Susan, I was in much the same position. After the horrific demise of a long-term relationship in my early 30s, I was left with no house, no job, no car, no savings, and enormous debt. It took more than a decade to pay it off. I'm still not where I think I should be - or want to be - financially at 44. Late last year, after I paid off my car, I took a look at what debt remained and realized I could afford to draw off enough from my 401k to pay it all off. I dithered over it, because that's a huge decision, but I am so very glad I did it. The repayment has barely been noticeable out of my paycheck, and the relief of that burden I'd been carrying around for 13 years made a huge difference in my emotional state. It was well worth the hit to my 401k. (The clincher of the decision was when a friend said, You could die before you're 62, and what would you have been saving it all for, then? Be happy now.)

I paid the car off before some credit card debt because I was haunted by the memory of having my car repossessed. Now I want to always have a car they can't take away.

Appropo of nothing, there is a school bus across the street that's been booted.

How does that happen?

Argh. ISA strikes again. I told him to make me some hotel reservations using Starwood Preferred Guest. I gave him the Starwood phone number, my SPG number and included dates of the reservation and the phone numbers of the hotels to make sure that he had the right one. I'm sure that you see what's coming, right? Yes, he called the hotels individually. Of course, they all wanted a credit card, which is not necessary if you call Starwood and use the SPG number. *sigh* Thank god tomorrow is his last day.

My married friends never had any(and in fact, one married the same guy twice and didn't even ask me to either wedding.)

Humph. With two weddings to the same guy she certainly qualifies as married, but the "friend" designation seems a bit more doubtful. But possibly she has other fine qualities to make up for it.

A giant bachelorette party co-hosted by Vortex and Matt sounds BRILLIANT. As long as erika attends and gets a lapdance.

Also, how are you doing generally? I heard a wretched report on NPR this morning all about how insanely hot Phoenix is this year and how it's such a badly designed city that it's actually creating more heat for itself and people are keeling over everywhere and it's just awful. And I thought of you and your mom and pup and got all worried. Do we need to start sending you fans and iced drinks and cabana boys waving giant palm fronds?

A giant bachelorette party co-hosted by Vortex and Matt sounds BRILLIANT. As long as erika attends and gets a lapdance.

she gets the first one. Of course, there will be multiple strippers, so she gets first pick.

I don't know. I just wish I could go back in time and undo every stupid financial decision and frivolous purchase we've made in the past 8 years so we wouldn't be in this idiotic bind. We make too much money to be this poor.

Don't beat yourself up over it, the past is past. If y'all are worried about a market downturn in the next few years you could look at a 401k loan (after the rolling over settles down) at a longer term to pay off some shorter term debt. If the market does downturn, you are buying stock low with your loan payments and your 401k is earning interest at your loan's interest rate. The downside are fees (although this should be very little compared to saved interest), opportunity cost if the market goes gangbusters after taking out the loan, and tax consequences in the event of job loss (depends on the plan, this may not be an issue) or loan default. The upside is that you are paying interest to yourself and you might be able to restructure to lower payments over a longer term for some of your debts and better attack other debt where the interest isn't going to yourself. Just a thought.

Edit: Or what Zenkitty said.

Oh goodness. I am bemused and terrified at the notion of what sort of trouble you people would arrange for us.

It would RULE. C'mon, you know it would!

It would so TOTALLY rule. Let's do it!

I don't know. I just wish I could go back in time and undo every stupid financial decision and frivolous purchase we've made in the past 8 years so we wouldn't be in this idiotic bind. We make too much money to be this poor.

don't I know it. If I could go back in time and tell myself not to rack up the credit card debt (for which I have almost nothing to show for it), I would. Even if I could say "switch your credit card to one that you have to pay off every month", i'd be happy.

Speaking of insanely hot. I just got back from getting lunch. I am soaked. I have a garden salad and have not even bothered with dressing, for lo the cucumbers and tomatoes are soothing my internal temp.

Really, no one in Texas should have to leave their airconditioned homes today.

I hate that. I go out to get lunch, and unless i get something damn near frozen, I don't feel like eating it when I get back