I went ahead and paid off my van today. Paying it off left me with very little money in my checking account. That won’t last long though because I have a paycheck to pick up tomorrow and another one to pick up next Monday. My part-time job and full-time job pay on different weeks so I will have a check every week.
After paying off the van I spent the day putting the seats and TV/VCR unit back in the van. This shouldn’t have been too big a job but it ended up taking me several hours. After I installed the bucket seats I realized they were in the wrong spots and needed to be switch. Luckily, these seats have a quick release lever on them and I was able to switch them in just a few minutes.
The big time waste was looking for an attachment for the seat belt shoulder harness. I spent about an hour looking through the storage shed for them. I finally gave up and decided to see if I could still make the seat belts work without the attachment. I then realized that I had never actually removed the attachments. It just looked like one of the attachments was gone because it was missing its plastic cover. I then remembered that the plastic cover was missing when I bought the van. I wish I would have remembered that an hour earlier.
Now I need to look for a car. The car search process will have to be done during my lunch and after work which could make it take a while. Having my van paid off should make the process easier. I can either trade it towards a vehicle or sell it separately, depending on which works best. I’m hoping I can find a car for about the price of my van because I don’t want to go back into debt. If I do have to spend a little more money I will. If I were to replace my van with a car getting 30 MPG I would save about $180 a month on gas based on a gas price of $3.25 a gallon. * Part of that savings could go towards a loan payment for a short time.
*Gas is currently $3.41 a gallon where I live, $3.29 a gallon in KC, and just $3.07 a gallon in Harrisonville, MO. I fill up my tank in Harrisonville on my way to KC and on my way back south. I’m not sure why their gas is so much cheaper than everywhere else but I like that it is saving me money.
Congrats on paying off the van. Paying off a vehicle is always a fun thing.
It does feel good to have it paid off.
I’m sure it feels good to have eliminated the van payment. Whenever I make the last payment on one of my outstanding payments I feel so good that I like to sit and stare at the $0.00 in Quicken until I realize it’s really paid off.
Do you expect the lawyer job to be a long-term one?
The lawyer job will probably not be a long-term deal, at least not by common standards. It might be long-term by my standards.
Awesome on paying off your van! We just paid off our car last month and is such a great feeling. It’s amazing how much money you can save on gas by having one that’s more fuel efficient, another reason why I love our Altima!
I’m hoping I can find a nice, fuel efficient car soon.
Congrats on paying the van off! I would KILL for those gas prices! We’re paying about $1.40/litre….or almost $5.30/US gallon 🙁
I am glad that gas is relatively cheap. I couldn’t justify the commute if it cost much more. Gas should be coming down even more.
Congrats on paying it off! It’s really great news! And, of course, good luck with car searching! Keep us updated 😉
I’ll let everyone know when I find a new car.
Great job paying off the van, Andy! We love our van for family road trips, camping, and hauling all sorts of things around. If you are serious about buying a car, searching for it sooner rather than later could pay off. Unfortunately Sandy will be driving prices up on new cars. On the positive side, you probably will be able to get a higher trade in value on your van. Good luck to you!
Often prices change from county to county, state to state, because the taxes on each gallon differ.