(MONEY Magazine) – GANDER MATTOX GRANDVIEW, MO.

One November night three years ago, Gander Mattox left his house in search of a BBQ dinner. He returned with a plan to eliminate all debt from his life. Mattox, a 39-year-old technology manager for the Defense Department, had never been an out-of-control spender--he had faithfully contributed 10% of his salary to his 401(k) since age 19. But his credit-card debt had gradually crept up to $9,000, and the $450 a month he was paying on four high-interest cards, as well as the $1,300 a month he was putting toward his car loan and mortgage, didn't leave him with much to save.

While he waited for his takeout order at a local BBQ restaurant that fall evening, Mattox struck up a conversation with another diner waiting for a table--financial planner Willie Norman. Their talk, initially about career plans, so sparked Mattox's interest that he sat down for dinner with Norman. Soon they'd moved on to retirement planning, compound interest and the perils of accumulating credit-card debt. After dinner, "I felt I was walking around with my eyes opened," says Mattox. "As long as I could make the minimum payments on my credit cards, I thought I was doing okay," he says. "I never thought about how long it would take to actually pay them off." He immediately resolved to become debt-free.

Mattox attacked his credit-card debt using a method he calls debt stacking. He began by paying just the minimum on all but one of his cards, putting whatever was left of his $450 budget toward paying off the account with the lowest balance. Once that balance was gone, he repeated the routine with a second card and erased his credit-card debt within 18 months. Next, Mattox took his credit-card savings and tackled his car loan, which he just paid off. He also began making bimonthly payments to chip away at his mortgage, which he hopes to have paid off by 2010. All together, his debt-reduction plan has freed up $1,000 a month, which he's using to build a $15,000 emergency fund as well as to fund a Roth IRA. "I just keep freeing up more cash," he marvels.

--Cybele Weisser