Thursday, December 17, 2015

the deed is DONE!

Today, I'm proud to say that I sent in the "pay-off" amount to complete payment on my Honda Fit, which is currently being held in trust by my buddy Mike in Fredericksburg, Virginia. During the online-payment process over at CapitalOne360.com, a flag appeared, warning me that using the "pay-off" payment option was not the same as canceling recurrent payments, so I'd have to cancel those separately. Duly warned, I made that pay-off request, then gleefully canceled all recurring payments.

And with a few keystrokes, that was that.

I'm done. I now own—truly own—my car.

In a week or two, the car's title will be mailed to Mike, and at that point, the car will be mine to do with as I please: sell it, give it away as a gift, keep it, whatever. So that's one major debt down—a $250/month burden off my shoulders. Three more major debts to go.

All is going according to plan.


_

5 comments:

Charles said...

Congratumalations on reaching a big milestone!

Now you can enjoy not driving your car completely debt-free!

Kevin Kim said...

Yes, indeed. I went back and forth with Mike as to whether to give the car to my goddaughter (he and the Missus said no, for various and valid reasons) or to do something else, like sell it. We finally agreed that, for the moment, it's best just to hold off and ponder before doing anything. There are pros and cons to any decision I might make. E.g., if I sell the car, I might net a few thousand dollars, but every time I hit the States, I'd have to rent another car. Using my car this past October was a godsend, and I might be hitting the States next year, as well as in 2017, when I hope to head over to France and Switzerland to catch up with everybody. Just one example of a pro and a con.

Charles said...

How much does the car cost you in maintenance? If the maintenance cost is lower than what you would spend on rentals, then it would indeed make sense to keep it around.

This is one thing that is going to be annoying if I end up in the States in 2017 for sabbatical--I won't have a car available, so that's going to be an extra cost if we end up having to rent for trips and the like.

Kevin Kim said...

Mike is paying both property tax and maintenance costs (not to mention gas). I'm planning to take up the property tax next year; it's under $150, I think, for Stafford County, Virginia, so that's not a huge yearly expense (it was over $200 in Front Royal).

As for maintenance... there were a few small issues with the car when I got there in October: (1) the windshield's rubber border had come out and was flapping around; (2) there were spots where the paint had chipped off and rust had settled in; (3) the windshield-wiper fluid spray wasn't working for the front wipers (the rear spray worked fine). In all, these repairs probably wouldn't cost more than a couple hundred, and such problems wouldn't be likely to reappear for a while.

Rental costs, however, depend on a lot of different factors, the rental company you use being foremost among them. Hard to say what's more expensive, but in October, I drove the car just fine without paying for anything other than gas. (I presume Mike has taken care of the above-mentioned problems since my departure.)

Maven said...

Congrats! Are you also well rid of student loans, too? No greater relief for me than when I finally paid mine off! :)