I just made the last credit card payment of my life. Now I have to finish paying for the teenager’s braces, then save up for a truck, then I’ll attack the student loan. After that, if the 2nd mortgage is still around, I’ll attack it. No more debt for me. Ever. I’m a happy man today. 
But what about the economy. By refusing to buy things on credit you’re not stimulating the economy. If you’d charge that $500 TV, then the people making the TV would have jobs. The people delivering your new TV would have jobs. The people selling the TV in the store would have jobs. When you go bankrupt the lawyer you hire would have a job and he could use that money to buy a new TV that would stimulate the economy…
Congratulations.
I just paid off my house last month. Now, on to the credit card debt (I figured it was better to have unsecured debt), and I’m done.
Mark, I’m stimulating MY economy. What happens in my house is much more important than what happens in the White House.
Isn’t the fact that so many Americans (myself included) have so much credit card debt (and other debt) and not enough savings… part of the problem?
So paying off debt (and saving money) is good for the economy!
Congrats! It was a banner day for us when we paid off the mortgage and became unbeholding to any moneylenders. Keep up the good fight.
Sigh. I’m diving headfirst in the other direction. I was blissfully debt-free a few years ago, then made the decision to go back to grad school, living mostly off student loans. It’s stressful to be heading downward, and my (admittedly pathetic) dreams are of writing that first check to start paying them off.
I paid off the last of my debts last week and that one was to my husband. I still have some minor bills to pay – the usual stuff. But no more debt. That’s the first time since 1966 when I had to pay for having major surgery. (I think the doctor charged $500.)
My first charge was in 1956 when I paid $10 for a sweater set. I thought that I would never get that paid off. I think I had only a dollar a week allowance. Of course, I didn’t have a credit card, but it was a small town and my mother approved the arrangement to teach me a lesson. It worked…for a while.
If you have a charge card, never, never, never pay just the minimum amount.
After the trainwreck that was my decade of the Zeroes (stress than collapse of my life due to debt, consumer proposal, 5 years of threadbareness, then the final payment and climbing back to level ground), I am now debt-free. And a good thing too. If I’d been laid off while in debt, I would have been screwed. 
I have a credit card again; I pay off each charge as it appears, via online banking.
I think Mark was being facetious.
Congrats Rafe. Maybe one day I’ll get there.
I just ran our numbers, and we’ll be debt-free in 10 years, so no more:
- Car note
- Loan for New Roof
- Loan for Asbestos Removal, added into 2nd Mortgage
- 1st Mortgage
That’s only paying an extra $350 a month, which is reasonable (I hope). It just seems so far away…
The first will be done by 11/2011, then a double payoff of the car and 2nd Mortgage in 11-12-2015. Then the 1st will be done by June of 2021.
Has anyone done a long term snowball? Does it work, and is it worth it?
Then you can call in to Dave Ramsey’s radio show after you are bankrupt, giving him a job while he offers advice. Then viewers would listen, which would mean advertisers would want to put up ads on his show, which means more manufacturing and service jobs in those areas.
Snowball is what we are doing. I’m putting it on hold to pay for the afore-mentioned braces and truck, but then starting again to finish the student loan and 2nd mortgage. It works. Really.
And our inspiration was Dave Ramsey, whom Wesley Clark mentioned. Don’t do the snowball by order of interest rate–arrange the debts from smallest balance to largest. You see them falling off and the momentum builds. Mrs. Hollister got us in a world of hurt by running the business into the ground and racking up numerous debts, hiding it all from me. Finally, we were 2 days from losing our house because she hadn’t paid the 2nd mortgage (SBA loan secured by the house) in 4 months. Closed the business in Oct. '06 and she’s had a couple crappy-paying jobs since then and still is below $10/hr. Fortunately, I am doing pretty well, so we are quite a bit above the median here in our area. As of yesterday, we have paid off $56K in 36 months.