When we were younger and stupider, Dave and I got ourselves into a bit of trouble with credit. There was a point where our credit was bad. Really, really bad.
We've worked really hard over the years to get things squared away. Yeah, we screwed up a few times with late payments, but overall we've done fairly well, always paying more than the minimum (even if it was only $5 more) and we've put a stop to opening any more charge or credit accounts.
Since Dave will retire from the military in a little under 7 years, we decided recently to start making a concerted effort to get rid of as many lines of credit as we could. We're trying to have a nice little stash in our savings account so that when he retires we'll have a down payment for a piece of land to build our homestead on..and we're also trying to have as few bills as possible so that we don't have to worry so much about finding work.
Today, we will pay off our Sears charge account. We've had this thing since 1995 and have been trying to get rid of it ever since. Today, we will accomplish our goal. Next month, the money that would have gone to paying the Sears bill will get applied to one of our credit cards - on top of the amount that we would normally pay. That will mean that we can pay that credit card off right there and then (it has a small credit limit and isn't maxed out). Once we've done that, we're going to apply those 2 amounts (that would have gone to pay the Sears and the credit card) to another credit card we have (again, on top of the normal amount we would have paid). By doing this, we've figured out that we can be debt free by next summer. The only bills we'll have will be the normal monthly household expenses - cell phones, ISP, vehicle insurance, household insurance and cable TV. Most of the money that would have gone to pay credit and charge account bills will get stashed into a savings account..and we have a purpose for that money apart from the land down payment. (I'm going to write a separate article about that).
Paying off and closing our Sears account this afternoon is going to feel awesome. I'm excited about it already, and I never though that would happen. I never thought I'd see the day where I would be excited to pay a bill.
There is light at the end of our financial troubles tunnel, and it's an awesome feeling!