Every year since my son was born we’ve struggled with medical bills. We’re blessed to have insurance that covers a vast majority of the cost, but even then we’ve hit our max out of pocket about six months in. It’s a huge relief when it comes, but the struggle to get there is very real. Putting out thousands of dollars over your normal bills is stressful, even in the best of circumstances. When you have a child with medical needs that’s keeping one of the parents from working full time, it’s so much harder.

When I checked today and saw we were close, I was so relieved! My husband and I were working over our finances the other day trying to figure out why we’re running behind right now. He told me, “It’s all checks… what are they for?” They’re for medical bills. There is one bill I’ve been mailing out every month that isn’t, for trash pick-up. Otherwise, if I’m writing a check it’s for a co-pay or because we were under billed by the provider (this happens frequently to us, because they can never quite remember whether we’re at maximum out of pocket or not).

Now we’ll go from writing out thousands of dollars in checks to paying nothing. Our medical bills will be non-existent until January 1, 2016. We’re not exactly going on a spending spree. We need to save up money to prepare for next year’s onslaught of medical bills, but the pressure is finally off. Every penny I spend no longer need be absolutely necessary. It’s a great feeling.