1. Pay off credit cards & loans
2. Max out 401k, IRA
3. Put most of your money in cheap index fund like https://investor.vanguard.com/mutual-funds/lifestrategy/#/
Note: this is not investment advice
2. Max out 401k, IRA
3. Put most of your money in cheap index fund like https://investor.vanguard.com/mutual-funds/lifestrategy/#/
Note: this is not investment advice
this is not investment advice
So below $10k you're not going to get the best expense ratio, and many of Vanguard's funds have a min of $3k so you can't buy the Vanguard LifeStrategy class or 500 Index fund either. You CAN however buy a Vanguard Target Retirement fund ($1k min and ~0.12-0.16 expense ratio). You don't have to use it for retirement -- you can invest in it just like any other fund, and if you choose a longer horizon the fund will be 90/10 stock/bond or 80/20 stock/bond biased.
With 2500 you should go FSTMX.
(Don't take investment advice, including this, from strangers on the internet)
In Australia you could pay off your mortgage then refinance in a brand new loan to buy investments. The interest you pay on THAT loan is income tax deductible.
Encouraging some people in Australia to perversely rent their house out and go and rent a similar house (sometimes identical apartment in same block!) from someone else, in order to get the interest offset against tax.
In the UK it is even worse, as you can only claim 20% of the interest cost on an investment property even if you are paying 40% tax on the rental income (!!)
If cost of debt < return on investments -> then invest it, don't use it for your downpayment.
Obviously, this does not apply to credit card debt, on which you pay 10-15% interest per annum.