Do you vacation when you have bills?

[wish*i*was*in*the*vi]

Absolutely..."Bills" are a fact of life. I refuse to put a family vacation on the back burner because I have a bill of some sort.
My kids will remember the vacations, but aren't going to remember the fun summer they had staying home while mommy and daddy made an extra credit card payment. I don't find "the kids will only be little once" as a poor excuse. When your kids hit the teen years, chances are they will want little to do with you. My son is almost 12, we're seizing every opportunity we can to spend as much time with him before he goes into anti-parent mode.
We're taking a trip to the Virgin Islands in 3 weeks and in January a trip to Disney, and I don't feel a bit bad about taking the time from work, from everyone's school or spending the money to do so. Do we have bills? Absolutely? Are they credit card bills? Yes, I make 2 credit card payments a month. but they're not Astronomical. They're about $115 a month. Do we have medical bills? Yes, someone ran a red light and hit our car and totalled it and permanently injured me. And after that experience I've learned that theres alot more to life than staying home and paying bills.
Life is hectic. My kids go to school, I work full time and go to school full time,my husband works for 24 hours straight and then has 48 hours off and vacations are a way to put all of that aside for a week and spend some time together without worrying about everyone's schedules.
Disney is actually one of the cheaper vacations, if you go during a free dining promotion and stay at a value resort. I priced a 5 night stay for a friend of mine and her husband and 2 girls and with 6 day tickets, free quick service dining plan and a value resort it was $1200. We spent more than that on 4 plane tickets to the Virgin Island this year. Disney doesn't have to be expensive. Vacations don't have to be expensive.
A family vacation is the last thing I would cut out of the budget.

 

[erin1715]

My husband and I have no debt other than student loans (we have all the usual monthly bills, mortgage, utilities). However, if we waited to pay off all of our student loan debt, we would never be able to take a vacation! We are able to pay more than the minimums against our student loan debt and have a small savings, but I work hard to not only pay our debts but also enjoy our vacations.

 

[crisi]

I have bills coming in all the time. I had been out of debt completely for a while (no mortgage even), but decided to get a mortgage again. SOMETIMES I even have (GASP!) consumer debt - though I don't keep it on high interest credit cards, I use a line of credit - its a tool to manage cash flow - I don't do it often, but sometimes the line of credit is more attractive than taking the money out of savings. And sometimes, I vacation in these circumstances. But I have a pretty good positive net worth.

You are right in waiting, and people are right in saying treasure the memories you can make at home. The quantity of bills coming in is a lot lower when you don't have debt. And the amount of money that goes out every month because you are obligated to pay Visa on top of the water bill and the electric company is a lot smaller.

 

[tlbwriter]

We visit the inlaws when we have debt, but I don't think that counts as a vacation.

I think you need some balance. Would I take a $3000 vacation if I owed $4000 in medical bills? No, but I'd take a $500 vacation. Would I cancel my WDW trip because I had an unexpected $500 car repair? No. I don't really like to go to the extreme on either side of this - no vacations at all if we have the slightest amount of debt, or take any vacation we want no matter how much we owe. Neither is a good idea to me.

 

[disneydreamersx4]

Absolutely..."Bills" are a fact of life. I refuse to put a family vacation on the back burner because I have a bill of some sort.
My kids will remember the vacations, but aren't going to remember the fun summer they had staying home while mommy and daddy made an extra credit card payment. I don't find "the kids will only be little once" as a poor excuse. When your kids hit the teen years, chances are they will want little to do with you. My son is almost 12, we're seizing every opportunity we can to spend as much time with him before he goes into anti-parent mode.
We're taking a trip to the Virgin Islands in 3 weeks and in January a trip to Disney, and I don't feel a bit bad about taking the time from work, from everyone's school or spending the money to do so. Do we have bills? Absolutely? Are they credit card bills? Yes, I make 2 credit card payments a month. but they're not Astronomical. They're about $115 a month. Do we have medical bills? Yes, someone ran a red light and hit our car and totalled it and permanently injured me. And after that experience I've learned that theres alot more to life than staying home and paying bills.
Life is hectic. My kids go to school, I work full time and go to school full time,my husband works for 24 hours straight and then has 48 hours off and vacations are a way to put all of that aside for a week and spend some time together without worrying about everyone's schedules.
Disney is actually one of the cheaper vacations, if you go during a free dining promotion and stay at a value resort. I priced a 5 night stay for a friend of mine and her husband and 2 girls and with 6 day tickets, free quick service dining plan and a value resort it was $1200. We spent more than that on 4 plane tickets to the Virgin Island this year. Disney doesn't have to be expensive. Vacations don't have to be expensive.
A family vacation is the last thing I would cut out of the budget.

I totally understand you Many kids do want distance from you as they get older and who knows what can happen so taking a trip sometimes makes the family closer and why not Disney? It was our most favorite trip for all of us, DH included

 

[mamaLori05]

It totally depends on how far into debt you are with medical bills and credit card bills and what your situation is. You say everyone is healthy NOW and that you have medical bills from someone being sick. Is that person's health situation likely to flare up again and is it a serious condition that could result in someone no longer being with you? I guess if someone had a life threatening illness that they had somehow overcome, or were in remission, and I wasn't in financial trouble than I would definatley go. Life is short and I wouldn't want to regret not going with a loved one just because I wanted to pay off a bill. Money can be replaced, people can't.

If I had a lot of debt and was about to loose my house or something, then no I wouldn't go. If you have a small amount of credit card debt or medical debt, but you are still able to keep up with the rest of your finances with no issue (have some in savings, have enough to pay some of the bills if something happens, etc..), than I see no reason why you can't take a vacation. You CAN take a Disney vacation and do so fairly inexpensive. You can drive down, stay in the values, bring some snacks and such to save on food (or take advantage of free dining), and not do any of the "extras". Some people feel they have to have everything high end in order for the trip to be enjoyable, and that just isn't true. The true magic is watching everything through your kids and enjoying your time with family.

 

[eliza61]

Absolutely..."Bills" are a fact of life. I refuse to put a family vacation on the back burner because I have a bill of some sort.
My kids will remember the vacations, but aren't going to remember the fun summer they had staying home while mommy and daddy made an extra credit card payment. I don't find "the kids will only be little once" as a poor excuse. When your kids hit the teen years, chances are they will want little to do .

We're not saying "don't take a vacation" but are you saying your kids will not remember fun times with mom and dad unless it's at Disney? Unless you drop a couple of grand on the vacation it's not memorable?

Wow, I find that very sad. I remember fun times with my parents in central park (free), I remember the "magical" time with my parents on a Amtrack train. my kids remember the great time we had in Philly trying to find all the places in the National treasure movie (free). Cheering for the Phillies from the cheap seats in Citizen bank park was a blast and that was last year and my kids were 16 & 19.

If as many say the "true magic" is watching your kids have fun, then why does it have to be "At" disney? Do you only have "family time" when you go on vacation? what do you do with your kids the only 50 weeks of the year?
Sorry, I've had just as "magical" times with my sons baking toll house cookies on a rainy sunday and I didn't have to go into debt for it.


And if you think about it, the reason why so many people got caught out there is this horrible economy with consumer debt is becasue so many of us used excuses for "luxuries" to justify why we had to have it NOW. Absolutely nothing wrong with paying off your credit cards and saving for that vacation.

 

[Mellie2162]

Not us. We are currently planning a trip, however, we have a small tax bill and are trying to save for a used car which we desperately need. We have agreed that if we havent paid off the taxes or bought the car AND saved enough to pay the trip in full then we wont be going this year either. Its been about 10 years since we went, but we sometimes do take small day trips to places.

 

[JaymeC]

I wouldn't take a Disney vacation if I had any sort of consumer debt. I *might* with medical debt, but it'd depend on the situation as a whole. I agree whole heartedly with the other posters. Life is what you make of it, and while Disney is great it's not the end all be all. I would probably do something cheap like a camping trip honestly if it'd been awhile since we'd taken a trip. There are other inexpensive options out there too.

 

[TigerTown]

OP here - The more I think about the bills and what ya'll have posted I think it would be better if we put off Disney for a year or two and get the bills paid down or better yet paid off! We could always in the meantime, go on day trips like we did this summer. thanks everyone

IMHO I think that is a wise decision. As you can see from the varying responses to your thread, each person has their own internal list of priorities. It seems to me that you probably already knew the answer to your question but just needed some reassurance or possibly a justification to go against your internal feelings. Always remember you know yourself and your family best… trust your instincts.

 

[helloirishkitty]

Yes, but we always have bills, something always comes up. We don't have a mortgage anymore (WOOHOO!) so we just bought DVC with our Home Equity so now we have that payment. If we waited until we didn't have that payment, we would have years of DVC points wasted.

 

[gracie1]

Glad to see I'm not the only one who takes vacations while in debt

 

[charming23]

We just cancelled our trip for early next year because we needed a bunch of home repairs and I could not have those bills be hanging over my head. We have a savings but I did not feel good about taking money out of that and not replenshing it before going to Disney.

Disney is always going to be there but bills whether medical or other wise are here and now.

 

[justbishop]

In a word, yes. HOWEVER, that being said...

DH and I have been to WDW together 4 times since we've been married. Twice we paid cash, and twice we put the trip on our Disney Visa. We just recently started the Dave Ramsey program, and I now admit that the credit card funded trips were mistakes. Would I go back in time and not take those trips? No way! Though I would find some way to pay cash for them instead.

We currently have a WDW trip planned for next Sept. We will NOT be debt free by then, but we're comfortable with that. We will be paying for the trip with tax refund money (hopefully with plenty left over to put toward our debt snowball). We also have a $1000 cash emergency fund and a solid debt payoff plan in place, or I wouldn't even be considering it. Even if we pay nothing on our debts except what is in our normal one income budget (no tax refund money, no crafting/web design sales for me, no cash from selling household stuff), we will still be debt free except for our mortgage in about 2.5 years.

Although it makes more logical sense to get to that debt free place before vacationing, there are several reasons why we've chosen not to wait:

1. I had a horrific HG pregnancy during which I could barely leave the bed for 6 months, much less the house, and haven't been to WDW in over 2 years. I'm due.

2. By the time we hit that debt free status, we're planning to start trying for a second baby. It didn't take us long the first time, and I was in the ER for IV fluids by the time I was 6 weeks along, so I'm assuming that if things go that way again (and statistically, once you have an HG pregnancy, it's likely to happen again and worse), I'll be repeating the same 2 year with no WDW cycle again.

3. We feel that it's not that bad a move, since we'll be paying cash and not dipping into savings, and we honestly don't have THAT much CC debt to begin with (that will all likely be paid off by the time our trip rolls around anyway, then we'll be working on hospital bills).

 

[DisneyMomma81]

OP ~ do you home school your children? If not why not get a job? I work Mon-Fri 9am-3pm ~ I take my kids to school and I pick them up. *I realize I'm very lucky - maybe you could find something that will work for your family so you can help out financially.

 

[gillenkl]

Maybe you could post how many of you there are, when you want to go and budgeters could help you plan a budget trip or give you ideas for trimming your disney budget. Do you live within driving distance? For example I live far from Disney but to save money we drive, stay in a nice hotel that offers free breakfast, I make lunches from a cooler in the car on the road. We do this to/from disney. I'm sure others might help you with a disney budget trip - (and budget doesn't have to mean crappy which is sometimes what comes to mind). Give it a whirl and see what others come up with.

 

[TnTWalter]

OP here - The more I think about the bills and what ya'll have posted I think it would be better if we put off Disney for a year or two and get the bills paid down or better yet paid off! We could always in the meantime, go on day trips like we did this summer. thanks everyone

Good for you!!

Trish

 

[Colleen27]

For us it would depend on how large the bills, how well we could handle the payments, and how long it would realistically take to pay them off if we didn't travel. A year or two without vacation to be debt free is a tradeoff well worth making, but we wouldn't be willing to go our kids' entire childhoods without having certain vacation experiences because we were waiting to be debt free.

 

[PTag06]

We dont travel when we have bills usually. This summer we did go to Disney on a budget and we have not paid off all our bills. I think depends on your situation.

 

[Ava]

Yes, but we always have bills, something always comes up. We don't have a mortgage anymore (WOOHOO!) so we just bought DVC with our Home Equity so now we have that payment. If we waited until we didn't have that payment, we would have years of DVC points wasted.

I don't think anyone is suggesting not going to WDW until you don't have any bills - everyone always has bills of some type! To me, a very large bill with a payment plan over many years (like a mortgage or student loan) is not cause to go into "no vacation" mode as long as you can make your monthly payments on time while covering other expenses. A smaller bill, like a home repair or credit card bill, that I can pay off in 1-2 years if I buckle down, is worth giving up a couple years of vacations to pay off. Throwing an extra $2000 at a mortgage is not going to get it paid off that much faster, but using that $2000 to pay off a credit card bill means I have one less bill each month. KWIM?