I don't know about you but I am sick and friggin tired of hearing only about the economy. I'm tired of the way the media (all of the media, yes, Fox included) covers it. Foreclosures are up 50%. Ok, let's put that in perspective. This time last year, the rate was 8%, now it's 12% which means that 88% of us are still paying our mortgages on time, as contractually agreed.
I would bet that at least half of that 88% is going nuts trying to refinance to take advantage of the ridiculously low rates. I just refied from 6.5 to 4.5 on a 30 year loan. Fuck yeah. Saved my ass $275 a month. Better in my pocket than in Bank of Americas.
My family recently took a pledge to get the hell out of debt and live on cash (or at least money that we have in the bank). Including the house, that comes out to $375,000. The plan that I'm on now has us debt free by 2018. 9 years for 375K sounds reasonable I think. Maybe a little aggressive but by that time, my middle son will be starting college and assuming he goes to a state school, I should be able to pay cash for his college while still putting away 20% of my income for retirement.
So, to hell with credit cards and paying banks interest while they give you none to almost no interest on the money that you give them. Who's with me?
I'm with you
We've keep our debt down for a long time. We use our credit card a lot, but we always pay it off in full each month. We a home loan that we will be done with in about 9 years. Got a new car about 8 moths ago, so when those are done, no more debt for us.