castlemom3
Earning My Ears
- Joined
- Aug 26, 2008
- Messages
- 23
Sad to say....I agree. Would you still feel that way if your marriage needed a vacation?
'Is any of the money refundable? If so, I would seriously consider at least reducing the trip... maybe doing just WDW or just the cruise. It might cost you a fee to change the airline tix, but that is the only money I can think that you might lose. Have you purchased all of the clothes necessary for the cruise (any formalwear, shorts and tees, etc..)? If not, that would be an additional expense that might offset your ticket fees.
If you cancel the cruise portion of your trip, you could still go to WDW. Where were you planning on staying at WDW? If you had a Deluxe booked, you could save $$$ by switching to POR.
I'm going to estimate that you could save $6000 by canceling the cruise and maybe cut another $500-$1000 off your plans for WDW. Wouldn't that make quite a difference to your debt?
Good Luck!
'
In addition, changing the amount of days you stay a hotel (either on or off-site), or changing from a deluxe to a value resort, or changing from park hoppers to base tickets...each and everyone one of those decisions can save money! We opted not to have park hopper tickets this past time, and just stay with base tix, and it saved us 120.00.
you should pull everything together and get yourself to a nonprofit debt counselor. I know most Catholic Charities organizations either have such a center or could refer you to one. Unless you are bringing in over 200K a year there is no way you are going to effectively tackle that debt on your own!
Are you charging this trip? If so, they're going to tell you that you really need to cancel. I have friends who ended up in your situation because of Disney. They went every year...sometimes more than once a year...and put it all on credit. They almost lost their home over it.
That said, be careful of where you go. Don't use a company that takes your money and lets your bills go unpaid for 2 or 3 years while they draw interest on it. That's what the for-profit's do. Make sure that you get a nonprofit who can negotiate interest and payments and get you on a plan to get the debt paid off.
I feel for you. I have no debt and I go around in a constant state of panic because I'm always afraid my small savings won't cover emergencies as they arise. Good luck!
There is no way I could personally sleep at night let alone go on a vacation if I had $40,000 in debt. I would have to assume this vacation is a huge chunk of money and would pay atleast 1/8 if not 1/4 off of it!
There are too many what if's and with 3 young children I wouldn't want anything to happen. How about have a "vacation" around your home town, doing something fun and cheap (or free) every day! You would be surprised what is in your own backyard.