Hi everyone. My name is Matthew and I'm 31 years old. I had a very successful start to life up north in Boston where my wife and I met. After we got engaged we decided we wanted a clean slate and decided move to South Carolina to escape winter and have a better quality of life. I work for a large company so I had the ability to continue to work for them down here. The downside is this is a slower territory so I have taken a hit in income. On the upside, DW is starting a new career in real estate which is already off to a great start and this will be the first time I've ever been in a dual income situation. When I liquidated all my physical assets in Massachusetts between the house and couple of additional cars we didn't need we walked away with about $450K.
I wanted to get a smaller and cheaper home in Summerville SC for about 250k and invest the rest but DW wanted the bigger house we are more accustomed to in Mt Pleasant (A move expensive town in a different part of Charleston SC on the ocean) for $500k. I wanted to get a small mortgage and invest some money but DW doesn't understand the market and doesn't trust what she doesn't understand. After a lot of debate I took 70k from a BofA credit card that I have a 100k limit on at 0% for 18 months and paid cash for the house. The fee to do it was 3% but I chalked that up to a "closing cost" which would have been similar if we had went with a traditional mortgage. I took a bit extra so I had a buffer and once it is paid back by the end of 2018 we will be debt free with about 625k in assets plus my IRA worth about $150k. Once its paid for we will have anywhere between 7-15k a month to invest.
My question is once this debt is paid for how to I get DW on board with investing money. Or even better how do I convince her to invest our savings over the course of this year and pay the CC with 0% off at in early 2019 when the 0% promo expires. She is scared because she doesn't want to "risk losing money". Shes an great saver but her idea of saving was to stick cash in a safe. She managed to save 33k in cash (Yes cash) before we met by working as a pre school teacher for 5 years. She had zero debt when we met and for a 28 year old she is very mature with not spending like traditional America does. I just don't know how I'm going to get her to change her way of thinking to put our money to work for us in the market. Any insight would be greatly appreciated!
I wanted to get a smaller and cheaper home in Summerville SC for about 250k and invest the rest but DW wanted the bigger house we are more accustomed to in Mt Pleasant (A move expensive town in a different part of Charleston SC on the ocean) for $500k. I wanted to get a small mortgage and invest some money but DW doesn't understand the market and doesn't trust what she doesn't understand. After a lot of debate I took 70k from a BofA credit card that I have a 100k limit on at 0% for 18 months and paid cash for the house. The fee to do it was 3% but I chalked that up to a "closing cost" which would have been similar if we had went with a traditional mortgage. I took a bit extra so I had a buffer and once it is paid back by the end of 2018 we will be debt free with about 625k in assets plus my IRA worth about $150k. Once its paid for we will have anywhere between 7-15k a month to invest.
My question is once this debt is paid for how to I get DW on board with investing money. Or even better how do I convince her to invest our savings over the course of this year and pay the CC with 0% off at in early 2019 when the 0% promo expires. She is scared because she doesn't want to "risk losing money". Shes an great saver but her idea of saving was to stick cash in a safe. She managed to save 33k in cash (Yes cash) before we met by working as a pre school teacher for 5 years. She had zero debt when we met and for a 28 year old she is very mature with not spending like traditional America does. I just don't know how I'm going to get her to change her way of thinking to put our money to work for us in the market. Any insight would be greatly appreciated!