Oops, forgot to mention this about our Chevy payoff
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.
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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. 🙂
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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!