Lizzim
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Mar 28, 2010
It's fantastic that you're enjoying your DVC contract so much. It's also great that the monthly payment and dues aren't an issue for you. But what if you lost your job or there was some kind of prolonged illness and you couldn't pay your dues or your monthly payment? For people with direct contracts who paid cash, they can sell their contract and get about half their money back. But with financed contracts, you'd have to be able to pay off the loan when you sold, which often means bringing money to the table. If you couldn't afford to do that, you'd just have to give your contract back to Disney and never again see a dime of the money you paid.
Just a thought to keep in mind as people make their decisions.
I don't believe I was advocating buying without any consideration for these things. I have life insurance and critical illness insurance and so if the bad stuff happens I'm covered in most circumstances.....in fact if one of us loses our job we are still ok (with some adjustments).
My point remains.....there are some instances where the relative expense of a direct financed purchase is not the end of the decision.
I don't discount the fact that there is an alternate view to Dean's opinion (which I happen to share). But I have a hard time adopting your "live for the moment" philosophy, especially when it involves fiscal irresponsibility in the short term and there are many alternative options that have much less risk. I can see how you would say that it is important to vacation now. Maybe your kids are young and you want to embrace that. Maybe you have a stressful life and a week away will help. So I agree with you to a point, that one could save 10 years for a Disney vacation and by the time they go their kids are too old or maybe they dropped dead or whatever. But I do not believe that theory applies to DVC. We hear this all the time, where people speak of DVC as if they could not visit Disney otherwise. There are hundreds of different ways to visit Disney on the cheap. DTD hotels are less than $100 a night. Values are less than $100 a night. Moderates are not much more. Offsite timeshares can be had on eBay for $1 or you can simply book a week direct at discount prices. All of these solutions are less than the tens of thousands needed to buy in to DVC and they come without the long term commitment and risk associated with a direct financed purchase. So I'm sorry, but I'm not buying the argument that you have to have DVC or else you won't be able to go to Disney. I think it's a justification and a poor one at that.
Buying and financing DVC when you don't have the money is not a "live life now" type of decision. In my opinion it is an extremely risky decision with long term detrimental effects. Now please don't read too much into this...I am talking about the decision and not the people who make it, so I'm not saying anything about people personally. I simply believe it is a bad choice. Everyone has something they want but can't afford. For some it's a nicer car. For some it's a bigger house. I think that accepting that something is out of one's price range is a much more productive strategy than going into incredible and risky debt to obtain what is out of reach. I get that this is an unpopular position, and please feel free to disagree.
We have no children (or plans for them) and we are comfortable with our mortgage. We have good relatively secure jobs and plenty of scope to deal with problems. I could pay the mortgage off early......but why would I ?
You are correct that DVC is not the only way to do Disney but I bought DVC to share the experience with friends and family...this year we are bringing the parents (we are in the UK) and in 4 years we are bringing our godchildren.
We can only bring them whilst they are young while they are actually that age so it will be worth it to me - their parents would not bring them without our help.
As I said earlier.....there are differing viewpoints but I am living now whilst I can. If I can still use DVC when I am old then that will be a bonus