Mine's a mixed bag.
I had credit card debt until my late 30's. Paying that off was a big change in attitude.
But I also contributed at least 10% to the 401k since my first job out of college. And started a taxable rainy day investment account by my late 20's. ($50/month dollar cost averaged into a mutual fund.)
In my late 30's I met/married my husband. He had ZERO debt. That made me feel guilty - so I cashed out some company stock options (happily, timing it to the historical peak of the stock - it went down dramatically a few months later.) - paid off my car loan and cc debt. Only remaining debt since then is mortgage.
I realized after the fact - that he may have been debt free - but I had a higher net worth. (More savings, more home equity, etc.) Good thing I didn't realize it - paying stuff off was a good move.
Since then, in the past 14 years we've been paying down the mortgage aggressively. (And we had a bigger mortgage, since we live in CA.) Should be debt free next year. Also have been maxing the 401k and catchups. Deferring all this money to the mortgage and 401k have made me much more comfortable with our proposed retirement budget... since it's been a few years of "practice" on the lesser spending.
I had credit card debt until my late 30's. Paying that off was a big change in attitude.
But I also contributed at least 10% to the 401k since my first job out of college. And started a taxable rainy day investment account by my late 20's. ($50/month dollar cost averaged into a mutual fund.)
In my late 30's I met/married my husband. He had ZERO debt. That made me feel guilty - so I cashed out some company stock options (happily, timing it to the historical peak of the stock - it went down dramatically a few months later.) - paid off my car loan and cc debt. Only remaining debt since then is mortgage.
I realized after the fact - that he may have been debt free - but I had a higher net worth. (More savings, more home equity, etc.) Good thing I didn't realize it - paying stuff off was a good move.
Since then, in the past 14 years we've been paying down the mortgage aggressively. (And we had a bigger mortgage, since we live in CA.) Should be debt free next year. Also have been maxing the 401k and catchups. Deferring all this money to the mortgage and 401k have made me much more comfortable with our proposed retirement budget... since it's been a few years of "practice" on the lesser spending.