"You'll never get out of credit card debt!"

That's what I've thought for many many years and of course it became a self-fulfilling prophecy. Over the 15 odd years of my financial adulthood, I have nearly always had revolving debt.

How many of you have thought one or more of these before:

"It's zero percent, I can do better than that in the market"
"I'll just refinance when these offers expire."
"I need this right now, I'll pay it off over the next month or two."
"Its free money!"

For the last 10 years or so I've been getting those "convenience checks" in the mail, for 12-18 months of 0% interest. I have justified dozens of big check writes over seemingly many many years (rent deposits, a new bicycle, a new bed, a scooter etc.). Revolving the balances when new checks came, and just playing the 0% game. And they just keep sending me checks!

No Longer.

Like many others on this site before me, last year I read Rich Dad Poor Dad. I got inspired, I soaked up about 10+ RE books in a 2 month period and then went out and bought my first investment house last summer. I was thinking, "WOW, this is so exciting! Cash flow! Passive Income! Real property! Oh my!" I went out a bought two more after that first thinking all the same things. I spent all my savings (60k) on buying those three houses, and a guru program or two (oh well, live and learn).

And then it hit me. The big one. I no longer had the liquid capital to pay off my credit cards in one fell swoop. All that capital was now tied up in Real Property that is far from liquid. Previously I could have sold those stocks and in about 3 days wiped the slate clean. But no longer. The psychological burden I all of a sudden felt was titanic! I was $24k in debt on credit cards with basically no savings, and my properties hadn't really started becoming profitable (after acquisition/make-readies/placement etc.)

In February of this year I posted on BP about my Personal Finance predicament: "Debt Versus Investments" When I put everything together the picture looked a bit grim. Even with the three properties I now own, I was still ultimately in a negative net worth situation.

Here's what I've changed:
* Instead of paying minimums and paying a little more when I had some left over, I now have a separate checking account purely for Credit Card payments through CapitalOne360. Money for repayment gets direct deposited.

* CapitalOne360 Allows me to make Weekly payments. I LOVE getting the email once a week on each account that says, "You paid $xxx on yyyy card!" The sense of progress I get from that is phenomenal.

* The weekly payments means that when I log into my bank account about twice weekly or so, one of those times one of my credit card balance numbers has changed! The surprise give me a little tiny endorphin hit, and that's addictive!

* I'm using www.readyforzero.com to track payments, balances, and progress. It's really excellent!

Now that the game is on. My next steps include tightening the belt further to squeeze more payments into those cards, faster! And when I'm finished, (my goal is Dec 31 '14), all the money that is now going into CC's won't be missed and it can get funneled right into buying more property! More properties faster!

Now's a good time to evaluate your own investments versus debt. Are you in a negative position like me? What did you do to change your mindset on debt?