# Debt free, way to be: a significant personal milestone. **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [July 29, 2010, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debt-free-way-to-be-a-significant-personal-milestone/548483 "2010-07-29T18:05:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![phouka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c5a1d2/32.png) [@phouka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/phouka)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2010, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debt-free-way-to-be-a-significant-personal-milestone/548483/21 "2010-07-30T22:53:01Z")
My goal, as soon as I can get stable employment, is to pay off my outstanding debt in 1-2 years. Half of it is student loans, a third of the remainder is a very stupid personal loan I took out three years ago, and the remainder is money owed to a friend who floated me through hard times. I can’t wait. ---
**Author:** ![gravitycrash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@gravitycrash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gravitycrash)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2010, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debt-free-way-to-be-a-significant-personal-milestone/548483/22 "2010-07-30T23:11:17Z")
Good job Ogre. Now you’ll be able to save up for the inevitable furnace/AC unit shitting the bed, water heater breaking down and/or the always popular leaking roof! No need for me to mention those pesky car problems. Just sayin. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2010, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debt-free-way-to-be-a-significant-personal-milestone/548483/23 "2010-07-30T23:43:58Z")
Congratulations, **Ogre**! ---
**Author:** ![Ogre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ecb155/32.png) [@Ogre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ogre)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2010, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debt-free-way-to-be-a-significant-personal-milestone/548483/24 "2010-07-30T23:48:35Z")
Whoa! Go out to do some field work, and yer thread blows up! Thanks a lot, guys. I know indebtedness is an endemic problem in the US, and I don’t mean to say we’re completely free and clear (mortgage, etc.), but we have no more life-sucking credit debt. And BigT, through varying fortunes, it’s been about 8 years. We probably would have had it paid off before now, but I came back for my PhD, and they don’t pay us enough to make significant inroads on debt, y’know? ---
**Author:** ![Nocturne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/9fc348/32.png) [@Nocturne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nocturne)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2010, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debt-free-way-to-be-a-significant-personal-milestone/548483/25 "2010-07-31T04:09:21Z")
I will be debt-free by mid-October. While it wasn’t a huge debt, it was huge enough for me. But maybe it was huge because I didn’t know about it for a long time? Perhaps. Also, hi friend **Ogre**. ---
**Author:** ![Ogre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ecb155/32.png) [@Ogre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ogre)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2010, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debt-free-way-to-be-a-significant-personal-milestone/548483/26 "2010-07-31T04:25:13Z")
Holy shit, **Noc**! How are you? What are you doing now? I have a baby! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Huerta88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/82dd89/32.png) [@Huerta88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Huerta88)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2010, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debt-free-way-to-be-a-significant-personal-milestone/548483/27 "2010-07-31T20:06:33Z")
Good job. Even for those who aren’t suffocating under debt, it’s a good time to put as much of your earnings toward debt repayment as possible – interest returns for savings, etc. are hovering close to zero, so by paying off debt that is almost certainly at a higher rate you can de facto achieve a yield with each incremental new dollar of 5% or 10% or 19.5% or whatever your old debt is at (almost sure to be significantly higher than current money market/CD yields). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debt-free-way-to-be-a-significant-personal-milestone/548483.md?page=1)