I'm debt free - my story

My forfeit, as requested.
Just to say to start that I got my credit card bill today and I am not debt free as I thought.
I owe MBNA £1.27. I will pay this online as soon as I write this.

So what were my debts? A couple of credit cards that added up to telephone numbers. Put it this way, they were so bad that I actually never bothered to total them up.
Sorry to those of you with bad morgages but my payments are less than £200 a month so I'm not counting that as a debt. One article, I'm a freelance journalist as well as staff, pays that.
Nope, it was just credit card bills... how does it happen?
A business trip to the States, some one paying my bill - well I'll take the missus, pay for her air ticket on the card. Pay for this and that, while away, on the card. Then Germany, then the states again... it's a "cheap" way to travel, we're only paying half! (think about it, duh)
Heavy week of car use, had to fill up three times, even on motorways, use the card...
Needed a new camera lens... on the card.
I guess you all know the drill by now. Suddenly it's too big to pay off all at once. I pay a big chunk, well over the minimum, so up and up goes the limit.
I was around and earning good money in the 60's. Everyone had more than one credit card - you just did. I popped out whichever was closest to hand at the time, so they all went up.

Now then, I'm sorry if anyone is looking for a ray of light here, a quick fix out of your own problems, but my way out was so simple I'm almost afraid to write about it.

I stopped spending and started banging every bit of spare cash off my cards.
That's it. Sounds easy don't it?
There the simplicity ends...
I sold everything that wasn't fastened down on ebay - made a couple of quid and off the card it went. Sold books on Amazon, off the card. Started some of the click and earn websites, off the card... all of those three I came across via this website. And, of course, they were all transferred to zero per cent cards, another idea from this site.
I'd see a shirt in a charity shop, I wouldn't buy it, I have enough shirts right?
I cut out my fancy coffee four days a week, I started taking my own sandwiches to work, I stopped my little flutter on the horses (only a fiver a time, and sometimes I won, but I stopped it).
I went to the hole in the wall for cash so I knew how much I had in my wallet, how much I was spending and how much I had left. I cut out the little visits to the vending machine in the foyer at work.
When my computer went south I rebuilt it myself (it's a tool of my trade) and I did all my own car repairs.
Six years it took me and now saving money, counting every penny, has become a habit. A good one. I'm not stingy, I stand my round in the pub once a week and I'd bet money (well I wouldn't, actually, but I think you know what I mean!) that none of my workmates, friends or family, even suspected how I've lived for those years.

So now I'm debt free and, if I could pay off £200 a month for the last few months, I reckon I can manage £150 a month into an ISA from now on.
I've found a good one as well. Found it via this site actually.