how we ditched $10K in debt overnight

We’re working hard to becoming debt free and the amount of debt we’ve paid off in the last 5 years is quite amazing. We no longer have credit card debt (and never will again) and the student loans get closer and closer each month. However, we still had a $10,000 vehicle loan that was really just unnecessary. And the vehicle attached to that loan has been getting beat up for the past year with everything from house renovation supply trips to muddy camping trips. It didn’t make a whole lot of sense to be beating up this fairly new vehicle that we were still paying off.

So we decided to sell it, ditch the car loan and buy an older vehicle that we don’t care about beating up. We sold our vehicle and bought another in cash.

Now, we know, there are a lot of mixed opinions about this method. But for us, right now, where we are with our situation, it was the best option. And we’ve already budgeted and set aside money for necessary repairs and upkeep that we may need over the next few years.

With some job changes occurring for me I’ll be working from home full-time, which means no commute. Which means no need for a newer car to sit in the driveway barely used that we continue to pay off. Al will continue to drive the newer vehicle as he has a longer commute. Though, even so, he only commutes a few days per week due to a flexible work schedule.

The vehicle we bought, well, mechanically it’s great. But it’s a beater for sure and I kind of love it. It has already been lived in (literally actually, more on that later) and used and abused. Our intent was finding something mechanically sound, that we can get a few years out of, that is safe, spacious and gets decent gas mileage, for an older car.

We thought about buying a truck, but wanted more seating and better gas mileage so we decided to go with a used SUV. I’ll share later this week our “new to us vehicle” and our method behind why we went with the one we did. In the end, we just eliminated a $10,000 loan and we’re excited to put that money into the house.

Funny thing about the sale of our car is that we ended up selling to a lovely lady that lives one block away. And her son just happens to be the mechanic that has serviced it for the last two years at our local dealer. So, we ended up making a new neighbor friend and meeting a great mechanic too. Funny how things work out like that! Now fingers crossed this new, old bad boy we bought gives us another few years!