Tuesday, November 10, 2009

We OWN it!!!


We paid off our car today!!! I am sooooo excited about this. We bought our Acadia last summer when we were needing a larger vehicle for our growing family. In addition to obtaining the vehicle we also obtained an annoying little thing called a loan. Rob and I were both raised in very sensible families who always drove paid-for cars. This usually meant buying used vehicles or in my mom's case driving the same car for almost 20 years!!! So this was our very first time having a car payment. And lets just say we despised it. And *technically* this was a used car when we bought it. But it only had 3,500 miles on it and it still had that new car smell. So to us it was brand new. Anyway, back to that annoying car payment....I am a huge Dave Ramsey fan and while we don't follow all of his principles precisely we do keep a very close eye on our budget and we made it a priority to put as much extra money towards the principle on the loan every month so we could get it paid off early. We failed miserably some months and others we did very well. I also have to thank Rob for his great work ethic and working overtime anytime it was available to him. So we got that sucker paid off in 17 short months! Now, we have an extra $440 every month, which I wish I could say I was going to spend on something really fun. HOWEVER, Rob has an astounding amount of student loan debt (those pharmacy degrees are expensive!) which we are going to start chipping away at with the extra money. Otherwise it will take us another 27 years to pay them off (I'm not joking - our mortgage will be paid off before his student loan would be!).

6 comments:

Stephanie said...

Congrats on owning so quickly! I love the car!

You have no idea what you have done to me - I was all set to go order a brand new chevy Equinox this very weekend and now you have me totally in love with the Acadia after researching it BECAUSE OF YOUR POST!! haha

It's so funny how you can think your heart is "dead set" on something but changes in a moments notice - I was "dead set" on at least 3 different houses before we bought this one and I'm soooooo glad we didn't miss out on our dreamhouse because of it!!

And AMEN to those pharmacy degrees being so darn expensive - we are doing our very best to pay mine off as quickly as possible! Maybe I shouldn't be buying a new car afterall.... oh well =)

Anonymous said...

Congrats! That is awesome. Both our cars are paid off and I know what you mean...It is such a relief! It sounds like your families set a really good example for you. It is hard sometimes when we see good friends of ours get a new car every year or two, but I try to remember how blessed we are to have two reliable cars paid off and how the money we don't put towards car payments can go to our money market or IRA. Which is really exciting!! I'm happy for you all. And what a cute SUV. I like it!

mom said...

Audrey - I am soooo proud of both of you for working so hard. Rob with his job and you with the house and baby. Your determination has paid off. Glad to see that my 20 year old car that you made fun of (with no car payment) had some influence on you. Love you both!

A Wedding Story said...

Great job! Dave Ramsey would be so proud! I love Acadias too, they look so nice!!

Tiffany said...

Yay for owning your car so fast! What's your secret...lol? I have an Accord and am wanting something bigger. Especially b/c we plan to start a family this summer. Love your blog! -Tiffany =)

Meg said...

OK.... Dave Ramsey...paid off cars...finding more things in common!! :) Have a great day!