Attention to Detail

I expect that the four years of blogging between 1988 and 1992 will take quite a few months and I'll probably forget, so I'll flash forward...

A few weeks after the car purchase, an envelope arrived in the mail with the payment book, forty-eight payments of $272 which, back in ye olde days, had to be paid by monthly cheque, no direct debit.

January, 1992

In those later years, I had become more savvy with money, far more thoughtful about purchases and had a saving plan, yet it seemed like I had been paying for this car forever, and around my birthday in 1991 I had started a countdown to the final car payment.

Three to go, two to go and I told people in the stress office that I was going to celebrate with a few pints soon when my car was paid off "free and clear" as they say over here.

Four weeks, three weeks, two...

An envelope arrived from Ford Credit, I thought, here we go, they want me to pay for an extended warranty or something.

It was a book with 12 more payment slips, which I held disbelievingly, whats this?, huh?, wah?

I pulled my Ford folder out of the cupboard, searched for the agreement, Freeway Ford, January 1988, Ford Mustang, monthly payment $272, term, 60 months...

In that moment of negotiating genius, four years ago, I had turned down a monthly payment of $297 and beaten the guy down to $272. What I had forgotten, or never realised in the first place, was he merely changed the term from 48 months to 60 months.

Financial Savvy.

The original car price was around $11700 and I had the option of a 48 month term to pay a total of $14256 and in the blink of an eye and a lack of attention to detail that had changed to a 60 month total of $16320

Because I wanted to pay $25 less per month, it had cost me $2064 more.

I dragged myself into work the next day and fessed up to the guys, I took my lumps because, by golly, I deserved them.

Never again.