DreamVanTirement beginnings 8/9/2019
Every story has a beginning…this is the beginning of our retirement story…on Friday we went to the Mercedes Benz Sprinter Store to find out how soon we can purchase our van to begin building our dreamvan for retirement. What we learned was a little disheartening but we were happy to have given ourselves two years to prepare for our retirement adventure.
It turns out the 4×4 Sprinters are doled out to the dealers incrementally, and they are just now allocating the last of the 2019 builds. Unless you get lucky and can find one built to your liking, you have to wait for an allocation. We found out that we cannot simply “order” one in the configuration we want.
As luck would have it, the dealer had just been allocated 7 sprinters, some which could be reconfigured with the options we want for our van life vehicle. These will be built late this fall and they will take delivery likely in February. That fits well into our timeline, as our lease on the Rav4 ends in May, so we can sell or turn in our leased vehicle anytime between November and May. The downside is we have to shell out 10% of the purchase price to get rights to one of these 7 vehicles. And the price tag is pretty huge, so 10% down is a hefty chunk of change.
And they won’t be building the 2020 170 wheelbase 4×4 vans until about 2nd quarter of 2020, which means delivery of those is about a year away.
So, we have to decide whether to put money down on one now or take our chances that we will find one built to our specs somewhere out there on a dealer lot…risky bet.
After we put together the package the way we wanted it, the final price tag is over $60,000…and that’s before tax and build out. We estimate build out will be $15,000-$20,000 by the time it is completed. So, it’s not a cheap date by any stretch of the imagination…but neither is living in Madison, WI. Our property taxes keep increasing. This year they were over $6000, about the same amount as our down payment on the van will be…And once we sell the house we will have made a pretty penny on our home which has tripled in value in 20 years, and is in need of many upgrades and repairs.
We wanted to ensure the van would be tall enough inside for Tim to stand upright after the build out…it’s going to be close, as you can see.
There’s some pretty cool technology in the new vans, even the cargo vans today, including loads of safety features, like blind spot assist, attention assist, Navigation, 360 degree camera, and more. And what’s great is these are being manufactured right here in the USA in North Charleston, SC!
And so the adventure begins…we have a lot to do before we can head out on our DreamVanTirement, and we hope you will join us vicariously for the ride!
