As of a $69.50 payment to my credit card company and a $20.91 payoff payment on my second car today, I now only owe my student loan and my house mortgage.
Time to shove an @$$load of monthly income into savings and investments … and whiskey.
Congratulations! I know what an amazing relief it can be to get out from under the debt load.
Damn, you rock!
(Don’t go into debt buying whisky…)
I am totally debt free. I don’t owe anyone shit.
Yeah!!!
I don’t owe anyone shit either, but if anyone wants, it’s free for the taking! Come and get it!
Suggestion for the OP: Could you have afforded to make the same payments for one month longer, or maybe two? Dedicate that amount of money for a celebration! If whiskey is your thing, okay. Or take a three-day road trip. Or whatever hedonistic pleasure suits your fancy. Then after that you can start shoving an @$$load of your income into savings and investments.
Dave Ramsey advocates (and sells) a 7-step plan for getting out of debt. OP is at step 2 Next is to get a 3- to 6-month emergency fund.
- Save $1,000 starter emergency fund
- Pay off all debt (except mortgage) using the debt snowball
- Save 3-6 months expenses as an emergency fund
- Invest 15% into a retirement fund (ongoing)
- Save for your children’s education fund
- Pay off the mortgage
- Build wealth and give
The debt snowball is to pay off your smallest commercial debt first – regardless of the APR involved – while paying the minimums on the rest. Then apply that amount to your second until that is gone, and so on until they are all paid off. This is the tough part of the process.
His phrase is, “Beans and rice – rice and beans, and you don’t see inside of a restaurant unless you work there.” After that you can have the occasional splurge without guilt.
The large emergency fund is so if you get laid off or something you get some breathing room without falling back into debt.
It is a great feeling to be truly debt-free. 
I paid off last debt (my mortgage) when I was 54.
I’ve never smoked, drink only at weddings (‘to the bride and groom!’ and always paid my credit card off in full each month.
Fortunately my main hobby is chess - which is not expensive.
Oh, yeah? I kid, I kid.
It is a good feeling. Our last big debt transaction was refinancing our mortgage and rolling a HELOC into it - resulting in a lower payment than the two separate loans. Yeah, it’s for a longer term, but that’s what we chose. We no longer have car loans and we use our credit card for pretty much everything, paying it off as we go along.
The biggest problem I have now is reminding myself that we’re retired and this is the time of life we’d been saving for, so it’s OK to touch the retirement funds if we want to. It’s been a weirdly difficult paradigm shift.
Congrats! We’ve been totally debt free since about 2005, when we paid off the mortgage on our last home. Since then, it’s been cash for anything we buy (including this house) and the credit cards are paid off at the end of every month. As a result, we will have a pile of cash when we sell this place in a couple of months and move into a rental unit, and will be able to help our grandkids with college or other educational endeavors. It’s a good feeling.
When I retired I sold my house in Chicago which gave me enough money to pay off the mortgage balance and all of my credit card debt; there was a good chunk left over which I invested. I moved to North Carolina and rented a condo for a year and a half, then bought a house. I took out a 15-year mortgage for about a third of the cost of the house, and between paying extra on the principal and refinancing at one point, I paid off the mortgage in less than ten years.
I pay off all my credit cards in full every month so I don’t accumulate any more debt. I watch my expenses so I don’t spend more than my pension, and I’ve got enough of a pad to cover anything that might come up.
@Saint_Cad — congratulations! Nicely done. Enjoy your whiskey!
I’ll plug the Dave Ramsey program too. Its a good one. My wife and I took his ‘Financial Peace University’ course several years ago and have benefited from it greatly.
We also apply some of Robert Kiyosaki’s approaches too. He’s the author of Rich Dad, Poor Dad*.
\* — I’m now 60 and remember watching the 1976 TV miniseries, *Rich Man, Poor Man* as a 15 year old teenager. And today, Nick Nolte is 81, Peter Strauss is 75, and Susan Blakely is 73. But I digress…This.
My wife and I retired about six months apart. I told her at the time it was now okay to tap into that savings account which wasn’t earning shit, while our retirement investments continued to grow (until about six weeks ago, anyway…)
Congratulations, St. Cad. I reached a point where the only debt I had was my mortgage and then got a credit card for FF miles. I’m working my way free of that debt (because I had several small emergencies happen at once, was grateful for the card). If I find a decent job, it will only several months before that one is zero too.
I listened to Ramsey a lot back in the day. I have completed 1-6 and am working on #7.
I used to wince when his followers would scream “I’m debt freeeeeee”! But I gotta admit, when I attained that goal I had to restrain myself from going up on the roof and doing the same.
Whether or not I obtain “wealth” depends on your definition.
mmm
The only debt I have is the mortgage on my apartment in New York City, which I’m renting to a long-term tenant. The rent covers the mortgage and common charges.
I have no credit card card debt and I own both my car and my primary residence, a house in NC, free and clear.
I don’t have a lot of financial stress. It’s nice.
I have no interest in paying off the mortgage on the rental property before I sell it - if I don’t decide to sell it off in 5 years or so, I might refinance if the market conditions are right. I like having a big mortgage interest deduction.
I understand the psychology behind this, but I’d be unable to do anything but pay the highest APR first. But I’ve been debt free except for mortgage and a tiny college debt since 1980. I paid off the mortgage after the tax law changed and I no longer got a tax break for having it. It was small enough - $1,000 a month, that I didn’t get a thrill from doing it.
Also debt free. Own my home and cars. Made my last car payment a few days ago. I put most everything on a credit card and pay it off every month fully.
Oddly, my FICO will probably drop from 850 to 830 or so. There are no loans to keep track of.
Not even mutual respect? I stress the “mutual” element here