Just before I married my wife she had bought a new Honda civic and had a $400 car payment to go along with it. To me $400 a month was crazy expensive. I encouraged her to sell the car, she reluctantly did and bought a very nice and reliable vehicle for $5000. So instead of having $11,000 in a car loan, we had $5000. This also lowered the monthly payment to $120/month. Let me tell you, it felt good to unload $6000 worth of debt and interest payments.

However we continued paying off the rate of $400, and 14 months later we did not have a car payment.

If you don't want to part with your car, I would first call the current lender of your auto loan to see if they would lower your payment. If they won't do anything, call a credit union - they typically have the best rates.

Normally when you refinace a loan you are socked with finance fees, make sure these fees don't add more to the debt in the car.

Also know what you're getting into before signing the papers. A big thing to look out for when refinancing is they often times disclose new information at the time of signing that make the deal less attractive- if they do that, don't be afraid to walk away. This is a common practice because the loan officers know that most people will sign the documents rather than dealing with the headache of starting over from scratch.

Hope that helps!

**Here's a car buying tip too - never buy from a dealer, only an individual. Pay for that car in cash - when making an offer lay out the offer in $100 bills. For the seller it's a lot harder to turn down cash then it is a check.

I think a good rule of thumb when you get a "financial windfall" is to not touch it for 30 days. Waiting 30 days will prohibit you from making a buyers remorse purchase and give you time to think about where the money should really go. Be it a Wedding, Mutual fund, home repairs, etc.

In the meanwhile put it in your savings account where it gets some modest interest.

I'm sure you've heard of this before, but it's not how much you save, but how long you save.
Here's an example:

Brandon is 18, and started saving $2,000 (with 12% interest) a year every year until he was 27 years old. Brandon then didn't put another dime towards retirement and didn't touch his savings until he was 62. When Brandon reaches 62 years of age his savings will total $2.5 million!

Mathias, on the other hand, didn't start saving until he was 28. Mathias put away $2000 every year until he turned 62. When Mathias reaches age 62, he'll have $1.5 million.

The difference - Brandon put $18,000 away from age 18-27. He ended up with 2.5 million. Mathias put $68,000 away from age 28-62, and he received $1.5 million.

Compounding interest. Gotta love it.

I'll admit, getting a 12% interest rate is kinda tough to get these days, but I've been getting an average of 10% the last 6 years. That's with 9-11 and all of the economic turmoil we've had.

I go through American Funds... they've been pretty good to me.