A Van Story
A couple of weeks ago I touched on why we decided to buy the van, but I haven’t talked about specifics of how we purchased it. This blog is going to get into cost and budgets. In all honesty, isn’t that one of the things people want to ask, but never do? A certain amount of honesty is required when we talk about the van. Andrew and I work really, really hard for what we have. We have full time jobs and save money. We have a mortgage and have bills to pay every month. I budget our money closely because things are expensive. By no means are we rich, but we are smart with money. We save our money so we can do what we want and travel when we want. We’re working toward doing photography full time, but right now is not that time. Because of all these reasons, money was a huge factor when we started looking for the van.
Looking back, I think we were actually about 2-3 months out from buying a van. In way of our finances, I didn’t want to deplete any savings we had. Our VW Beetle is paid for, but I also have a Fiat 500 that I drive to work that wasn’t paid off. It was quite close, but I wanted to pay that off before we got another vehicle. I knew we were going to get a loan for the van, but that wouldn’t be my first choice of things to do. But realizing the cost of these vans varied so much, it was in our best interest to get a loan and find a van to fit within those parameters. Our ideal cost would be around $15,000-20,000.
A sidenote about the cost of VW Vanagons… I find that the cost of most of these are emotionally based. I mean, I know people put a lot of work and money into their vehicle, but be realistic... It's a mid 1980’s vehicle with all the problems that come with a VW. The vehicle has already depreciated. The cost is obviously set upon the blood, sweat and tears of fixing it up and the emotional attachment that comes along with all that work. But we pay it… so who’s the dummy? Back to our story….
Like I said, we were 2-3 months out from even thinking about buying one. So, of course Andrew is searching The Samba almost everyday to look for vehicles. That’s a recipe that sets my budget up for failure. One evening we’re on the couch and he’s scrolling through van after van and he sees one that catches his eye. There are a few reasons this one catches his eye: #1, price. It was priced at $10,500.00 which was reasonable from what we were reading on the site. #2, location. It was 25 minutes from our house. #3, the engine had the Bostig engine conversion. That is something we knew we wanted to do and that would be one less thing we’d have to pay for.
We made arrangements in the next day to take a look at the van. The gentleman was selling it because of a knee problem that was making driving a clutch a pain for him. His wife had also recently passed away and it was a lot of vehicle for him at this point. My first thought on seeing it was “it’s brown”. I mean, it’s BROWN. Everything inside is brown. The outside is brown. It’s all so… BROWN. I’m keeping an open mind and trying to read what Andrew is thinking. We drove it around the neighborhood, we stared at it, asked questions and walked around it a million times. There was a point when we were test driving it where we kinda knew this was the vehicle. It was a project, but it wasn’t so overwhelming (at that point) that we couldn’t handle it. So, we offered $10,000 and it was ours.
Financially, I had to do a lot of shuffling around. Remember, I was doing this a few months before I had wanted. There was also the consideration of the unknown issues that we would most undoubtedly encounter. After a few different loan choices, we decided upon a 48 month, $15,000 installment loan at a 9.02% interest rate. I did not like the idea of a 48 month loan, but I did not mind idea of a 9% interest rate. I have us paying the loan off in 3 years, instead of 4. I don’t even treat it like it has a minimum payment. I know what we can afford and I do not overextend that.
As for paying off the Fiat, well, that came out of savings. And that, my friends, is why we have a savings account. ALWAYS put money back when you get any type of deposit. That’s free life lesson from me to you.
So, right now… here’s our financial outlook:
$15,000 loan
-$10,000 for the van
-$643.00 for licensing/taxes
$4357.00 balance
Stay tuned…. we’ll be spending money very, very soon.
-Bink