Jeep Paid Off

This week I sent off the final payment on my 2000 Jeep Cherokee. I bought it in December of 2003, and have paid it off in just over two and half years. It was originally a six-year loan.

I was able to do this by just adding extra to my payments each month - being sure to specify that that the extra was to go towards the principal due on the loan. (A Bankrate.com article on this topic has more on the importance of telling the lender your intentions.)

I did make one giant payment somewhere in the middle of the loan, but for the most part, I just added $100 or $200 extra to the payment.

Now we can take the money that was going towards the Jeep and put it towards wedding and honeymoon debt.

I also added another item to my Sharebuilder investments, dipping my feet into the International market by added some iShares MSCI Japan Index (EWJ) to my account. This Exchange Traded Fund includes some of Japan's most well-known companies, such as Toyota, Canon, Honda, and Sony.

Over in the right hand sidebar, I added the new Yahoo! Finance module, which I've set to monitor some of the investments I currently have, while not telling you how much I have in them. (It's very small.)