At the moment and for some years, my only debt is mortgage debt. I've always purchased small, inexpensive, used cars, but many times I had to borrow the money to buy them. I currently pay off my credit card every month, but there were certainly times when I absolutely could not. I simply didn't have enough money to live, and the card worked as a bridge until I could figure out what to do. I ended up selling the average house in a wonderful school district and buying a very small, inferior house in a not-great school district, because I lacked about $200 per month from being able to make it. I always wonder what my life would have been like now if I could have hung onto the other house. Just $200 per month -- it was the payments I made every month to my dentist and divorce attorney that went on for years -- that I could not cover. I tried a number of options but none worked out.