Money. I decided yesterday to cancel all of my AMEX cards. I paid off the balances with our tax refund and then called and cancelled them. They kept on making me mad by raising the APR and lowering the limit on them even though I always made my payments on time. So I call up, paid them off and canceled the cards. Dave Ramsey would be proud. As part of his show you get to anhillate your plastic and send the video in to get shown on TV. How can I destroy the plastic in a creative way that will be cool? I was thinking maybe firecrackers. And now in the news AMEX has just announced they will be giving away $300 gift cards to select cardholders who don't use them who would pay off their balances and cancel them. That would be me... If I had just waited a day....Oh well, it feels good anyways. I got the Dave Ramsey book. It is a good read and it all makes sense. I can see many people using these techniques to get out of debt. -an emergency fund -a cash diet -no car payments -a snoball effect in paying off credit cards. All of a sudden when you think about the future bundle of joy you see the need to be free from all debt. Before I was like, whatever, I can afford to pay them later. Not anymore. It is good. Together me and Holly can be very powerful. Some people are like - is she going to quit her job when the kid is born? Both of us realize if we can just wait 2 years then she would be free to do such a thing. So for the short term, nope. I always say though, a teaching job is not like a permanent job - you get 3 months off a year and if done right we could stagger our hours so that the kid needs only 6 hours of daycare. It all works out. And that will be the big important things in my life forever - Holly, our child, and providing for our family by being stable. That is the American Dream. That and becoming a rock star.