Paid For

My walk is a little lighter today. After five years and fifty thousand miles, I just made my last car payment. Woohoo. I am now the owner of a 2014 Ford Escape.

I remember as a teenager, my daddy would help me find a car I wanted. I really didn't care what kind of car it was as long as the radio worked.  He would buy it and I would make monthly payments to him until it was paid for. I can't remember ever paying one off. He would find me one for around 3000 dollars or less and I would pay a little each month... FOR EVER!.

My first car was a 1976 Honda Civic. It was about the size of a roller skate and hard as steel. I ended up to totaling it before I could pay for it. Among several other cars, I had a 1977 MG-B. That was my favorite car but gave me the worst trouble. I finally got tired of putting more into it than I was giving daddy to get it paid off. I traded it for a new Pontiac Fiero. Daddy knew it was more than I could handle but he trusted me anyway and co-signed on a deal. Payments were over my head and he finally took it away from me when I ran off and got married without his approval. Yea I was a little stinker.

A few years later I matured and married the right man who help me pay off all my debts and taught me to never buy things unless I could afford them. Since then, I have paid off four new cars. I will be ready to trade the one I have now in a couple years before the value wears off. I like to keep a new car for the warranty. Mine still has an extended warranty that is still good for a while.

People ask me how I do it? How can how we can pay 1200 a month for health insurance, pay bills and make a car payment on a tiny paycheck? I say "we do without a lot of things". We pinch our pennies. We also make sure we each pay our tithes.

We do not have fancy things or go many places, but we are happy just being around each. I get ten days vacation a year so we head to the beach were we stay in our camper for half the price of a hotel and eat a lot of sandwiches. It's not enough vacation time but it will have to do and we make the best of it. Though we do not have a lot of things we want, we have all the things we need.

We do not have credit card debt. We have our own checking accounts and we do not buy anything we can not pay for unless it's something big like a car or home, then payments are made and credit is built. For now, what I used to pay for a car payment, I will put into my savings to add to the next car I choose in a couple years.

Life is great when life is simple.