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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Being debt free is priceless. Priceless.[/quote]

I think I have to agree with you. Being debt free is the best way to go, especially during a recession.[/quote]

What a timely question.  I just paid off our mortgage at the end of January.

A little background.  Borrowed 260K in 2002 when I bought my house, before I was even married.   I was 23, what was I thinking.  Refi'd into a 15 year loan in 2010 when I did a big remodel.  House has grown with the family.  Balance then was around...225K?  I did a lot of the remodel myself and we paid with savings, so no added debt.  By January this year, I realized that we had around $180K cash in the bank (savings, checking, etc) and that paying off the mortgage balance of $110K basically saved me 15K in interest over the next 6-7 years.  Plus, as stated above, nothing is a good as being debt-free feels.  We still have a nice cushion of cash, and any "emergency" that needs more than maybe 20K is likely an *insured* emergency and will have other resources to draw from.  Medical issue, house fire, etc.

Also relevant info, we are a 5-person family, 3 children.  We live on one income, presently, mine, and I earn around $160K a year as a federal employee with about 19 years in.  We drive older cars but we own them, and when we replace them we will pay with cash.  I have a TSP account that I contribute to, and I don't sit around worrying about "retirement" because some people never make it there.  I also don't ignore the future and live like an idiot.  Its not like we have a firehose of money on us, especially living around here.  We make it work and it does fine.

No credit card debt, no automobile debt, no student debt, no mortgage debt.  Do we have bills?  Of course!  If you're not paying bills, you're a child, or you're not vertical anymore.  Nothing beats [i]debt free[/i].  Some days, if I feel a little down, for whatever reason, a bit grumpy, kids whining about something silly, maybe something at work isn't ideal (though like my job a lot)....I just have to remember "[i]I'm debt free.[/i]"  It never gets old.

As someone else wrote...if you try debt free and dont like it, just go take out another mortgage.  (Maybe spend it on some fancy cars, then pay it off over 30 years when the cars are gone in maybe 10. ??)[/quote]

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