re: About 20k of CC debt

Don't listen to these Dave Ramsey clones - live your life. I'm not saying not to save and I'm not saying to live drastically above your means, but keep life in perspective. You only live once.

The short answer is to transfer your balances to a couple new cards at 0% for 12-18 months.

I'll tell you a few things that shaped my financial philosophy. The primary one was the death of a close friend. At the time he was taking home $400K/yr. Then one evening he was hit head on by a drunk driver just blocks from his home - dead in an instant in his early 40s. All of that money didn't do him a damn bit of good (and a simple life insurance policy takes care of the family regardless of savings). Likewise, a friend of my kids was hit head on by a drunk driver and suffered permanent brain damage - instantly changed not only her life but the life of her entire family.

Personally, I had to go on disability nearly 10 years ago after chronic back/neck problems and unsuccessful neck surgery. My income was unchanged due to good disability insurance, but I can no longer do many of the things I love, like racing motocross, riding sport bikes, golf, fishing, etc. Thankfully, I can still enjoy a nice car and do an occasional track day.

You never know when your time is up. Live every day like it is your last.

When I was in my mid-30s I started racing motocross with my son. Bought a truck, trailer, bikes, gear...the works - all financed or on credit cards. My father has never been one to carry debt, and he loves to berate me for not waiting until "I can afford it" before I do something. After 6 years of racing motocross, I had to give it up following my neck surgery. Those weekends racing with my son were some of the best times of my life. If I had postponed buying everything until I could afford it, I would have missed out on all those years of doing something my son and I absolutely loved. After that, I financed a couple sport bikes and we did track days for 2 years before I had to give that up as well.

During the 5 year period around my surgery and when I initially went on disability, I was set back approximately $300,000 due to lost wages, medical bills, etc. If I put off everything until I could afford it, I'd miss out on too much life. After paying $30,000+ in credit card debt down to nearly zero (for the second time), this summer I bumped it back up to $40K. That included a once in a lifetime family trip to Costa Rica for my wife's best friend's wedding, a new Vette, and a new car for the wife (down payments on credit cards). Going into the summer I had no plans to do any of that. But the wedding came up and we didn't want to miss it, my Jag needed $4K in repairs so I decided to ditch it and buy my Vette a couple years earlier than anticipated, and I bought the wife a new car so she wouldn't scratch up my Vette taking it to work.

I'll take around 2 years to pay it off while bouncing the debt from credit card to credit card to avoid paying interest. I'll pay a few months of interest here and there on a small portion of it, but that doesn't bother me because of the enjoyment I got in return. But I won't alter my lifestyle significantly to knock out the credit card debt quickly. Life is too short.

Don't sweat it. Move the debt to 0% interest cards, evaluate your spending habits, and establish a budget that pays off the debt a little at a time with minimal or no interest while avoiding adding to the balance. But don't take drastic measures - like crash diets, it never sticks. You'll just miss out on life.

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Uh...if you need cash it is a very good idea. If you can sell a truck/SUV you own outright for $25k and buy a used car for $8-10k, not only is that $15k you can put towards your debt, you just freed up gas money, insurance money and personal property tax costs if your state has such a thing. That is a savings that just keeps contributing.

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Uhh... this is not reality for most people. Most likely somebody in his financial situation is upside down or has minimal equity. He's going to take a hit on that car when he trades it in. If it's a newish car, it is almost impossible to sell it himself. He's going to take a couple grand in equity and make it zero equity, and likely going to come out of pocket to buy the $10k POS. Only thing you say that makes any sense is it should be investigated. But that's not what you originally said. This is pretty niche advice being passed off as gospel.

I’m “content” with enjoying life to the fullest and not settling for less.

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I’m “content” with enjoying life to the fullest and not settling for less.

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You remind me of a page from my Deep Thoughts by Jack Handy calendar:

I hope that when I die, people say about me, 'Boy, that guy sure owed me a lot of money.'

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I’m “content” with enjoying life to the fullest and not settling for less.

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Ok. Well not everyone can be a dentist on disability who collecting so much tax-free disability (until 2030) that:

1. Professed he would “kill himself” if he “only made $100,000.”
2. Has admitted to investing (and I believe losing) tens of thousands of dollars on various penny and weed stocks.
3. Admitted to running up at least $30,000 in credit card debt on 3 occasions (as of April 2016), and being able to pay it off easily.
4. Admits to having $40,000 in credit card debt, and despite any transfer fees, in addition to paying some interest, will pay it off in 2 years.
5. Posted countless times about buying/owning various expensive sports cars (corvette, jaguar, etc.) over the years.

And to be honest, most people seemed to question the truthfulness of your statements over the years, either when you were posting as 911moto (even had to start a thread complaining about it) or as TigrrrDad.

So if you’re lying, your advice is based on the lies, is immediately useless. And if you’re telling the truth, your advice is based on a situation that is completely unusual with an unusually high source of (tax free) income, and is essentially useless to almost everyone else who are situations that bear little to no resemblance to your own.

So whether you need to incessantly bring up
your situation either to convince people of a lie you want to be true (or believed to be), to validate some pathological desire/tendency, and/or any other reason, can you at least not present it as useful advice for someone seeking some?

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Uhh... this is not reality for most people.

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Nobody said it applied to everyone. I think your reading comprehension is a bit lacking.

Financial FREEEEEDOMMMMMM