to the balances owed?

 

Now that I don't have any CC debt, I have a little over $600/month extra in disposible income, so we'll probably apply that as well to the debt, meaning we can probably pay it off in 1/2 the time (two years instead of four)...

 

thanks in advance..

[54regcab]

I don't know how serious you and SO are but IMHO if you are married finances should be as one. I'd pay off the CC debt with the $30K. Remember the 3.8% in ING is BEFORE taxes, and CC interst is not tax deductible.