How do you afford DVC?

[Brittleebee]

I thought it would be fun to start a casual thread to discuss everyone’s DVC journey. How do you afford your contracts and what do you do for a living? When did you buy and what age? I would love to hear anything anyone is willing to share, because I have a huge interest in the psychology that drives a DVC member. I’ll start:

I’m a single, 31 year old female who lives in a rural area with a very modest job working in the front office of a medical complex. I was able to purchase my current 240 resale points by saving quite a bit of my income and being blessed with a very affordable home. I purchased my first contract at age 29.

 

[Mouseforward]

My coworker's and friends (who I assume are in the same income bracket as I am ) make different choices.

I live on the East cost where "going down the shore" means a 5-8k a week rental so somewhat more than a weeks DVC expense. I hate sand it gets everywhere....

Or they drive BMW's / german cars, I have Hondas. All of my direct points are about the cost of a nice 5 series that will be in the junkyard faster than any of them will admit.

I also live in a LCOL area, with a house that would be a 20% deposit on a home in California or other HCOL areas.

And of course I don't gamble , it is a shame how many of my coworkers will blow 5 k on sportsball bets in weekend.

Now I might have more points if I did not love swiss watches, and custom 1911's but some toys are needed when your not at Disney.

 

[mrandmrsthomas0618]

I'm an actuary, my partner is an accountant. We make about 215k combined. We are both 36 and live in the suburbs of STL.

We were able to to use a couple credit cards that had 0% apr for a year and sign up bonuses to purchase a resale contract at SSR for about 17k.

We then made a payment plan and paid it off over the year and very excited to use our points at the Grand Californian in a 2 bedroom for 2 nights next month.

 

[Stargazer65]

We bought into DVC in our mid 40's. After our youngest of 5 kids was born, we decided to take a trip to WDW for a fun family vacation. Although we'd been before in our younger days, we had never stayed on property, so that was something we wanted to do. We stayed at a FWC in 2009. We didn't expect to frequently do it, we thought it was something we might do again in another 10 years when the youngest was older. We had never heard about DVC. When we stopped for a moment to get our bearings at DHS, we happened to be in front of the DVC kiosk on Sunset Blvd. The DVC salesperson asked us if we needed help finding something...1 day later...home resort BLT...

Taking trips every three years with the kids became a treasured memory as they grew. The add-ons came a decade later after I became more financially able. We still take family trips using DVC even though the kids are grown, and are getting married and having their own kids. I work as an engineering supervisor for a large corporation, make a little over 200K, live pretty modestly in a semi-rural area otherwise, so DVC is one of our splurges.