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By Alyssa, December 23, 2011 11:58 pm

Is buying the car you always wanted with cash possible?  Is it feasible to live without car loans?  Yes, but it takes some work.  Our planning started a little more than three years ago.  In the summer of 2008, we owned a 1998 Toyota Camry and made payments on a 2005 Toyota Tundra at $400 a month and payments on a 2007 Subaru Legacy at $250 a month… $650 worth of car payments per month.  Buying into the car payments for life nonsense, we planned on selling the paid-for Camry and keeping our “new” cars.  Then sitting in our Dave Ramsey Financial Peace class, we watched this video:

Even if we didn’t get a 12% return on our money, we liked the idea of cars for free. With my decision to stay home with our kids, we didn’t need the third car we were lending to a nanny, but why sell the payment-free car?  Convicted, Haus made the final call.  Although he loved his Subaru, he decided we were done with car payments.  We sold the Subaru a month later and set a goal to pay off the truck loan by the end of the year.

It was a lofty goal but we were “gazelle intense” as Dave Ramsey would say.  It seems miraculous looking back, but we were able to pay off the entirety of our Tundra loan in less than 6 months, almost $18,000, and started 2009 with no car payments.  We loved both of the cars even more knowing we owned them free and clear.  The real pay off came when we decided to look for our first big cash purchase, a swagger wagon.

After finding out in January we were pregnant with number three and realizing three car seats wouldn’t quite fit in the back of the Camry, I started scouring the internet for a Toyota Sienna.  And not just any Sienna.  I wanted an XLE with leather seats and All Wheel Drive (AWD) preferably sold by a private owner instead of a dealership.  I searched and searched and almost gave up.  We had the cash which felt like it was burning a hole in my pocket, but, because it was hard earned cash, I really wanted to wait for a good deal.

With my due date in October looming, I checked Craigslist for the hundreth time at the end of the summer and was shocked to find a potential vehicle.  A private owner in north Denver was selling a low mileage 2005 Toyota Sienna XLE AWD for a really great price.  We arranged to meet at our Toyota mechanic to check out the van.  I don’t buy a ton of cars, but I’m so glad I had our trusted local guys check the vehicle out for us before deciding to purchase it, especially knowing we would be dropping a lot of cash.  Our mechanics gave us the green light.  The only outstanding issue we saw was a dent and scrape on the rear right side panel which was part of the reason it was being sold at such a low price.

We negotiated for about a week and our luck seemed to continue as we realized that the owner was retired Army and even more apt to sell to us when he realized I was in the Guard.  Paying with cash was a little tricky as we don’t have a local bank, but luckily we used the same military credit union as the sellers and ended up being able to transfer the agreed upon $14,000 from our account to theirs.

Two years ago if you would have told me I would be able to drop $14,000 cash for a car, I would have laughed and told you that was crazy.  But we are proof that it is possible.  It was sad to sell the Camry after ten years of use, but I am loving my upgrade to heated leather seats and All Wheel Drive.  Cool thing now is that we know without a doubt we will never make a car payment again.  Ever.  We paid cash to fix the swagger wagon’s dents and Haus detailed every inch of it so I don’t see any reason why we won’t use our “new-to-us” van for the next ten years.

Inspired to give up your car payments?  I hope so.  Pay off your current car, save up the cash, and wait for a deal when you want a new vehicle.  It’s worth it!

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By Alyssa, January 2, 2011 10:38 pm

If you read my last post about debt, you know how passionate I am about Dave Ramsey.  Financial Peace University is the reason we are starting this year out with NO consumer debt.  Just last month we finally paid off Haus’ school loans, the last of a long line of consumer debt pay-offs.  Since June 2008, we’ve paid off a total of $44,800 worth of debt.  Almost $45,000!!  I say this not to brag because, let me tell ya, when we started it all I didn’t think it was possible.

We signed up for Financial Peace when I was 7 months preggered with Zeke and about to get out of the Army.  Yep, we decided to figure out the finances right before going down to one income and multiplying the family.  Didn’t make it easier for us, but I wouldn’t have had it any other way.  So how did we do it?  Pay off more than $15,000 dollars a year on one main income?

We started by writing down everything we were spending our money on and then coming up with a cash budget for everything.  EVERYTHING.  I didn’t think cash would be necessary for stuff like groceries or gas, but I must say, when you start handing out $20 bills to people you rethink what you eat and where you drive.  We followed the rest of Dave’s steps by setting up a $1000 emergency fund and cutting up all of our credit cards.  We tossed all the credit cards because we realized we didn’t need them for emergencies with our fund or the one time in every three years that we rent cars.

Then came the hard part.  Getting rid of debt.  At first it was fun, selling things on Craigslist and Ebay to get as much money as possible to pay off the little debts.  We sold an extra car and gave ourselves the goal in 2009 to start 2010 without car payments.  We made the last payment on our truck in December 2009 and promised ourselves we will never make another car payment again… ever.  Still not sure how we paid off our almost $18,000 worth of car loans in those first six months, but we did it.  Didn’t eat out, didn’t do a lot of fun stuff, made gifts instead of buying them, and now we own our vehicles.

With the cars payment and credit card payments gone in the first six months after taking the course, the last debt we had was school loans.  ARGGHHHH.  I didn’t have any school loans thanks to the Army, but Haus came with over $25,000.  It took us two full years to pay them off and it was soooo hard.  I think the hardest part was sticking to the plan.  We had a lot of people tell us, oh, you’ll save on your taxes, or it’s such a small payment, don’t worry about it.  It was really hard not to listen to that stuff and be committed.  I’m so glad now we did it.  There is a weight that lifts when you realize you don’t owe anymore.  It’s hard to describe.

We’ve still have big goals for the future.  We would like to pay off the house in the next ten years and then call Dave’s radio show to tell him we are COMPLETELY debt free.  We would like to beef up our investments now and the kiddo’s college funds (Dave tells you not to contribute until your debt is paid off).  I think the key to all of this was taking that class.  You have to be on the same page with your spouse or it doesn’t work. Pretty sure all of their classes have free childcare too.  Check his page out here.

Did you make any big debt payments this year?  Would love to hear about it.  Oh and couldn’t end the post without yelling out to Dave (he reads my stuff, right??)…

WE’RE DEBT FREE!!!!!!!

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By Alyssa, February 10, 2010 10:46 am

Courtesy of Dave Ramsey's website

I’m excited.  Nope, beyond excited.  We could potentially be DEBT FREE BY JUNE!

I think June would be fitting as it was June in 2008 when we started this process.  I was pregnant with Zeke when we first attended a Dave Ramsey Financial Peace class. Close friends raved about the material and we decided with our upcoming life changes (another baby, leaving active Army, final move to Denver) that it wouldn’t hurt for us to attend the 13 week course.  Hubby and I felt like we were fairly good stewards of our income before the class.  We started the course with minor credit card debt, car payments, and a small loan.

It would take more than this post for me to explain the results of going through all 13 weeks.  Hubby and I agree that the course could easily be called the Dave Ramsey Financial Marriage Counseling study.  The material helped us get to the root of our problems with finances, why and when we spend, and ended up improving our marriage as we improved the way we managed our finances.  Not only that, the class completely transformed how we look at money.

Even before we finished the 13 weeks, we sold numerous household items, a car, and our house.  Amidst selling and buying a home, we paid off over  $15,000 of our consumer debt (all debt except a home mortgage).  Using the course steps, we secured an emergency fund, and started our “debt snowball” so that by the time I left the Army, we had paid off over $30,000, almost all of our debt. I tell you this not to brag, but to encourage anyone that is considering changing the way they handle their money.  We were amazed at how our cash budget and extra work (overtime pay, odd jobs, etc.) amazingly added up to major debt pay-offs.

We are so close to the end of this step in our financial process that I can’t help but feel giddy.  After I left active duty and we went down to one income, our debt payoff when from a fire hose to a faucet trickle.  I started to feel discouraged that we would never be debt-free.  Crazy that I wasn’t satisfied with paying off $30,000 the year before.  I guess my hopelessness had more personal roots.  When I left the Army, I agreed with Hubby that as soon as all of our consumer debt was paid off, in other words his school loans were paid off, that we could try to have another baby.  At the beginning of this year, I reasoned that we probably wouldn’t raise enough until next year with his income and my small Army drill contributions.

Man was I  wrong!  Foreseeing no major catastrophes, it looks like our tax return and my Army training this spring will pay everything off within the next few months.  WITHIN THE NEXT FEW MONTHS!!  I’ll keep you updated as we get closer to the goal.  I can’t wait to call Dave Ramsey and yell, “WE’RE DEBT FREE!”  Oh, and “I’M PREGNANT!”