Expert: Gina Boykin - 7/23/2008

Question
hello mrs boykin I have 700 dollars left over from my stimulas check wheres a good place to put it so it can grow .im bad with money.

Answer
If you have any credit card debt, the best return on your money will come from paying this debt down. There is no way to guarantee returns of 15-20 percent a year in an investment, but you automatically will get this return on your money if you pay off a credit card that has that same rate.

If you have no credit card debt, but have a car loan, this would be the next best thing to pay down or pay off.

If you have neither of these, do you have an emergency fund? If you are "bad with money" that tells me that you may spend everything you make.  This means that as soon as you have an emergency (car repair, medical emergency, etc) you will be turning to credit cards to pay for this emergency.  An emergency fund won't necessarily "grow" very much - it should just be in a regular savings account or money market account - but it is a step you should take before investing.  Otherwise, you could need the money at a time that is not good (like when you're investment is down in value).

While you are paying off debt and developing an emergency fund, start to learn about investing.  Go to websites for beginners like investopedia.com or fool.com so that you can gain financial knowledge.  Once you have this knowledge, you can make smart decisions about where to place all of your money going forward.