It was 1989 and my paid off 1979 Monte Carlo, that I tried to fix myself, was just totaled in fire. To complicate this, I didn't have insurance. There I was without a car, what was I to do? After much thought I decided to take out a $5000 car loan for a 1986 Mustang. With this brilliant idea here I was strapped to a $183/month car payment, a $180 insurance monthly payment, and no money to pay the sales tax. What made matters worse was I was trying to do this on an income of $4/hour. This would be my first dealings with credit.
Because of this way of thinking I had to work side jobs in order to make money to pay the sales tax. Additionally, I only had thirty days to do this after purchasing the car. Needless to say, I missed the deadline and was pulled over by the police many times and was given countless tickets for expired temporary tags. It was a terrible circle. Here I am working a $4/hour job from 12-8pm and then working at a potato chip plant, newspaper company and many other jobs until 4am. It was a viscous circle. As soon as I get close to having enough money to pay the sales tax, the police pull me over and write me a ticket, and it starts all over again. Yep, debt was my "friend."
Fast forward now to March 1992. I walk into my bank to payoff the car loan. I pull out my checkbook and write a check for the final payment which is three months earlier than the anticipated payoff date. I couldn't believe how good it felt to get rid of that burden. After nearly three years of scraping by, I was finally able to payoff my debt.
I can still remember those days like they were yesterday; alright last week. This was my first experience with debt. You would think that I would have learned my lesson, however, I didn't. In 1993 I needed a new car. After listening to everyone else and accepting how the world sees debt, I purchased a brand new Mustang. Since then, I have made countless bad choices with debt. I guess I didn't see anything wrong with what I was doing. Heck, this is how we get "ahead" in America or so I thought.
This morning at 8:47 I pushed a button - instead of walking into a bank to write a check - and sent an electronic payment to payoff my student loan; five years early. The long awaited day has finally arrived. WE ARE DEBT FREE, except the mortgage on the house. What an incredible journey. Four years plus of paying down debt only to have unexpected expenses jump out at us. I really don't have an exact number of what we paid off, but I'm guessing it was in the $40,000+ range.
The world looks much different now. Our emergency fund - our next financial goal - will be funded in the next couple of months and we will start saving for a new home, car, and retirement. Free at last!
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