It's been almost four years since we bought my husband's full-size Chevy truck. It came with an extended cab, 4-wheel drive, an 8-foot bed, some sort of big deal horsepower and a big, fat auto loan from Fifth Third Bank.

That loan was a bitter pill for me to swallow -- things you drive just should not cost that much money -- but there was no talking the tough guy out of buying a truck. He works on construction sites and if you show up in anything but a truck, you are asking for daily ridicule. Drive a Volvo or a Honda to work and they'll laugh you right off the site (and likely pick it up and move it to another parking lot while you're in the Job Johnny...just to mess with you).

Today I paid the loan off and I feel like a 3/4 ton weight has been lifted off my shoulders.

We are a car-payment-free household right now. Woohoo.

This, of course, pretty much guarantees that the transmission will fall out of my GMC Jimmy on 12th Street on my way home, right?