That’s Swell

I just have to announce…I just paid off the last $207 on our credit card! That means….drumroll please…we don’t have anymore credit card debt!

I am so psyched – so I had to share with you all, of course. When David and I got married we had about 5 credit cards between us (I think about $5,000, can’t remember exactly) and now, since being married from Aug. 2005, we are credit card FREE! So within a year and a half we have been able to get them all paid off, establish an emergency fund, and even buy David a new camera. It has been difficult, I am such a spender at heart, so trying to stick to a budget has been very hard for me to handle (I still fall off the wagon every now and then). But we are going to be a no credit card family from now on. Credit is just dumb. Buy now, pay later – it’s such a scheme the credit card companies pull, trying to convince us we NEED this now, and we can PAY for it later – so get it NOW! All the while, we are living way beyond our means and then find ourselves in huge debt.

Like I said, I am a spender, so keeping a budget and getting out of debt has been a completely different way of thinking for me, I just wasn’t taught to avoid debt. But we received Dave Ramsey’s Total Money Makeover for a wedding gift, and things have been looking better ever since. I highly recommend buying his book (or any of them), or if you live near me, you can borrow it (I love loaning it out!). We always buy it for newlywed couples now, because it was one of the smartest things I ever read and literally changed my life (it sounds cheesy, but it did!).

So this is a long post to say – we are out of credit card debt! Now I can cut up our credit card tonight! But now that means it’s time to start paying (above the minimum required) on the student loans…but eventually we will be debt free, so it’s nice to take the small steps and feel like we have accomplished something, it makes the rest (and the mountains of student loans) seem bearable.

(picture via Flickr member w_yvr)