Submitted by Intrigued_iguana t3_10p3rau in personalfinance
Edit: Thank you everyone for your input. After hearing the advice here I'm not touching my Roth. Going to budget, minimize expenses, and pay this down as fast as possible. If the interest kicks in I may look into balance transfer or personal loans. Thanks everyone for your input I feel way better and more optimistic I'll get out of this. Feel free to read still:
Okay so I'll start with the bad news. I made some poor choices and financed my lifestyle during senior year of college + the 3 months after I graduated with credit cards. Accumulated a total of 22k.
To be honest, I've been freaking out the past few months and in hindsight can't believe how foolish I was to do this. Regardless, life goes on and I need to deal with this.
The good news: I got a job paying 83k a few months ago and have paid down the debt to 16k. Can make additional payments of 1-2k above minimum payments.
Even better news: I made the good decision during the prior 4 years prior to save a lot in my Roth IRA. Meaning in total I have, roughly, 13k in Roth IRA contributions.
Should I withdrawal my Roth IRA contributions to pay off a large chunk of this debt? How can I pay this off faster? I'm willing to cut back on my expenses. No interest yet, but in May it will be 20%+.