It's MINE! Finally!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

This is totally M and P SIMS…
Today, in the mail, I received the title to my car. Along with the original lease papers with a big fat red PAID stamp.

I OWN MY CAR!

The lease says:

Vehicle Owner: Rasa

(Ok, so it doesn’t really say Rasa, it says my full legal name but you get the picture.)

It’s MINE! I know I know, I now own a 7 year old VW Golf, but hey. It’s MY VeeDub and I love it.

I’m not quite sure why I’m so geeked about this, but I did a happy dance and giggled like a little girl for a good 10 minutes or so.

I guess it’s just the feeling of “Hey, I finished something I started!” or “Hey, that was a lot of money. I paid it off!” And definitely “Hey! I don’t have to make that monthly payment anymore!”

Plus, I have an irrational emotional attachment to it. My car is the first (and only, still, come to think of it) “big purchase” I’ve ever made. When I graduated college I got a job that was somewhat of a commute, and my old car (an '84 Olds Calais that was more primer than blue) was on its last legs. My car was my graduation gift to myself. I put $800 down and signed a three year lease the day after I graduated. Three years seemed like such a long time then.

My Golf has carried me safely over 50,000 miles, and taken me cross-country twice. It carried me to college and back every day for a couple years when I lived off campus. It brought me to CT and NYC more weekends than I can count, and safely back in time for work on Monday mornings. It took me to NH and VT and ME and just about every state in between. It made it through the Sierras in the winter, and the desert in the summer. When I decided to move back East from CA, it took me home.

I shall celebrate by bringing it to my friend’s sister’s Girl Scouts car wash this weekend. Do a good deed and get a clean car. Woo!

It’s not just me, right? There are others out there that got this giddy and excited about paying off their USED car, right? Please say yes. Eh, even if I am a freak, I don’t care. I OWN MY CAR! :wink:

2

Congrats!

3

Congratulations to you, Rasa! :slight_smile:

F_X

4

That’s so smashing! Congratulations, Rasa! :slight_smile:

So, I have to ask: Does the car have a name? Most people I know who have a strong attachment to their cars have a special name for it, even if it’s only ever used mentally rather than out-loud. My dearly departed '86 Honda Accord (it was taken to the salvage yard a few weeks ago, for instance, was fondly referred to as The Turnip Truck.

5

Woo hoo!

I felt the same way when my Tercel title came in the mail.

Incidentally, I just bought a VW Golf last Wednesday. I love it! It’s a great little car. I bought the TDI (diesel engine), so with any luck I’ll have that little guy for a long, long time.

6

Ooh, a name. I think my new car needs a name.
Would it be dorky to refer to it as my little Golf ball?

Hrr hrr!

7

Thanks, gang!

You know, I never did give it a name. It’s just “my little veedub”…

8

Congrats, Rasa!

9

Oh, and scout, I keep seeing all these brand-brand new Golf TDI’s on the road… I pat mine and say “It’s ok, I still love you” even though I adore the new models. :smiley:

10

Congrats, now just remember not to pass tanker trucks on the right.

11

Heehee, in my teeny rollerskate? I could probably go under tanker trucks like they do in the movies!

12

Congratulations.

My paid-off car was bought new, but it was the previous year’s absolutely most stripped down model; does that equal used car? I was thrilled, too.

My car does not have a name, I just call it the Prizm. Unless I am talking to a mechanic, in which case I say ‘That would be my baby.’

I love my paid-off car and will not get rid of it until I can afford to pay cash for a brand new Volvo or it falls apart (literally).

Who am I kidding? Even if I could buy a Volvo out right, I’d keep the Prizm until it falls apart.

13

Good job. You should be very proud of yourself.

I’m not kidding. The next time your Dad comes to visit you can point and say, “That’s MY car.” I got a lot of pleasure out of doing that.

[unsolicited advice from an older idiot]
Don’t fall into the Vehicular Trap. “I’ve got this one. I OWN this one. I can afford ANOTHER one now.”

I bought a pick-up when I bought my house. Yeah, it was useful then, for hauling drywall and stuff. Maybe these days I need it once or twice a year to drag stuff away or bring “improvement project” material home. Or, again about once a year, I help my brother move.

Now I have a mostly brand new (fully paid for) 1997 Ford F-150 with 24K miles sitting in my garage, and a 1995 Chevy Lumina with 75K (payments pending) sitting in my driveway. I am dumb. You are not.
[/unsoliceted advice]

14

Nope. Nope nope. I’m keeping this car till the day I die! I’m not dumb!

Ok, until the day it dies. Which, I hope, is sooner than before I die!

Seriously. I’m in a “trying to get my debt/bills/expenses under control” kind of phase right now, so getting rid of a major monthly payment is pretty fookin’ cool! So no new cars. Not even a consideration!

15

For the Exingeer, we also have a pick-up (still on payment, but with a sub-inflation rate) that we use only occasionally for the pick-up, but I love it.

We try to bank an extra car payment every month, so when the truck is paid off (and the Prizm dies) we can pay cash for a new car.

16

Ahhh… j66 is falling into the trap. See, what happens is, you pay off the truck, then the car dies, then you buy a new car, then the truck dies, then you buy a new truck…

Rasa is doing the right thing. Let’s not lure her to the Dark Side.

17

::resists the lure of the Dark Side::

18

[James Earl Jones]
Come to me. Come to me, my child.
[/James Earl Jones]

A pickup is incredibly useful! Really.

Want to buy one? Used? It’s hardly been driven. Just ignore the dents, they don’t mean anything.

19

Dents don’t mean anything? Au contraire. They mean the pick-up is a truck.

A pick-up without dents and mud-splashes is just a rich boy’s toy.

Except in our case, where it is a professional home owner’s well care tool.

Re: the dark side; our plan is to keep banking an extra car payment every month, and only buying cars outright in the future. We could pay off the truck, but the interest is so low, it would be a financial mistake. We’re earning more money in our savings accounts.

20

What usually happens around three weeks after such an event is a car accident tearing the whole right fender off.

Hope that doesn’t happen!