Somewhere along the way it became acceptable to be in debt. Credit Cards, car loans, mortgages are perfectly acceptable today. In fact our credit rating system is set up on debt. No debt = bad credit. Paying off credit cards = bad credit. How did it become acceptable to be in debt? Now, I am not saying there aren't valid reasons to be in debt. Medical or Legal emergencies for instance. Even the best insurance can leave people in debt in a medical emergency (did you know that the majority of medically bankrupt had insurance?) But for most people credit cards, car loans and yes even mortgages are excuses. They are excuses for not saving, they are excuses for "finding a great deal", for "this won't last forever", its just to"get us over this hump." That's how we got into debt.
Today we paid off our van and our car. Yea! right? I would probably be celebrating more if it weren't over shadowed by the fact we have now paid for this car twice. Yes, TWICE. We took out a loan on it to "get us over this hump" back when dh had no job and we needed money to live. Sounds like a great excuse right? No, bad excuse. Bad bad bad. Nothing is worse than being in debt and having no job. Pretty soon you will have no job and no car. Now the car and van are ours once again. And we learned from our mistakes. Hopefully you can learn from ours and save yourself the same headaches. The end result is the same, but we would have come out of it with less headache and more money had we not gotten into debt.
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