Damn it feels good to be a debt-free gangsta.

Well, not totally debt free, or really a gangsta for that matter, but I sure am feeling good!!

The credit card T Fitch and I used, ahem, kind of a lot when we first got married is paid off as of today! And man, does it feel GREAT! We only had a few thousand dollars on our credit card, which I know may sound like a lot to some people. However, we were way, way less than the average credit card debt per household - $8,329 at the end of 2008 (Source: Nilson Report, April 2009). And the few thousand dollars on our credit card - well I wouldn't change that for the world. Without it, we'd have never paid the bar tab on our honeymoon cruise, went to Florida for the Gustafson's wedding or on our December 2007 cruise. Totally worth it. But then the bastards at Discover raised our interest rate and we knew we had to do something. I admit I was late on a payment - it was due on Christmas day and that's back when I didn't know the luxury of automatic bill pay and was a slave to my checkbook for hours each month. The tipping point was when we paid $180 in interest one month! A few months ago we transferred our escalating Discover Card balance to a Citi card with a zero-percent rate for 12 months and paid it off in three months. Voila. And here we are today: feeling good.

In a sense, I'm glad we went through the ridiculous interest rate b.s. It was the eye-opening look into credit cards I needed. Unless you can pay them off in full, they are bad. It really made me understand how people can get buried and buried and buried in credit card debt. Recently I saw a couple on the news that was paying THOUSANDS of dollars each month in INTEREST. They just began to drown and couldn't get out.

In the end, I consider it to be a good learning experience, and I'm very, very glad to say we haven't used a credit card in at least one year. This experience has taught us to be better savers and planners. If we don't have the money saved, we don't do it. From what I am told, that philosophy appears it follows Dave Ramsey's advice. I need to read up on his suggestions, but I know two friends that have found it very useful - including Kerry. (In glancing at his Web site; however, I find it funny people are paying for materials to help them get out of debt. Almost seems counter-intuitive to me.)

All said, it's a happy day for the Fitch household and bank account. Maybe we'll go out to dinner to celebrate - using cash of course.

PS - Huge props to Citi. Without the Citi card, we'd be in a heck of a mess. In the meantime, our Discover card has been canceled.