Pay off debt

Not a fun answer but it's the most responsible one

Debt first but redirect the payments straight into your savings (possibly slightly lower to make it easier).

And treat yourself to something small (like $50 or so), as a reward for doing the sensible thing with most of it.

And then have a brilliant time in Japan 😁

You were making ends meet with the debt before. Put it towards your future: buy another 18tb hardrive. Spend the last 100$ on drugs.

Pay off debt for sure. And then use the money you were going to pay the debt with to put into savings.

Become debt free to start saving money

I suspect paying off the installment loan is your best bet, unless it a 0% apr loan, or there are penalties for early repayment. If that is the case, your best bet is to put the $1k in a 12 month certificate of deposit (a CD), which will get you a higher interest rate and remove a lot of the temptation to spend it early.

Buying an HDD on credit is crazy ... pay it off.

Pay off whatever you need to. It's always a better feeling to clear debt, than buy something and regret.

If the savings yield less % than the installments pay in %, pay off the hard drive. Otherwise… don’t? I dunno seems like a math question

Pay off your debt

Always pay off debt, the interest adds up

Compare debt and savings. High debt should be paid off, otherwise pack your savings more. Boring but this was unexpected money anyways.

Drugs, I recommend drugs.

Or worse, get a new hobby

Easy, which one has the highest interest rate. If you pay off your hdd now, do you save on loan interest? Then that 1000 is worth more because it's 1000+ the Interest you now won't have to pay. Same for savings. My savings rate is ~3.6% APY, so 1000 after a year is 1036, not much extra, but that's a meal or two.

Or Yolo it into the stock market, and potentially make 20% ($200) on it by next year.

It depends what you think the future holds.

Boring answer is: can you put it in a Roth IRA or other post-tax advantaged account? That's for if you think the world will be around when you retire.

If you think the price of ram is gonna double again, buy a 64 GB kit of DDR5 now and sell it on Craigslist next year

Or if you believe that memories now are worth more than memories in the future, just spend it on things that make you happy. This is free money, Noone can force you to be responsible

High interest debt > 6mo Nest egg > 401k/Roth > post tax brokerage (VOO and chill)

This is not financial advice.

Personally I would pay off the drive but that’s because I hate having debt and would never have financed a hard drive in the first place 😅

Ok:

• Pay off the 900 bucks
• Set up a savings account and a standing order for $100 a month from your current account into your savings account
• Don't touch the savings account. If Next september is 2027 - you'll have $1200 and started a saving habit

Use it as the seed money to get one of those bank accounts that give you $250-500 after 90 days. Some do come with some strings attached like setting up a direct deposit.

Close the account sometime after you no longer want it. Rinse and repeat a few times a year.

That’s potentially a 50% return on investment, better than any other return you will likely get.

I did it a few times back 10+ years ago and It helped to fund a trip for me.

What to do, what to do? One $300 $1000 hookerbot or 300 1000 $1 hookerbots?

Is there anything you pay interest on? That HDD is a likely case. Credit card or other stuff like that?

If you're bad with money you should never buy anything that you'll pay interest on except a house or apartment.

Thinking about a trip to Japan with credit card or consumer debt is like thinking about a trip while your hair is on fire.

Clear debt that has interest first.

Mhmm, 18TB HDD 🤤

Completely none of my business, but what does someone use a hard drive that big for? Does it come with insurance or a warranty? It seems like it would really suck if that broke.

To answer your question and add onto the pile, I would say pay off debt unless the savings interest rate is better than the debt interest rate (it usually never is).