Involuntary Debt Reduction—No More Car Loan

The Friday before we closed on the club house, I was in a car accident (see post Feeling Pretty Lucky) that totaled our 2000 Volvo S40. Luckily, Volvos depreciate slowly and so we owed about $4,000 less on the car than the book value. The good news is that our $257 a month car payment is gone, and so we're going to try and buy a car for the $4,000 we'll get from the insurance company. There's a 1990 Mercedes station wagon for sale down the street that looks very clean and is going for $3800. There's also a Ford Focus for $4300, but the Mercedes looks solid and I'm all about solid cars, especially after the accident.