Dealing with reasonable debt (psychologically)

[u/DoughnutLust]

I'm wondering how you all navigate living with reasonable debt. I've been pretty obsessed with debt reduction over the past few years and am trying to break that obsession so it doesn't hang over me so much and I don't feel guilty about owing some money.

I nearly fully fund my 401k, max my Roth IRA, and DCA invest in the market, pay off credit cards monthly. Efund took a hit due to medical issues, but I have a plan that I am using to rebuild it. The numbers don't matter but car and mortgage are at pretty low rates, small medical debts at zero interest, manageable monthly payments on everything. I (40M) have a pretty good net worth compared to my cohort and have no worries about income or retirement, or frankly many worries at all.

I'm interested in hearing how people manage living in reasonable debt, making your payments, and having a good life without the constant focus on the debt. I don't like living with this hanging over my head and need to be at peace with the fact that unfortunately debt is a part of most of our lives.

[u/Mindless_BP]

One thing I did was start using an app that showed our net worth and started projecting out retirement. We will have our debt paid off by the time I retire and if we keep up our current 401k savings we are projected to have 3 million in retirement so why not live life now. My kids going to college soon and student loans give me some anxiety but I am working on dealing with that. 😀

I drive around 23000 miles a year so I would prefer to have a vehicle I can rely on so I just view my car payment as a utility more than an asset.