The "three"happiest days...
Now we all know that Rving and recreational boating share much in common and we have all heard that the two happiest days {in either} are the day you buy and the day you sell. If I may be so bold I...
Forum Discussion
One of the nice things about being debt free is that if an emergency comes along and forces you to borrow some money unexpectedly, you can pay it off very fast and be debt free again quickly. We had to buy a new toad when the old one crapped out last year. Ford Focus owners will feel our pain. We had planned on keeping it forever. After trade we had a $24000 new car loan. We took the company financing and saved $500 and immediately refinanced with our credit union at a much lower rate. That was in Dec 2018. In Dec this year we will be debt free again because we have been paying an extra $1500 a month on the loan.
We did upset the dealer when we refinanced the car so fast because the $500 price discount we received by company financing went back to them to make good. At the time of purchase I asked what if we pay it off early? The finance person then hemmed and hawed and eventually told us that we needed to keep it for three months or we would lose the “insurance”. I do not like being lied to and upon further investigation found out that if we kept the loan three months the dealer would not be charged back the $500 discount. You guessed it, in three months you will have paid almost all of the $500 back in interest.
We never made a payment to them and saved several hundred $$ by doing that and have paid little interest this year by getting a much lower rate locally and accelerating the payments so fast which we could only do since we are otherwise debt free.
Another benefit of being able to save for routine expenses like insurance is now paying annually rather than by the month is about a 10% savings on the premium.
The peace of mind is priceless.
We did upset the dealer when we refinanced the car so fast because the $500 price discount we received by company financing went back to them to make good. At the time of purchase I asked what if we pay it off early? The finance person then hemmed and hawed and eventually told us that we needed to keep it for three months or we would lose the “insurance”. I do not like being lied to and upon further investigation found out that if we kept the loan three months the dealer would not be charged back the $500 discount. You guessed it, in three months you will have paid almost all of the $500 back in interest.
We never made a payment to them and saved several hundred $$ by doing that and have paid little interest this year by getting a much lower rate locally and accelerating the payments so fast which we could only do since we are otherwise debt free.
Another benefit of being able to save for routine expenses like insurance is now paying annually rather than by the month is about a 10% savings on the premium.
The peace of mind is priceless.
