car is paid off!

I finally sent the last check for my 2013 Ford Focus a couple of weeks ago, and finally got the title in the mail today. It also came with a “congratulations for paying off your car!” letter, which was a nice touch.

I opted to pay it off early, despite the (moderate) financial disadvantage it put me at. The loan was only 2.4%, so the cost of carrying the loan actually wasn’t super significant. I had started paying the loan ahead of schedule during graduate school because I was worried about whether I would have the cashflow available to keep making payments during the time between graduate school and real paid work. Then when I did get a job, I just kept making the higher-than-required payments.

In any case, now that it is paid off, I get to enjoy a payment-free car with 20k miles on the clock until I’m ready for a new one!