I have some funds in a stock account (5 years old) and I'm itching to pull out money to pay off a high interest credit card.  The "experts" on TV say don't do it, your thoughts?  Maybe the only way to do it right is pay it off and cut up the card (but keep the account open for credit report reasons).  Who knows. 

The problem I see with this is, unless you change your spending habits - the ones that got you into credit card debt in the first place - you'll be back where you started soon enough, but without stock to sell to pay the card(s) off this time. 

My cards have been paid off for some time (only one has been used in the last couple of years, anyway - but the other 2 are still open), and I use it only for travel expenses (every couple of years I have a family event that requires a hotel room and/or air fare) and emergenies - usually car repairs or vet bills - and then I pay it off from my emergency fund immediately - there are people I know who thought I was nuts to put money in savings when I had debts, but it's thanks to doing that every month that I now have an emergency fund to use for such things.

The return on investment of paying the CC off is whatever the interest rate is on the CC.

I agree with Walt. Do the math. It's not sacrilegious to cash out stocks, and in this economy, being debt free is just as good as having a great portfolio.

Do pay attention the warnings about using the credit card. Pay it off and you could even close the account, especially if you have an emergency fund. If you don't, get one set up as soon as you can. Your goal would be to have enough reserve funds to cover an "emergency" such as unexpected vehicle repairs or large appliance replacement, medical bills, if you don't have good insurance, etc., anything you'd use a credit card for. Do that then get on with getting out of debt any way you can (legally!).

 Freedom from all consumer debt (credit cards, student loans, car loans, personal loans, mortgage) is the goal for dh and myself.  Unless my stocks were huge money makers, I would cash them in and pay off as much debt as possible.  Of course, we have already shredded the cards and haven't had access to credit cards for 3 years.  If you are going to continue using credit cards then paying this one off doesn't make sense.  "If" I were in your shoes, I would work on my overall financial picture and change some spending habits, cut up the cards, close the accounts, and thumb my nose at my FICO.  A FICO is for folks who plan on being in debt their entire life--and that "ain't us"!  

I say SELL unless you truly feel they will go up in value faster than your interest is growing on the CC debt. I unloaded a bunch of losing stocks - It will help on next year's tax return since I sold them at a loss (had held them for about 2 years) and it knocked out half of our CC debt - we went from paying about $300 a month in interest (not kidding on this) to $35 on interest (we also pulled cash from savings to kick it further. We still have a way to go but that push helped us enormously. AND yes we made the commitment to stick to our new budget, increase our incomes and forget about the credit cards. peace, pam

I'd go for selling the stocks and paying off the credit card debt. Stocks just aren't a sure thing, in essence they are a gamble. You are hoping that they will always earn you money, and that isn't always true. If using the money that is invested in the stocks will get you out of debt and therefore will get you a more secure financial future by not having any debt, then that would be the better way to go, in my opinion. In the future if you have excess funds, and an emergency fund, and no debt, then go for the stock investments. Edey