Car Loan

Last night G & I had a long discussion about our upcoming finances for the New Year. We discussed a lot: extra payments on our mortgage, saving for the new truck, adding more to our investments. But we decided against all those, instead making our 2015 goal to pay off our car loan.

We won’t get the yearly statement until January but looking at the last two years of payment breakdowns (principle vs interest) we should have about $18,000ish left owing. Once the LOC is paid off (February) and our Emergency Fund is topped up (April) we have an extra $1400 to play with, so I definitely believe it’s doable by the end of the year considering we will still be making the regular weekly payments of $90.81. That also doesn’t include any extra money such as G’s overtime, bonuses or snowflakes.

G also agreed that it would be nice to only have to worry about one car payment, when we do purchase the truck, instead of two. And we could easily do a similar personal repayment plan with the new vehicle – just maybe not as aggressive, lol.

It’s pretty exciting to think this loan might be done 3 years earlier than originally planned! I’ve never made extra payments on a loan before so I’m hoping it’s easy to set up. We don’t deal with Scotia Bank at all other than this loan and there isn't a branch anywhere near us so fingers crossed it’s something we can arrange over the phone.

Does anyone have any experience with prepayments? We know it is an open loan so there should be no fees by paying it off early, correct? Thank you in advance for any insight someone may have!

- M