Being debt free

Tomorrow I will be able to write checks.  Checks for everything.  So that I can be debt free.  I will be paying off 3 credit cards.  I will be paying off 2 school loans.  I will be paying of my car loan.  I will be paying off yet another medical bill.

That will leave me with... NO DEBT.

Well .... kind of.

I am technically cheating at the debt free.  It is true I will have no credit card debt, school loans, or car loan.  It is true I will have no mortgage -- but I will still have rent.  It is true I will be debt free to any commercial body that is charging me interest.

How?

Pure dumb luck.  A few months ago I was having a conversation with my parents.  I was trying to figure out if I could afford to take a pay cut by taking a new job -- think I might have blogged about it.  I talked to them about cashing out my IRA...taking the penalty and tax hit...and paying off some of my major debt (credit cards) and refinancing my car.  At my age how much sense does it make to deplete my IRA and start over with nothing?  Or do I just continue to drown in commercial debt and hope each month that I stay afloat?  I was really just looking for advise on what made the most sense for me.

But what came out of it was a loan.  Yes, a loan... hence the reason why I am cheating at the debt free.  My parents offered to loan me the money I need to pay off all of my debt...interest free.  Yes, it is a loan.  I am paying it back.  Every little penny.  And since I am a paralegal, I even wrote up a loan agreement.  The nice things are: 1) it is interest free, 2) my monthly bills will greatly diminish, and 3) I can take longer to pay it back.

Then came the embarrassing task of figuring out how much this would take.  How much did they need to loan me to make it so I am debt free?  I still owe about 10k on the school loans.  I still owe about 10k on the car.  And after adding it all up, I owe about 8.5k on credit cards.  So I was asking for 28.5k from my parents.  This seemed ridiculous to me.  Really.  I mean, school and transportation is important.  But I need $28,500.  Who just has that kind of cash just laying around...ready to be loaned out?  Apparently my parents do.  Who knew???  How??  Seriously, how can I be that far in debt and they just have the cash?

It will make my life easier.  Less stress.  And hopefully that means I will be happier.

And, yes, I do realize just how lucky I am to have this.

Mean Mama