We decided to kick Murphy out of our lives starting last year. Many of you know Murphy, right? Murphy’s Law: “If anything can go wrong, it will.” We, like so many other people, were using credit cards to fund our emergencies and living paycheck to paycheck. I was tired of feeling like we could never get ahead. So in my infinite Googling on how I was going to make it through another financially stressful month I stumbled upon Dave Ramsey. From there, it was on!

For those that are unfamiliar with Dave Ramsey I encourage you to read the “Total Money Makeover” or listen to his radio show. You can get it as a podcast every weekday. He teaches what he calls the “Baby Steps” and it includes the following:

1. Save $1,000 for emergencies.

2. Pay off all debt (except for your mortgage) using the snowball method.

3. Save 3-6 months of expenses for larger emergencies.

4. Invest 15% into retirement.

5. Fund college for your children.

6. Pay off your house.

7. Build wealth and give!

We have been living on a budget for the past year and following these steps. We’ve stopped using our credit cards, and started using only our checking account for purchases. As a result, we paid off nearly $20,000 in the last 12 months! We’re officially debt free and I couldn’t be more relieved.

Just as we became debt free we gave birth to our fourth child. Luckily, we had an emergency savings because we needed to fund a tongue tie procedure for our newest addition. Rather than hitting the credit card for our unexpected expense we paid cash for it.

I can’t begin to describe the relief I feel when “life happens" and I’m prepared. And let me tell you, life will continue to happen. Without the worry of having to make a car payment or credit card payment or wonder what we’re going to do if “Murphy” comes knocking makes me much calmer and confident that we can tackle just about anything.

In addition to paying off debt, we’ve now put our third child in daycare and will likely have the three oldest in daycare for an entire year given that my oldest is one day after the kindergarten cutoff. If you’re interested in my thoughts on that you can see that here. This new monthly expense used to be something that would stress me out beyond measure, but now, I have a plan. Don’t get me wrong three in daycare is not cheap. We will still be living on a budget, and are certainly not going to be flush with cash anytime soon, but at least now we can afford this expense without worrying about going into debt.

For the past four years I’ve put “get out of debt” on my New Year’s Resolution list, but until this last year I never actually thought it was going to be a reality. Now, we’re working to save for our larger emergency fund and when “Murphy” comes knocking, I’ll tell him, “Sorry you’re not welcome here.” WE’RE DEBT FREE!!