Lets Talk Budget

Above are some build images to date: Our stripe; The van with new running boards, rear windows, and roof rack; The installed solar panels and Maxxair vent.

If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it 1000 times. It feels like everything we needed for this build has been $1,000. While we’re only a month into it, I thought now was a good time to have a check in on our budget. Let you in on what it was when we started, where we have decided to splurge a little and where we decided to save. And maybe by the end understand why everything is $1,000.

When planning this van we did a lot of research on how we wanted our systems to run, how we wanted the exterior to look, how we wanted the interior to look. With that came the inevitable push and pull of what we want versus how expensive it all is. Once we felt educated we had to start putting numbers to those things we wanted. It’s easy to say “We have to do the gorgeous custom leather captain chairs.” But when you put a price to those beauties (easily $2,000 for one seat) it’s funny how fast you say “I never liked leather anyhow, you know what I love? Standard seats with fabric. Now those are lovely.”  Once we put a price estimate to all of the things we needed and wanted, van included, we were able to make an educated estimate as to what our budget would be. Standard budgeting practice, right?

$40,000.  We felt good about that number. We gave ourselves $20,000 for the van and $20,000 for the build. Our research told us that we could find a used Transit with 100,000 miles for about that price. And when we looked at the build we felt $20,000 gave us plenty of wiggle room to get what we wanted, maybe even a few fun splurges.

This is the part where you start thinking “Do they just have $40,000 laying around?” or “Oh that’s what I can do with the $40,000 burning a hole in my pocket.” I don’t know where you are in your financial journeys but I’m guessing you are probably on one side of that fence or another. Let me tell you, we are definitely on the first side of that fence. We did not have that kind of money sitting waiting for us to spend it. In fact we had done a lot of financial planning to get to this point. 2 years ago we set on a journey to pay off credit card debt that we had accrued over the years and to pay off my car. We finally shed those payments in August of 2019, giving us more financial confidence to take on this build. Ideally we would have saved up the money we needed and paid cash for the whole darn thing, but we are very blessed to have been able to use some savings and a home equity loan to cover the costs so that we can enjoy the van now rather than waiting. Why am I telling you all of this? Because I’m nosy. We love watching home shows and I am always asking “How on earth are they affording to do this?” It left us feeling like we were failures in some sense because we couldn’t buy a new house for $100,000 and spend $200,000 we had stowed away for a rainy day to fix it up. I always chalked it up to something real people can’t actually do. So, I’m telling you how we have financed this journey so you don’t have to sit there thinking it’s out of reach. Maybe it’s much closer in reach than you thought. Plus I’m assuming other people are as nosy as I am, and I tend to be a bit of an open book.

Let’s get into it then, we had $20,000 for a van and $20,000 for a build. It was time to search for an actual van that costs actual money. We found several options ranging in price from $19,000 to $29,000. We weighed so many options at this point. Location – we almost flew to Missouri to pick up a van and drive it home. Color – we found a charcoal one in Texas and were willing to pay the extra $800 to ship it to us in Ohio because it wasn’t white. Mileage – many of these were right around 100,000 miles just as we had planned for. However as we started finding vans with mileage closer to 60,000 our thoughts shifted. What if we are putting $20,000 of build money into a van that has 100,000 miles and then something breaks on said van. We’ve then installed a lot of product on a base with many variables. While cargo vans are built to travel closer to 300,000 miles there’s bound to be systems that go down. Suddenly as our minds shifted so did our budget. Maybe we could split it $25,000 / $15,000. Then came M/M Van. Black, 2 hours away, 28,000 miles, and $28,800 out the door. Nearly $10,000 over our initial budget. But 28,000 miles!  That’s incredible! And it’s black, and we don’t have to fly anywhere or pay anyone to get it to us. Van build dollars took a hit.

Before pulling the trigger on going so far over the van budget we had to re-tool our build dollars. We looked at our electrical needs. Our original plan was rather extensive and really meant for people that would be living in a van full time. Cutting back to a more realistic power level for our use cut our electrical budget in half saving us $3,000. Our solar generator could be purchased as an open box item saving $500. The roof rack and ladder we intended to purchase looked so cool but finding alternates saved us $2,000. Add in a lot of small shifts and searching for deals, we felt comfortable with a build number of $12,000.

That brings us to today, with a van and 90% of our purchases made let’s check in on where we have spent our money! I’ll round up to save you from all the pennies and cents. And I’ll point out all the fun $1,000 items for you as well, are we all excited? Great.

Electrical: Between solar panel mounts, LED lights, fuse box, wiring and cables, solar panels, outlets, our solar generator ($1,700), and a new battery for the van we’re checking in at $2,800. The only electrical we haven’t purchased yet are switches and I am assuming some miscellaneous parts. Not too far off from our initial $3,000 estimate!

Plumbing: This includes a 22 gal water tank, grey water tank, shower pan, shower door, water heaters, water filters, fittings, faucet, water pump, sink, and toilet ($1,000). Total plumbing is coming in at $2,100. In this category we still need a shower head / valve and the pipes to make this system work.

Heating / Cooling / Ventilation: We are not putting in AC or heat at this time, we may revisit this after the first year traveling in M/M Van. For now this includes our MaxxAir vent and insulation, total is $500.   

Build Materials: Specialty tools, OSB, dining table leg, cabinet lifts, full bed mattress, and some additional insulation total $400. We still need to purchase material for the walls and cabinets and I’m sure 47 other trips to Home Depot. Also we need to decide what our counter top material will be. We anticipate another $500 - $700 will be spent here.

Van Goods: This is my category for things that make it more of a home, you know like home goods but it’s a van so they are van goods? K. Electric kettle, mini waffle maker, and a blanket total $200 right now. I’m sure this will increase as we find we need organizational tools and other items. Being an interior designer you know I can spend a little money here. I’ll try to keep it to a minimum because Pendleton fabric (see accessories below). We also need to purchase the fridge and I’ll call that a van good because I don’t know where else to put it. You’ll never guess how much it is. ($1,000)

Accessories: This category holds nearly all of the things that are not completely necessary but we either chose to put them in because they look cool or because it was important to us and the function of the van. I’ll elaborate on why for items in this section mostly so you don’t think we are spending so much money just to look cool, some of these things do actually have a point I promise.

New all terrain tires ($1,000) – we’ve seen too many vans and trucks get stuck. Some of the race tracks we go to require us to drive in soggy ground. We really don’t want to push M/M Van out of a muddy pit. 

Paint for the wheels - we want them black and this is actually inexpensive if you put in the work yourself.

Backup camera – most vans came with one but ours did not. No rear windows make this a necessity. It worked out because it allowed us to install a system that can also be attached to the race trailer when we are pulling it.

Roof rack and ladder ($1,000) – OK. We could have purchased flexible solar panels and fixed them to the top of the van. The roof rack increases the budget and decreases aerodynamics. But guys, it looks so cool and we can add a rooftop deck.

Running boards – they make it much easier to get into the vehicle and they look cool.

Windows ($1,700) – no point in taking this van cool places if we can’t enjoy the views. And they help with ventilation, which is super important.

Seat swivels ($1,000) – needed for our dining area (see layout post here)

Light bar for the front bumper – It just looks cool. Ofcourse the van has front lights so this is completely unnecessary. But instead of buying the $500 one we found a solution on amazon for only $50.

If you are keeping track, we’re at $5,600 in this category. But as we have said “If it doesn’t look cool, then what’s the point?” We’re putting our money where our mouth is on this one. And we’re not done – we have our eye on van specific window coverings (around $1,000) and that Pendleton fabric for the ceiling is most certainly a luxury item ($1,000). Can I convince you it’s important to acoustics and since it’s wool it will help keep us warm? No? K. It makes me smile, and that’s enough for me.

All in at this point on the build we have spent around $11,500. The remaining items look to be totaling around $4,000 giving us a total for the van build of $15,500. As it turns out our second estimate was closer to being realistic for us then the final one. Add that to the van and it’s putting us at $44,300. Worth it to us for a vehicle with low mileage that we feel confident putting our build dollars into. The build is young, so you’ll have to stick around to see if we can keep it at that number!

Going through our accessories list it might be clear to some that we could drop $4,000 and stay in our original $40,000 budget. But if you look at the comparison we’re getting an incredible adventure van for a steal and a lot of hard work. A quick reference, to purchase a finished van conversion from a builder can run anywhere from $100,000 - $175,000. (I’m sure if you tried you could make cost even more, if that’s the sort of thing you’re after) I should point out, they should cost that much! The amount of time and expertise it takes to convert a van is incredible. Add to that the attention to detail that so many of the shops put into their builds and the high end products installed in the vans, no question they are priced right. But if you are willing to put in the work and learn the trade you can build your own for what we feel is a reasonable number, that’s what I’m hoping we can show you through our process.

I still don’t know why everything seems to cost $1,000. It’s probably because so much of this is specialty product in a highly custom industry. I do know just about all of it is worth it to us. This first month has been filled with planning, ordering, deliveries, and about 2 weeks of hands on construction work. There’s so much ahead of us still it’s actually hard for me to believe that the remainder of our purchases will equal only $4,000. But won’t it be fun to find out?

As a reminder, you can visit ‘The Van’ page here and click through all of the sections to access links to every product we purchased for M/M Van. We are also documenting the build on Instagram in our stories and feed (follow along here), as well as on our website here, I update those images weekly. Thanks for following along!