I have been helping my cousin organize her finances and wanted to get your opinion on two issues:
I didn’t want to force the cousin to sell the stocks, so I posed the question: “Do you think that your stocks have the chance to appreciate more than 20% by next year?” She answered yes. “It’s highly unlikely that your cousin will have cherry picked her stocks in such a way that they will lead her to returns of 20% or more over the next year. She’s not Warren Buffett, after all, and even the “Oracle of Omaha” makes mistakes.”
The ideal solution: Transfer the balance to a new credit-card account with 0% interest for the first 15 or even 21 months, and to pay it off aggressively: Don’t order Starbucks; don’t go to restaurants; shop in bulk; and wherever possible, buy generic brands, which are usually cheaper even if some consumers don’t like how they taste. You can help her along the way, keeping her accountable.
The issue here is let’s say she pays the $5k off with her money from selling stocks. Will she be smart enough to not rack the cards back up?
Look into credit card debt consolidation to lower your APR. And start now with cash and carry only.
You cousin is an idiot