Two years ago, I made a commitment to free myself of consumer debt. Today, for the first time in my adult life, I am free!

I've been reading books about money even before I became an adult, but for some reason I still ended up with many, many thousands of dollars in credit card debt. What did attaining freedom finally boil down to? The simple stuff:

• Stop using credit cards. Completely. (No excuses.)


• Don't buy bullshit you don't need. A lot of the stuff we buy is just bullshit we don't need.


• Put all extra money toward the credit card debt until it's gone.

It definitely took some life-style adjustment. Going from a shiny new Nissan Maxima to a $1200 pickup truck from Craig's List isn't so bad once you become determined to achieve a goal... duct-tape seat-covers notwithstanding.

I've always known that being free of credit card debt was a Good Thing--and I even had a good idea of how to do it--but for a long time I just never took it seriously.

A lot of how I behaved in the last two years was inspired by this book.Why was a cheesy evangelical radio guy more effective than Thomas J. Stanley, Ph.D at getting me to live my life with basic financial responsibility? As unlikely as it may seem, there's a good reason for it. I think that might be the subject of another post.

It's still a bit early to bust out the Cristal, however. I've still got a mortgage to pay off early.