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Omits-Bagels
Feb 13, 2001
I have a question about what I should do with a little extra money my wife and I have. I am a grad student and she had a low-paying full-time job. She makes about $1400/month (after taxes and health insurance). I have a few website that bring in anywhere from $600-$3000/month (it really depends but I probably average about $1200/month — however, I have to pay about 30% taxes on this income). This money could all disappear if the websites stop performing so the money isn't guaranteed to be there each month. We have about $15k in a savings account and I'm not sure what to do with the money. Maybe we should just keep it for a rainy-day fund or maybe we should use it to pay off other debts.

Our average monthly expenses (including wife's student loans) run about $2,200. She has around $30K in student loans and we've only been paying them for about a year. I will have about $30K in student loans once I graduate with my masters in a year. I was wondering the best way to use the $15K we have saved up. Would it best to pay down the loans or if we should just set the money aside for emergencies.

Edit: The money is jus sitting in a checking account.

Omits-Bagels fucked around with this message at 13:25 on May 4, 2014

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FormatAmerica
Jun 3, 2005
Grimey Drawer
Let me be the first to say: keep it for now. If you have credit card or other high-interest debt, it might make sense to pay that off but otherwise in absence of a reason to spend it, keep it.

Omits-Bagels
Feb 13, 2001

FormatAmerica posted:

Let me be the first to say: keep it for now. If you have credit card or other high-interest debt, it might make sense to pay that off but otherwise in absence of a reason to spend it, keep it.

We have no credit card debt and our car (2008 Honda) is paid off. I wasn't sure if it would be smart to put some extra money toward the student loans.

Engineer Lenk
Aug 28, 2003

Mnogo losho e!
Your average monthly expenses are more than your wife's monthly income, and you know that your website money is potentially unreliable. Keep 6 months of expenses (13,200) in your emergency fund. Pay down your loans with extra as long as you keep that emergency fund full.

spwrozek
Sep 4, 2006

Sail when it's windy

I would probably just keep it all in savings into you graduate and find steady work. Then you can reassess what to do with it.

Golluk
Oct 22, 2008
Wouldn't hurt to throw it into a savings account (as long as its no fee), and get at least a little bit of interest on it. Sure it will only buy you a coffee each month, but its something. Helps keep it out of mind as well when looking at potential purchases.

slap me silly
Nov 1, 2009
Grimey Drawer
I'm on the leave-it-alone train myself - at least until you graduate and figure out what's happening next.

antiga
Jan 16, 2013

Keep six months of expenses minimum until your cash flow situation is more reliable.

Out of curiosity, what's driving the web site income? That seems pretty volatile.

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Omits-Bagels
Feb 13, 2001

antiga posted:

Keep six months of expenses minimum until your cash flow situation is more reliable.

Out of curiosity, what's driving the web site income? That seems pretty volatile.

I run six different websites and each is kind of seasonal so the all make money during different times of the year. I'm also at the whims of google so they could change their search results and I could lose everything. I don't see this happening since I don't do anything sketchy but you never really know.

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