TFS: Pre-Payments?

You are my hero! Consumer debt (i.e credit card) and auto loan debt are just stupid! I know some have no choice, but getting debt free and staying debt free should be everyone's goal.

 

I had a lot of consumer debt before I got married. I learned about Dave Ramsey (although I don't believe in the religious aspect of his show and some of the advice he gives), I followed the debt snowball method and knocked out 20K of CC debt before our wedding day.

True be told, I sold our paid off 5th gen 4runner for 33K last August, and while waiting for an allocated vehicle, saved up a bit more and put it towards the down payment. I didn't want to finance more than half of the OTD price (yeah some people have no choice but they do have the choice to buy something lower cost).

My wifes 21 RAV4 was paid in full and I had wished I could have done that with the Tacoma but we're getting a tad over 4% on our savings (which is more than our 401K that is still down over 15% since 2020), so I planned to stretch out this loan up to a year tops.

 

That's great but it's still handy to have credit when you need it. It's not easy to buy a home with out a loan and for Many not vehicles either.

That said I used to at one point in life have A $6000.00 credit card bill and couldn't tell you what all that was spent on either.
Now I have my truck loan which is just over 9,000 and will be paid off in under 2 years and my mortgage are my only major debts. I owe Lowes $250 for a new dishwasher I got in August that will soon be paid off at 0% intrest.
I also have an emergency fund to cover 4 months of expenses.
To get there it took me learning to shop for everyday things like food clothes travel and entertainment in frugal ways and to not buy things on credit cards so must just because it was something I wanted. Pay cash for wants or you don't need it.

 

100%

This is where I disagree with Dave Ramey's method of having 0 credit. Like how can anyone buy a house in cash or go through underwriting without any credit? Seems difficult for times like these.