But it should include repayments - because thats part of the cost. If you leased a van, you would count repayments as expenses, and so you should with purchases. Even if you buy the van outright with cash, the financing cost per month to you is :
Purchase cost minus eventual sale cost, divided by the number of months you owned it. Then you should really add in the additional cost that you have suffered by not having that money available for other things - so the interest that you would have earned on a savings account at the very least.
Yeah I get that, I just thought he meant the keeping it on the road and travelling without the cost of the van. Hence why I thought 12k per year was excessive, maybe I misunderstood what he was getting at.