Pay Dirt is Slate’s money advice column. Have a question? Send it to Kristin and Ilyce here. (It’s anonymous!)

Dear Pay Dirt,

I am a recovering addict living in the midwest. I lost a decade of my life to the disease and am now 38, trying to get my life back on track, including in the financial sense.

I have a couple things going for me: My car is paid off, I work a decent job that allows me to save, I have cheap rent and I just put $15,000 in a high-yield savings which I feel good about. On the other hand I have some messes to clean up. I am $5,000 behind on my student loans, am in $10,000 worth of credit card debt, and I am behind on retirement savings. I currently save 5 percent of my income for retirement and my employer matches 3 percent, but unfortunately when I was struggling I cashed out old retirement accounts and am only just now starting building retirement savings again. After bills each month I have $1,000 I can play with. What should I do moving forward to best help myself? What should I prioritize? What debt should I focus on? What is the best use of this extra money? If possible I’d also like to start saving for a house by the way. I appreciate the help.

—Back on Track

Dear Back on Track,

Congratulations on recapturing your life. Addiction is such a painful disease and leaves so many scars on the addict as well as the whole community of friends, family, and coworkers surrounding them.

It’s wonderful to see the progress you’re making personally and financially. I love that you’ve built your emergency fund and now have an extra $1,000 per month to invest. I have a few ideas for that, but let’s start with your credit card debt.

You’re probably paying a pretty high interest rate on that $10,000. Unless you have it spread out on a number of cards, it is likely depressing your credit score along with your student debt late payments. So, my first suggestion is to take $10,000 out of your emergency fund and pay off your credit card debt. Every month you pay a high interest rate, you’re actually falling further behind.

Next, take your $1,000 and start paying off chunks of your student loans. I’d suggest catching up with the remaining $5,000 in your savings account, but I don’t want to leave you without any emergency funds. So, take whatever you were paying toward your credit card debt and redirect it along with the extra $1,000 per month until you’re current with your student loans. Once you’ve caught up, you can still add that extra from your credit card debt and start prepaying the remaining balance.

Then, use the extra $1,000 per month to rebuild your savings. Plow any extra money you run into (side hustles, birthday cash, etc.) into that high yield savings account, too. Within a year, I expect your credit card debt will be paid off, you’ll be caught up on your student loans, and your emergency fund will be rebuilt.

At that point, your credit score should have also recovered. And, you can start building toward your next goal: homeownership. If you create a two-year plan with that goal in mind, and work to get your debt paid off while building up your savings, I know you’ll get there. Good luck!

Please keep questions short (

Dear Pay Dirt,

My spouse and I have been saving for a long time for a needed renovation. It’s finally within sight, yay! And I’m getting worried about parting with this significant chunk of savings, knowing that a renovation can bring unforeseen costs and issues. So, is there any benefit to getting a HELOC and paying for the renovation out of that (we would pay it off immediately out of savings if all goes well) versus just paying cash? Would that approach protect against budget overruns or issues with contractors? I know this is a very lucky problem.

—What the HELOC to Do

Jenée Desmond-Harris
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Dear What the HELOC to Do,

When you’re doing a renovation, home improvement project, or even building a new house, there are two things that can really jam up your budget: unwelcome surprises and change orders.

An unwelcome surprise would be if you open up a wall and discover there’s no insulation or an infestation of carpenter ants has eaten the structural integrity of the home to the point of collapse. Or, if a crack in the basement turns out to actually be structural. At that point, there’s nothing to do except suck it up and take out your checkbook.

Change orders, on the other hand, are entirely in your control. You pick blue tile for the bathroom and after it’s ordered, been delivered, or is even up on the wall, you decide you’d really rather have white, grey, or orange. The contractor has to spend time and money taking down the tile, shipping what’s left of it back, ordering new tile, then putting that up.

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You can’t do much about unwelcome surprises if you’re renovating an older home. It just comes with the territory and is why contractors will suggest you add 10-20 percent in “miscellaneous” expenses to any project’s budget.

But you can decide not to issue any change orders. That requires discipline, because you’ll see things you want to change as the project progresses. So, spend the time to really think through the project before you start. Get tile, paint, wallpaper, and carpet samples and put them in different places around the house at different times of the day and night. Use 3D tools to create realistic images of what your renovation project will look like finished. Talk to a number of contractors about how the project will unfold. Get all of your questions answered.

Then, pull the trigger.

As for your question about getting a HELOC, it’s a great idea to protect your cash in case there’s an unwelcome surprise or two. But make sure to have the 10-20 percent cushion built into your budget.

—Ilyce

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