We bought our first house about 18 months ago and the home inspector said we would need a new roof within the next 1-2 years. Well, we had an "ice dam" a few weeks ago and water started leaking through the soffit in the front of our house so we decided we should finally get the roof.
We had two companies come and give us quotes and we decided to go with one that was recommended by a family friend. The quote is $16.9k which we luckily can pay due to a comfortable house emergency fund. After paying the for the roof we still have plenty left over.
To finally get to the question, they gave us three options:
- Pay cash
- Pay via credit card with no extra fees
- Pay over 18 months with no interest and no fees
My immediate impulse thought was to pay with a credit card and pay it off immediately to get the 1% rewards points. The downside of this plan is the credit utilization rate. I have a card with a 20k limit, so it would take most of that limit and hurt my credit to some extent. My credit rate typically hovers around 800. How long would it hurt my credit if we paid it off right away as described?
I think the "right" answer would be to pay it off over time because of inflation. We would functionally be paying less and "saving" more than the fairly meager 1% the credit card would provide. The issue with this is we really don't like owing people money and would rather just get it over with. I know it's kind of a dumb rationale but we just can't help it. We owe on the mortgage and I still have some student loans but we just don't want to take on more debt if we don't have to.
What would you do in this situation? Thanks!
original posted by MeSoCorny to r/personalfinance on Thu, 14 Mar 2024 07:24:34 GMT.