How do you roll?

[AlexandNessa]

Can't see how prepaying for something being a bad thing or being on a budget cause you see there are people out here that love to take vacations or have nice things and the only way for them to have it is either save the money and prepay for it when they have it and thats why we prepay and budget cause we get one shot at it and only vacation we get to take for the year and when people try to give financial advise not knowing other peoples situations is pretty rude and sorry don't mean to vent on you but if its the only way you can afford to do things is to prepay then can't see that as a bad thing.

I believe this was actually directed at me, and I didn't mean to offend. It's your money, and you obviously are free to do with it as you please.

Perhaps I shouldn't have worded it that prepaying is "silly." But I suppose it is silly to me; just JMHO. To me, I find it silly to voluntarily let a resort or company use my money before I actually use the service, unless there is some big incentive to do so. Sort of like someone who has too much taken out of their checks for taxes and then gets a huge refund; it's a free loan to the government for a year. Most people don't pay off their vacations a year in advance, but I suppose I don't see a financially sound argument of prepaying v. having the money in an account somewhere safely and paying it off when the bill comes, or wwessing's idea of having the money ahead of time, getting travelers cheques and then paying off as the vacation goes so she doesn't get a big bill at the end of her vacation. I "get" paying it off as you go. I don't "get" the benefits of prepaying. Someone is free to make the argument to me. Perhaps someone will change my mind, and we'll start prepaying too.

 

[vacation dreamer]

ok here is my situation....my money for my vacation is sitting in a no interest checking account. I paid off the airline tickets when I got the bill 2-3 months ago. I brought the US/IOA tickets 2 months ago and paid the bill when it came in. Again money sitting in the no interest checking account so the hotel is paid off. Grab some cash and go........sweet memories when I come home and no bills. Again everyone is different. I also don't pull any money out of my accounts, except checking because they are for my retirement.

 

[Catrinabeach]

I`m one of the ones who likes to prepay everything. I like to know everything is paid for and that we don`t have to think about anything but spending money.

But we don`t do small when we do our trips. Our last 2 trips cost us 18,00.00 each. For us to not have prepaid would of been crazy to pay when we arrived.

We paid for things as we booked them. We paid the hotel after we booked them, we paid for the flights when we booked them, we put a deposit on the Disney package and then paid it off a few mths before the trip.`We booked the dining plan at Disney so our meals were prepaid as well

The only things we didn`t prepay were our meals at Universal. And of course our spending money. lol

When we went we took cash. And the rest we pulled out of the bank as we needed it. We didn`t want any bills when we came home and don`t use a credit card. At all.

We budgeted how much we would spend each day at Universal for food, and for the extra meals above the dining plan we had planned at Disney. Then added how much we wanted to spend on souveniers. We also budgeted what each kid would spend and they had that in their wallets. I held their wallets and gave them their spending money each day. We kept their wallets in the room safe and our spare money in there as well. We kept 500.00 on us each day so that we didn`t have to curb our spending if we saw something we liked and wanted.

We thought about traveler`s checks but I wasn`t happy with the fact that it had to one or the other for them. If we could of gotten them with either or on the checks I would of but didn`t want to have to figure out how much to put in each person`s name. So we went with cash.

 

[SnowWtch]

We do a combo of cards and cash. Since some places we purchase small items it doesn't make sense to charge those. We have an AP for US/IOA so we get a discount on most items and restaurants. It helps a lot. We'll usually stay off-site as well to save money and only eat maybe 1 big meal a day and snack the rest of the time or bring stuff with us to keep in the room. Since we're only a few hours away we drive down so we tend to bring a cooler and snacks with us.

 

[Sleepy]

We prepay just about everything and don't have credit cards. When we are at WDW, we prepay the hotel in full months before arrival. We purchase tickets (WDW/US) at Shades of Green, so we have to wait until we get there to buy them (the money is in the bank for that when we arrive). We have plenty of money in the bank for everyday spending. Each day we take out a certain amount to stay on track. When we slide over to Universal, the hotel is prepaid in full months before arrival and all of our spending money is also sent in as prepaid for room charging. We need to think about no money at all when we are at Universal. We carry no cash- just the room key. It makes for a stress free vacation. Sure, that money could have been sitting in a savings acct drawing a few bucks here and there, but at the same time, hubby would be looking at that savings acct thinking up ways to nickel and dime it away. For some, the prepay route is the best for that reason.