$60,000 in debt now gone!! Took 6 years to do it but I am a free man!!!!

Good for you! I bet it feels great to be out from under such a burden! Congrats.

AWESOME JOB!

Now see if you can save that much in the next 6 years!

It's a great feeling isn't it?  

Job well done!

Congratulations!

Gig 'em,

backbencher

Now, pay off all the bills, Car, HE LOC, ect ect
save up 6 months of living expenses
use newly learned bugeting to pay off house, (odds are you can make it into a 10 year note, with a refinance , low rate, a 15 year loan, and extra principal)
celebrate in 11 years knowing you can actually sustain your standard of living on your income.
BTW AWESOME JOB, I was in the same hole until last month but mine was very shallow. only 4k at the start,.

Congratulations, that is a huge burden off your back and I can understand what you probably went through to get to this point. My wife (age 41) and I (age 39) are in a similar boat. In the past six years she has had five surgeries (one on her big toe (really bad bunion), three on her shoulder (most recent was a total shoulder replacement), and a few years ago a total hip replacement). Add in some other poor financial choices (keeping up with the Jonses and all that), and we found ourselves $45k in debt. The interest on that kind of debt was debilitating and we just couldn't make headway paying it down. We worked out a deal with my folk who gave us a loan of $30k at 5% to be repaid over 3 years. We just passed the halfway mark on it. The remaining $15K we moved to a 0% APR credit card for 18 months and have paid that down in the past 18 months to $7k (just moved that $7k to a different credit card deal for another 18 months at 0% APR).

We also got our financial house in order in that time. We no longer are trying to keep up with the Jonses (moving from SoCal to MN helped big time in many ways), paid off one car note, sold the expensive second car and bought a cheaper one which will be paid off in full in three months, and most importantly no longer use credit cards and live within our means. Thanks to being better at managing our finances, along with paying off our debts, we are able to fully fund our retirements and have socked away an additional $10K that acts as an emergency fund and future house downpayment (plan on having $15k saved by this time next year).

Once we pay off the loan to my folks, one remaining credit card, and wife's car, only debt we will have is our student loans (which altogether are $450/month at a very low APR). Excluding our student loans, paying off all our current debt will free up ~$1,500/month in discretionary income.

Can't wait for that day to come and to join those of you who have done what it takes to become debt free.

Awesome!!  $60k in 6 years is quite a feat.

Impressive sir!

I congratulate you on a job well done and lessons learned,

kickass

Nice work!

The interest alone on that much revolving debt must have been eating you alive. Congratulations on your newly increased spending (and saving) power.

Getting that 800lb gorilla off your back must be an awesome feeling. Good for you!

For what it's worth I keep a couple of credit cards on-hand for day-to-day purchases. With that said, I tend not to buy anything that I can't pay off at the end of the month and zero the balances back out. The credit card companies make zero on me in interest, but I get all the benefits of purchase protection and Southwest air miles. Between traveling for work and using my Southwest card, my girls get to fly for free a few times per year.

Before getting married I was a mess with money. Fortunately for me my wife showed me the way.

Posted Via AR15.Com Mobile

It's been a huge weight off my shoulders. Now I can think about buying a house and not renting. Car is paid for too so that's huge as well. You have to hate the garbage leftover from a divorce.

gold - currency of kings

silver - currency of merchants

credit - currency of slaves

Very good .

All I carry is a mortgage .

That is great man.  Mine was just over $24K.  My then fiance said she wasn't going to marry my debt and
developed a plan to use my commission (at the time I was in water treatment) and it took 18 months and it
was gone.  I have not held a balance on any credit card since.  The only debt we have is the mortgage and
a few more months on my Jeep.

Congrats.

I'm really happy for you.

excellent job, very well done.  I know how you feel.  I had 175K in student loan debt, we are down to 138 and going.  Thanks uncle sam for your generous 6.8% fixed loan that can't be refincanced because the gov bought up all the student loans.  I sure am glad obama cares about me

Wow, I hope you are at least a physician or lawyer, or have one heck of a marketable masters degree (or went to one of those Ivy League colleges where the networking and connections you made there will be a big payoff post graduation). I do feel some degree of pity for younger people today who are going for their college education and don't have parents that are able to foot the bill. When I graduated high school in '91 I went to the local community college for three years trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life (I spent a lot of time at the beach surfing and taking less than challenging courses, so over three years I really didn't accomplish much academically). I remember I paid something like $7 or 8 per unit at that time (most courses were 3-4 units each) and since I was living with mom and dad I didn't have many expenses like rent/utilities/etc. Eventually I obtained two vocational degree, hit he labor market, then went back a decade later to get my bachelors degree from a 4 year State college. Since I was working full time it took me four years to obtain my bachelors going mostly to night classes, but even then (finished around '05) I remember only paying something like $1,200/semester (not including books - which did add a few hundred more per semester). What probably saved me a lot of money was not attending a four year college for all four years, and also not living on campus. My wife's student loans for her Master's Degree was like $40k, but it is around 2.3%.

Hope you can continue to pay down that student loan debt quickly so it doesn't hang around your neck like a noose. Best of luck.

Congratulations....got mine paid off a while back...still use the card for some purchases so I am not always running by the ATM for cash.....but it gets paid off on pay day....

Ditto, I can not imagine having that kind of debt!!!!!



Good going!!!!!!!!!!

Great feeling! Just home left for me!



Keep it up!


 

You gotta feel wonderful OP!!

Good work sticking to your mission for 6 years!

I'm working on getting rid of about $30K right now, along with two car payments.

What a fucking idiot.

Great job. Got rid of $16,000 several years ago. Funny thing is I teach personal finance at the high schoo level now. Most everything I teach them is from mistakes I have made. Again, great job.