Living debt free is one of my goals too. I have made some gains. I never took a mortgage on my home. I built my own home without contractors so I could avoid a mortgage. It took three years and I will admit to building up a fairly large bill with the lumber yard, but that's all paid off now.

I've always wondered how the credit card companies get by with arbitrarily changing the contract midstream. Do you know what the companies call someone who pays his credit card bill off each month? They call us credit card abusers.