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We should do nothing, absolutely nothing. Don’t get me wrong, it is an important point in our lives et al. It also means a big difference in terms of our cash flow, but we really should not wait till the day we are debt free to act.

Becoming debt free does not happen without us noticing it, so we should know months ahead of time when our last payment is due. Therefore, we should plan for the money that will be freed up when we don’t have to put that towards paying off our debt.

Here are some places to consider putting your money at work

• 401k/IRAs – Chances are that you haven’t maxed out your 401k or IRAs yet. You should consider doing this right away to maximum the tax-advantages with the extra money
• Emergency Fund – Some will argue that most people that are debt free already has an emergency fund in place but I believe most people don’t. I’m not talking about the money that we have in a safe stock. I’m talking about money that we can take out at anytime without thinking about the value of our account in case of emergencies.
• Automatic investments – Hopefully you were using automatic payments for your debt. Now that we don’t have this burden on us should be the time that we put the amount of money to grow for us! Low cost index funds are always recommended and having it automatically taken out of your income to be invested is even better.
• Upgrade Our Life Style – Maybe not the advice most articles will put down but this is the opportunity to really think about our goals and see if we should upgrade our life style a little bit. With proper planning we should be able to afford a better life style but remember that we also need to still keep our retirement in mind.
• Celebrate – We really need to plan our celebration so that we do not blow too much money. Just like a birthday party, the day that we become debt free should be marked down and celebrated like any other day!

Just like paying off our debt, it takes discipline to be able to put the extra cash to good use. Don’t waste years of effort by spending excessively. Be committed to become financially free!