My mom recently passed away after a long illness and left me some unexpected inheritance. Let me preface this by saying, in a heartbeat I'd give all of this back to have my mother back and healthy. That said, that's not the situation I'm in.
The inheritance is modest, $50G. My wife and I are awful at managing money, so I ask for honest advice, knowing full well what I'm getting into by asking on Lets Run. We have accumulated a mountain of debt over recent years, parts of which coming from expenses related to my mother's illness, some emergency surgery we had for a pet, and some unexpected home and car repairs. Much of the rest come from just plain mismanagement and family expenses. We have two kids.
Again, admitting my faults, and want to improve my situation. Some of the debt is really bad. Some of it isn't too bad. What's the best way to allocate this to get out of debt, and still have some set aside for the unexpected? We drive older cars (6 and 11 years old) and have a modest house in the suburbs. I bring my lunch to work.
Our mortgage has an interest rate of 3.75.
We have already college funds for our kids set up to mature very nicely by the time they are ready.
Our 50 year old house needs to be painted and needs new windows.
It pains me to admit this, but here is the rest of our debt:
Credit card 1 balance: $18,000 at 11.5%
Credit card 2 balance: $8000 at 15%
Credit card 3 balance: $3000 at 16%
Home equity loan: $14,000 at 3.75%
Car loan: $14,000 at 1.75%
Thank you for any constructive help you can offer.