Debt Free

There aren’t very many things my handsome handsome husband isn’t good at. There just aren’t. He’s good at talking to people. He’s good at throwing a football. He’s good at building stuff. He’s good at breaking stuff. He’s good at learning things. He’s good at listening. He’s good at listening. He’s good at being serious and being funny. He’s good at reaching things up high (not because he’s tall, but because he’s not scared of climbing on the cupboards). And of course, he’s good at opening pickle jars. He’s not afraid of things, and he has zero “too shy to try” in him.  

However, there’s one thing he’s REALLY bad at….and it’s starting to rub off on me. It’s debt. And anything involving monthly payments. He can't handle it. At all.

When we were dating he had saved up money to buy a truck. Since he was raised in a home that preached zero-tolerance for debt, he had zero credit. Since he was dating me, and I was working at Fair Credit Foundation, I told him that even though it was good to be debt-free, it was not good to be 30-years old and unable to get a home loan because he’d never built up any credit.

He accepted my advice, but couldn’t quite go all the way with the “get a loan” principle.  He talked to his credit union (where’s he’s banked since he was 10) and told them his dilemma. He had no credit, and he needed some. He asked if he could pretty please have an unnecessary loan for his car so he could build his credit. He promised he’d pay it back.

The loan officer suggested that he take out a loan for the vehicle, but instead of using the car as collateral (which they wouldn’t give him a loan for…..BECAUSE he had zero debt) they’d use his money as collateral. So, he took out a loan for $5,000 against the $5,000 sitting in his savings account.  The interest on the loan was less than the interest they paid him on his money, so it wasn’t as stupid as it sounds. They set him up with a payment book and he had a due date for his payments and everything. The best part of it all is that he was building credit by making a monthly payment.

He probably only made 3 or 4 payments before calling the bank and telling them he just wanted to pay it off. He was done building credit. He was done writing checks to himself, and he was done living “in debt”. He really couldn’t handle it, he hated it.

Fortunately that was enough to get his credit built up enough for a small credit card, which he used only for gas and paid in full every 4 or 5 days (he couldn’t let it go a whole week…he hates debt).

When he decided to go to massage school, he almost died when he signed the papers for the student loan (which didn’t have any interest for another 2 years).

We'd been married for 3 months when he informed me that "doubling my car payment was taking too long" and that we would be quadrupling it for the next year so we wouldn't owe any money on it. Seriously. 

When we bought our house I had to put a wet washcloth on his head in the office of our Title Lady so he wouldn’t pass out. (OK, that’s a lie, but he really was freaking out. And I did have to get him a bottle of water….)

Anyway, the point is that he hates debt. He hates monthly payments. He hates owing people money. And he hates feeling like the money he’s making is already spent. It’s not such a bad quality really. In fact, given the other extreme, I’d pick his brand of insanity any day of the week.

The best part about it, is that this week we were looking at his student loan statement, and our bank statement, and decided we were done making payments on student loans. I’m tired of watching the balance shrink by such a miniscule amount every month. I’m tired of remembering to pay it every month. We’re both “sooo over” the whole loan. So, this month we took our CD which just came due and paid off the loans. We are (once again) debt free with the exception of our house.

This might be a bigger day than yesterday …..nah, not quite.