WASHINGTON

--During my online discussions, people share with me how they are following good money management principles. As we celebrate the Fourth of July, I wanted to offer some of their testimonies about financial independence.

"We are debt-free and loving it. We just paid off our mortgage and now, to quote a certain someone (you), we got that monkey off our back. We are grateful that we never had any student loan debt and, thanks to my thrifty stay-at-home husband, we have been able to live within our means. Since we pay cash for our new (to us) cars and do not carry a balance on our credit card, our only debt has been our mortgage. We are free at last.

"Now we are able to maximize our retirement savings and we still have eight years to continue saving for our daughter's college education. Signs are good that our daughter will continue our family tradition of thriftiness. On vacation she complained that we didn't have the same cable options at home as we had at the cabin we rented. I told her that the entire cost of our vacation was about the same price as a year of extended cable and which would she rather have: more TV or a family vacation? She thought long and hard and finally said, 'a vacation.'"

"Wow, it really adds up. Recently I decided I needed to get more proactive on my outstanding bills. To do this, I needed more money coming in. Instead of getting an extra job (tired enough at the end of the day), I decided to get extra money by forgoing my cable and home Internet for three months and not getting that afternoon coffee every day. I knocked $600 off the bill payment and read a lot of books and watched some shows at the library. Yes, I am relieved to have cable back at home, but it was totally doable for three months."