[mikester]

Congratulations man - being basically debt free is a wonderful feeling.

We have been basically that since about 2005 or so. We have a small amount of revolving credit debt (basically we put our monthly expenses on a credit card and pay it off prior to interest accruing - it's a management strategy) and haven't had car payments until just this month.

We decided that 0% financing on a great deal on a Mazda was okay to do. So instead of paying cash for the car as we would normally we will put that to the debt we do have which is also recent. We have a HELOC and recently used it for some landscaping - that was probably the biggest hit outside of our mortgage we've ever taken. So now we have to scrimp a bit to make sure we pay that off in a timely fashion. It doesn't help though that our lenders keep giving us carrots which are fantastic interest rates, fixed rates at that (even on the HELOC) or as I mentioned on the car - no interest at all. So now we aren't debt free but we should be again in 3-5 years and with what we did while we were from an investment and saving strategy I feel that we are in a very good position and could afford another car payment if we decided to execute on our plans next year to get me a new car too.

Money management is a lot like IP address management. Do it right, summarize where you can and document it as completely as you can. You're probably the one of the only folks on this board who'll get that too.