The day you look forward to: "You Have Paid Off Your Vehicle!"

[Glen Baker LLC]

I had 0% on my 22 Mav. I just paid it off with one year remaining. Normally I would use the free money. However life intervened and I paid it off. One less thing my wife has to worry about.

If you already had the money in an account what was the worry?
Nowadays with AUTO PAY you don't
have to do anything not even write a check. I started using Auto Pay back in the midwest, when I refinanced my mortgage in 89.
( cue the horror stories) never had a problem with it as long as the money is in the account.
Back in 1987 I bought a new Ford Taurus end of the model year Ford was offering 0% financing. The payment was $500 a month.
I could have paid it off cash, but why would I ? I would have lost the income that that was generating.
So where is the benefit of paying it off versus getting a low or no cost interest loan.
Intelligently using credit helps keep my FICO score around 850.
Which in turn means I usually get preferred financing.

Sponsored

 

[Larrythelunatic]

Don't assume they know what they're doing just because it's their job.
I fired my investment advisor a few years ago and took charge of my money. I have way more incentive to do well than they ever did.

“We do better when our clients do better.”
What they don’t tell you is that they DON’T do worse when their clients do worse.
That’s called incentive to gamble!

 

[NJBob]

If you already had the money in an account what was the worry?
Nowadays auto pay you don't even have to write a check if you don't want to.

Back in 1987 I bought a new Ford Taurus end of the model year Ford was offering 0% financing. The payment was $500 a month.
I could have paid it off cash, but why would I ? I would have lost the income that that was generating.
So where is the benefit of paying it off versus getting a low or no cost interest loan.
Intelligently using credit helps keep my FICO score around 850.

Just trying to get my affairs in order. I have been pretty sick. One less thing for the wife to do.

 

[Halo9x]

I paid mine off 4 months ago. A great feeling indeed! 2023 cyber orange.

 

[Glen Baker LLC]

Just trying to get my affairs in order. I have been pretty sick. One less thing for the wife to do.

I'm not trying to be smart. In a situation like that, it's better to keep assets liquid. Just in case.
You do what you have to do to feel comfortable regardless.
I hope you start feeling better.
Stay safe.

 

[TomD]

Congratulations.

 

[NJBob]

I'm not trying to be smart. In a situation like that it's better to keep assets liquid. Just in case.
You do what you have to do to feel comfortable regardless.
I hope you start doing better.
Stay safe.

No worries. My point is just that sometimes you have to give up a good deal for other priorities. I was happy I got the 0% and actually ordered the truck before all the price increases. My dealer honored everything.

 

[dochawk]

congratulations to the OP, it's a great feeling, possibly second only to paying off your mortgage.

I'm certainly in the "use other people's money" camp. I have a separate investment account that pays my Covid EIDL loan while still growing. (I funded that account from other savings as I drew on the loan, leaving those funds liquid as reserves if needed).

But folks need to take a couple of other factors into consideration:

1) convenience, such as cited by @NJBob. Closely related is how much you are going to gain by investing--if you're going to get 2% while paying 0%, that's roughly 5% of purchase price on a five year loan (term*rate/2, as the loan is roughly half paid off on average), or $150 total gain on a $30,000 loan.

2). What you will *really* do with the money when you don't have the payment: do you have the discipline to invest and leave it invested, or will you take a vacation, buy another car, eat out, etc. [I was kind of stunned during the mortgage crisis, finding folks who hadn't paid their mortgages in a full year, yet still had nothing saved!]

3) peace of mind: there is definitely security in the fact that the house or car is paid off. This can be worth giving up over gains.

 

[dochawk]

I asked the wife what she'd like to do with the $753 a month when the Maverick is paid off ......a new couch she says ! That sounds doable !

that's going to be some couch with a payment like that!

 

[Old Fart]

"Cash is the Oxygen of Independence" is a quote from the last book I read, we paid cash for the XLT then drove it off the lot because we were saving up to replace our vehicles. Wifey's coupe had an accident 7 months later, we had enough to get her a new car. We aren't rich, we just don't spend every nickel of our social security on junk, pay our tithes and support missionaries.

 

[VelocityBlue]

How long did it take to receive that email? I plan on paying mine off today.

 

[flyking1]

Congrats! I've got 11 more months and then I'm in your shoes!

 

[bckrupps]

The financing at the time was a higher rate than i high yield savings account or even other options were paying. I agree that sometimes sitting on the money and making payments is good but there were no options available without a high risk. I kept my last truck 16 years so it wasnt worth the risk. 27,600 for and xlt awd seems even better seeing the prices now

 

[mavericktwc]

I'm not mentioning any names here, but some individuals then turn around and make poor decisions and start all over again

Sponsored