Offer your thoughts or opinion on the input financial query or topic using your financial background.

How smart is it to really be 100% debt free?
Would you run a marathon with ankle weights on?  It starts off as ankle weights, but then grows into a ball and chain as you dig yourself a little deeper each time you use your credit card (and then don't payoff the balance because "something more important came up"). I would love for my wife to be able to be home and raise our son, but we simply can't afford to do that with the amount of debt we have. We are clawing our way out, and will pay off one student loan and a car loan, then start saving for a house and once we have that, we'll get back to debt reduction. Get debt free.  That's where we are headed.  Most of it is student loans at this point, but debt will take away your freedom to do whatever you like down the line.  It just increases your overhead in the long run.