March 2010 Totals - Easy Come, Easy Go

435 - Credit cards
9439 - Car
0 - Student loans

9874 - Total Debt

1310 - Stocks/Emergency Fund
28099 - 401K
1482 - Roth IRA

30891 - Total Savings

Net Worth: 21017


Wow! The universe sure works in interesting ways! I enjoyed being debt-free for a few weeks before a drunk driver crashed into my car, parked on the street in front of my house, while I was sleeping. The car was considered totaled. I bought it new 5.5 years ago and had hoped to have it for 5 more years. I got a decent price for my car (which was not in perfect condition). I bought a brand-new car and haggled for a few hours to get it to the price I wanted.

It was a sad and stressful experience to make such a major purchase with no desire and hardly any time to do so. I could have maintained my debt-free status by trying to buy an equivalent car to the one that I lost, but I was very nervous about buying a used car since I couldn't guess how the previous owner had taken care of it. My new car gets 35 mpg and I hope to hold on to it for 10 more years (here's hoping!!) so hopefully the financial impact won't be too great.

Torn between wondering whether I should quickly pay off the car debt, or continue to amass savings. The monthly payment is very low and the interest is pretty low. I hate being in debt again. But I need to amass more ready cash. We'll see.

By the way, I am not diving into stocks in any haphazard way - I bought some company stock at a 15% discount. We have only one opportunity per year to do this, and I devoted a chunk of money to that. I cannot sell it immediately, but I can in one year.