As of today, I am DEBT FREE!
 

Just got my final payment for painting the shop and went right to my bank today and paid off the remainder on my loan! Thats a $350 a month payment gone for good!

No more credit cards, no more loans and everything I own is mine! :bigtu: Feels fucking fantastic.

CONGRATS!!!


Really good going man.

Now stay that way!

time for more mods?

you are hurting our economy by not borrwing above your means!!

some poor illegal immigrant is going to go without his welfare check to buy an ipad because of you!

welcome to the .000058%

Congrats, man. Feels good, don't it?

You renting or own your home outright too?

was six figures deep in debt in Jan of this year. We could technically be 100% debt free today...will be soon.

He's renting if I recall the chipmunk thread correctly.:rofl:

Own outright for me. Paid off in October.

A couple more years for me and I'll be there again. Damn student loans. Congrats, man.

Damn congrats man, that's a great feeling for sure. I was debt free for years then when my business went to shit with the economy...well, I has teh debts again.

Thanks bros!

Still renting. Hoping to have enough to start building something when I turn 30 (I have less than 3 years to do it).

For now I'd like to put some money into both the concrete company and my ebay gig. Both could use some funding for various reasons. Otherwise every dollar I make that isn't for bills is going into savings.

Miata is actually on the back burner again. Sure I'll keep driving it, but I wont be putting any money into it for awhile. :hs:

I'm 28 with 7 figures of debt... yes, that's not a typo... thanks mom & dad! :)

Grats Vash!

thanks? :hustler:

Good work, mang! At worst, being out of debt gives you options - and you're the right age to still have options.

they left me more equity than debt... barely

Good job mang, now get with the program and buy a house! lol

$420,000 in school loans. 8.xx% Grant Plus.

Payoff - 30 years. lol.

wtf. i hope you didnt get a doctorate in women's studies.

Vash - congrats! For the vast majority of people, debt free is a great way to go if possible.

I am totally lost. How do you have $1,000,000+ of debt after your parents left you with more equity than debt? Did they leave you a $1 mil mortgage on property worth $1.1 mil or something?

I'm not asking for specific numbers or personally identifiable details, but you can't throw that teaser out there and leave it completely unexplained!

Of course, it depends on a lot of variables, but I would be in no rush to buy a house.

Congratulations Vash. Join the exclusive club of those that pay their own way, and don't owe anyone anything.

Congrats Vash!

You would be one of the last people on this thread I would suspect of having 6 figure debt. Student loans I presume, or was it the Ferraris?


Myself, I will (hopefully) never be in debt. If I want schooling, the it will be payed for. Another excellent reason to join the military. :brain:

(Sent from phone via capitalism)

Sold a house.

Sorry to hear that. That situation would really piss me off.

Congrats, I hate you now, but congrats. Its just bitter jealously. :)

Attachment 240170


In all seriousness, it's a really good feeling, ain't it?

Wish I were in the same position. :sad2:

congrats to you!

I certainly hope you make lots o money with that degree- and hope you never have to file bankruptcy because of it - student loans do not go away in bankruptcy from what I understand

Starting new business 6 months ago, I am virtually debt free there, and we just refi'd from a 30yr to a 15yr @ 3.25% - and paying LESS than what we were on the 30...

Congrats Vash on the freedom!

I have a family member who (who had several advanced degrees including an MD) was in the same boat. He had 2 houses paid off before his student loans. He is now retired and balling hard. In the end, it was worth it for him.

Congrats bro.

Same boat myself, with exception to the house. I do use the plastic, but I pay it off each month. Cards can offer additional protections against using cash plus you get points. Any purchases made on revolving credit are paid off that month, then the points are accumulated and eventually redeemed. There is no extra cost to me, and we get something cool out of it over time.

It takes a lot of will power to make sure I don't charge over my ability to pay off that month. The way I do it is I have a rule of 3, meaning I must have enough available cash to purchase 3 of the item I want at that time. If I can't buy 3, then I can't buy 1.

I'll also sometimes make large purchases on plastic if there is a 0% long term finance option. This is rare, but I've done it. I'll pay it off at minimum 1 month before end of term. Example, say I buy a new appliance for $1k with 18 month same as cash terms. First, I make sure we have $3k available as liquid cash. If I do and go through with the purchase, I make sure that that the payments are paid on time and finished by month 17; that's $59/mo in this example over 17 months. This keeps my cash available and it's also really good for the credit score. That's a more complicated issue though, and has other factors.

I'm hoping to build rather than buy. I've actually already played around with blueprints in hopes that I can go that route.

The loan was a consolidation of all my credit cards that I got carried away with at one point. Lesson learned.

I wish I cared this much about money 5 years ago before I went through it like water. lol

Today was a good day. :)

You have the right idea, just add about a million to that property value.

This is true.

I sorta misspoke. I saved hard for for years and had 6 figures in the bank in. On Jan '11 I sold my house and was only actually now 5 figures in debt. now it's down to a low 4 figure number and will all be paid off completely by the end of next month, next ill buy a new cheap house with a garage and yard.

Too many bargains in the housing market to build right now. I cannot stand debt (completely debt free including the house) but I would have no problem going into debt to buy a first house.

For a data point, we finally got everything paid off on 9/11/09 (42 years old) so you are definitely well ahead of where I was. Fantastic job!


It is actually around 20%. My guess is that number will rapidly drop as the baby boomers die off.

http://ninjageneration.com/wp-conten...artoon-Big.jpg

http://investing.curiouscatblog.net/...sus-saving.png

(the steep drop on the red line is people defaulting on their loans)

141K more and I'm with ya........stupid house.

At least with a house theres equity.

I can't wait to experience this. Pretty much since I was 16, I have been in constant debt. I think I finally have a job that will allow me to pay it all off, relatively quickly at that. Congrats on being debt free. Not many people reach the point of being completely debt free.

Hey, now that you are debt free don't forget about investing some money. You have a fantastic opportunity now to build a nice nest egg. The market will take off again in the near future and the more you initially have in there the more it will grow.


This chart does not have the years marked on it but the last green period ended in '99.
http://www.mywealth.com/blog/sites/d...es/100YEAR.JPG

I don't see a problem, we are just doing the same thing our government does and teaches us.

http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/mt...x314-49343.png

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ibu2Q2sZy8...40-to-2010.gif

Is that why I went into debt, and emptied out my six figure bank account when I sold mine?

:jerkit:

Oh yeah, you love bubbles...

As Brain alluded to, that is a gross oversimplification at best. You could theoretically have $100k equity in a house with no mortgage that you ended up paying over $250k for. On one hand, you've got $100k equity. On the other hand, you lost $150k.

I recommend people only buy a house if they believe they will live there for a long time - which would entail a strong sense of job security and roots in that community. The biggest problem with houses today (and I expect in the near to intermediate future) is lack of liquidity. It takes away a lot of mobility for young people (i.e. changing jobs, moving to new locations, etc).

If you are disciplined, rewards based credit cards are great. Like you said, you've got additional protections built in plus "free money" via the rewards (our main one is a cash-back Visa). We recently picked up a new car for the Mrs. and called to up the credit limit so we could put a big chunk through the card.

:facepalm:

yeah but we cant print fake money :)

When I get into the Marines I'm thinking of doing something equivalent to putting a dollar a day into a roth IRA. Probably a percentage of my paycheck, my bro said they talked to the recruits about it at boot camp.

lol, no wonder your a librarian.

I take money out of my paycheck every two weeks for my Roth (and my wife's as well). It is automatically withdrawn and transferred to Etrade. Every three months I purchase stock with it (manually). We currently max out both Roths and my 401K. I don't really worry too much about the market dropping because that means I am buying new shares at a cheaper price.

you should worry more about historically high days.

smileyface.

what about my librarian?

that's retarded when you have a yearly limit of $2,000. you should be putting $5 a day into it; like the Brain.

Assuming he is putting in a fixed dollar amount per purchase period, he is buying fewer shares at the higher prices while buying more shares at the lower prices (in addition to actually adding money).

Why does he have a $2k yearly limit for Roth contributions?

Did not know about the yearly limit, what if I had multiple IRAs? Then again I think they can be taxed so maybe I'll just be like the Brain.

cause thats the way Roth IRAs work. it's either 2K or 5K a year limit, and if you make over a certain amount a year you cannot do them.

I dont think you can, or when you report it, the gov't wont like what you did when they audit you.

roths aren't taxed, you load them up with pretaxed dollars, then when you withdraw after 40 years of exponential growth, you do not have to pay taxes on them. thats the reason they are so bomb and why you should contribute as much as possible to them.

Another upside is compounding interest right? Or am I thinking of something else?

no, that's the main benefit. taxewd now, grow, then you dont pay taxes on it later when its worth millions.

Can you have more then one?

I am not sure where you are coming up with the $2k per year limit. The maximum contribution is $5k per year for those under age 50, up to earned income, subject to phase-outs (beginning at $169k for a married couple and $107k for single, AGI).

$2k is an old contribution limit, which you may be thinking of.

You may have multiple traditional IRAs and Roths at any given time, however, your annual contributions are capped in aggregate. Said another way, if you were eligible to contribute $5k for the year, it would be a total of $5k among all of them. Deductible traditional IRAs have lower income eligibility phase-outs.

i let my broker handle my money. i cant keep track of the limits, like I said, I've breached the earned income, so only give to my various roll-over and trad. iras.

I don't mess with brokers any more. Years ago I had one and stopped in to buy a stock with my wife. He talked me out of buying $4K of Compaq stock (worth about $400,000 just a few years later). I figure if they actually knew anything (other than some legal and accounting stuff) they would be living on a beach somewhere.

A decent money manager will help you with tax sheltering, diversifying/allocation, risk assessment, investment prioritizing, etc. They aren't just there to give specific stock advice. People who are exclusively brokers are extremely rare these days.

I was talking about 1989. It was an Edward Jones office.