FREEEEEEEEEEEEEDOM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I've been listening to the Dave Ramsey show (www.daveramsey.com)on KEX when I'm out and about after 7 p.m. Which isn't very often, so sometimes I listen to the podcasts on the computer. Anyway, every Friday people who are debt free (sometimes including their house, sometimes not) call up and scream "I'M DEBT FREE!!!!!!!!!!!!" And then he plays the clip from Braveheart where Mel Gibson is screaming FREEDOM!!!!!!!!!!!! as the torturers disembowel him...

Anyway, we paid off the car this week, so now it's our turn: WE'RE DEBT FREE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! except the house. Woo hoo! This has been my ultimate goal of late; if we don't have any debt payments then we can easily live off my salary for a while if we have to (barring any major unforeseen snafus, of course). And now we get to build up our savings to make that even easier. WOO HOO!

We don't totally follow Dave's plan, but I certainly respect it. It makes sense. We aren't ready to give up our credit card because we love the perks (Home Depot gift cards - you can never have too many of those!). And we certainly aren't ready to put 15% of our salaries in our retirement accounts. But I'm all for the debt snowball, and getting an emergency fund in place. And I get the concept of not buying stuff till you can afford it, but boy that's hard to put into practice! :-)

So we sat down this morning, armed with our revised budget and a giant list of projects we want to save up for. Now, if I can just give up my Starbucks habit and stop spending so darn much on groceries, we'll probably be ok!