Zip, Zero, Zilch, Nada, Nothing

Alain and I have spent the majority of our lives with a guilty conscience.  I'm sure most people in our age range live the same way.  First it is student debt, than life debt, than house debt. 

For the first time in a long time, we are (relatively) debt free.

I say relatively because we still have a mortgage and car payments (doesn't everyone?), but finally, finally, finally, we have paid back our line of credit and will have a little bit of money sitting in the bank account.

I've always felt like financially we are doing okay.  You can always make more, but let's face it, things can also always be worse. 

We have been contributing faithfully to RRSPs since we moved into this house two years ago. Our employers match our contributions, so the savings grow quickly and we feel good planning for the future.

When we moved into this house we cleared our educational debt with the profit from Alain's first house.  I will be eternally grateful to him for being older and wiser and having Assets that gave us a boost when we decided to get married and buy a house together. 

We were debt free that summer, but then we got married (and spent money) and then we invested in the house by installing a pellet stove (more money). Since then we have constantly felt like we were pinching pennies, trying to pay back the money we had borrowed and still enjoy life.  We still took vacations and mostly bought the things we needed (and even those items that we just wanted), but we always felt guilty.

It was around February when we started seeing the debt reduced to a managable amount, and we could start dreaming of when it wouldn't be there anymore.  That gave us the little push that brought us to here today - to being debt free (for now at least).

We started talking about what it would be like to not have to feel guilty about every purchase that we made.  To not have to justify it all.  We decided that we would spoil ourselves a little and try not to feel guilty for a while. 

There will always be more things to buy and fix and do, but for us, for now, it will be nice to not feel guilty.  I think it is a habit that we will have to work hard to break

The next big thing will likely be a baby.  I'd like to have some money saved before that happens but as of now we are thinking about starting to try to have a baby at the end of this year!

Now if you'll excuse me, I have some guilt-free yarn to buy...