$13,000 in 13 months

as the cats race around the apartment in their daily burst of insanity, i’m sitting here quietly celebrating the first time i’ve been bank loan free in the last ~15 years. hell, it’s been so long, i can’t even remember when i first started building debt. it was probably 1990 when i filled out that credit card application i found at the Capilano College (now University) campus. oh, how i wish i could go back in time and rip that thing out of my hand…
in the the interest of full disclosure, yes, i still have a car loan. so, i do still owe a bank money; but, i consider that an expense since it’s a 0% loan and doesn’t exceed the amount i was paying just for repairs for the Golf.
with a lot of hard work and spreadsheet time, i’ve been on track to pay off the bank for the last couple of years. the purchase of my new car last year threw a bit of a wrench in the plans to be entirely debt-free by this coming summer; but, when i realized that i was literally throwing money away on endless repairs, taking a bit of a detour was worth the delay in debt-freedom. regardless, i did manage to, while making payments on my new car, pay off $13,000 owing to RBC in just 13 months!
i made a lot of sacrifices to get here and i have a fair bit of rebuilding to do before i’m back in what i’d consider a comfortable financial situation, but the psychological payoff is so very worth it.
i will never pay interest again!