The Good Life on a Budget

• Posted by JvW on October 27th, 2009 filed in Auto, Debt

I am so excited to report that we paid off one of our car loans! YAY!! ::Throws Confetti::

One of my absolute favorite parts of paying off a debt is crossing it off in the debt snowball spreadsheet I have. I draw a beautiful red line straight through it. So therapeutic.

We bought this car back in 2005. We were recently engaged, just bought a house, and had 2 cars already. My car was a 1995 Monte Carlo and it was less than reliable. We didn’t really need to replace it. We wanted to replace it.

At the time we had no credit card debt, one relatively small car payment ($230/mo) and we wanted something shiny and new. Never mind the fact that we had graduated college 6 months before, and our student loan payments were about to kick in. Forget that we had just purchased a house and for the first time ever would have a mortgage. Don’t worry that we were now planning a wedding aka the most expensive day of our lives.

Our Brand New Mazda 3 Back in 2005

With all of that, I don’t regret buying this car. Sure, it was probably not the best decision in the world. It has been very reliable for us, and has gone over 100,000 miles without needing any major repair. We take good care of it and it takes good care of us. We plan to drive it for many years to come.

The loan was up in June 2010. We didn’t really save any money by paying it off early (versus our normal monthly payment), but I am very excited to have $404 less in payments every month. That’s money we can roll into our debt snowball!