Ryan & I are finding that as we progress through the financial coaching, the intrinsic value of money is increasing. We have been listening to Dave Ramsey on CD and the first thing he says to do is to get $1000 in an emergency fund. Done. He later talks about saving money so you can pay cash for big projects. We seem to have lots of those around here with Ryan in a PhD program, the house needing a coat of paint before the siding is damaged and the baby due in September. We have actually saved enough money to pay someone to paint our house, and suddenly, we don’t want to anymore. The cash in the bank has become more valuable to us now that we have it and we don’t want to spend it on something we can do ourselves (or mostly Ryan can do, as my pregnant self will NOT be climbing a ladder). 

Before we started this process, we probably would have used the credit card to pay someone to paint the house, then slowly paid it off, paying much more in the long run with the interest charges. That money would have cost more because of the interest. Now without needing to do it, the money we have is now more valuable to us than that. I guess the peace of mind that comes with being able to pay for things has made a big impact on our lives already. Just having the credit cards paid off has relieved a lot of stress in our house.