The Denver Post titled this "Nothing’s Free But Me"

Sunday, September 30, 2001

A recent Newsweek article said the average American family has amassed credit-card debt of around $8,000. I sincerely want to thank the family that took on my debt as well as its own, because I have not had a credit card since 1980.

The decision came about one day when I received the statement for my one credit card and saw that I had let it creep up to $1,000 and how much interest was being added to it each month.

What a stupid waste of money, I thought, and set out to pay it off as quickly as possible. When I mailed my last payment, I sent along a note asking them not to send me a new card when the current one expired, and I cut the card in pieces and threw it in the trash. I decided that I would rather have the freedom that comes with not owing anyone anything – as my father showed me by example – than the questionable gratification of satisfying my every whim.

Not that I had no qualms when I first canceled the card. What if an emergency arose and I needed to travel, or to pay a large unexpected expense – medical, say - and had no cash? What if there was something I desperately wanted and didn’t have the money to buy?

As it turned out, nothing has come up in the last 21 years that I couldn’t handle by either paying cash or delaying the purchase until I had the cash. It has been a most enlightening experience. It is amazing how many things I really don’t need, and amazing how many things I have managed to acquire anyway.

I look around my house and I see that all the basic needs are fulfilled - furniture, food, clothes, four walls, heat and light – and there is a lot of excess, frosting on the cake, so to speak. There is this more-than-adequate computer I’m writing on, DSL for the best Internet access, a good TV, VCR, CD player and more discs than I listen to, books everywhere (those really should be in the basic needs category), and a few nice objets d’art.

I was fortunate to make a good decision when I bought my car back in 1971, because my 240Z is still running well and getting 27 miles to the gallon on the highway. I was equally fortunate in buying a good TV 14 years ago – it still works as well as it did when I got it. I have a fondness for old reliable things and replace them only when I can’t squeeze another ounce of life out of them. We are partners in life, my things and I.

Yes, I could drive a new car, buy new furniture, buy more clothes and expensive toys…but for whom? Not for myself, because I don’t care much about those things.

Most of us have one overriding desire or need in our lives. For some it’s driving a new car every year or two, for some it’s physical appearance (and goodness knows, my car and I would both look better with a little reconstructive surgery), for some it’s a house that perfectly reflects self image.

What I care about is freedom.

It is freedom to know that I have a fair amount left after paying expenses each month and that I can spend it any way I wish or save it. It is freedom to know that I can entirely change my life’s direction any moment I wish to, as I have several times. It is freedom to never dread what the mailman brings, knowing it’s never going to be a bill I can’t pay or that I have to put someone else off so I can pay it.

There’s something so…well, freeing about it.

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