. >> reporter: but there's only one thing francis mack jr. wants to give the woman who raised him, a proper burial. as much as summers was full of life in, death they feel d.c. has turned their back on her. >> you live 100 plus, most of your life in a city and when you look for assistance, they tell you they can't give it to you because she passed in another city. that's crazy to me. >> reporter: that was the first hurdle. summers died at a nursing home in maryland after breaking her hip in october. the family was denied any assistance because they were told she was no longer a d.c. resident. when the family provided official documentation, they ran into their second hurdle, the funeral home they picked wasn't on the approved list. >> i didn't know there was a list when somebody dies. >> reporter: it's been 2 1/2 weeks since her death. the family will get to say their final good-byes to aunt summers this friday without the government's help. >> paid your taxes, live your life, can't get nothing back. it hurts. it hurts badly. >> reporter: bec

ryan mack and president of francis financial.ot a nice chunk of change back and where is the best place to invest it? >> i have to say congratulations. the first thing you want to do is put it in your emergency fund, three to six months of living expenses put away and then try to put it in a 401(k). put it in $17,000 and the rest can go in your ira up to $5,000, $6,000 if over age 50. >> if you do have extra cash the first thing you should be doing is paying down your debt even if you see attractive investments. >> mathematically sensical, paying 14% on debt is not necessarily the best bet. putting a budget together and making sure you have an allocated amount toward a surplus, make sure it's sustainable over a long period of time, get your estate plan together and get a budget and all of these things are important before you can have a sustained level. >> appreciate it. if you have a question e-mail us any time to cnn help desk@cnn.com. >> poppy harlow. thank you so much. do you remember this little thing that j.c. penney launch

> here on the help desk today we're talking about investing, two great people with me, ryan mack, stacy francisident of francis financial. lots of folks looking at their tax return right now. got a nice chunk of change back. there's one anxious investor in michigan that e-mailed us. she said i have $3,000 in extra cash. where is the best place to invest it? >> i have to say congratulations. the first thing you want to do is put it towards your emergency fund, three to six months of your living expenses, then try to put it in your 401(k) and especially if you get a match. you can put in $17,000 1700$1,7 under age 50. >> i think one of the big things is if you have extra cash and you have debt, the first thing you should be doing is paying down your debt even if you see attractive investments. >> looking at paying 14% on debt and then hoping you can get that in the market is not necessarily the best bet. certain things, putting a budget together, making sure you have an allocated amount toward your surplus. make sure investing is sustainable over a long period of time. get a budget, get an estate

with me to help answer that question, ryan mack and stacy francis, a financial adviser and presidentis the e-mail we got. it came from angela in new jersey. she wrote in, what's the best way to rebuild my credit after filing for bankruptcy? so, ryan, this takes a long time, about seven years, right? >> it does, but you can start right away. even that bankruptcy can still be on your romp, that doesn't mean you can't still have a 750 fico start. getting a secured card, going to a credit union with a loan building program. paying your bills on time. going to automatic bill payment to make sure you pay your bill on time. paying down your debts as fast as possible. going to annual credit report.com and analyzing all your credit reports and taking out all the errors and everything you find in dispute. >> i do wonder how difficult it is to clean up your credit report stacy, and i think it's always worth asking, reaching out to people you owe money to, asking what can i do to get this off my report? >> definitely. it took you a while to hurt your credit score and get into debt, it's going to

with me ryan mack, president of optimum capital management and stacey francis.is the best way to rebuild my credit after filing for bankruptcy? this takes about seven years? >> you can start right away. even though that bankruptcy could still be on your report, that doesn't mean you can't have a 750 fico score. getting a secured car. go to a local credit union, smarter choice.org, paying your bills on time. go to automatic bill payment. pay down your debts as fast as possible. go to annual credit report.com and taking out all the errors and everything you find and dispute on those. >> i wonder how difficult it is to clean up your credit report. >> it took you a while to hurt your credit score. it's going to take a while to come out of it. you want to make those ontime payments. make sure that you are using credit. definitely open up a credit card or secured card and start to rebuild that credit. they didn't build rome in a day. your credit is not going to be fixed in a day. >> appreciate it. >> poppy harlow, thank you for that. up next, one of the world's most f

ryan mack is the president of optimum capital, stacy francis. a question came into us.ds. when will this all be reflected in my credit report? >> it's a big myth. a lot of people think if you carry balances on your credit it helps your fico card. it's a myth. paying down your death, 30% of your fico score is your balance to your total line of credit that you owe. so the faster you pay down your debt, the faster a corporation takes a snapshot. next month he should see a dramatic increase. >> the next month? >> exactly. >> what about closing out those credit cards? for a lot of folks who have a number of different credit cards, they want to get rid of them. closing them can affect their score negatively. >> go ahead and cut it up but don't close it because it will hurt your credit score. if you have two cards and each has a $5,000 credit limit and you have $10,000 in total. you close one and maybe $5,000 is left on this one, you're using your total limit. before you were only using $5,000 of your total limit of $10,000. so don't close them. >> just cut them up. >> cut the