Community Chat

[RedTop]

We only have our monthly expenses; paid our mortgage off 20 years ago, and have been debt free for many years.

[Fifi1]

We only have insurance, taxes and utilities, charity. We paid off our home early, bought my new vehicle with cash in October. Have an Am X so must be paid in full monthly. I do have two CC, but pay the balance when I purchase but maintain benefits of rewards with the cards. We both have always had solid careers, so are fortunate that way. We paid our sons college as he attended so he'd have no debt. I love to shop and decorate, travel, but will cut back as dh is taking early retirement at 58. Honestly living debt free, if you are able is wonderful. We never over spent, and that was key, with two incomes. I see others way in debt, that never should be!

[lulu2]

We do live debt free. If only we could live property tax and insurance free. (thank you NJ)

[dobiesrule]

Future, that is awesome! At any age, but at 34, it is tremendous. I am much older than you, but am debt free which is such a great feeling.

[SnowPink]

On 1/3/2015 FUTURE said: Yes! We have no CC debt, paid off my car after having it for 5 months this year, and I told hubby that for my birthday, I don't want a mortgage anymore. That is the plan. I will be 34 this year, and will be beside myself having no mortgage. My parents and his parents still have one, so I never imagined at my age I wouldn't! We've been extremely blessed, and will hunker down tight for the next 6-8 months and try to get this thing paid off! We will have been here for 5 years, which I think is a great accomplishment. Now I'm just saying my prayers that we stay to the plan and are healthy and wise. We will still have hubby's school loans (not too much), and his car payment (0% interest, so it doesn't matter to us), and those will be next. After a VACATION!!!

Wooohoooo!

[minkbunny]

Yes, we are debt free, have been for many, many years.

As others said, other ongoing bills such as insurances, utilities, routine home and vehicle maintenance, food, etc. are expenses enough. I cannot imagine have a mortgage and vehicle payments as well.

Best to those of you on the debt free journey. It is a good feeling indeed.

[Lacey1]

Be aware, that being debt-free will not give you a good credit score. Managing your debt and not missing payments will give you a high score.

People that pay cash for everything will be surprised when they check their credit scores. I tried to explain this to a co-worker. She had saved enough money to pay her daughter's first year, college tuition. I told her she should get a no annual fee, credit card that offers points/rewards and use that to pay the tuition bill. She said, 'Oh, no. I don't want to owe on a credit card'. I explained to her that if she had the money, already-she could pay off the credit card amount with the first payment, and enjoy the rewards. She just didn't understand how credit works.

[Irshgrl31201]

My husband and I became completely debt free a little over 2 yrs ago. The only debt we had at that time was our house which we had lived in for almost 2 yrs. We put down a big down payment and then paid it off in a lump sum just shy of our 2nd anniversary there. We worked really hard to do that. It feels good having no debt at 44 yrs old. A lot of blood sweat and tears went into that. We both grew up in families where debt was a bad word. My father drilled that into me at a very young age. We do have credit cards but pay the balance at the end of each month.

I have an girl I used to work long ago that took a picture of her monthly truck payment which is almost $700 a month. It was a brand new truck that probably cost around $29-$30k. They have bad credit so their interest rate on their loan is ridiculous. She took a pic of the of her car payment from her car payment book. It was like she was bragging about it. She doesn't work and her husband can't make more than $35k a year yet they have a car payment like that. I thought to myself, what a stupid woman. They could have saved that for 4 months and bought a nice used car. I don't understand this kind of thinking about finances yet it seems to be perfectly acceptable in the US. No wonder we are in such a mess. Paying off credit with credit.

Congrats to everyone who is working to be debt free. I love to listen to Dave Ramsey each night and I think he is helping so many people and getting Americans to wise up to being debt free. I have some of his books in my book case in my office of my rental properties. Quite a few of my employees have asked about them so I bought them for all of the employees and sent them to seminars of his if they expressed an interest. I try not to push it on people because it is a personal decision but the people who have expressed an interest have all gotten them. I got my daughter and her husband one a couple of years ago and at 25 and 27 they only have one debt, his student loan but he has put a lot of money towards it and only owes $75 each month. He will be paying that off in full at the end of January when he gets his commission check she just told me the other day.

[Margo Channing]

We are totally debt free. It is a wonderful feeling.

[Chalcedony]

My only debt is my mortgage, and I will take on a new one when I buy a new house in the next few months. I believe carrying a mortgage is a good decision from a personal finance POV, so I will likely always carry one.