Summer Vacation
Summer is here and school is almost out. Our family is leaving for Walt Disney World (WDW) in a few weeks and we are so excited. The best part about this vacation is that we have been saving for 2 years to make it happen. It will not be a cheap vacation but one we have saved to be able to do debt free. Vacations can be an important time to have fun with the family and relax. They can also cause stress when the credit card bills follow you home.
Planning is Key
The Grenke Family WDW Trip involves a lot of work. We will be a group of 18 this year ranging in age from 69 to 8 years old. In order to have a fun time and not wait for hours in long lines in the sweltering Florida sun (not magical!) you need to have a plan. I started the planning process with my sisters in December a year and a half before our June vacation. We stay at the same resort and plan one meal a day together which gives us family time, the main reason we go.
A Huge Undertaking
Dates were chosen, a large commitment, with family spread over 4 states, 4 different school districts, and 3 different colleges. Hotels were booked in July a year before. Meal times and locations booked in December, six months before and the FastPass+™ selections were completed in April. It takes a lot of effort before the trip to make it seem easy.
Baby Steps
Back when we were getting out of debt, Ron and I did not take any big expensive vacations. We did do some “staycations” and day trips. We looked for free things to do within a few hours drive of our home. It was a short term sacrifice we were willing to make in order to be debt free. It took effort. It took planning. It took a bigger goal. We are now debt free except our house. It’s time for some guilt free fun.
Financial Planning is Key
In order to make this vacation a reality we added a line item to our budget. We have a sub account under our savings at our credit union named Disney. Each month we put a little aside and watched it grow. It’s like the debt snowball only in reverse. It takes a lot of effort before the trip to make it seem easy.
How much?
We did some work in advance. How much are park tickets? How much for meals? Flights to Orlando? Then we estimated how much it would cost for the two of us per day. (If you haven’t done a Disney vacation before you’d be amazed just how much you can find online.) Next we decided how many days we were going to spend in WDW. This gave us a total. We just divided that amount by the months left until our departure to the House of the Mouse. If the amount had been too much per month we could have adjusted time there or even meal plans to be more in line with what we wanted to spend. There are a lot of variables you can control when planning a vacation to make it fit your budget plan.
That’s Too Much
If a Disney vacation is beyond your financial plan... right now... get creative. Where can you go, to "get away from it all" that is affordable? Have you really exhausted the historic and interesting parts of your own town, or region? We're all for having a vacation, but don't go into debt! You want great memories, not great credit card bills from your vacation.
When you budget for your vacation, it doesn't have to feel like a budget vacation.
Vacations are great, paid for vacations are even better.
Comentarios