I do have a question, though . . . If you were disciplined enough to pay down all of that debt, what would be the danger of you keeping, say, $15,000 in open lines of credit available? This would keep your debt-to-credit ratio low, and would help protect you in the event you needed money in an emergency.
It was the whole concept of using credit as our “emergency” fund that got us into trouble to begin with.
At first we closed all the open lines of credit that we hadn’t used in yearsl. Accounts we’d closed a decade a go were still on our credit report as open.
Then, as we paid off debt, we closed or reduced our available credit to avoid temptation.
On August first we’ll pay off the last of our non-mortgage debt. After that we’ll start working on a $15,000 emergency fund. After that, we pay off our land. Then we start saving to pay cash to build our dream house.
So close! :)