Credit Card Debt Free

Within the next couple of weeks we will be cc debt free. We currently owe over $10k in cc debt but with my layoff severance being paid out this Friday and through emptying our savings account and a few other cash items, we’ll pay off the cc debt. It’s an exciting prospect – I haven’t been cc debt free in many years. In fact, I can’t even remember when I didn’t have a balance on my cc. I’m sure I did at one point in my 20+ years since I’ve owned credit cards.

You would think that I would be beside myself with joy but I’m having very mixed feelings. Don’t get me wrong… when I purely think about not having a balance on any of my many credit cards, it’s a feeling of true elation and joy. But where my feelings are not so positive is when I think about what else I could be doing with the money – spend, spend, spend AND when I think that although it is an honest way to pay off the cc balance, it came about without the sweat and tears I expected. And I almost feel like I’m cheating. We have been pretty diligent the past 6 months or so working on our finances. We moved all cc balances to a 0% interest credit card (moving to 19.99% next month), started tracking our expenses, made a budget and paid as much as possible on those cards. And we made some headway. But it would have taken us a lot longer (I had calculated about another 22 months) if we stayed on our same course.

But then I get excited again when I think that we can focus on paying off my husband’s student loans much more quickly than we thought. AND I am taking some of my tax refund, etc. to make purchases of a few key furniture type items that we need. So, overall, it’s been a blessing to receive this severance payout and to be paying off over $10,000 in debt. WOW!!!