Do you incur debt to go to Disney?

[PatMcDuck]

I think many people go into debt for vacations. They are just NOT going to post that fact here on this board, and trigger the disapproval and lectures about how unwise it is to do that........

Just being honest. We have charged vacations..... for various reasons. Maybe we shouldn't have, but my kids are grown now, and it is hard to regret it.... it is unlikely we will have anymore family trips. Hard/impossible to coordinate work schedules etc. So I wonder, if we had waited until we could "afford" the trips, would we ever have gone on a family vacation? I am impressed with those of you that can save up before a trip, you ARE doing it right, I agree. Trying to pay for it afterwards is pretty tough.

All credit cards are paid off now...... and we should have kept a better lid on our charging in the past. Determined to do better going forward.

 

[Butterx3]

When I was married to a moron alcoholic, we charged our trips. Then I smartened up and left him. Now we save for them. We generally go every other year. I have a trip fund. We have a garage sale once a year, all proceeds go into the fund, we have a change jar, and anything extra, (Rebates, bonus's, the extra check we get when there are 5 weeks in a month), all of that goes into the trip fund. We use our tax return, and I got a part time job. The part time job is supposed to be trip fund, so far its been for my Windstar auto repair fund though. But the van will be paid off in 2 months, so that will be an extra $300 a month. It is so much easier to live without a lot of debt, than how we used to. We were constantly spinning back in our credit card debt days.

 

[Mrs. Charming]

Nope, we don't incur debt. We save change, rebate checks, "free money" like birthday gift money, stuff like that. We also use some of our tax return. It's something we build into our budget, like bills, utilities, etc. This year, however, we're buying new furniture and skipping WDW.

 

[Lisa loves Pooh]

Well, we have used debt on vacations (even a recent one b/c it was planned and we felt we needed one, but our budget exploded from living in two places and moving...we still need to pay it down)....

But--this question is loaded.

It should be directed to any vacation. Our goal is to not vacation with debt. And having a vacation line item with money dedicated to it is how to do it. (Or alternatively, earmarking part or all of money windfalls to the cause).

Our DVC is on a loan---but when we go, the expenses of staying their are not on debt. So we are part debt, part cash.

And the vacation we did in September after the family being apart for 9 months, ended up on debt (was to be cash, but the overspending depleted the funds). But it wasn't Disney. Disney in July (CRT, BBB, and other things)--was cash (except DVC points from our still debted DVC). And a portion of a money windfall was used for that.

2011 is a clean slate for us. We do not have a vacation line item this year as we get things straightened out. We do have some family road trips planned--those are TBD pending some windfalls (aka bonuses) in 2011. If those do not occur, we will have to revisit the budget and see if there is a place to pull money from. But we decided to head towards consumer debt free (from that overage of 2010) and restart my husband's 401K, so there really isn't room. But we will see.

2012 will be planned much better as we should be done cleaning up the financial wreck of 2010.

 

[bean bunny]

We don't incur debt to go to Disney however I wouldn't be against it honestly, depending on the situation. I think it depends on your personal comfort level. Let's say you have a stable job no other debt and you are comfortable charging the vacation and paying it off over three months. You'll incur some interest - if it's a low interest card though it's not anything crazy. I really think it's a personal decision. I think everyone has to do what's comfortable for them.

 

[scootch]

We dont' incur debt, but are debt free family. I got married when I was 30 and dh was 42(had been a bachelor). We chose to stay in his older home, drive our cars for 8-9 years and truly our highest bill each month is our cable bill. We also just live very plain and simple. I have never had a manicure/pedicure, wear fancy clothes, rarely go to movies.... we actually love just hanging out being a family. The two weekends before christmas I couldnt' convince anyone to go to the mall and dinner with me, they would rather just stay home and play. Also, one trick, if you can get ahead and I did this one year with tax rebate... so I have both my 7 day disney cruise in April paid in full, along with my DVC rental AND dining plan for my WDW trip in November... so will start saving for our big summer vacation and 2012 vacation now. Getting married later in life and not being too interested in material things has truly helped us enjoy life without any financial worries, despite my dh being a high school teacher and myself a SAHM.

 

[n2mm]

Nope. I own DVC and pay off my cc as soon as we get home.

 

[PatriciaH]

No, we used to on 0% cards but not anymore. We use debit cards now for everything and have no debt (car, house, etc..) My parents live right near WDW as well as several friends, so we have places to stay, tickets, dining discounts, etc. Our friends also give us buddy passes to fly (god bless em!) WDW winds up being a very cheap vacation for us. DL too since we have friends out there!

 

[honeydiane1953]

No way. If I can't pay cash I don't go. CC debt is out of the ? for me.

 

[lady_bug_888]

Would like to say no, but the truthful answer is yes we are going into a small amount of debt for our Disney vacation.

We do have a few debts we are paying off including cc/car loans/house. I HATE having CC debt but the majority of that was really unavoidable (although maybe a few poor choices in there although I will say that our TV is 10 years old and our computer is 4 years old and definitely NOT state of the art...we also have crappy furniture...lol). We have traveled a few times in the last few years. We went to NYC in Nov. 2008 and that had us incur about $800 worth of debt (now paid off) and although it was a trip it was built of necessity (I used to live and work in NYC and I had to move back a lot of stuff that wasn't packed). In April of 2009 we went on our honeymoon to the Caribbean on which we incurred NO debt. My parents paid for the travel and I saved up for a year so that we would have spending money. I came home with $500 because I barely spent a dime!

Our Disney trip we have been saving for since our Honeymoon. We put change in jars, we put a minimum percentage of our allowances in that jar (my DS, DH and I all get allowances), we put our bottle money in the jar and we put $20 from every pay check/tax check etc... into the jar. We are also taking about 1/3 of our tax money to put towards the trip (the rest goes on CC debt and in savings). When all is said and done I predict that we will have about a $400-$500 balance on our CC from our trip that we will still need to pay off, but that will be paid off shortly thereafter from using the same strategies we are already applying.

We were going to go to Disney in April 2012 so we would incur NO debt from our Disney vacation, however we would have ended up spending at least an extra $2000 due to the time of year we would be travelling and overall it is way more worth it to save the money and go a bit earlier. Also, we have been paying off some of our CC debt for a while and I have no problem saving up specifically for a vacation so that we have a brief break every once and a while from the pinching pennies that we usually do.

___________________

Only 225 more days until our 1st family vacation to WDW

 

[jodifla]

I think many people go into debt for vacations. They are just NOT going to post that fact here on this board, and trigger the disapproval and lectures about how unwise it is to do that........

Just being honest. We have charged vacations..... for various reasons. Maybe we shouldn't have, but my kids are grown now, and it is hard to regret it.... it is unlikely we will have anymore family trips. Hard/impossible to coordinate work schedules etc. So I wonder, if we had waited until we could "afford" the trips, would we ever have gone on a family vacation? I am impressed with those of you that can save up before a trip, you ARE doing it right, I agree. Trying to pay for it afterwards is pretty tough.

All credit cards are paid off now...... and we should have kept a better lid on our charging in the past. Determined to do better going forward.

I agree....there's no way you will get an actual read on how many people use credit for vacations when you come to this budget board!

We pay upfront for vacations now, but used a lot of credit in our 20s and 30s. I wouldn't give up one of those trips, frankly. They were ALL worth it, even if I paid some interest on them.

 

[MEM]

No, we don't either. We bought into DVC and the monthly fees are part of our budget like anything else. We buy annual passes that are also budgeted for and we get three trips per pass and rather than renew, we let the passes expire and buy APs every other year. We also set aside part of our food budget every month for our WDW dining fund. Airfare is harder to budget for but we fly Southwest exclusively and up until the 11th hour I am checking and cancelling and re-booking to get the best possible rate. Kennel fees for our dog are high - $35 a day - but as a rescue, she's worth the extra TLC they give her. We budget for that too.

There is another thread ongoing about how much people spend on eating out every month - the range seems to be from $600 to an astounding $2400!! That would pay for a darned nice annual trip to The World. Something to think about.

 

[hsmamato2]

I am like a pp.... I tend to ramble around the 'net,and dream of all the places we could go....then I usually come across some deal,somewhere that looks really good(Disney,frequently) usually start planning/booking months ahead,bit by bit...so it just comes out of our regular budget over time,sometimes 9-10 months in advance...by the time we get back from wherever,we have no extra debt......we aren't wealthy,but shopping carefully,and spending on trips vs. stuff helps out.

 

[tzolkin]

DH and I were discussing this last night actually.

We don't incur any debt going to Disney (have enough money to cover all costs). However, we could be using the money we spend on our trips to pay off other debt (mortgage and car loan). Neither of us ever went on a vacation when we were children and we feel that it's more important to use some of our extra money to make memories for our children than to pay off our house early.

I'm not saying we're completely ignoring our debt-- we're both turning 30 and have paid off our student loans and I just went back to work this year after being a SAHM and started putting most of my paycheck towards it-- but we just don't feel that it would be best for our family to put every spare cent towards our mortgage/dibt when we could be enjoying our limited time with our children.

 

[snowywhite89]

There is another thread ongoing about how much people spend on eating out every month - the range seems to be from $600 to an astounding $2400!! That would pay for a darned nice annual trip to The World. Something to think about.

 

[BABY_EINSTEIN'S_MOM]

DH and I were discussing this last night actually.

We don't incur any debt going to Disney (have enough money to cover all costs). However, we could be using the money we spend on our trips to pay off other debt (mortgage and car loan). Neither of us ever went on a vacation when we were children and we feel that it's more important to use some of our extra money to make memories for our children than to pay off our house early.

I'm not saying we're completely ignoring our debt-- we're both turning 30 and have paid off our student loans and I just went back to work this year after being a SAHM and started putting most of my paycheck towards it-- but we just don't feel that it would be best for our family to put every spare cent towards our mortgage/dibt when we could be enjoying our limited time with our children.

This!

 

[DisneyScraps]

I don't go into debt for a vacation. I carry no debt except a modest car payment.

Lisa

 

[GoldieSaysMeep]

We don't incur debt to go to Disney however I wouldn't be against it honestly, depending on the situation. I think it depends on your personal comfort level. Let's say you have a stable job no other debt and you are comfortable charging the vacation and paying it off over three months. You'll incur some interest - if it's a low interest card though it's not anything crazy. I really think it's a personal decision. I think everyone has to do what's comfortable for them.

Usually we just pay it off before we go, but sometimes, things happen.

Last trip, our honeymoon, was paid in full, until an emergency caused us to miss our flight and have to switch flights same day. That was a lovely $450 charge because DH had to get business select on SWA to ensure we would get seats together. I'm not able to sit with strangers. I will freak out and probably have an autism related meltdown similiar to what a child with the same condition would have. He charged it.

The flight took longer than it should have and we ended up missing most of MNSSHP which was the #1 thing I'd been looking forward to. This was the last night of MNSSHP for that year so going another day was not an option.

Throughout the trip, we bought stuff we didn't budget for, ate more expensive meals than we normally would to make up for the sadness of missing the party.

We came home with probably $850 in debt. Big whoop. We paid it off within 2 months and here we are today.

Do I regret it? No way.

 

[AmberHeartsDisney]

Nope we plan out and save for it.

 

[beaucoup]

Vacations is something we don't go into debt for. We also don't take money from permanent savings to go on vacation. It comes out of budget or we don't go.

Also, when we had debt, we didn't vacation like we do now. I just can't enjoy myself on a nice vacation if I've got unpaid debt back at home. Not how I was raised and not how we live.