The problem with the car payment is the nagging monthly reminder. I hate recurring bills rather passionately. One solution that worked for me is to just automate and forget it. An even craftier way it to have the amount of the car payment auto transferred from your savings bucket, then auto transferred to the car loan. Your brain says "Oh, look, money coming in!", then the payment makes it a wash, and brain doesn't freak out. I know this seems illogical, but we already know our brains aren't always fed by logic. Sometimes tricks have to be used for one's own best interests, even with one's own brain.
I'll always remember two different conversations, one with each parent. In the first, my dad and I were standing in their laundry room and he was complaining about their utility bills. Well, let's see Dad, you FIRE'd at 50. You have a gubmint pension, outstanding healthcare benefits, your house is paid off, your property taxes are artificially low because of Prop. 13, you have no other debt. You look at your utility bills every month, of course they seem high, because you're not seeing those other ones any more. I'm pretty sure I was in my early twenties at the time and MMM wasn't even born yet.
Another time, I was going over finances with my mom. She listed all of their sources of income. I looked at her and asked if she realized that she had adult children with full-time jobs, families, and mortgages who made less than they did. She looked me straight in the face and said. "Yeah, but we can't go out and make more money if we needed to." WTF, mom? You don't spend your full income as it is.
Our brains are weird.
Okay, one more. My parents decided to buy a new Toyota Camry. At the dealership, my mom whipped out her checkbook to pay cash. The salesperson gently explained that at 0 percent, it didn't make sense to pay cash. Mom, with the support of my Dad, reluctantly agreed, but never stopped grumbling about that damn car payment.