I just don't know where to begin with this

Hillwalker11

I think you should go.Yes you have a lot of debt and yes it would be paid off a bit quicker if you stayed at home.As long as you make a plan to save for the spending money you should be OK.

Life is short, sometimes very short.My oldest friend lost her 30 year old son to a brain tumour last year. 5 years earlier as a family with 3 children they took them all to Disneyland and fretted a little about the cost.They had a wonderful time and made some unforgettable memories.
At the moment she is still too distraught to look at the photos and videos but as time passes these will I am sure bring her a small degree of comfort.

Time and memories are very special and can never be replicated.
You will all reap years of enjoyment from looking forward to the experiences and talking about them afterwards.
Just sometimes time with family doesn't come with a price tag.
Plan for it, budget for it and enjoy it.

southern_chick

I don't post very often and hope this post come across in the way it is meant to . Disney is one of my favourite places to make memories with my daughter. Now that you have decided to go you can plan for the spending money. It might put your debt free date back slightly but family memories really are priceless

I took my daughter with my mum, dad and my sister's family for my 40th when she was 10. I had a couple of years to save. It was an amazing trip and worth every penny. We've been back 3 times since!!!

This might be something that you could do with your son. I decided to start giving my daughter pocket money when I started planning the trip. She put it in a money box, when it got to £20 she put £10 in the bank, put £5 away for holiday spending money and had £5 to spend then as a reward for saving. When we went away she had her own money to spend which I split into equal amounts for the days we were there so she had an allowance for each day. She could decide what she spent it on. It was really interesting to see her checking the prices of things and deciding if she wanted to spend her money on it. Some days she wouldn't spend anything and would roll the money over if she saw something that cost more than her daily allowance. It worked really well as I wasn't having to keep saying she couldn't have something or worry about how much I was spending on souvenirs for her.

She is really good with money now and the money she had been putting away from her pocket money she carried on doing and had enough in her bank account to pay for her first year's car insurance in full when she passed her driving test at 17!!

Sorry for the long post, just save for your spending money then go and have the most amazing holiday in the most magical place :j:happyhearxx

D_M_E

The trouble with debt busting is focussing on clearing debt to the exclusion of all other spending.

Have you considered that you need a small break, or pause, on your journey and the Disney trip could be just what you need to keep you both on the right track?

Take the trip and enjoy it as a family then get back on your road to a debt free future - for the sake of both of you and your son - just don't make any promises for the future, take a little break every now and then, nothing extravagant.

Yes, £2000 is a LOT of money for 2 weeks but can you set aside an amount in a separate savings account every month to accumulate said sum before you go?

There seems to be enough slack to do so, particularly as you are making good progress on your journey.

fatbelly

salXYZ wrote: »

Son is 9 years old, would be 10 if we were to go. It's a really tricky one. On the one hand I would love to give the experience, however with my new attitude to money it just seems so inappropriate to be going next year.

I know I'm a dyed-in-the-wool mse-er but I am going along with the others here.

If you had said your son was 6, I would have said 'no harm in giving it another year'. But a 10-year old is the perfect age for a Disney trip so I agree that you should go for it and that you personally should see it as a family reward for your efforts.

I hope dh comes around to the same viewpoint.

BabyStepper

I felt so sad for you when I read about this latest thing, the trip to Disney. I don't even know where to start, other than I understand why you are cross at your OH. It's about more than this one trip, £2k that you don't have, or your parents spending all of your disposable income for you for the next 8 months. SO many problems there with not being on the same page as OH, the stress of a lifestyle you cannot sustain, boundaries with the parents, etc. It's about the fact that you have almost sixty thousands pounds worth of nice times that you have still to pay for, good times that you could not afford but you couldn't say no, that you were going to pay for later but didn't. And now as a family you seem to be continuing to do things you can't afford, not learning how to say no, doing the same as before, hoping for a different result.

Now that you've decided to go, I hope you manage to enjoy it. You seem to be on your own with your lightbulb on.

clairebeth

Hi Sal,

Hope you had a great stress/debt free Christmas?

How are you feeling about the Disney plan now? Have you set up a separate account to save for it?

All the best!