I’m about to start grappling with my own little pile of consumer debt, and would like to add my voice to those already:
a) congratulating you most heartily;
b) expressing gratitude for the inspiration you’re offering us; and
c) asking how you did it.
Way to go, groo!!
lights firecrackers and sets them off in your honor CONGRATULATIONS!
My parents are so far into debt that I’m amazed my mom got approved for a car loan (I know, MORE debt, but she neeeeeeded a car). I’m only about a thousand in debt and I can’t even pay THAT off.
But you, sir, give me hope. bows Enjoy your $350!
~Tasha
Wow! Thanks for the kudos. It seemed impossible when I started trying to set things right.
As for toys, well, I don’t have many – the biggest cost was that over the years, I kept borrowing money to pay the mortgage of an empty condo which was eventually foreclosed. After the foreclosure, I got depressed and started buying crap and eating out “to keep my mood up so that I could continue to advance in my career.” Or some sort of rationalization like that. So I have a motorcycle that I don’t ride often enough to justify, I have a lot of computer stuff and over 1300 DVDs. See, with the DVDs, I rationalized that since I wasn’t dating, I was not spending about $50 a week on dates, so I was allowed to blow that amount on DVDs.
The big shock was when the Defense Investigative Service sat me down and went through my credit record with me because they were worried. That got me scared shitless that I was close to losing my security clearance (and therefore my job). So I worked a lot of overtime, which had dual benefits of earning me more money while simultaneously denying me the free time to buy toys (my weakness has always been Fry’s Electronics). Then I stopped doing anything socially unless it was free, started eating lots of bulk-purchased frozen lasagna and reduced my entire entertainment expenses to whatever was on DirecTV. Then there are miscellaneous non-expenses – I stopped traveling during the holidays, started eating salads for lunch (saving about $2 a day, woo hoo) and generally only spend money for things that are related to (a) work, (b) health care or © car maintenence. And I pay for everything by cash or check – I need to see the money leaving my hands in order to help keep the spending down.
Another little tool I used was that I keep a plot of my total debt over time in my day planner and look at it whenever contemplating a purchase, and whenever I feel the urge to buy something, I require that I go home and think about it for at least a day. All in all, it’s been a pretty dull lifestyle. But I’m feeling pretty good about things right now. I just hope I don’t get complacent.
1300 DVD’s?.. Are there any that you DON’T have?.. With an average price of $15, that is almost $20,000 in DVD’s… wow…
Anyway, congrats. It is totally awesome to see someone recover from that amount of debt…
What do you need double secret top clearance for, or do you have to kill me if you told me…
Cool. Congratulations.
Why do you lose your security clearance for being in debt? Fear of bribes or blackmailing?
groo’s debts are Mulch.
groo…is no longer a Mendicant.
But, is he the Prince of Chichester? 
I am curious what being debt free does to your credit rating. Does this make you more desirable to lenders, or less? On the one hand, you don’t have any debt payments to make, so you have more disposable income. On the other hand, you have less current credit experience on which they can judge your creditworthiness. What do the credit reporting agencies do to your credit rating in theis case?
Yup, you get desperate and do things that you wouldn’t normally do, like sell government secret to soviet spies. If you had those secrets…and there were any soviet spies…and they knew you had government secrets.
Morgyn, I’m 1 yr and 1 mo into my 30 year fixed rate morgage…I still can’t wrap my brain around all the money I owe. But then you can paint the foyer whatever damn color you want.
Words to live by.
Congradulations.
My aunt being such a case. Never had a previous loan out in her life, always pays in cash (not sure why or how as she’s a solicitor and could afford a debit or credit card) debt free too but when she went to take out her first loan, she had no credit history at all and was turned down.
I’ve been paying on my morgage for 4 years now… I think I have only paid like $2000 to principal, yet I send the bank $800 a month… I think they are having a party or something with the rest of my cash…
I think they use it to buy advertisements and big shiny buildings.
Fuckers…
That’s amazing, groo. Congratulations!
Wow! Congrats in spades! Keep up the good work, 'cos that’s just awesome.
Let me add my congrats. I’m proud and pleased, it would have been so easy to just give up. It says a lot about you as a person.
As long as you have some history, it should be fine. Other than my mortgage, we’ve carried no debt for the past ten years or so. My credit score is around 950.
Oh, I know. It’s not the first time I’ve ‘owned’ a place (or rented it from the bank, which is sort of what it feels like), but it’s still so. much. money. that I get nervouser and nervouser thinking about it.
But it’ll be mine. Equity will eventually start to build beyond the 20% down. I can paint the walls, and over time I can put in ceiling fans, or replace carpeting with wood floors . . . all the 1,001 things I’ve wanted to do in so many places, and couldn’t because it wasn’t mine. Even the condo I had before never really felt like mine, although that was probably because it was a garden-apartment style unit, and because I never had the money to make the changes to it I would have liked to to make it mine.
It would help if I had as much self-discipline as groo has shown. I really, really have to get past the “oo, shiney! MINE!” reaction when it comes to books and computers.
Hmmm. I wonder if I should get my Doper name changed to “Magpie”.
I’ve been trying to make a joke involving groo and warrior and fray and debt, but I can’t, so I’ll just add my hearty congratulations!
I was debt-free once. It felt good. 
:eek: Dang ChefDude I was a RealEstate appraiser for 6 yrs…and I NEVER heard for a *950
*…you must get a lot of junk offers…cause if you know it…so do They…just sayin,
Tsfr