What it feels like

Have you've ever wondered what it feels like to pay off a loan?

In most cases, people take on a loan to pay for something they want (or, something they consider a need, but I won't go down the road of explaining the difference since those subjects are covered on most financial blogs). So, you basically ask someone (the lending party) to pay for your want and the next couple of years you are paying for your want every month and you pay a little bit extra because the other party wants to be rewarded for the fact they did have the money for your want when you wanted your want but you didn't have the money for it. Sounds fair enough, and at least you get to play with your new toy every month. Unless it's a brand new sportscar which you already wrecked. In that case, you're probably pretty much feeling the same as me.

Not that I'm a sad little person, but in my personal case, my loan was to cover a mortgage which was "under water" at the time of a brake up. We both "owned" half of the house. Tehnically, we both owned nothing to zero and we owed the bank. That's just a letter away, but that one letter costs us half a grand.

So, I actually had some third party to pay for the money I owed to the bank, and in return, I make monthly down-payments with a little extra for this third party since they had the money I owed, which I didn't own.

It always felt a bit disturbing to see just over 200 euro's be transferred to them, but when I started my Debt Kill Plan, I noticed what it really felt like.

It feels like you're walking to a ATM. You know your salary just came in, so you're fully booked. You insert your debit card. You type in your pin. You ask the machine for 1300 euro's. The machine counts the money, spits it and the debit card out and the first thing you do is turn around, hand over all the money to the first stranger you see(*) and you go back to your life. 

The best lesson I've learned in the past couple of months is the amazing amount of money I could be able to save. If it's possible to make down-payments of half my salary, I could also save half my salary. So that's my target after this year: save!!

I wonder how that feels like after a year or so.


(*) This last sentence could also be replaced by "light it while standing there", "throw it in the nearest bin", "eat the bundle of cash". Although the latter one would still give you some kind of well filled feeling, I guess.