Ahhhh…that awkward period when you’re paying off a loan and you either go over by a few cents by paying that final payment before the final due date or come up short by a few cents cause the lender tacked on a few more finance charges right at the end…

Daily interest charges and waiting for payments to clear always gets tricky.

I think it was when I paid off the BMW, my monthly statement provided a “Payoff Amount” and as I was nearing the end, I sent them that exact amount.

Turns out, since I paid it when I received the bill and NOT when the payment was due, I’d overpaid by a few dollars.

No joke, it took over two months for them to refund me my over payment and send the title too.

My assumption is that before they give up the title, the books need to line up…and they didn’t.

Of course, this was all way before bank websites were as e-friendly as they are now.

And, as luck would have it, my auto loan and my checking account are both with Bank of America.

The site claims that I can make same day payments but anytime I do that, it’s far from “instant” and still takes a day or two to show up as having actually happened on both sides.

Usually they take my money out of checking first…and then a day later apply it as a payment to the loan.

Same day. Yeah, right…

Probably some sort of federal banking oversight loophole that allows that kind of crookery.

Anyway, the remaining balance on the loan, as of today, is $2001.03 and that falls within my red zone.

It was payday today so I’m paying it off in full — using the currently listed “pay off amount” of $2001.35 (an extra 33 cents) and “borrowing” from my savings to cover any potential shortfall before I’m paid again.

Anyone want to be that then this all clears, though I paid within the listed “payoff good through” date window, that I’ll still owe them a dime or so?

History repeating… but, ahhhhhh, it feels good to own all of my cars again…

Too bad I’m on the verge of purchasing another one…

Just ten weeks ago, when I embarked on a very aggressive payment plan, I still owed $11099 on the Swagger Wagon loan.

Today, my balance is $5410, putting me just a little beyond the half way point.

I’m ecstatic.

It certainly hasn’t been as cut and dry as I’d originally thought it would be as I’ve run out of money a couple of times and gotten dinged with maintenance fees for dipping below the minimum balance threshold on my checking account.

I’m also a little surprised that I’ve only been able to make a handful of extra payments so far (on top of the already scheduled “extra” payments).

I guess my debt paying skills have grown rusty. Hmph.

But that said, I’m just now coming upon a remaining balance where I can apply my “red zone finances” method of ridding debt.

Now, with the end in sight, I’m sure I’ll be able to “scrounge” up a few bucks here and there to get me to the end point sooner.

Can’t wait to rid myself of the $444.15 monthly payment, freeing that up for use elsewhere in my unwritten budget, and, once again, own all of my cars free and clear again.

Years ago while paying down my mortgage in a fruitless attempt to eliminate PMI, I posted a graph showing how much of an effect additional payments have when it comes to paying down debt.

Back then, it was just an extra $25 per week and, boy, did it ever make a difference!

Of late, my target has been my $24750 auto loan taken out in April of 2013 and will you look at that slope change since I started up’ing my payment schedule! Wow!

Visuals are great motivators, I find.

So the blue part is the amortization schedule, you know, how it’d all go if I made the minimum monthly payment for the duration of the loan.

The green part is what my actual balance is currently — and will be as I extrapolated the data out a few months until the balance is paid in full.

As you can see, for the first year or so, I was just making the minimum monthly payment of $444.15, you know, just getting acclimated to having a car payment after so many years of owning my cars free and clear.

At around the 1-year mark, I started tossing an additional $102.50 each WEEK towards the loan in a effort to speed things up.

Granted, that’s a lot of money to have lying around on a weekly basis but you’d be amazed at what you can make do without — especially when you have it set-up to be taken out automatically.

Honestly, I’m at my best when I’m cash poor. I’ve said it over and over — I’m amazing at paying down debt but horrendous at saving money.

The key for me is to not have any money to spend. Can’t spend what I don’t have. And the reason I don’t have any is because I’m sending most of it towards my debts — on auto-pilot.

Now, within the past month or so, I’ve stepped it up a notch with crazy with $452 payments (WEEKLY!) that essentially line the entire balance to be paid in full this August.

Yep, before the mid-point of the original amortization schedule — even with just paying the minimum payment for the first year!

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For the record, I never was able to get Countrywide Home Loans to stop billing me for PMI (Private Mortgage Insurance) even though I was far beyond the threshhold that it should have been dropped (automatically, I might add) even after numerous phone calls and letters.

To solve the problem and rid myself of an expense I no longer should have had to pay, I ended up re-financing with another bank and cut my mortgage bill by nearly 60%.

Their loss.