To want/expect a holiday, even though we have been a bit skint?

[carmenelectra]

Basically I am really, really pissed off a DP today.

I discussed booking this years family holiday with him yesterday and completely put me off.

We go abroad every year and it is the one thing i really, really enjoy. I very rarely go out or have weekends away anymore, so its the big thing I look forward to. I am willing to sacrifice everything for a wk in the sun.

Now the last couple of years we(I) have overcommitted ourselves finacially and last year things were at times very tough. My Dp put off all of my holidays plans and asked me to wait 'to see how it goes'.

Well, it went nowhere. I usually book up quite early and take advanatge of cheaper flights and longer to pay the holiday off, get spending money clothes etc. As I waited to see how money panned out, we didn't get a holiday at all. I was furious at first, but as I understood most of our outgoings were due to my overspending I accepted it.

Roll on to this year. DP is basically saying he doesnt think we have the spare cash upfront which is true. However, I suggested booking the holiday giving ourselves the incentive and then wotking at paying it of. I have a well paid job and gets lots of regular overtime with very good pay. Dp is the same.

Now he is saying that to go away in the summer we would have to put 'X' away each month and he doesnt think it's feasible.

I thought it was all quite 'doable', but now he has put a huge spanner in the works and put a real dampener on the whole thing.

I think deep down he isnt that bothered about a holiday, he can take it or leave it, hence the lack of enthusiasum.

Now I know some people are going to say that we shouldnt be having luxuries like hols if we have been short of cash, but I disagree. I am talking about a hol in Europe, no biggy.

So am i being unreasonable when I work all hours god sends, to expect a bloody weeks holiday?

Carmen: "On appaer it looks as though we earn a lot and should have a lot spare. However, things always crop up don't they and you end up wondering what happened that month. Unexpected bills, things breaking and needing replacing."

Bills for unexpected expenses are not really unexpected if they keep happening. What you should be doing, even if you don't use the holiday cash to pay down your loan, is put it aside for these expenses.

If you spend it on the holiday, you would be in double-shit not being able to pay for these unexpected bills without putting it on further credit. You would like to think you have spare cash for fripperies. You don't actually. You also don't have spare cash for a holiday, not without going further into debt.

You really can't see the problem can you? Like actually can't? Bizarre.

I envy you your naivete a little but not what I see as its inevitable outcome.

Good luck.

"Morloth our holiday would cost say 2k. Even if we pay it off the 'debts' instead it won't clear them.

I have repeated this. So what is being suggested here? Dont have a hol til its all paid? If so, no way. Just this year? So I owe a bit less."

That suggests that the debt you have is large (not mortgage) if £2k would only pay a bit off. If you put as much energy into paying off debts as you do justifying why you NEED things you wouldnt be in debt in the first place.

Your posts clearly show that you cannot afford a holiday. You say you cannot afford to pay more off of your debts, but you do say you can afford a holiday. Sorry that makes no sense. How can you afford a holiday when you have actually hardly any disposable income.

Do it your husbands way, he doesn't want any more debt. Save for the holiday first then book it. But don't do it out of your already small disposable income, work for it instead, show your husband you can be sensible and you can save.

If you can't well then you don't deserve a holiday and have proved he was right all along.

Blueshoes, I ahve stated before that my Dp will not be using any extra money that we have to pay extra payments on debts. Even he is in agreement of that.

I seriously cannot get the posters that say that we should clear any debt before a holiday!!

Dont lots of people have a loan or finance for a car or kitchen? Do they all pay for said acr or kitchen before ever having a holiday again? Doubt most people do.

Like i ahve pointed out, lets say I have a debt of £12000(it isnt that amount as i have repeated). I pay my 2 grand holiday money off it. Ok I owe 10k great. Next year we dont have a holiday again, pay another 2k. So i dont ahve a holiday till its all clear?? Bizarre.

As long as I am making my repayments regularly whats the issue.

Why dont some of you with bigger mortgages than me not take holidays in case you lose your jobs, fall ill or cant repay you mortgage? No one has actually answered me yet, but I guess there are hardly any posters with a mortgage less than mine. I mean in theory even if I owed 20k, I would still only have a combined debt off 55k. Not that much these days, when people have cars that cost that!

As i have stated previously our debts are not huge. The only reason that we are not better off is we ahve a lot of bills(as do most people), big nursery fees, shopping bill increasing all of the time blah blah.

For some reason a lot of posters seem ok with a gigantic mortgage, just cos its a mortgage, but unhappy with any bank loan or secured loan. Odd.

So its ok To have a mortgage for £100,000,so long as you owe nothing else, but not ok for a mortgage of 50k plus a ten grand car loan?

fabbychic, i didnt say that i can't afford to pay off more of my debts, i am choosing not to.

Yes I COULD put all of my overtime/extra money on my loan to pay it off, but I dont want to. I had 2 credit cards which are consolidated into one payment so that I know where i am. Its a sum that I can pay easily over a reasonable time.

Am i missing something? Is there a law that says once you have credit, you must use every available penny you earn to pay it off before the allotted time. Do not buy anything or go anywhere in the meantime.

Am I seriously the only poster that pays her bills without making Overpayments??

carmen, I have paid off my mortgage, bought our car with cash and don't have any debt whatsoever. I don't buy household goods on credit. If I don't have enough cash, I cannot afford it and make do.

Loans have their place. Particularly, in the case of a mortgage because it is used to purchase an asset.

Not a car loan because a car is a depreciating asset. Not any other type of loan to buy something that will be next to worthless in a few years.

We are in fact going to seriously ramp up on a mortgage again and feel comfortable with doing so because we will have a huge deposit and the repayments will be comfortable. A mortgage is a form of long terms savings. Any other loan is not.

If you cannot understand that, it is just another example of your fiscal shortsightedness.

Well done blueshoes, hope you have had some fun as well.

Or are you building up your 'asset' as inheritence for you children?

For a long time the only debt I had was the mortgage. Dh and I have always made overpayments. It is why we took out a flexible mortgage in the first place.

Im saying save the money to pay for the holiday.

Get a different bank account and any money you earn over and above what you normally do put it in that account don't spend it. Then when you have enough for your holiday book it.

Why can't you do that? Why is it impossible for you to be able to save? YOu want the holiday that bad you would save for it and not spend it, you would put it away and leave it until you had enough.

You, you want to book it first before you have the money to pay for it. Thats ridiculous.

My family will have far more options than yours when dh and I retire. Mock us at your leisure then.

Not everyone lives with debt. All mores the pity is you and your dh earn enough to not have to. I would be concerned if my dh had your flippant attitude to debt.

My family has lots of fun - but it is always what we can afford. I don't think my children could have a more privileged lifestyle, measured not just in monetary terms.

carmenelectra, i think you have no idea what an average household does with their money. Car loans? Loans for kitchens? Consolidation loans? Counting on overtime to pay financial commitments you've made? Credit card debt? Paying for stuff you don't have the cash for yet?

I think there are some households that work like this. They're the ones my sister sees at the CAB every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday afternoon when she goes to work (works part time next to the local CAB office).

Those types of families are not the ones you should aim to mimic - they're the ones getting financially fucked in this climate - yes, the ones with 2 able bodied earners and a taste for foreign holidays too, who thought their middle-earner incomes were safe.

Watch this space, beacause the cold realtity of financial mismanagement will hit families like yours hard over the next two years - and no amount of bleating "but everyone did what I did" will save you.

But the 2k you pay off now is effectively worth more than 2k because you are not paying interest on that bit. By only paying the minimum each month you are effectively giving away money.

We have only our mortgage, it will go up soon because we are intending to sell that property and buy one closer to work. But we have no other loans and our next 'real' holiday will be in 2015 because we want to get that number down as fast as possible in order to avoid throwing away money on interest.

Your views on this is what has gotten you into debt.

realtity = reality

carmenelectra 'ambience missing something?'

YES

Lol at 'ambience'.

On phone, that should be a quote of 'Am I missing something'.

Blueshoes, I dont want money for fun when I retire.

I will have a good pension, so will DP.

wE are hardly gonna go out partying in our 60's. How sad that people save all the good times for when they are elderly. What if you don't have your health then.

I want fun while I am young a fit and my children live with me. Yes i hope to have a happy retirement and lots of nice years and times with DP, but thats not my goal.

People who save for a secure retirement, inevitably do nowt apart from old pensioner stuff, then leave all their hard earned cash to their grown up kids who already have houses and a life.

fabbychic, I agree about saving and booking it up, but I need to amke some sort of plan.

I only have the summer off work to go away, then nothing till Xmas which I couldnt take off work anyway.

So if i save until i have the total balance i am limited with time.

I want to make some sort of forward booking. I am going with 3 kids, one very yound, so I am not gonna book the night before or something daft. Does that make sense?

carmen: "People who save for a secure retirement, inevitably do nowt apart from old pensioner stuff, then leave all their hard earned cash to their grown up kids who already have houses and a life."

Wrong. Not inevitable. You have far too negative a view about retirement, because it suits your live-for-the-moment mentality. My dcs won't have uni debt, dh and I have pensions too, with property and investments. We won't necessarily be leaving it to our dcs, as we might have to fund our old age in a (nicer) care home. Choices choices.

Ok, i really am not trying to be difficult here but you still don't make any sense.

So you borrowed £35000 20 years ago for your morgage and you have been paying this for 20 years.

So 35000 divided by 20 is £1750 (that makes your yearly repayment). So you then divide that by 12 (months) which is 146 so £146.

So you have only had to pay back £146 thereabouts per month for your morgage over the last 20 years (you have said you have been paying it for 20 years) and it isn't paid off yet?

35k to pay back overa 20 year period when paying monthly is not a big sum and i am suprised that, even if you took time out to train/have babies, you and your dp have well paid jobs and you still have no savings.

So you say you have been paying this for 20 years (your words), you are 40 years old and you took this morgage out in your 20s

You are no making any sense.

You HAVE fun now. You have your staycations and camping (which you seem to dismiss). You only want a specific type of costly fun, namely a foreign holiday that you cannot easily afford.

It is want want want. Don't pretend it is a need. Don't pretend you don't have fun.

"Am I seriously the only poster that pays her bills without making Overpayments??"

No your not the only poster but you are the only poster at this moment in time who has 2 grand to spare. The 2 grand won't clear your debts no, but it will make your interest alot less.

That is what people are trying to say. You are throwing money away because you are paying the maximum interest rate on your debt through only paying the minimum amount per month when you have the money to pay more thus reducing the interest.

carmen: "fabbychic, I agree about saving and booking it up, but I need to amke some sort of plan."

You don't have to make a plan. It is hardly a project.

You just have to put aside as much as you can afford to save until you save enough for a vacation. When you reach that amount, you can go. If you don't, because of unexpected expenses, then you will have to postpone. You can also cut down on your other holidays and expenses to get there sooner.

Morloth, good for you with your bigger house, but no holiday for 4 years. Thanks, but no thanks.

I am not not going to look back on my life in my 60's and think hardly any hols, dc's grown up, nice house, big stash in bank from the benefit of my overpaying everything.

Oh and then one of us dropping dead.

The children will do alright though.

Why do some of you think your way is right and mine is wrong?

I pay my taxes like everyone else, workk, keep and home and am a mother. If I choose to make my minimum payments and do everything all above board, is that not my business.

Who said that I will definitely end up in the shit?

IT could happen to any one. A SAHM with no income, husband pops his clogs or leaves her shit street.

I am not living my life on what might happen.