Ok, so you asked a TON of really good questions, so I decided to break up your posts and respond to them one idea at a time. I hope you find this helpful.
Alright- can someone educate me on this resale concept?
The best way to find out about resale is to read the existing posts that are on here. Basically, if you buy resale you will save about 50% the cost of buying direct. That should change your calculations a bit.
We are very interested in upgrading our accomodations from our current moderate rooms.
Then DVC may be an option. But keep in mind that upgrading your accommodations comes at a cost. Purchasing DVC can save you money vs. paying cash for Deluxe rooms. But there won't be a savings vs. paying cash for Mods. You get what you pay for, and Deluxes are more expensive than Mods, plain and simple.
In regards to sleeping arrangements, we always travel with my father-in-law, and with the girls still being fairly young, we have a cot for each of them, so having only 1 bed and 1 pull-out is totally fine, especially since we are in the parks all day, not sleeping in the room.
I'm wondering who is sleeping on the pull out and how much longer they are going to enjoy that for. Also, keep in mind that kids grow quickly and pretty soon they will require a bed. Just a thought.
Thanks everybody! I fear that we're not convinced of a cost savings (we're fairly frugal people, but LOVE our yearly trips to WDW) and are not sure that this is the best thing for us.
Like I said above, if you're looking for total savings, DVC might not be for you. The best way to save money at WDW is to book Values with free dining. Any upgrades from there are going to cost you.
We can get the park tickets on our local military base since my father-in-law is retired military which a DVC guide told us was the best discount since it's very hard for us to travel to WDW more than 1x per year I don't personally see the value in the AP.
That's great that you have that option. However, I don't think this should factor into your decision as you can buy these regardless of whether or not you purchase DVC.
Regarding the TiW, I can't quite figure the math on this. Someone said above that it's approximately $100 and that it offers a 20% savings on our meal. We're pretty straight forward and having a young, always hungry, 2 (soon 3) year old in our travel party, we typically do buffets. Not sure how much I'd really be saving and if it makes it worth it.
The math is fairly straightforward. You pay $100 to get the TiW membership. If you spend $500 on food during your trip you break even (20% of $500 is $100 savings and that's what the membership costs you). If you spend $499 or less you lost money (albeit a small amount) and once you spend $501 you start saving money at a rate of 20% of whatever you spend.
We were looking at pricing 200 DVC points and when we figured in the monthly (financed) rate they offered with the maintenance fees, plus the park tickets, TiW, and OOP costs for the food after the TiW discount- I'm not sure I can see where we come out ahead.
Again, TiW, food and park tickets are all independent of purchasing DVC. When comparing numbers you should look at DVC costs vs. paying cash for rooms. The only time food costs should come into the picture is if you get free dining. But when you get free dining you have to pay rack rate for the room. Given that you are frugal people who love saving money, I'm assuming that you usually get some sort of discount and have not had to pay rack rate.
As far as the cost making sense, it's pretty simple. If you finance at the Disney rates, you will NOT save money. Financing a purchase over ten years can add more than 60% to the purchase price. So your $20,000 direct purchase DVC contract will actually cost you $32,746 (assuming an 11% interest rate). In this case you're better off renting DVC points from an existing owner.
It'd be quite awesome to say that we are DVC members and be able to share the comfortable accomodations with our group, but my husband and I look at things from a financial perspective, and when we only paid about $2500-3000 per trip to travel and that includes our accomodations, tickets, and dining plan- I don't see the savings.
Exactly. If you finance, you will be spending $1,200 a year for the next 10 years on interest alone. Then on top of that add in all the real expenses. No savings there. But you said something important above when you said "It'd be quite awesome to say that we are DVC members..." Your salesperson is counting on that. Forget the numbers, forget your home budget expenses. Forget your kids' college fund. Forget your car that is on its last leg. Don't you want to own a piece of the Magic? Sign here.
Don't get me wrong, I WANT to see the savings!! I WANT to be a DVC member, but if it doesn't make sense, it doesn't make sense. They way I priced the DVC for 200 points would be over $5000/year for 10 years and I don't have the cash to pay for the whole thing out of pocket and still have a savings account for the 'in case of job loss' concept. Oh, please, explain how DVC is financially worth it- PLEASE?! Thanks everybody!
It sounds like you know the answer already. You want to see the savings, but you can't. That's because they're not there.
But there is hope. Rerun your numbers using a resale purchase where the prices are about 50% less than direct. Then remove the finance charges (if you have to save for a few years to do this, then do so). The numbers should start to make sense provided that you are comparing to other methods of staying in a Deluxe. If you're content to stay in one Mod room, it still probably won't add up.
You've done the right thing by coming on here and asking some great questions. Keep learning as much as you can and good luck making your decision!