I have been keeping a little secret from my readers and I am now ready to reveal it. I paid off my car IN FULL so I now own it. Woooooo hoooo!!!!! I no longer have a car payment that I will be sending to the bank but I have decided to keep the amount in my budget and place it in my Car Fund. (No that is NOT my car in the image below….it is my dream car though.)
I created a sub account in ING (Oh how I love ING) and set up an automatic ‘car payment’ which moves the monthly payment from my checking account to a savings account every month. This money is going to be used to pay for those miscellaneous car items like inspections that are not taken care of on a monthly basis.
image from lexusenthusiast.com
I am also using that to grow a savings goal towards the purchase of a new (actually used, but new to me) vehicle in the future. This is part of the snowflake strategy of continuing to budget for the same amount but using it for savings instead of debt since I am CAR debt free.
Another thing that relates to me paying off the car is that I can now lower my insurance premiums because I do not have to keep the insane amount of coverage that you need when you have a loan. I will be increasing my deductible since I have $1000 in my car fund that I can use in case I need it so this will lead to lower monthly payments on the insurance for me.
Congrats LuLu. That is quite a good feeling when something big like a car is paid off. It’s like suddenly getting a raise. I am getting close to paying mine off too.
Well good luck to you too!!!! I am now taking the amount I used to pay to the bank and set up (yet another) ING sub account. This money is now going towards saving up for my next car. Woo hoo!!!!
Congratulations! Doesn’t it feel great?!? I am a big fan of “making a payment to myself”, rather than “making a payment to others”… It’s always awesome to hear from folks who have paid off debt. Rock on!
-NCN
Yes it feels really great to see that I can have that amount as a transfer in my ING account and make my savings grow!!!!
Congratulation Dude, Enjoy with your car…
thanks for sharing your personal info with your readers..
Keep Cheers..
Jacob
Congratulations right back at you! I’m planning on having my car paid off in November myself! Small victories add up!
ING eh? I’ll have to check it out. I need to sell my car.
Congratulations!!
Congrats on paying off the car, and awesome to see what you are doing with that particular budgeted money!
Till then,
Jean
That is really good news! Why don’t you show a picture of your car… the car that you own now!
Awesome stuff! My husband and I just paid off our minivan. Unfortunately, we had a high interest rate loan on it so it didn’t make sense to keep the loan when we came into some extra cash through a bonus. However, sometimes it does make sense to keep the loan, especially if you get one of those 0% loans for 5 years.