Husband can't get past cost.

[supersuperwendy]

I wanted to join starting in 1997, but my husband wasn't ready to say yes. So I started cramming the 5 of us into one room at POR. It was crazy tight and he even couldn't imagine it as the kids got even older. My parents paid for a trip for all of us in a 2 bedroom villa at BWV. That really sold him I think. The blessing of size in a 2 bedroom villa is the best. He also finally agreed that we would wind up paying more and more and more for our hotel rooms so in 2008 he finally said we could join! My husband took nearly a decade to sign the dotted line....good luck OP! Oh and in hindsight he says he wished we did buy back then and not waited so long.

 

[grafxgirl]

We bought into the Beach Club Villas back in 2003 at a cost of around 12,000 dollars and have gone to WDW 2-3 times per year ever since. Our annual dues are around 800 dollars, we buy 10 day non-expiring park hoppers which last us 3 trips since we only do the parks 2 or 3 days each trip. We use the basic dining plan which saves us roughly 40 percent (we did an experiment to figure this out). We drive instead of fly because we usually make a stop in NC to visit 2 or 3 days with family which saves us money since our car is efficient on gas and doesn't run us but 200 dollars in gas for a round trip (we use Disney transportation and keep the car parked at the resort unless we really need it). We also buy breakfast items and keep them in the villa so we can eat breakfast in the villa and help the kids with their homework before heading out for the day. We also don't have to pack much in clothing because the villas have a washer/dryer unit in each villa, so we are able to wash our clothes and re-wear them as needed. The villas are nice because they are large and we have the option of getting one with one bedroom or multiple bedrooms/bathrooms (we are a family of 4). We don't feel like we have to take trips to use the points because we have purchased the right amount for our family and have the option to bank those points for the following year and take a bigger trip, or borrow points if needed.

 

[nukker7]

I must be living in Walnut Grove, MN with the Ingalls family because we both consider everything as ours, not mine and his.

Nicely put!!!!

 

[dbs1228]

I don't think you'd have this situation in most marriages. If you did, well, I must be living in Walnut Grove, MN with the Ingalls family because we both consider everything as ours, not mine and his.

I see a strong marriage as discussing these types of issues instead of just going on the Mine, mine, mine attitude.

Have you been burned before in a situation like this?

You would be very surprised (as am I) how many married couples have "their own money, and their own bills" It never made sense to me because I always felt a "team effort" works better. I know quite a few couples who operate like that and it works for them since the 2 on the top of my head have each been married over 25 years!

 

[arthur06]

You would be very surprised (as am I) how many married couples have "their own money, and their own bills" It never made sense to me because I always felt a "team effort" works better. I know quite a few couples who operate like that and it works for them since the 2 on the top of my head have each been married over 25 years!

My best friend and his wife are like this as well. It works for them, but not in a way that I would want it to work. They each pay so much of the bills every month. But when it comes to bigger things, like vacation, they simply don't go. She wants to go, but he won't put any money into it and she won't pay for everyone.

He has 4 weeks of vacation per year and there yearly trip is the 2 hour drive to Mall of America, one night in a hotel, dinner at Olive Garden then back home the next day.

 

[taaren]

I don't think you'd have this situation in most marriages. If you did, well, I must be living in Walnut Grove, MN with the Ingalls family because we both consider everything as ours, not mine and his.

I see a strong marriage as discussing these types of issues instead of just going on the Mine, mine, mine attitude.

Have you been burned before in a situation like this?

Nope. I have a great marriage, and my parents have been married for almost 40 years, my grandparents over 60. Its less about "mine" than being independent and making the right choices for oneself.
Spouses should be consulted when making large financial decisions and should share their opinions. BTW, obviously OP has already consulted the spouse and gotten their opinion and is not making the decision without his input. One of the many many reasons I never suggested she should not consult her spouse. If she did need to convince him - if she feels that the upkeep of DVC would significantly impact their joint financial future and that his approval was necessary - the best thing to do would be to take him on a trip where they rented points for a DVC room, because once you stay DVC its hard to go back to values/mods.
But when it comes to gifts from family members who are not related to your spouse, if you have the means to maintain something and an independent income, it should be your choice. I also believe that one wouldn't see a male asking this question because we live in a society where we got accustomed to men supporting women and even though the financial situations have changed, attitudes have not, and men feel more free to make large financial decisions without necessarily needing their wive's approval even though they discuss it with them.
Most financial advice books I've read have said that while every situation is different, the ideal tends to be spouses keeping individual accounts in addition to joint accounts. My parents own the house they live in and one they manage together jointly, and they own their respective parents' homes as well as one more separately with the idea being that if one passes, the inheritance for us will stay in tact and not end up 'going out the door' with a new spouse - this situation we have seen many times with friends of my grandparents', including our next door neighbor whose son is now homeless because her husband's second wife decided to leave the house empty after they passed rather than let her stepson inherit it. It happens, and it is realistic to hedge against that possibility. Any inheritance/large gifts from my family that I might get will be held in my name, and my son's if he's old enough and not jointly with my husband, and he understands this completely. The home that we own and our DVC are ours together because we pay the mortgage and the DVC was bought with our joint funds. Our retirements are separate because we both work and contribute to our own. We pay bills together, we are building a joint financial future, but money/assets that comes from somewhere that has nothing to do with one's spouse should be preserved for one's children or whatever the discretion of the owning party is.

There are a lot of considerations to make before purchasing DVC, but it sounds like the OP has considered them and feels it would be worthwhile for her family and they'd be able to go on future trips on a similar budget to their current trips (she mentioned they no longer go Value), and free dining can be traded in for groceries in a DVC room. Consultations are great but she should not have to ask for permission unless her income cannot support the MF's.

 

[Lil' Grumpy]

i am no rci trade expert. but i read over & over how poor dvc
trading power into this system. why is that? it should be the
reverse. i think it 's bull that they are trading in & getting
some of the best dvc rooms while owners can't get @ the
7mos trade. how do they justified this? (dvc operations)

the reason i think this is a bad for dvc owners, was all the
promises made when when we brought. they made
it sounded liked something good. instead we are being taking
advantage of.

there some very outstanding experts here. why doesn't dvc
hired people like dean- man [ for example ], to set up dvc
contacts? [ at least someone that knows/understand the
power of dvc enough to make this worth while to owners.

i am glad we're blt owners and have not yet had to cope
with these trades. but if i was an owner @ another location,
i would be anger to see how some trades are before the
7 months period. esp. like ssr trying for the beach club.
not one trade should be ahead of any owner trying to trade
in, especially with the low level of return trades being
offered. [ per dean & others.]

why , oh why?! does dvc have someone as knowledgeable?
who do we have in there and why he is doing so little
for dvc owners? [ i like to give some encouragements.]

just my opinion., but i would never buy blt without my wife's
opinion. [ not just because she bigger than me either.]

 

[TisBit]

I never said she shouldn't consider it, but rather that its ultimately her decision and if it were me, using my dad's resources to buy it, I'd leave my DH off the deed because it is real estate, and even though nobody should consider it an asset from the 'able to get your money back' point of view there is a deed and could be listed on your assets if you were trying to get a loan from a bank, there are estate issues involved and if somebody's spouse doesn't want to be on it there's no good reason for them to be.

Consider the scenario in reverse. Say somebody's DH inherits some cash, wants to buy a fancy car (with all the maintenance and cost that implies). I'm not on any car forums but I'm pretty certain you'd never see a husband going on a car forum to say "Help me justify something I want that entails future expense with money from my side of the family ...." if his spouse disapproved; you might see a post that said "I bought a car I love; yahoo! Now help me figure out how to make my wife let me come back from sleeping on the couch!"

The gender politics in this situation is kinda skewed and my point was for the OP to really take into consideration the fact that if its a gift from her family, having DH on board is wonderful, but it truly is her choice and not his or theirs. If its a joint decision things will be smoother, but having DH feeling unsure does not mean that she shouldn't get it if she is sure.
And to be fair, it sounds like plane tickets and park tickets are something they are buying anyways. If they end up not going to Disney later, any resale value that they get from it will be great since it was no cash out of their pocket, but rather her dad's gift and hers and her dad's abilities to make memories with her kids.

I think a better scenario when it comes to DVC is that the husbands parent want to "buy" him a car by putting a downpayment on it, but he is still responsible for the monthly payments....in that scenario, yes the wife would be pissed!

DVC is different than a family member giving you something. If the only costs associated were the airfare and park tickets, I agree with you. But when you are talking about annual maintenance fees, etc....the scenario changes quite a bit. If her parents want to buy DVC and cover all the maintenace fees for the life of the contract, it really is completely different.

It is wrong for anyone to tell someone else how to run their household/marriage. Some people feel that getting married is a bad idea because of the risk of divorce. Some couples want completely seperate accounts and each pay a portion of rent/utilities, etc. Others have fully joint pools of money...there is no one right answer.....but regardless of how you run the finances of your house, you have to be in agreement on them or you are bound for divorce.

 

[HayGan]

It is wrong for anyone to tell someone else how to run their household/marriage. Some people feel that getting married is a bad idea because of the risk of divorce. Some couples want completely seperate accounts and each pay a portion of rent/utilities, etc. Others have fully joint pools of money...there is no one right answer.....but regardless of how you run the finances of your house, you have to be in agreement on them or you are bound for divorce.

Exactly! What works for some likely won't work for others. What matters is that it works and the the couple in question are in agreement. My relationship has different dynamics than many others. My DH and I have developed a system of finances in our house that works for us but I can easily see how it wouldn't work for others. Relationships & finances aren't cookie cutter - you have to mold them to what works best for you.

Just because our asset allocation isn't based on an everything pooled together system it doesn't mean our relationship isn't just as strong as ones where everything is community property.

 

[Brian Noble]

Consultations are great but she should not have to ask for permission unless her income cannot support the MF's.

As pointed out, this depends entirely on the "financial rules" that couple has. In my marriage, neither of us spends more than $X on anything that is discretionary (where $X is not particularly large) without checking with the other person first. For the two of us, we'd both need to be on the same page to accept this "gift", because the trips we'd be taking will incur costs well in excess of $X.

If the OP is in a marriage in which each partner has discretionary control over a large enough sum to cover the costs of a trip each year (or every other year), then the OP probably does not need the husband to be on board---but only because the husband was already "on board" with the overall arrangement in the first place. Ultimately, two spouses have to be in agreement with how the money gets spent, whether they discuss individual purchases, or they have a set of over-arching principles that guide those purchases.

 

[crisi]

i am no rci trade expert. but i read over & over how poor dvc
trading power into this system. why is that? it should be the
reverse. i think it 's bull that they are trading in & getting
some of the best dvc rooms while owners can't get @ the
7mos trade. how do they justified this? dvc operations

the reason i think this is a bad for dvc owners, was all the
promises made when when we brought. they made
it sounded liked something good. instead we are being taking
advantage of.

there some very outstanding experts here. why doesn't dvc
hired people like dean- man [ for example ], to set up dvc
contacts? [ at least someone that knows/understand the
power of dvc enough to make this worth while to owners.

i am glad we're blt owners and have not yet had to cope
with these trades. but if i was an owner @ another location,
i would be anger to see how some trades are before the
7 months period. esp. like ssr trying for the beach club.
not one trade should be ahead of any owner trying to trade
in, especially with the low level of return trades being
offered. [ per dean & others.]

Why would you be pissed? Some BCV owner traded out to Hawaii. His BCV points are now free for DVC to put into RCI. If RCI only every gets low demand resorts at low demand times, we will be rewarded with low demand RCI options ourselves. That means a REDUCTION in trading power.

As for RCI, DVC has determined not to let members have direct access. Which makes DVC a poor timeshare for trading since our options are much more limited. I'd guess that they do this specifically so that they - DVC can control where the points are deposited.

If we want to have trades available, we have to live with other systems having access to "our" rooms. The more restrictions we have on rooms and times, the less attractive DVC is from the outside, and the less trades we will be eligible for or the less attractive those trades will be.

 

[Dean]

i am no rci trade expert. but i read over & over how poor dvc
trading power into this system. why is that? it should be the
reverse. i think it 's bull that they are trading in & getting
some of the best dvc rooms while owners can't get @ the
7mos trade. how do they justified this? dvc operations

the reason i think this is a bad for dvc owners, was all the
promises made when when we brought. they made
it sounded liked something good. instead we are being taking
advantage of.

there some very outstanding experts here. why doesn't dvc
hired people like dean- man [ for example ], to set up dvc
contacts? [ at least someone that knows/understand the
power of dvc enough to make this worth while to owners.

i am glad we're blt owners and have not yet had to cope
with these trades. but if i was an owner @ another location,
i would be anger to see how some trades are before the
7 months period. esp. like ssr trying for the beach club.
not one trade should be ahead of any owner trying to trade
in, especially with the low level of return trades being
offered. [ per dean & others.]

why , oh why?! does dvc have someone as knowledgeable?
who do we have in there and why he is doing so little
for dvc owners? [ i like to give some encouragements.]

just my opinion., but i would never buy blt without my wife's
opinion. [ not just because she bigger than me either.]

The fact is that even top places in Orlando trade fairly poorly due to the over supply. DVC is actually trading better with RCI than it did with II. DVC members tend to overestimate the actual demand of DVC in RCI as well. The alternative is just simply not to have the exchange option. I think one of your hangups is that you, and many others, see this as the club is the main issue rather than a collection of resorts. Technically, legally and practically it's really multiple separate resorts joined together with an internal exchange system and several outside exchange options, one of which is RCI. With that line of thinking, my view would be that an owner depositing (or DVC on their behalf) would be very kosher to deposit even the most in demand resort/week 11 months out if they chose. Fortunately for the rest of the members, DVC has chosen not to go quite that aggressive but it would improve trading power if they did but with a cost of availability for more in demand weeks/resorts.

Realize DVC members can, and some do, trade with smaller exchange companies where they pick the week, unit size and resort to be deposited.

 

[Jason@dvcstore]

If so, with 5 of you, would you like to have more room and stay in larger, nicer accommodations?

To me that is the key question right there. If you answer yes then it is a must. Right now we are family of 3 (soon to be 4) but when it was just the two of us we went to New York and stayed in a 1 bedroom at the Manhattan Club (rented through Red Week) and then went to Arizona and stayed at the Westin Kierland Villas (wife works for Starwood) in a 1 bedroom. I personally don't want to take a vacation in a hotel or motel room. I prefer to stay in a 1 bedroom, 2 bedroom or rent a house.

Jason

 

[Lil' Grumpy]

we are still new to this game. we have not explored this
option but just by reading here, it isn't near the " ballpark"
on what we were told. not even close! for example, we
asked our guide about going & staying in new york over
thanksgiving weekend. "easy". [ however, there were
several posters here asking about this & the responses
were more trouble than what it is worth. & the experts
here made it clear, be much better making your own
deal outside your points. ]

on this site, i read with interest posts about the trades
so we can learn, if ever. there seem to be some very
excellent experts posting here. just by the ways they
explained their choices, would indicated they are nearly
100% accurate. why don't dvc hired the same quality
persons?

then there the other time-sales owners expressing what
they are getting. some ask about their trading powers
which tell their locations. some are places that are
not so good. {to us]. one thing that is confusing to me,
they are not allowed if they are close to olrando but
how about dvc in s. carolina?

now there a flood of dvc owners @ ssr. it figures many would
like to trade out @ 7mos.. why should these traders, be
allowed before them? that doesn't make sense.

projecting your judgment is lacking my true feelings. it is like being
told something that was wrong , does not mean the person
was lying or deceitful. however, when one is paid then it
changes one expectations. [ like when a doctor operates on the
wrong limb, his intentions/values system will not protect him
in court.]. we have been doing corrective measures from the
start. however, i have experienced some very unprofessional
dvc workers, attempting the same kind of distraction. i am
still "discovering" so my focus is learning the data & the best
way/s to process it. [glad i kept records of all my encounters
& their names.] also if what i have been reading is accurate
( & i think it is) , then there is room for dvc to make changes
where they can benefit the owners.

i think it is funny, whenever something could be negative/positive
per one's side of the fence....the reaction is to either claimed
dvc is just another time share or it is something better. what we
want "it" to be, is what the disney rep. told us before we paid
them our monies. the main part is doing our future wdw vacations,
in a room that is clean & operational, and not having to
worry about others being a danger to my family. [ even @ wdw,
safety is something to watch out for especially what we ran
into @ blt.]

ok, dean? what do you think the current situation between the
dvc & rci? what needing improving if you was in charge? what
do you think is wrong with the trades that it such a poor
choice? [ not including cruises as that is self evident ] . and
what would you suggest? oh, if dvc is just another timeshare,
would it be unethical that guides never informed potential
buyer? and do you have any idea how many others timeshares
are trying to trade in vs. dvc trading out?

i have my "ears" on. [ ha-ha!]

 

[TisBit]

we are still new to this game. we have not explored this
option but just by reading here, it isn't near the " ballpark"
on what we were told. not even close! for example, we
asked our guide about going & staying in new york over
thanksgiving weekend. "easy". [ however, there were
several posters here asking about this & the responses
were more trouble than what it is worth. & the experts
here made it clear, be much better making your own
deal outside your points. ]

on this site, i read with interest posts about the trades
so we can learn, if ever. there seem to be some very
excellent experts posting here. just by the ways they
explained their choices, would indicated they are nearly
100% accurate. why don't dvc hired the same quality
persons?

then there the other time-sales owners expressing what
they are getting. some ask about their trading powers
which tell their locations. some are places that are
not so good. {to us]. one thing that is confusing to me,
they are not allowed if they are close to olrando but
how about dvc in s. carolina?

now there a flood of dvc owners @ ssr. it figures many would
like to trade out @ 7mos.. why should these traders, be
allowed before them? that doesn't make sense.

projecting your judgment is lacking my true feelings. it is like being
told something that was wrong , does not mean the person
was lying or deceitful. however, when one is paid then it
changes one expectations. [ like when a doctor operates on the
wrong limb, his intentions/values system will not protect him
in court.]. we have been doing corrective measures from the
start. however, i have experienced some very unprofessional
dvc workers, attempting the same kind of distraction. i am
still "discovering" so my focus is learning the data & the best
way/s to process it. [glad i kept records of all my encounters
& their names.] also if what i have been reading is accurate
( & i think it is) , then there is room for dvc to make changes
where they can benefit the owners.

i think it is funny, whenever something could be negative/positive
per one's side of the fence....the reaction is to either claimed
dvc is just another time share or it is something better. what we
want "it" to be, is what the disney rep. told us before we paid
them our monies. the main part is doing our future wdw vacations,
in a room that is clean & operational, and not having to
worry about others being a danger to my family. [ even @ wdw,
safety is something to watch out for especially what we ran
into @ blt.]

ok, dean? what do you think the current situation between the
dvc & rci? what needing improving if you was in charge? what
do you think is wrong with the trades that it such a poor
choice? [ not including cruises as that is self evident ] . and
what would you suggest? oh, if dvc is just another timeshare,
would it be unethical that guides never informed potential
buyer? and do you have any idea how many others timeshares
are trying to trade in vs. dvc trading out?

i have my "ears" on. [ ha-ha!]

I would recommend starting your own thread that poses your questions/concerns with RCI. This is quite a bit off topic from the original thread here and you will probably get a better response.

 

[CarolAnnC]

I would recommend starting your own thread that poses your questions/concerns with RCI. This is quite a bit off topic from the original thread here and you will probably get a better response.

Exactly what I was thinking! This thread is now closed. Thanks all!