Live mortgage/debt free.

UPDATE: July 30, 2011

Today we made the final lump-sum payment on our mini van. We are officially 100% debt free.

For more on this journey you can read:
Get out of debt: 1
Get out of debt: 2
Get out of debt: 3
Get out of debt: 4
Becoming Mortgage free
Accomplishing goals, mortgage free
A video on Budgeting
More budget updates

We’ve been waiting to make this final payment for about 2 months – thinking we might need that extra cash for house projects on a house we were trying to buy (and didn’t) so after the dust settled from moving from one rental to another … we looked at each other and said “lets do it!”

Yes I did just write that.

And then we totally did it. We paid off our car. Our last debt.

12 months ago when we moved out of our house (and took a loss to do so) we were looking at repaying just under $40,000 in non-credit card debt. We don’t have credit cards (and haven’t for about 5 years now). We had the loss on our house to repay, the car loan and some lingering medical debt.

It feels very weird to write that – it never felt like a ton of money … they were just items we had to get through and I cannot believe we did it. We built and sold another house in the mean time, which helped kick the debt in the butt. Twice now we’ve tried to buy another (super small mortgage) house and both times have not been able to: both instances we were seconds away from paying off our car (last debt) and kept getting in our own way.

I guess the biggest lesson I’ve learned from the last 12 months is that if you’re plan is working: do not try to create a new one. See it through. BE PATIENT.

I wish I felt like I had a simple 4 step process to report on how to become debt free, but honestly? It’s kind of anticlimactic. We still have goals to meet financially and other decisions to make about our future and now we actually have the freedom to do them.

So, ok … that feels pretty stinkin’ cool.

YOU GUYS!!! WE’RE 100% DEBT FREE!!!