But I can also testify that doing so IS WELL WORTH THE PAIN needed to get there.
In terms of material consumption, I'm now living under dramatically lower standards of living than just a little over a year ago, but I've never felt so free in my entire adult life. I didn't realize I was living as a debt slave in an illusion created by borrowed money until I shook off the shackles.
We now have a tiny home mortgage that is less than the second mortgage was on our previous home. Yes, it's a smaller, more modest home than the suburban McMansion prison we lived in the before, but we're much happier here.
Having rid ourselves of a massive debt burden (both mortgage and credit card), I'm amazed now to see how we can live on 1/4 of our previous income with some additional judicious frugality. I wish more people would learn to bite the bullet and shun debt on their own, rather than have it forced upon them.
People also need to realize that their debt is effectively enslaving them directly to the ruling political class of our federal government, who now owns the income streams from most all interest-bearing debt instruments.
Let imagine if slave owners of all times, lords over serfs who are doomed to pay rent forever, their children to be born into slavery/debt/serfdom...lets say the benefactors came back to life in our modern era. What would Neo-Slavery look like?
I went through this phase in 1995, when I suddenly accumulated about 50% of my income in debt. (my fault, dumb investment) I stopped buying everything except food, and just spent nearly two years working, paying off credit cards, and riding my bicycle through the nearby park for leisure. At first to see your debt balances barely move it is demoralizing, but after a while it got very motivational to see how close I was getting. When I paid them to zero, they have stayed there. Now, while I am hardly rich, I always have enough cash to get me through hard times.
Unfortunately, my big mistake is that my family knows my financial condition, so I have become the source of welfare for a family member that can't seem to learn to live within her means. So my advice to the frugal is don't let your family know.
I am frugal by nature and I have watched my friends and family allow themselves to be controlled by their possessions. They live frantic lives that don’t allow for thought, just pay for this so I can have that and then off to the next possession or activity.
It has almost been expected by our consumer culture, husband and wife must both work so you can spend, spend, spend but I don’t think that they ever slow down long enough to see that what really gives them joy is time with loved ones and they are too busy taking care of their possessions or acquiring more.
One element that original article neglected to mention; or rather, two.
First, what of those who had been living within their means, but got offshored / downsized / caught in a corporate bankruptcy?
Hard to pay off bills on an unemployment check.
Second, what we are seeing is an evidence of bubbles as malinvestment: people borrowed against future cash flows to pay absurdly high prices for houses.
As their incomes fell, or credit was cut off, or whatever, the inflated house payment is "non-discretionary" income: they no longer have the option of selling the house to move into cheaper lodging, and the extra money (pure profit to the banks and the foreign governments / hedge funds / pension funds) going to the mortgage, can no longer be used to pay off other debt.
The irony of it all is, even the inflated payments on those homeowners who *remain* current, are not enough (despite the mathematical 'wizardry' of the quants who developed tranches) to salvage the solvency of those holding the bag on mortgage-backed security, against the tsunami of those erstwhile homebuyers who *did* default.
The bankers, and the members of Congress who profited from all this (before the bubble burst), are the ones to blame for all of it.
(IF they hadn't aggressively pushed credit, beyond any historical bounds, then people couldn't have borrowed beyond their means.)
NO cheers, unfortunately.