Van Loan Paid Off!

On November 22, we made the final payment on our van loan. The final payment was $654.37. I expect a little bit of interest may come back to us, since banks ask for 10 days of interest on final payments to cover any float while payment clears.

We were sending over $1,200 a month towards this loan. In the last few months we increased it by another $950. All that money is now going to be saved to prepare for my husband's retirement from the military and into civilian employment. 

We are debt free except for our mortgage. 

Our Van Loan

We purchased a new 2023 Honda Odyssey late August 2022. We paid for it with cash and a loan at 3.49% for 48 months. The principal balance started at $40,399. We have consistently made payments of much more than the minimum for just over two years and have a balance today of $5,725.96.

We currently plan to pay off this loan before the end of the year, possibly before the end of November. I have never been one to want to hold debt any longer than necessary...paying the bank interest sucks! 

The less debt we hold, the fewer expenses we have relative to our income, the more space we create for flexibility. The ability to adapt to increasing prices and inflation. The flexibility to put our money into places that earn us money. The flexibility to spend on things with meaning to us, like family vacations.

We are also about 14 months away from my husband retiring from the military. He may get another job because he likes to work, but we are also minimizing our expenses to live on the pension he will receive and our retirement savings. The less debt we are obligated to the better! 

I highly encourage anyone reading to get your house in order. Cut unnecessary expenses, establish an emergency fund, pay off debt as fast as possible. Regardless of income, we have personal responsibility to ourselves, our family and community to be a good steward of the resources given to us. 

Setting Goals for 2024

I made two savings goals, beyond retirement, for 2024. 

1)Return $11,000 to savings for the car debt we recently paid off. I have a plan that will use regular income, $917/month. I will also send found money here as well. Always good to fatten the cash reserves!

2)Save $400 a month towards a vacation. The where and when are still to be determined and my hope is that we won't spend that much, but I'd rather oversave then under save. If we take a vacation before fully funded with current income, I will use current savings, but then keep filling in monthly to pay ourselves back.

We also have some debt to pay.

We have a loan on our 2023 Honda Odyssey. We have been paying it faster than required. I believe it was a four year loan, which we are 16 months into. The goal is to pay it off by June of 2025 half a year before my husband retires. I have the payments set as $600 twice per month. 

I'd like to sweep extra funds into both the savings repayment and the car. I might have to do a little of both depending on what I have to work with. I guess after thinking about it a little. I will consider credit card rewards towards van loan. I will keep interest earned in savings, but not necessarily counted towards my two goals above. 

The other thing that I'd like to buy is a new sofa and loveseat for our family room. Our 'fake' leather is peeling and the cushions aren't as firm and comfortable. If I buy in 2024, without specifically saving for it (we already have a good savings account) I will probably pay ourselves back for that in 2025. 

Paying Off A Car

We helped our daughter buy a 2013 Honda CRV earlier this fall. At the time, she didn't have income, nor much credit, so my husband cosigned a loan for her. The interest rate was a horrific 10.24% because of her lack of credit. Apparently it would have been higher if he wasn't on the loan. The plan since then was to pay it off within 15 months to reduce the interest rate. 

Our daughter now has a job and has moved to another state where she will need title to register the vehicle. The process seemed a little cumbersome with a lien on the title between our state and her state. Today, I decide to pay it off in full to get the lien removed for easier transfer. 

The downside, less cash in our savings account. The plus side is saving thousands in interest, plus the gap insurance will be prorated and returned to us as well. And no debt on that car.

I will be making a plan to pay ourselves back the money we moved from savings over the next year. This is in alignment to have the loan paid off by the end of 2024. It feesl good to pay off this debt! 

Focus Again on Saving

I'm back! I've decided to start posting savings windfalls again. I think that attention attracts the savings mindset and the expectation of money flowing in. It also creates gratitude within me as well. 

We bought our current home in fall of 2021 and used a sizeable amount of our savings as a down payment. I lost interest in tracking the savings soon after. Plus there were maintenance projects we decided to take on. The money was flowing out faster than in. No fun to report that! 

We have still been saving for retirement, racking up credit card rewards and interest on our cash savings. We did purchase a new van to replace our old one that was 14 years old. We didn't completely go off the rails over here, and we are paying off the van loan fast just as we always have with consumer debt. 

I use YNAB for budgeting and I could probably find the details and see what we earned in credit cards rewards and interest since I stopped writing. However, I think that it's more fun to look forward than back. I'll report the money coming in for November and December and possibly come up with a goal for the new year to work towards. 

I look forward to writing here again! 

Paying off A Loan

We are cosigners on our daughter's car that we bought in May 2019. We paid about half in cash and took out a small loan for $5,700. If memory serves our daughter put about half of the cash down on the car. We honestly didn't have a great plan after that. We had some thought she would take over payments after graduating in May 2020. 

It took her about six months to secure a full time job and here we are two months later. The balance on the loan was under $3,500. We decided to pay it off in full. We know it will help her to not have a car payment, even though small at $133.50 per month. We knew that we had also received $3,600 from the Federal government this year. Money we really didn't need or want. We have always used windfalls to pay off/down debt, so that is what we have done again. 

If you pay close attention to my POP reports, yes, we did save the first stimulus cash ($2,400) towards our savings goal. We will not be reducing that number!

During the last four months of the year all federal employees were exempt from social security deductions. We saved all of these funds, which was eight payments of $258.06, amounting to $2,064.48. With the stimulus money we were pretty close to the payoff amount. There's always some extra cash in various places.

The main point is that we sent a check to pay off this car loan in full today for the amount of $3,497.81. One less payment for me or her to think about! Now we hope she can keep this car for a few years as she gets her financial life on track.