This weekend, my wife and I both sat down in front of the computer. We both placed one finger on the mouse button, and clicked. Yes, in retrospect it was kind of lame, but I wanted to celebrate the moment: I had just paid off my first car.

The car is a 2003 Honda Civic which I named Stella, after A Streetcar Named Desire. I bought it in the summer of 2003, a few months before I moved into an off-campus apartment and needed transportation. I took out a five year loan at a rate of 0.9% interest.

(Yes, 0.9% interest. Having a father as a lawyer, who spends his whole day negotiating, can be quite handy).

So next month, I will take that payment of $278 and funnel it right into savings. It will also make paying the loan on my Honda Accord a bit easier, as for the past six months we have had make payments for both cars.

Now to the other good piece of news. Until recently, Massachusetts did not allow competition for auto insurance rates: They were dictated by the state government. That alone isn’t great, but what made it worse is that the payments were setup in a “socialist” way, in that you didn’t get breaks for being a safe driver, and you didn’t get penalized for being a bad driver. My wife and I have never been in an accident, never gotten a ticket - heck we’ve never even been pulled over. And yet we were still paying a premium of $200 a month.

Then a few months ago, Massachusetts changed their rules and allowed agencies to set their own prices. What does that mean? I found a quote for progressive for $76 a month, or about 1/3rd what I currently pay! And this is for better coverage!

This, combined with making my last car payment, means more than $400 a month extra we will be saving, which is just fantastic.