congratulations, V! We knew you could do it.
excellent job melting the C.C.s, been C.C. free for over ten years. You'll love the extra lung capacity, you'll feel like lance armstrong.

I'll see you around. 'been busy lately, the next month may see more time.

:celebrat:
Great news, V. I'm glad you're back.

Hooray! Don't worry, the debt will be back down in no time. You used it exactly the way responsible people are supposed to. You'll recover in no time.

A clarification:

wrt the credit cards--I do feel they were used in the situation when they were most needed, and mostly in a responsible way. But my reference to "melting" them was an allusion to the affect on the poor little plastic rectangle from *heavy use*. Industrial freakin use, and it was not an industrial grade tool.

I'm in the position now of having lived on credit for, say, three months. My new income isn't twice my previous level consumption, and I will have to live well below my means to retire the debt. That's the only way, of course, and I know that, and I'm really ready to do it. Looking forward to it. But I can't retire it at the rate I accumulated it, probably not at half the rate. :frown: But. I have a well established habit of paying down debt. It has been steadily diminishing since...dunno, maybe ten years. The unemployment caused the total debt level to increase, and there have been some high dollar expenses that increased the level as well (college for two, a new roof), but the number will go away.

Possibly tmi--as much as a I hate the debt load, I will not sacrifice our savings to accelerate the debt retirement. I have to save for retirement too, and there are no loans for living expenses when you're 80.

Hey BigV - congrats on the job!

Nice to see you back!

I've heard this before but still don't understand it. It doesn't make sense to me, to pay two or three times the interest you're earning, on money you owe. Unless, of course, you feel you (and yours) can't stick to a strict savings schedule to replace those savings. :confused:

ALRIGHT! someone gets it. there are a lot of strategies for eliminating debt. they all require discipline. pulling out retirement funds to eliminate debt is a huge NONO. (time value of money and all that).

Bruce - if he is running at 25% interest then sure, he may want to look at alternatives, but even at 10% or so - his retirement savings is more valuable where it is at. even if he only gets 6% this year and 7% next year. staying in the market is absolutely crucial. you can't time it - you just gotta be there.

@BigV...... don't know you, but empathise.......

I was out of work for 18 months tiill last August...... too old, too overqualified, too expensive et al....

my credit cards melted too.....


Defer the day......

I don't know that his money is in the market. Or that he's getting 6/7%, for that matter.
So, you're saying pay thousands in interest, for the chance to recoup it if the stock market suddenly skyrockets? :confused:

no, no that isn't what i meant. what i am saying is that having a little money invested NOW in the market is a lot more powerful than investing a LOT later. the most powerful component in successful investment is TIME. not timing, not always picking the hot stock, not getting out before a downturn - TIME in the market.

sometimes there are no alternatives, but if there is any choice at it is better to pay your debt off via the tried and true method of sending in your monthly checks and keeping your retirement funds, exactly that - retirement funds.

it isn't a get rich scheme or a screw the system system - it is just simple common sense combined with knowledge of the markets.

1) i don't know when the markets are going to have great years vs crappy years. so if i'm always in with a balanced portfolio i have no worries about missing a run up. think in terms of real estate. imagine someone sold their house in 2002 and didn't purchase right away because they were considering relocating (or any other reason). he was finally settled and stable by 2005 and ready to purchase the market had gone insane. home prices had doubled and sometimes tripled. the sorry sucker is going to have difficult time getting back into the housing market and will never regain that ground. the same thing happens in the market - just in a less noticeable way. i have client that was in Stock X. he complained that although he really liked the company and wanted to own it for the long haul he was going to sell it and buy his new car because he didn't like owing anyone money. sounds like a great plan - but now Stock X is trading 40% higher. he missed his chance.

2) it is far easier for most people to pay bills than it is to invest appropriately. i'm sure BigV is different, but most people will find something that they have to buy on a monthly basis rather than invest the money. if they keep their money invested they will without fail send the money to the creditors and pay the debt down while still watching their retirement money grow.

good financial management is quite counterintuitive. if it feels good, you'd better think again. if it feels really really crummy - you might just be on the right path.

Update:

Two credit cards have just been paid off!!! :celebrat:

Both cards were on auto-pay auto-pilot with the credit union, and so I didn't "really" see the money each month. But now that I don't have to pay them anymore, I could easily "see" the money again, and be happy for it. But.

But I still have a couple of credit cards to go. :sniff: So I'm redirecting some of the cash flow previously used to pay off credit cards A and B to credit card C. C is also on autopilot, but now I'm able to shift it into a higher gear. By the way, I did some back of the envelope math on that card... :rar: The minimum payment meant that the balance forward would be reduced by 0.1% or so. Is that legal? Moral? Usurous? I digress. I am now paying at about 3.9 times the minimum payment. This one will take a couple more years to disappear, as I have no more low hanging fruit to harvest and redirect towards its retirement. Plus I have no guarantees that the balance will only go down. This is the last card to pay off (well, the last one that's an open account. I'm still paying down another closed account :sigh: ).

I mentioned that I'm taking some of that newly available cash flow and putting it toward this last credit card. What of the rest of that cash flow? Well, I have increased (not intitiated, but increased from an already respectable number) the amount I'm contributing to my 401k account. By a lot. I expect the net cash flow to *decrease* measurably. But for the first time in my career, I'm going to be within spitting distance of the Federal maximum dollar contribution limit. It feels scary good. Well, it feels good now, I have only just turned in my form. Check with me again after a couple of paydays...

OR....you could get some really cute goats.:lol:

Two down in less than a year, way to go BigV! And congrats on the bigger 401K investment, you and your kids will both appreciate it someday.

Well done. Keep grindin'