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Finances & Money

Oops, forgot to mention this about our Chevy payoff

June 12, 2007
By Clever Dude
- Leave a Comment

Alllll the way back on the 9th (uh, Saturday), I wrote how I sent off the final check to pay off our Chevy Malibu. However, I forgot to mention some other important, and interesting, information:

  • We bought the 2005 Chevy Malibu in March, 2005 on a 6 year (yes, 72 month) loan.
  • It is now about 25 months into that 72 month loan. We paid off the loan about 47 months, or almost 4 years, early.
  • Because we made some stupid mistakes with our purchasing decisions, the loan on this normally inexpensive car started at around $25,000!
  • That means we paid off about $25,000 in 25 months!
  • That’s in addition to paying down about $10,000 on my Honda Ridgeline in the last 15 months!

Just think of what we could have purchased/earned with $35,000 in 2 years! I should also account for maintenance (pretty much just oil and wiper blades), insurance, gas (gets 30-40 mpg), and interest on the loan. Cars are expensive, especially when you pay much more for one than you need.

I’ll take the blame on that one.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Patrick says

    June 12, 2007 at 7:42 pm

    Wow, that’s very impressive! Now if you can just keep those monthly payments going into investments instead of a car payment, you’ll have a very nice stash in just a few years. 🙂

    Reply
  2. The Financial Blogger says

    June 12, 2007 at 8:44 pm

    Hi Clever Dude,
    I’m new to your blog so the answer might to my question might be under my nose but anyway: How were you able to put 35k down on yours debts in 2 years? This is quite impressive!
    Nice blog!
    Cheers,
    FB.

    Reply
  3. J2R says

    June 12, 2007 at 9:28 pm

    I did the same thing a few years ago and purchased a new car (not a good financial decision), but you know what? Sometimes you gotta treat yourself.

    Reply
  4. Clever Dude says

    June 12, 2007 at 10:35 pm

    FB – I didn’t realize until I added it up how much we actually spent. As you can probably guess, we make more than $35k per year, but I can assure you that we’re in no way rich. We just persevered and forced ourselves to pay the money towards the car, not towards frivolous things.

    Reply
  5. MoneyNing says

    June 14, 2007 at 12:52 pm

    That is very impressive! Good for you. Was car debt reduction your primary goal or did you have other debts that you also paid off?

    What about investments? Any work done in putting money in your retirement funds?

    Reply
  6. Clever Dude says

    June 14, 2007 at 1:03 pm

    MoneyNing, During the last 2 years, we’ve been contributing towards out 401k accounts at work and Roth IRAs. We’ve also been putting a little towards savings, but not much.

    Paying down the car became a serious goal this past January when I looked at our budget and realized we could do it. Prior to that, we were just paying our regular amounts, with a little extra here and there. We focused on just the Malibu loan, and paid the bank loan off with a low APR credit card check. We didn’t really change our lifestyle much. We just shifted where our money was going in our budget.

    Reply
  7. Mustard says

    June 16, 2007 at 8:56 am

    Yes, cars are expensive but you won’t believe it if i say that cars are much much cheaper in US compared to Asian countries like mine.

    That Chevy would’ve easily cost around Rm150,000 in my country, a 3rd world country with a struggling auto industry (malaysia).

    Even a 2nd hand honda civic (1993) cost me RM25,000 .

    An entry level job for a university grad in this country would be around $1500.

    You guys are so lucky!

    Reply

Trackbacks

  1. Frugality is a waste of time at Clever Dude Personal Finance & Money says:
    June 19, 2007 at 8:29 am

    […] we also live in an expensive area (Washington, D.C. area) . There’s a reason we were able to pay down $35,000 in car debt in 2.5 years, but I want to bring this discussion above our situation. I can see why people who read frugality […]

    Reply

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