Last payment will be processed tomorrow; I expect the title shortly.
I can’t believe it’s been 5 years. This wasn’t the first car I ever drove, but it’s the first one I wasn’t “leasing” from my parents and the first one I ever bought.
And I still love it. I think I’ve posted a pic before, but here it is again (pic is a few years old, but the car still looks the same): 2007 Mustang GT
Needs new tires, and I gotta figure out a squeak in the transmission, but otherwise still runs flawlessly.
I dunno, I’m kinda proud of paying this bill, on time, every month, for five years. I might actually be an adult now. ;D
Congrats, that is a good day, but take it from an idiot… A reasonably smart idiot, you now have one less massive chunk of money coming out of your monthly nut.
Be smart with that extra money. At this point it feels like free money, strippers, good tequila, RC toys, faster cars…
No doubt. Your advice is good; I’ve gotten the same from some older friends. In the short term, that money goes to paying off all my credit debt (not huge, but significant.) After that - Yeah, I need to build up savings for at least a few months of normal expenses.
Welcome to the club! On Monday, I paid off one of our vehicles, and the last one will be all ours by the end of the year. We’ve decided that we’ll deposit the equivalent of a car payment into our savings so that when we decide to replace one of our vehicles, we might be able to do it for cash, or at least for a vary small loan. Can’t wait to be free of car payments!
One possibility is to keep making the same payment, but into a savings account. Then use that plus the proceeds from selling your car to pay cash for the next one. Never have a car loan again.
Time to trade in! Put it on Craigslist, where you’ll get a good price, and go get a new one. Difference to you about $13K, which is a much smaller nut than you probably had. Pay it off early and trade in sooner. Pretty soon you’re driving a new car every two to three years, and never run out of warranty. Even better, if you put aside the difference money, you pay cash each time.
That is the 100%, purest bit of bullshit advice I’ve ever heard in my life.
Stay in debt, have a payment constantly, you’ll love it, its fun. Bull shit.
Keep paying on a car note, it’ll make you rich, eventually you’ll have enough to just pay cash for a new car every 2 years.
ChefGuy, is your old man Goldman, or possibly Sachs? Did your mom blow JP or possibly Morgan? Did you graduate from the School of Madoff? Is Paris Hilton your sister?
I must be doing something wrong. The more I spend, the less I have.
GameHat, I’ve had a change of heart, you should take your new found financial freedom and immediately pile it back into a new car note. If you keep spending piles of cash on a bucket of steel, the cars will eventually come to you for free (after you fork over a buttload of cash, which will magically appear because you bought a new car).
Yeah. Keep making that car payment, one way or another. Some into savings to cover the maintenance, some into savings to cover a down payment on a new one in a few years…
Oh hell - take that first non-payment and have some fun with it!! (then see above after that).
Congrats. It’s a great feeling We just paid off my “new” car a couple months ago, several months before the original payoff date. Nice not to have that mandatory 350ish bucks out the door every month!! (and we are using the money for other bills, which is nice also).
However, I actually have bought a new car about every three years for the past 12 years or so. I had the cash, so paid cash for a new vehicle in 1998. Was earning well, as was my wife, sold the Jeep and bought another one: total outlay for the new vehicle about $5K. Amortized over the previous three years, that amounted to about $138 a month I had to put away, which was a drop in the bucket. Those days may be done, though, since I’m now retired. We’ll see. Vehicles owned: 1998 Wrangler; 2001 Wrangler; 2003 CRV; 2006 Chrysler 300; 2008 Saturn Vue; 2011 Prius. All that aside, I don’t recommend doing it if you can’t afford it.
Weee, me too. Last payment Aug 10, just got the “thanks for all the dough” letter from Ford on Monday.
We are 2 months away from clearing all non mortgage debt and each milestone feels awesome. One last cc payment and then the line of credit. Unfortunately there are already plans for the money that’s been going to debt for the next 18 months but at least some of it is for fun. Most of it is retirement, savings and house repairs however.
Congratulations! It’s a great feeling, isn’t it? We paid off both of our cars this year, one of them several years early. Now we’re using the money previously in the budget for the car payments to put more in savings and pay down principal on the mortgage.
If you think you feel good now, wait until that mortgage doesn’t exist anymore. We did a refi back in about 2004 or so that knocked $100,000 in interest off the loan, which meant that we could sprint for the finish line within a couple of years. That additional money going straight into a retirement fund is very nice indeed.
Not me - I usually drive my cars until the wheels fall off. The last 4 cars I’ve owned each got at least 120,000 miles on them before I got rid of them. Two were over 160,000. My wife has done the same thing - her current vehicle has 170,000 and is running strong. We plan to drive it for at least another year. The one she had before that was at about 160,000 when we traded it in. Throw in my son’s car, and our current fleet of 3 vehicles has almost 400,000 miles between them.
Gamehat, if it were me, I’d take bubba jr’s advice, and get comfortable in that Mustang.
We’ve received a settlement check that just arrived the other day. That means we can pay off the loan on Suburban Plankton’s car this month. We managed to pay cash for mine, so we will be joining you soon in having no car payments.
After the car is paid off, we only have house related loans. A mortgage and a small home equity loan that is next on the chopping block.
