Where to put $5,000 now

What would you do with a million bucks? That's easy. But what about five grand? With a handful of broad goals in mind, here are Money Magazine's picks.

When will you be debt free?
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Goal: Retiring rich
Best moves near retirement:
Pay down your highest-interest credit-card debt
Being in the black is always a good idea, but it's doubly true as you approach retirement. You don't want costly debt when you're not working.

Pay off the credit card with the highest interest rate. Once that debt is wiped out, go for the card with the next-highest rate.

You could also move some of your high-interest credit card balances to a card with a lower interest rate. But read the fine print: Sometimes low-interest-rate offers are only in effect for short periods of time, after which the rate skyrockets.

What's more, consolidating your debt on one card may lower your credit score if your debt-to-available-credit ratio worsens.
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Most stock quote data provided by BATS. Market indices are shown in real time, except for the DJIA, which is delayed by two minutes. All times are ET. Disclaimer. Morningstar: © 2018 Morningstar, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Factset: FactSet Research Systems Inc. 2018. All rights reserved. Chicago Mercantile Association: Certain market data is the property of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. and its licensors. All rights reserved. Dow Jones: The Dow Jones branded indices are proprietary to and are calculated, distributed and marketed by DJI Opco, a subsidiary of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC and have been licensed for use to S&P Opco, LLC and CNN. Standard & Poor's and S&P are registered trademarks of Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC and Dow Jones is a registered trademark of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC. All content of the Dow Jones branded indices © S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC 2018 and/or its affiliates.