Thursday, August 13, 2009

What Are You Pleased With Financially?

For the next "conversation starter" question from August's Money magazine, let's go with:

What am I pleased with about our financial life?

This one's easy: Every single day I am grateful that we're debt-free except for the mortgage.

I was pretty torn with the answer to my first question ("What's your biggest money worry?"). Not so this time. With no car loans, student loans, or credit-card debt hanging over your head, life is much more pleasant. Morning sunlight on your kitchen table is brighter. Mesquite smoke from your backyard grill smells smokier. (Grilled sausages, anyone?)

And perhaps best of all, your Cash Flow Box stays pretty darn empty. (Read the linked post; an empty Cash Flow Box is a good thing!)

Last year, when we paid off our 2006 Accord — a 5-year note which we zeroed out in just 990 days — that meant we were officially "debt-free except for the mortgage" for the second time. We'd hit the same mark in May of 2005 when I said "So Long!" to Sallie Mae.

For those who are wondering: Yes, it was just as good the second time!

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— Posted by Michael @ 8:09 AM








3 Comments:
 

Been DF (except for mortgage) for a few years now. Loving it every day. Thanks for the reminder

Blogger sam
, at 6:31 AM, August 16, 2009  
 

My house. Thanks to the Dave Ramsey program, my boyfriend and I paid off approx $50K in debt that allowed us to recently buy our own home (on a small AZ lake) with my income only. We still have some debt to go, but we lived like no-one else (read ugly and cheap places) so later we could live like no one else.

Anonymous kIRA
, at 1:19 PM, August 17, 2009  
 

Congratulations Michael! It does feel good doesn't it? We are blessed to be in a similar situation up here in WNY... we are debt-free except for our mortgage. Only 100 more payments @4.25% and our house will be paid off (can't wait). And with less than 20 years to go before our retirement, our main focus is to build up our retirement funds (401k's and Roth IRA's). We have enough emergency funds set aside for 12 months of expenses; our Freedom Account is working beautifully with 15 categories; and we continue to make 2 car monthly payments to the bank of "us" (ING savings) for our next new-to-us cars. Basically, the track we started running on about 7 years ago has been working great. Every dollar we make has a job to do, planned in advance, with minor tweaking over the years. We discovered that we have a lot more freedom and choices without the worry of debt. All of your wonderful advice on this site works... and also our hats off to Mary Hunt, Dave Ramsey, and all the other financial gurus that played a part in our debt-free mindset! Slow and steady really does win the race! Wish us well as we try to build our retirement funds in this turbulent market. God bless you and the work you do helping others on their road to debt freedom!

Anonymous ExcelGeek
, at 6:11 AM, September 01, 2009  
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