I have a friend named Terry (T-Rex) who would answer the "street smarts". He IS street smart, but he had me FINALLY do a budget for him w/out paying a company to take care of his debt. He said something that made me think though... LOL. I was figuring his budget and he said (jokingly), "Baby J, it's JUST debt man it's not that serious... if I die owing the Gov 100k in loans, but I am enjoying the things that I bought w/ the money, but YOU take 3 years out of your life to dig yourself out of debt and we die at the same time... who wins?" LOL. I mean, it's a diff way of thought but he DID get the wheels turning in my brain. I bounced back though with, "Yeah FUCKhead that'd be good if we had a shorter than expected life. But say we both live to be 100... who wins then?" So we kinda made EACH other think. B/c of what HE said I cooled off on the investing (only for a lil bit) and started to enjoy my life more... and he got a lil more serious about the future. So I think a good balance of the 2 is important.