Saving Money VS. taking vacations?

[Colleen27]

We have paid to send our son to private school for elementary and high school. Once he gets to college, he is going to take on some of the burden. My husband works for a local university so he can go there for 1/2 price. It is the same school I attended, so it will certainly be good enough for him. I have told him that if he has a strong calling towards a major that is not offered there, we will do what we can to make it happen. But I am not going to worry about paying for a college experience based on the prestige of the school or the popularity according to his peers.

When we were preparing for high school, many of my son's classmates' parents would say, "I don't know where he wants to go to high school yet." Wait, what?? Kids are choosing their high schools now? Not in my house. Many of them chose a private school a county away which costs more and provides no transportation, mostly because their friends all decided that was the cool place to go. Never would that fly with me. My son is having awesome experiences and getting a fine education at the school he is attending. And he can step out on the driveway at 6:27 AM and a bus will pick him up. I am all about being practical.

That's one thing we have going for us when it comes to funding college - we're used to a "cash flow" expense of thousands of dollars a year for education, so we'll just be sending those checks to a different school once the kids start college. Two of my three kids attend a private K-8 and at least one will go on to a private high school (and we are letting her make that decision, within reason, because I do believe a good fit is important - thus far, she isn't especially swayed by the choices/opinions of her peers so I'm not worried about that factoring in overmuch). While that tuition isn't college-expensive it isn't cheap either, and unlike college it isn't something we saved and planned for so it all comes out of our household operating budget.

 

[disney1990]

The research supports this - people who pay their own way through school report a higher degree of satisfaction with their education. They also go on to be the biggest alumni givers, by a very wide margin.

Back to the topic... I think it is very important to have special times with your family that are a break from normal life. But it does NOT have to be a Disney vacation, or any other budget buster. We start with the budget first - what can we afford to do while still meeting all our other commitments/goals? Once we have that number, then we go shopping for a vacation. I think people get into trouble when they get their heart set on a SPECIFIC vacation, and then start looking at the numbers. If it doesn't fit your budget, you either spend too much or feel disappointment about whatever you end up doing instead.

I know this probably isn't practical advise on THIS board, where 99% of posters have their heart set on Disney all the time, but if you can flip the order of deciding on a vacation and figuring out how to pay for the vacation, you might get better psychological results!

My DD could not have worked and gone to college, at least in the beginning. She needed the extra time to study. School didn't come easy to her and she had a college-provided tutor for her math classes. In her last two years, things were better and she worked as an assistant to one of her professors. Every child is different.