Shall I or shan't I????

[my2cherubs]

My sister (who is my only family and who I love dearly) moved to the bahamas 3 years ago with her dh and 4 children. I miss them terribly but haven't been able to afford to visit and she hasn't been able to afford to come back here. I've got two dds, one she saw when she was a baby (she's now 4) and the other one she's never seen. My dd's only have one grandad (on dh's side) and I feel they're really missing out by not knowing my sister and their cousins.

Question is I am sooooo tempted to book flights on credit card. I am planning to return to work in September (currently SAHM) so could pay it back gradually. We do have a high mortgage though but I know we can afford min payments for now. We would never be able to save and it would take forever.

I keep thinking life is so short! Should we go or not? (would cost about £4k with a bit of spending money but would be staying with them so don't need much) I haven't run this past my dh yet! what do you think???

Do it, i would. But then again im terrible with money

If you only pay the minimum off on the credit card the interest alone will cost you dearly and will take longer to clear the debt. For the above reason I would not put the flights on the plastic without having enough funds to clear the debt once due.

I would not put yourself further in debt just now even though you really want to (understandably) see your sister.

www.moneysavingexpert.com is a good website and may help you further with budgeting.

Would your sister help you out - as you are the one incurring the cost so that you can see each other?

I would want to do it, but is there a cheaper way of managing the debt? £4k on a credit card incurs a lot of interest if you only pay the minumum amount.

You could get a new credit dard with 0% on purchases, and get the flights on that. Then pay off as much as you possibly can, knowing you're not paying any interest. Tesco has 0% for 3 months I think. I would go, it would be such a great experience for you all. If you LO's are not at school yet, I would stay for as long as poss, as your flights are the biggest expense you may as well get your moneys worth. Maybe, work out how much you'll need each month to pay off credit card, eg £150 or whatever, then for the next 3 months, put that away. If you mamage it, then hopefully you'll be okay financially, and you've saved some holiday money! If not, then maybe think again.

thanks for the advice. I have a few cards already that offer 0% on balance transfers for 6 months so I was planning on transferring it straight away and keep swapping it until its paid off. DH is in agreement that we should go for the sake of the dc's and me but then he's not great with money either! I've worked out it will be about £90 a month min payment and i've already saved some by cutting down sky and swapping life insurance to a cheaper provider which will cover most of that. I keep going on the british airways website but can't quite bring myself to actually click the button and buy the tickets