DVC Dreams Shattered

Since our family loves going to Disney and have pretty much decided we want to make this destination a yearly vacation, we thought buying into the Disney Vacation Club was an awesome idea and we wanted to buy at Bay Lake Towers, Disney's newest DVC - so close to the Magic Kingdom, you can WALK there!

I am so heartbroken...as a family of 5, we need 2 vehicles since CJ works and I have to take the boys back and forth to pre-school. We've been put in a situation where we had to get a car, our truck just wasn't making it anymore. CJ drove it for years and well, it started having all kinds of problems, it was a 1996 with over 200,000 miles on it. It was paid off of course so now....yea, we have a car payment.

We bought a used car and CJ bought what he wanted because he didn't want to settle for a car he was going to hate driving every day. Used or not, it still forced a car payment upon us.

Between his job and my full time job working from home, we save a lot of money - no daycare, no expenses for me when it comes to clothing, driving every day, etc. However, when we decided to buy into DVC we were going to put $8-$10K down and then finance the remaining balance with the intent to pay it off in 2 years.

I know some people think financing a vacation home is dumb - but to me, it's just like having a car payment, people finance those all the time. I knew we'd have a $500/month payment (including saving $ for maintenance fees) but that was definitely doable. However, now, since we have a $300 car payment, this means I'd be looking to incur an extra $500 or so a month, leading to $800 or so a month I'd need to save.

So here I am - first of all, we found ourselves needing to finish out the basement and make it a nice area for the kids. Since I work from home I've been having a really tough time getting work done and an even tougher time talking to clients on the phone with my 3 kids running around the house acting crazy - I don't have an office, we have a fairly large living room so my desk is in a far corner of the room but nevertheless, they are in the same room with me - this has forced us to prioritize.

So, first basement work, which would take away from my down payment but I still knew I'd be able to afford a monthly payment and get it paid off early, since there's no early payoff penalty - but now with a car payment in the mix, well I'd be really stupid to put the family in such financial constraints.

This would mean we'd have a mortgage, 2 car payments (yes we're still paying on our Honda Pilot, the 'family car') and then the DVC - that's over $2,500 a month in 'extra' bills!

In today's severely unstable economy, I think that would be a very very bad move. Unless we can really comb through our bills and see what we can cut back on (groceries are our biggest expense - after the mortgage. We spend almost $800 a month for our family!) I don't know how we'll do it.

I keep thinking it's only for 2 years - I'll get the DVC paid off and then we'll have $ freed up again. Do it now while the kids are little and don't mind wearing the non brand clothes I buy, cause once they're older, they will get expensive!

I MIGHT be able to buy into DVC, next year but that screws up my plan

I'm so sad.