152 sats \ 3 replies \ @freetx 9 Apr \ on: Are you in the UK and overwhelmed by debt? Personal_Finance
I'm not in this UK and have no debt.
One of the decisions I made 25 years ago was to get rid of all debt. Honestly, it wasn't a totally smart financial decision as I could've probably earned more in the market than I saved in interest payments....however thats not the full story.
It took me about 10 years, but I successfully paid off my house and cars and thus have had 0 debt for the last 15 or so years. Monthly, I only need electricity, insurance, and food expenses. Moreover, living with zero debt enables you to say the most powerful word in the human language: No.
A man that is in debt can't really say No, as he has debt payments to satisfy. He certainly can't do something rash like quit his job or refuse to come in on Saturday.
Although being debt-free was questionable from a strict financial analysis, it enabled me to make much better financial choices for myself / family. I've been able to take on low time requirement work that only pays $3500 / month....but for me its a fine trade off.....2 or 3 hours of daily work...in exchange for the free time. This has now extended into me working several of these "consulting style" gigs, each bringing in a few grand per month but all on my schedule.
But the real upside is this then enabled me to focus more on things like Bitcoin and obviously actually being there for family. Go ask a 70 yr old with 50M how much he would spend to be able to do his life over again but this time actually be there with his family? As the saying goes, no man on his death bed ever says I wish I could've spent just one more day at the office....
Impressive for having zero mortgage
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I lucked out in that I had sold another property that had considerable equity in it....I was able to sell that and use as a sizeable downpayment. So I was basically starting with only a 50% mortgage.
But yes, for that 10 years or so I paid like triple monthly mortgage payments, using all spare cash to drive down the principle as fast as possible. This is why I say it would've probably been "smarter" to invest that instead paying down a cheap mortgage, but mentally it was important for me to be debt-free.
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