I typed something up, then erased it because I went back through the thread.
The math doesn't add up.
You got a full insurance payout, PLUS $5k more than what you paid for it 2.5 months ago, but would still need an additional 8.5k for the new (to you) vehicle, yet the difference in purchase price between the 2 vehicles is $3k?
I wasn't planning on laying out all the costs, but if you would like to know:
First vehicle: $19,500 plus taxes and fees
insurance pay out: paid off $10,600 to loan, check written for approx. $15,100
this vehicle: $21000 plus taxes and fees
***I will say that I was mistaken initially thinking it was 19500 OTD but it did not include taxes and fees***
We went in with the intention of paying it all off, but we did get 0.99% interest rate so we decided to put the insurance payment down and fiance that remainder so we could invest the money we were putting towards it to our 401K and max out our HSA. (ETA: the $1000 payments towards the vehicle)