Vehicle shopping

Starting Monday, my husband and I will be vehicle shopping. We've been talking about this for over 18 months now, and little things have started happening to remind us that it's really time. Our van has been very, very good to us, but it's a 2001 and has over 124,000 miles. Little things have started happening to remind us that it's time to vehicle shop. About a month ago, I was at church and the van didn't want to start when I was leaving. The battery is less than 2 years old, but it was the first really cold morning of the year and I think that had something to do with it. It ended up starting on its own after a few minutes. Just over a week ago, the horn stopped beeping when we lock the doors. Again, not a terribly big deal, but I do like the "warm fuzzy" of the horn beeping so that I know that the van is locked. And Tuesday when my husband and I were going to meet up with some friends, the power steering stopped working, just for a couple of minutes. Oh, and the passenger window goes down now, at least most of the time. I've been keeping my eye open for used vehicles, and frankly, it's just discouraging. We bought our current van used in 2005. It had less than 30,000 miles on it and we paid $11,000. Now, used vehicle prices have absolutely soared. I'm not crazy about the thought of another mini-van, but because of having three kids and taking frequent trips, we need to have a vehicle where I don't have to have a carrier for the top...it's just not a practical option. I'm finding that larger SUV's that fit the bill are way, way out of our price range. My husband and I both agree that a car payment is not an option for our budget. We will pay cash and that will be what we can afford. So, we are in the market for a low mileage mini-van. We should be able to find one with less than 40,000 miles on it for less than $20,000. I'll be honest though, it's hard to get excited about going out and looking, and especially about spending that amount of money, for a vehicle that I don't really want!