The Turning Point

So when did we really get excited about paying off our debt? I think it was when we took the plunge and decided to get rid of the Toyota. The reality set in that we were going to be paying that $31.7.52 every single month until the end of time and it was a car that we all couldn't even fit in comfortably anymore. When I ordered new car seats for Nick and moved Lauren out of the infant seat it was clear that the time had come to let go.

We enlisted the help of a family friend who worked at Midway Chevrolet in Plainwell (need a car? He's a great guy!) to help us find some family friendly transportation. We had a few options on the table: A very nice Saturn minivan, a Pontiac minivan, and a Plymouth Grand Voyager.

Our first test. What do we do? Do we buckle and get the Saturn? It did have a DVD player, bucket seats, lots of storage...headphones for the kids...it was a smooth drive. So tempting! The old Jenny and Matt would have happily signed on the bottom line and drove off into the sunset.

We took a break from the action and had lunch to go over our decision. We knew that we were going to have a small loss on the Toyota to roll into the new loan, so we had to consider that. We also considered the length of the loan, how long were we going to sign on for this?


Outstanding balance of the Toyota: $12,626.81
Trade in:$11,900
Amount financed on the Plymouth Voyager: $5500
Debt eliminated: $7,126.81

We took the difference between the 2 car payments and instantly added that to our debt snowball and went full speed into December.