I have nothing against debt. Been in debt all my life. I've hardly ever paid cash for anything. Debt has allowed my family to enjoy life. It's allowed us to prepare for our retirement, which is right around the corner. In the last 15 years we've bought a 32' pontoon boat, a 53' houseboat, a 26' bowrider, which we sold to buy a 31' pocket cruiser a 40' motorhome, and 2 mobile homes. Everything but the pocket cruiser is paid for. Last October we refi'd the house, bought the 2nd mobile home and paid off everything but the 31 footer. The 2 mobile homes we've sold on contract, and we're currently receiving $1000 monthly in P&I payments. The house payment only went up $170, and we still have $200k equity. So all but one of our retirement toys are paid for, plus we've been able to enjoy them for many years already
Had we saved up to pay cash for these things, we'd likely still be saving for the first boat...
as an analogy-- I grew up in the 'smoking generation'. I've known many friends and family who've quit smoking, including me. When people encourage you to quit, a big reason is "look at the money you'll save!" - I, personally, don't know of any quitters who actually noticed the extra money, at least enough they were able to save it to buy a car or something with it. It just gets assimilated into the daily financial grind unnoticed...
But yeah, I'm also a fan of paying off the bills! --even if it takes going into debt to do it
(flame suit on)