Hey, everyone is getting debt free! "No debt" is the new "debt!" Thrill as Leo from Zen Habits pays off his car loans. Lots of good tips on how to get out of debt. [J.D. at Get Rich Slowly has made his final payment and is now free of consumer debt. He still has a mortgage, but has eliminated $35,000 of consumer debt that began with a $500-limit department store credit card.

Here's a taste of how he did it:
Using the ideas I learned from personal finance books, I set out to eliminate my debt. I stumbled at first -- I made plenty of mistakes. But eventually I developed a system that worked:

1. I set goals. I can't stick to a budget to save my life, so I developed what I call a spending plan. Like a budget "lite", this tool simply gives me a rough idea of my income and expenses so that I can determine where best to put my money. It's like a roadmap to my money, and it has helped me reach my goals.
2. I read everything I could find. I continued to read personal finance books of all sorts. I learned that even the worst books generally contained a piece of advice I could use. I developed the ability to extract the stuff I could use from a book and to discard the rest. I subscribed to personal finance magazines. I read personal finance web sites.
3. I tracked every penny I spent. I never realized how easy it was for me to overspend simply because I didn't keep track of my money. I'd kept rough records in Quicken before, but now I became precise. By paying close attention, I was able to spot weaknesses and correct them.
There's lots more info at Get Rich Slowly. Congratulations, J.D.!

Have any Consumerists gotten themselves out of consumer debt? How did you do it? Share your strategy in the comments.

Robert and Helena shredded all their credit cards and arranged them to spell out "NO NEW DEBT" to cement their commitment to getting out of credit and living a debt-free life. According to the Forbes has put together a list of the best and worst housing markets in the U.S. Think every market is dropping? Apparently not. Salt Lake City, you're doing just fine. So far. Overall, the picture isn't as rosy:

Home prices fell in more than one-third of US cities last quarter as stricter lending standards caused a 14 percent decline in sales nationwide.

Prices dropped in 54 of 150 metropolitan areas in the third quarter, and the median sales price tumbled 2 percent nationwide, the National Association of Realtors said yesterday. Oh well.

10 Best Housing Markets:

1. Salt Lake CIty
2. Charlotte, N.C.
3. San Jose, Calif.
4. San Francisco
5. Raleigh, N.C.
6. Austin
7. Pittsburgh
8. Seattle
9. San Antonio
10. Portland, Ore.

10 Worst Housing Markets:

1. Sacramento, Calif.
2. New Orleans
3. Riverside-San Bernardino, Calif.
4. Detroit
5. Las Vegas
6. Tampa, Fla.
7. Miami
8. Cleveland
9. Phoenix
10. Jacksonville, Fla.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development is predicting that mortgage-related write-offs could reach $300 billion, says the New York Times. Although major U.S. financial institutions have placed their estimates at around $50 billion, the OECD says that "a rougher period may yet await financial markets."

The O.E.C.D., based in Paris, is an international organization that helps governments with economic, social and governance issues. In particular, mortgage resets -- the point at which the interest rate on a loan shifts upward to reflect current borrowing costs -- have not peaked, but will probably do so next May, the organization said in the report.

"We still have not hit the worst point in resets, delinquencies and ultimate losses on mortgages," it said.

The group estimated the losses based on a 14 percent default rate on subprime mortgages, high by historical standards but entirely plausible under the current circumstances, economists say. Losses on subprime loans -- those made to the least creditworthy borrowers -- would cost lenders $125 billion, the organization said.

Factoring in so-called Alt-A mortgages, ones given to people with better credit but still not high-end, the organization concluded that an overall loss level of $300 billion looked feasible. Yikes. Happy Black Friday!

The National Consumer Law Center and the Project on Student Debt have launched a joint website that offerers information for student borrowers who are behind on their loans,