....I believed this since I was 13. I told my parents this all of the time, whilst they scoffed and belittled me because I wanted nothing to do with credit. "You'll never get anywhere in life without credit," They'd say, and my reply with me would always be the same, "Credit is a sham instilled to break your financial independence."

Even up to a year ago, they'd still scoff. Not now. Now we have honest and sincere discussions about how they never saw it coming, and how I was right. At 13! Just shows you how much kids see the truth while parents have blinders on when it comes to kids' "rhetoric". To this day, I own no mortgage, have no credit cards. The only thing I'm paying is rent, utilities, and 5k left on my car. I have the car only because I didn't have the capital to buy a cheap used one when my old one was about to go kaput. Other than that, I'm debt-free, and proud of it.

I chastised my mother about using her house as a virtual ATM 2 times in the past 5 years, and only once because they really needed it.

That commercial that ends with a smiling guy saying "I'm in debt up to my eyeballs, somebody help me" (about 2 years ago) always made me laugh. People got the impression that keeping up with the jones' was a good thing. Nonsense. F**k the Jones', and worry about you.

Get out of debt if you have it. I might live almost paycheck to paycheck, but that cash goes to things I need, not things I'm paying 10X as much through interest for.

Fight Club comes to mind, only because they wanted to wipe everyones credit to zero in the movie. I liked the movie for that reason, and because the one comment, "The stuff you own, ends up owning you."

And that's the truth, if you're paying it off forever. That's Slavery, plain and simple.