She says:

I’ve been reading some personal finance blogs dealing on the topic of debt. There are quite a few blogs out there which detail the various journeys of folks climbing out of debt. I am so very thankful that we decided early on in our marriage to live a debt-free lifestyle. It has allowed us to have a lot of options in our life that we would not have had otherwise. We learned about living a debt-free life from Larry Burkett of Christian Financial Concepts (which has changed in recent years to Crown Ministries).

For us, there are many benefits to being debt free.  Here are just a few:
1. Being debt free gives me the option of staying home with the kids. (They are only little once).
2. Being debt free has allowed us to remain stress free from worrying about paying bills.
3. Being debt free has prevented “financial fights”.

Now the other side of the coin in being debt free has involved us giving up some things too.

1. Being debt free means we do not have the latest gizmos, gadgets, DVDs, cars, stereos, computers, cell phones, etc. that friends or family members have.
2. Our children do not wear designer clothes (nor do we).
3. We do not take expensive vacations.
4. We do not eat out often.

I can tell from personal experience that the benefits of the first 3 items vastly outweighs the sacrifices of the latter 4.