It still feels unreal.
I bought my car in 2013, I took out a car finance loan, opting for the lowest installment. This meant that I had to pay off a balloon payment after I had paid off my loan, which meant I owed an extra R30, 000 in the end.
Eventually when I was told that I’ve paid off everything, I couldn’t believe it.
I didn’t want to say anything to anyone because I wasn’t sure if the balloon payment is paid off too. I waited for the monthly deduction from the bank, just to confirm that I had indeed paid off everything.
Anyway, I paid off my car finance in June, so now I have a little more money left and I’m using that to save for my child’s first year of school. Even if I don’t know which school I want her to go to yet.
HOW I DID IT
From January this year, I had increased the monthly installment that’s being paid to loan for my car. Then whenever I had any other money left from my salary (or from my side hustle), that money would go to the car finance as well.
I read a blog post by Mr Money Moustache where he advised that one should get aggressive about paying off debt and I started “treating debt as if it was an emergency”.
ALSO READ: How to pay off your car in two years
IT WAS NOT EASY
I had to bring lunch from home which mostly meant eating two minute noodles because I am lazy when it comes to creating lunch daily. If I did buy lunch, it would be once a week only.
Dinners were mostly the same thing every week, every week we would have pasta at least once a week and a soup mix (or lentils) with vegetables meal.
I said “no” to events where I had been invited to as a blogger (I didn’t get paid for it) and I even said “no” to volunteer work (which saddened me a little).
MY TOP TIPS
1. Set a goal write it down, plan and budget around it.
2. Think about the sacrifices that you will have to make and consider cutting down on expenses.
3. Educate yourself: Read personal finance blogs and/or follow personal finance bloggers on social media, because you’ll find discussions where people talk about going through a similar thing.
4. Treat paying off debt like an emergency.
5. Try to get an extra income or sell some stuff you no longer use.
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