To be fair, the jumping off point for this discussion was when you sarcastically referred to posters in this thread as "financial advisors" [sic].
With regards to what constitutes a lot of money, I don't think that's the crux of this argument. I think the issue at hand is your willingness to throw away money on interest and dismiss it as not a lot of money while at the same time you don't have the money to allocate to your DVC purchase without it depleting your savings. I think the discussion centers around the way in which money is viewed, and not necessarily its relative value.
Case in point...today while in a public restroom I saw a dollar bill on the floor. I did not pick it up because to me, the value of that dollar was not worth having to pick something up off of a dirty bathroom floor (I may have some germ issues). This is a relative argument. Someone who has little money would view this as a windfall. I have a relatively secure supply of dollar bills, so to me it was not worth the skeeve factor to pick it up. This is a spectrum that people can place themselves on when deciding whether or not they would pick up the dollar. No answer is right or wrong in the absolute sense, because the answer needs to take into consideration the net worth of the individual answering the question. What doesn't make sense is a person with no money choosing not to pick up the dollar because they deem it as not being worth it. That person has no money...this is money...it should be worth it.
Bring this back to our discussion. I don't know your financial state nor am I asking you to divulge it. But you have stated that although you could afford a direct DVC purchase, you chose to finance so that you could stay liquid. My inference, therefore, is that your supply of dollar bills is somewhat equal to the cost of a direct DVC purchase. If that's the case, then your willingness to pay between five and eight thousand dollars in interest over the course of your loan does not make sense to me, and it causes me to question how you view money. You can dismiss those interest charges as not being a lot of money, but I think you're wrong. You're either so filthy rich that it actually isn't a lot of money (in which case why are you financing DVC?) or you're not and it is a lot of money, and you're simply saying that it's not.
It was easy for me to dismiss that dollar bill on the floor because it is a relatively small percentage of my net worth (and it was gross). But the interest on a direct DVC purchase is a more sizable percentage, and it would be foolish of me to dismiss it.
Bill
