I think — on that day oh so long into the future — when we finally get this debt off the books, we’re going to feel overwhelmed too.

When you’re scrimping to pay down debt, you put off unnecessary stuff. Once the debt is gone, you have all these “wants” clamboring for your attention. It’s hard to prioritize them.

For example, when that magical day comes, we could indulge ourselves with a much nicer, somewhat bigger TV since it’s a main source of entertainment. Then again, we should start saving for a car. And my husband will be urging a move to a place where we can get a dog… The whole thing makes my head hurt, frankly.

We all spend so long defining ourselves by the debt we are getting rid of, I think a lot of PF bloggers feel, at least initially, a loss of self when debt is repaid. It passes, of course, because our self-definitions are constantly evolving. So we do latch on to new goals, projects and other ways of delineating who we are and what we are trying to accomplish. But that brief time in a vacuum will probably terrify the bejeezus out of me.

The key to this whole process is to remember that it doesn’t have to be ALL or nothing. You can take that money you were spending on the car and put most of it toward the house, but leave yourselves a little spending money to have some fun, too. If you don’t give yourself a little fun money, you’ll be overwhelmed and it will just be that much harder to save toward your goal!

You’re right that having money in the bank is a bit dangerous, especially as you start building some wealth. Suddenly, you think, “hey, that fancy new (insert new gadget or toy here) is so much better than my old one, and it will hardly make a dent in our savings.” Sure, it’s better than charging it, but it becomes really important to prioritize what you want and make sure it’s worth withdrawing the money.

We handle this by setting up a new ING account whenever we want to make a big purchase. Yes, we bought a new flat-screen TV last year, but we set aside a little bit of money each week until we actually “earned it.” It actually made the purchase SO MUCH more exciting when we actually found the one we wanted and bought it, because of the anticipation!

I think I pretty much repeated what you said, but I think you’re on the right track!