One good thing happened in 2016

[IrishEyes]

Today I finally paid off my credit card. I'm not debt free yet because I have a couple other ones but at least it is progress. I don't have to deal with that bill every month anymore. I have been working really hard this year to pay it off. Now I can concentrate on paying off another one.

[pinboy3niner]

1. Good for you!

[UTUSN]

7. Not hijacking the thread, just running into 3niner: check out the Zippos I personalized:

[pinboy3niner]

8. Nice!

When I lost my personalized Zippo from Vietnam, I wrote to my little brother (who was still in-country) to ask him to get me a new one, and he did.

My biggest regret is throwing away my boonie hat.

Many years after the war I opened my VN footlocker for the first time and came across my boonie hat. My boonie hat was my ambush hat, the softcover one we wore on ambush instead of our steel pots.

I'd had it since Army Infantry OCS, when they threw boxes of hats at us and told us to pick one and add camouflage. I picked a Marine hat, with a flat, hexagonal top, and added camouflage with a permanent marker, then had luninescent stripes sewn on the back for night movements. I loved that hat.

But when I opened the footlocker and saw that hat impregnated with the red dust of Vietnam and smelled the jungle mildew smell, I trashed it. I just wasn't ready to handle that then.

I still have one Instamatic photo of me wearing the hat, from our week of Ranger training in OCS. It was a 'Slide for Life' over a river, and I'm just coming up onto the riverbank with the Ranger tower in the background, all black with yellow border and the Ranger tab emblazoned on it.

I really regret throwing away that hat.

[UTUSN]

9. Back then i sent my zippo with ship logo to my father. He later had strokes &

I never knew what happened to it. But talking about finding things, later after i moved to my first place my sister brought me a box of my stuff, and she made a point of fishing out a soap box that rattled with something inside. Opening it i said, "these are my original dog tags!" She said, "I've learned to open every single thing." I have been wearing one evèr since. The other one is in the shadow box.

[pinboy3niner]

11. Lost my dogtags, but they can be replcated easily today

They specified religion, and mine said Catholic. But after being wounded and medevac'd to an Army hospital in the States they asked me to state my religion for my patient bedcard.

I told them "None." They asked, do you mean 'decline to state?' I told them to just put "none". After Vietnam, I was done with religion.

[UTUSN]

12. "Replicated." Was going to say about your hat that

One of my life's lessons is that things can be replaced.

I hope we're not being rude to o.p. with this hijacking.

[pinboy3niner]

13. That hat is irreplaceable

And from what I know of our OP author, she won't mind.

[First Speaker]

2. Throw the damned cards away...

...after tearing them into little pieces, of course. Yeah, I know--gratuitous advice, almost impossible practically to do in today's world, easier said than done. Well, I'm 63, and have never had a damned credit card. The development of the industry was one of the disasters of modern history, in my opinion. Before 1945, they were rare, and no one had to worry about their "credit rating" somehow defining who they were. I've always paid cash or done without, and while, yes, I've missed a lot because of that, what I've gained by never being in debt has been worth it ten times over.

[IrishEyes]

4. Actually, I haven't used my credit cards at all in a couple of years.

I already pay cash for everything. The reason I have credit card debt is because of medical bills. I have been trying to pay them off on my tiny salary for awhile now. I don't intend to use my credit card again but I will keep it in case of emergency.

[pinboy3niner]

5. Good to keep the accounts

I use my credit cards for convenience, pay balances in full monthly, and have no card debt.

And having the accounts means I always have an emergency line of credit when there is no other resort.

[rurallib]

3. great news!

real freedom!

[UTUSN]

6. I was going to be pitiful about 2016 until I read your O.P., so I'll say HAPPINESS for you.

Otherwise, I'm in a funk over all the political stuff about 2016.

[Laffy Kat]

10. Kudos to you!

Won't it be a great feeling when you're debt free. Don't know if this is true, however someone told me not to cancel your credit cards after you pay them off because the accounts become available credit and is good for your credit report. Makes sense.

[lastlib]

14. True, as long as you don't carry "too much"

"Excessive" available credit can ding your rating with lenders. If you have too much, apparently they think you could go on a spending binge with it and get into a too-deep hole. Two, maybe three, accounts would normally be all you should carry, with a total credit limit that's commensurate with your income.

[pinboy3niner]

17. One reason I won't cancel my credit cards

I got them when I had a far higher income than I have now, and I have a top credit rating and FICO score. Even applying for an upgraded or new card would jeopardize that.

If worse came to worst, I'd still have tens of thousands of dollars in emergency credit to draw on.

[Phentex]

15. That's good news!

I wish you continued success.

[we can do it]

16. Fantastic!

Keep at it it, you can do it.