Once upon a time

There was a very, very daft woman! She succumbed to an almost new car, with extremely low milage (about 200 miles from it being a demonstrator) and she signed on the dotted line..........without reading the small print. She'd been previously seduced by the main dealers after previously having an economical little town car on a very reasonable 7.5% finance deal. She fell for the coffee, the comfy chairs and smooth banter and the shiny, 1.9 multijet sporting, sexy little Italian va va voom machine!!!! (car below is not my car, but mine is filthy!) But it's identical to the one below including the shiny alloys!!!!

However, when I'd got over my own stupidity and checked the paperwork, the bleepin' interest rate was 14.9% and they'd slipped me a new credit deal, with a reasonable monthly payment but with a hugely increased amount of interest to pay. I made a payment every month, then I doubled that payment and put it into a savings account and when I got the balance down to the 'set' amount. I transferred the money and paid for the bleepin' thing!

You have to 'click' the photo to read what it says. I managed to pay the £199 a month to Fiat Finance and then put aside another £100 a month into a savings account as I couldn't over pay the 'fixed' loan and could only pay off a lump sum.............which I did! I never saw it as money I could dip into or use for anything but paying off the car, 19 months sooner than the finance deal was due to end!

It's taught me that I can save up for anything. I'm aware that the car I have will not last forever and I have to be realistic about saving up for another. I really love getting the 'you've made the last payment' letters. I've had some achievements in my life and now I can add, almost getting myself out of debt completely! I can now transfer what's left in the savings account, plus the month amount I will deposit, to bringing my house loan to a close this year. It's been very very hard but if I achieve that, then I will have brought the final, final payment of all the payments forward by eight months!

If a silly, not reading the small print nitwit like me can get a huge amount of interest paid in a whip of time, then it proves anyone can.

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs xxxxxxxxxxx