Fiona – travelling together sounds great. Actually I didn’t know that there were others in the Kitchener area – maybe we should all get together sometime.

Melaniesd – thanks! Are you running the marathon in september? i did the 5k at the Waterfront and it was fun – might even do it again in the fall!

I wish I was a lot closer to Ontario. Nova Scotia is just a little too far away for a potluck I’m afraid. I am going to Toronto in September to run in the Waterfront Marathon. Can we do a 2nd one then?? : )

Saver Queen: I’m a fan of yours too! You are so sweet!

Biggest stress: Will the long-term carrer path justify all the years and pain of schooling (and the student loan that came with that)?

If you are loopy-ish in one direction then I am loopy-ish in the other. We absolutely LOVED the actual paying of the debts. In fact we used to flip a coin to see who got to do it.

To be able to go into the bank every month and slap that cheque on to the counter gave me an incredible feeling of accomplishment and power. In my head I was jumping up and down and yelling – “Take that you swines!” – but since they have cameras and panic buttons that connect directly to the RCMP I had to swallow my glee, behave with haughty dignity and be satisfied with a sneer on my lips.

Once you stop spending a “balance owing” figure holds no fear because every month it gets smaller and smaller. And with each payment I received immense satisfaction knowing that I was cheating THEM out of more interest.

And as Gail said – “when you owe nothing you can tell anyone to go to hell”. Today we regularly get pre-approved credit card applications and I love telling those loan sharks to go to hell by shredding them. We will never again get trapped. I used to set them on fire in the kitchen sink – much more dramatic and satisfying than a mechanical whiiiirrrrr – but FYI – if you stomp on a burning piece of paper that floated out of the sink whilst wearing rubber soled slippers the flames will not only melt your sole (and the linoleum) but you will not be able to cover up the scorch marks by placing a potted plant in the middle of the kitchen. Even the most unobservant husband will notice. Eventually.

It is hard to see so much money going out every month to debt but I think it helps to just keep looking to the future. The past is gone even if it is still being paid for.

We had 3 kinds of debt – fun debts, painful debts and justifiable debts. The student loans were the justifiable debts. We never regretted acquiring them or minded paying them for a second because they bought us our future. Would have preferred to have a rich, handsome Sugar Daddy Professor to pay them for me and fix my grades but things don’t always turn out the way you daydream. We have friends who still resent their student loans and have dragged their feet paying them for 15 years! And yet thought nothing of charging up a $36,000 car, a $40,000 wedding and a $24,000 divorce. Today the car is flattened in a junk yard somewhere and the divorce squashed the wedding but they both still have their degrees – and the student loan debts.

I didn’t even mind paying the fun debts – after all we had fun charging them up while living way beyond our means. Wouldn’t do it again but can honestly say that I can accept having to pay for the good time. Again, would prefer to have a rich handsome Sugar Daddy pay them for me but what would I do with the Hubster? Hide him in the closet? Pretend he was the pool boy? Actually, not a bad idea since he is a water quality specialist.

Paying for the painful debt was painful. The worst. We didn’t deserve it (who does?) and got nothing from it. The saddest was the debt accumulated due to illness but the best of the worst was the debt incurred for the humongous repairs to our car when it was stolen and used in a bank robbery and subsequent car chase. Not only were we the innocent victims of crime but of our own stupidity. Wouldn’t and couldn’t pay for a protected parking space because shoes were always going on sale. By stealing our car The Bank Robbers proved themselves to also be just too stupid to live. Waiting outside the bank for it to open in the middle of July while wearing balaclavas and sitting in a car that belched smoke from the muffler and under the hood made them a little bit conspicuous. Serves them right. And they didn’t even have the decency to target the bank that held our mortgage. And they stole the Hubster’s favourite sunglasses.

Although I immediately commented that the Campbells soups are $1 more than the no-name brand, and that I’d only buy them on sale.