Soon To Be: Debt-Free

It’s been a busy week or two in the Physician in Numbers household. I think this will be a much shorter post.

My big excitement is that, one day after this posts, our last car payment will be sent in! That’s right, no more mortgage, no more car payment. Our only debt will be whatever we charge that month to our credit cards; we pay that off every month, so I would consider us debt-free at that point.

From what I can tell, we will receive the title to the car within 1 month.

We should also get a check for about $4.50, because our pay off amount is just a little below our monthly payment.

I had the option to print out our payoff amount and mail a check with the form to our loan servicer. But….see above, it’s been very busy here. I did not want to chance the envelope going astray. After my difficult experiences paying off my mortgage, I elected to overpay a bit. I’d like that money back, but $4.50 isn’t going to break our budget.

Overall, this car loan helped a ton on the path to paying off the mortgage. Because the car dealer couldn’t accept our money very easily, we were able to finance the car (at 0%, mind you), and apply the money we had saved for the car to our mortgage (at 4.5%). That alone shortened our mortgage by 3 years.

Nevertheless, I am thrilled to be done with the loan and see the last of that monthly payment.

I plan to save up for my next car and pay cash for it, whenever our current auto signals it is ready to retire. Hopefully the car hasn’t heard about the FI/RE movement, I want to drive it for a few more years yet.

In classic impatient fashion, I (we) have already purchased a number of items with the freed up cash flow (which hasn’t happened yet!):

• A special anniversary present.
• A replacement shelf for the fridge.
• Apparently we also need a frame for that shelf.
• Oh yes, I also bought back a little more time from my work. In theory, I have reduced my clinical time by a little less than 10%. I say in theory, because I seem to working more than ever, but that’s a post for another day.

While it might seem that we are spending money we don’t have yet, which is technically true, it is also true that eliminating that monthly car payment is going to free up a good amount of cash every month.

After one or two months of catching up on delayed purchases, I will make more prudent plans for the new budget.

Do you have a car payment? Do you have plans for your money when that payment ends?