When my father bought his first house in 1968 or so for just under $30K and he spent my whole growing up years in the 1970s grumbling about his $152 mortgage. By the early 1990s, when the average mortgage was well over $1,000/mo, he was still making that $152 payment, but not grumbling all that much by then.
He then sold that house for about $300K and retired down to Alabama where he paid cash on a double-wide and had plenty left over.
Of course being debt free is great but if you have to have some debt, let it be a fixed rate mortgage with a decent rate.
That would be me.
We're debt-free with our home paid off, our cars paid off, and sitting on a bunch of cash. Worried about that, with few good options for investing. So we helped a daughter with a hefty down payment on a new home, and she's paying the mortgage. The cash is better off in real estate, and our names are on it. Also pulled cash from banks and spread it around in credit unions which are safer. Getting ready for the reset, to reduce the hurt, but everyone is going to be hurting. I don't believe that credit card debt would be forgiven, can't see that happening. So we don't carry any credit card debt.