how old were you when you became debt free?

[Gina23]

I paid my car off when I was 22. Except for a mortgage, that is the last payment I've ever made to credit.

[Mjenn]

I have actually never carried any debt of my own, so I guess you could say always - but I am not a home owner. I have bought all my cars, and paid for my college education on scholarships and inheritance money. My husband has some student loans he still carries, so I guess you could consider them mine too. We opted not to pay them off, even tho we could afford to, since the terms are so good (we pay a % of his income each year and they are written off entirely when he retires) and his entire career is based on his studies, so I think it is good debt to have.

I guess all that will change if/when we buy a house - this is why I think I am having such a hard time actually following through with buying a house. I like not having those kinds of financial shackles.

[FrugalTexan75]

I don't own a home, so no mortgage debt. I think I was 28 or 29 when I paid off my car?? So, around 28 or 29 is when I became debt free.

[Ima saver]

I bought my first new home at age 21 and had it completely paid for when I was 32. I have had 3 new homes since then, but they have all been mortgage free. So, I have been debt free since age 32 and I love it! I do use a credit card, but I pay it off every month.

[rj.phila]

gotta say, i see some similarities in perspective with IMASAVER and THEKID and myself, not just from this thread either...

i think a big part for me is that i was raised in an environment where debt was treated as a very serious arrangement to be avoided at any costs.

[YLTL_Dan]

I was 25 when I paid off my debt (see below )

However, we bought a house in 2009 with a mortgage... we hope to have it paid off in 5 years (I would then be 34).

[Stump1000]

My goal is to be debt free. I haven't put a timeline on my goal though. We owe about $91k including our home that is $50k of it.

Very true. We owe 68K on our house but have a 500K investment portfolio. We could pay off the house at any time if we wanted to but with a 3.99% mortgage, it isn't high on my priority list.

I'd like to be in your position disneysteve. I'm working to get there, I just wish I had been smarter at a younger age. I've been reading your post for a long time and your commitment to saving and good decision making is pretty impressive!

[disneysteve]

I'd like to be in your position disneysteve. I'm working to get there, I just wish I had been smarter at a younger age. I've been reading your post for a long time and your commitment to saving and good decision making is pretty impressive!

Thank you. I, too, wish I had been smarter at a younger age. Don't we all. Despite that, we've done okay for ourselves and I'm trying my best to teach good money management to our daughter. She actually has to take a mandatory financial literacy course next year and I'm waiting to see what she has to say about that. I doubt it will tell her anything we haven't already taught her. In fact, I'm pretty sure we've gone well beyond whatever that course will cover. If she could opt out, I'd let her but she's stuck taking it.

[thekid]

Thank you. I, too, wish I had been smarter at a younger age. Don't we all. Despite that, we've done okay for ourselves and I'm trying my best to teach good money management to our daughter. She actually has to take a mandatory financial literacy course next year and I'm waiting to see what she has to say about that. I doubt it will tell her anything we haven't already taught her. In fact, I'm pretty sure we've gone well beyond whatever that course will cover. If she could opt out, I'd let her but she's stuck taking it.

What have you done to teach her through the years? My daughter is 21 months old, so financial education will have to wait a bit more , but giving her good money management skills from a young age is a top priority for us. I'd be interested to learn what you did with your daughter.

[bennkar]

I avoided debt over the years, but for a long time I had saved very little as well. That changed in '98 when I got a house (mortgage) and paid it off just before I turned 49 (last fall - 2011). I've been debt free ever since. Even with smaller paychecks this year (due to extra large 457 retirement plan investments each paycheck) money just isn't an issue any more.

[Pancho]

27

Moved out of the house at age 17, went to college and racked up $14,000 in student loans at the height of it, maxed out the credit card at $3,500, got backtracked with three years of unpaid federal taxes,

but if all goes well, I'll finally have all of this cleared up about two weeks after my 27th birthday in roughly a month.

Got a full-time job during my last 2-3 years in college and began paying down that loan. Moved back in with my parents recently (been here for the past 4 months), so I've been able to put more money towards that debt.

It's taken a total of about 3-and-a-half years to get here almost clear .

[JBinKC]

2002 was the last year I carried any debt. I was 39 at the time. It was a loan from a 401k to finance a bank stock IPO I was a customer of in 1999 during a period when I had no surplus money due to a relatively large tax obligation from a Roth IRA conversion which kept me indigent until I freed some funds in 2000 by terminating an investment partnership I managed over a dispute in timing an asset sale with a sizeable gain 1999 and in retrospect a good move as I avoided the tech bubble crash with those funds.


BTW I have been mortgage free since 1997 when I sold the higher valued property of the two repo real estate purchases that I made in 1991 stemming from the S and L crisis to partially fund the tax burden on my Roth IRA conversion.

[disneysteve]

This is a very old thread but sometimes it is neat to look back at those.

In February 2012, I posted this:

We owe 68K on our house but have a 500K investment portfolio. We could pay off the house at any time if we wanted to but with a 3.99% mortgage, it isn't high on my priority list.

Today, 5-1/2 years later, we still have a mortgage, owing about $30,000.

But our 500K portfolio is now well over 900K.

Since then, we have also nearly finished putting our daughter through school. We have one more tuition payment due in January. We have borrowed and repaid a 15K PLUS loan. I bought a car later in 2012 which was paid for about a year later. We paid off my wife's van. We helped our daughter get her first car which is paid for.

So am I concerned or upset that we still have a small mortgage? Not in the least. There is certainly nothing wrong with being debt free but I also think it's important to focus on the big picture. Simply having debt does not mean that you are somehow failing or doing poorly financially. I think by most measures, we are doing rather well despite not being debt free.

[Nutria]

We'll be debt free in four weeks.

But within six months, though, we'll have a HELOC for house repairs, and in probably 3 years a new car loan.

And none of this takes into account liabilities like the annual property tax bill.

[disneysteve]

We'll be debt free in four weeks.

But within six months, though, we'll have a HELOC for house repairs, and in probably 3 years a new car loan.

We just opened a HELOC. I wrote a 15K check a couple of weeks ago for the insurance policy I need due to leaving my practice. Now that the student loan is gone, we can attack that. We paid off the 15K student loan in 1 year. We can probably knock this out even faster since we only have one more tuition payment and my income has gone up. That will leave just the mortgage which will be under 30K meaning we should be able to get rid of that in about 2 more years.