Van or no van, new or old van, 3 or 5 seats???? I need advice!!!!

After the bread round is wasting a lot of time recently. Whether I am running on the road( once) , walking the dogs or washing the floor ( much more often) -  I’m thinking. When I’m baking or filling in the spread sheets, I am wondering : Do I need a new van, do I need five seats or three, can the business  tackle the repayments and why doesn’t my van go another year or three??

The old Van is much loved,  has done the mileage, owes me nothing and still motors on very well. Insurance is prohibitive however and our mechanic has – very nicely – said he doesn’ t really want to see the van again. “You should be buying not fixing” has been his verdict for sometime now. There are so many things that make sense financially and that are logical and sensible but sadly, I have never decided anything on that level.  I decide by gut instinct rather than by any rational thought processes. Normally,I  know what I want and then fashion the rational around that. Now, I want a van with five seats. For over 20 years now, I have driven a family car where space was premium, for over 14 of those years, seven seaters were the name of the game and I distinctly recall a birthday party where one orienteering party of 13 was collected in one car load. Now, those parties are gone and some of the children too. Grown up, one has his own car and only the youngest depends on me for transport but still, the instinct remains to have space. Silly, nostalgic instinct or sensible multiuse of space??  Has anyone any ideas that might help? Anyone been there and done that and changed from multi-tasking mother to multi-tasking mother with  a business to run?

For the second Monday running, I have avoided the paperwork day with a run to the garages to talk, look, compare and test drive. I want reclining seats ( bakers need to sleep somewhere)  when they are offering touch screen radio. I want a tailgate boot rather than a hinged door ( unloading in the rain or using the Van as a market stall in bad weather) We work our way around it and have found the Van that has it all, except I can’ t decide whether five seats as opposed to three ( or really two and a half) is the way to go. Flexibility or functionality and do I really need a new van?? I struggle to process the fact that buying  a new van apparently is not stupid even though I laughed all my adult life at people who did just that, Driving  old cars was a way of life that suited me. That has now changed, say the mechanic and the accountant but I am hanging on here and struggling with the brave new world of sensible decisions.



So, any thoughts, any advice please?  After the bread round tomorrow or the next day, I need to make a decision – and then I’ll start pfaffing about the colour. I like yellow………