giving up…or moving on?

March 13, 2012 in life

We all make choices in life, whether that choice is to have kids, buy a car, or drink a latte.  Every choice has a consequence, and some consequences, unfortunately, are worse than others.  Some people buy that car, only to have it repossessed a year or so down the line.  Some people buy that car and love it until it dies.  Some people have kids and love them.  Some hate them.  Sometimes that latte just tastes wrong.

We made a choice 4 years ago to move back to my home state of Hawaii.  We moved 3 years ago.  It’s not working out…when do we call it quits?

I feel like moving on is a failure…but I refuse to let myself see it that way.  I told my husband tonight that I was dragging him all over the place…but he should look at it like an adventure!  I’m taking him on an adventure!

When I was 21 I told my husband – then boyfriend – that I was going to Europe and he could come with me…or not…but I was going.  He came with me.  Told him I wanted to move back to Hawaii to have kids…he came with me even though his career was going very well.  Now I’m hormonal and telling him we should move.  We’re thinking about doing that now.  Am I a bully?

The simple fact is that we can’t afford to live here.  If we continue to rent from my parents, we need $120K to pay for all our expenses, including Roth IRA’s, preschool and health insurance for our kids.  If we ever want to buy a house here it will cost min of $400-500K for a run-down 2-bedroom in a decent area.

The reason I want to stay in Hawaii?  The beach.  My husband wants to stay here for the weather.  Is that enough to compromise our children’s education, our dreams of home-ownership, and our retirement for?

What would you do?

23 Comments »

ambitious procrastination

March 12, 2012 in life

Before he released his second album, Trent Reznor once said, “If it wasn’t for Quake, I could’ve written five albums by now.”  I feel this way about the TV show Bones right now.  Of course, before Bones there was something else; a novel I never finished, a TV show I wanted to catch up on.  Real estate I wanted to look at, jobs I wanted to apply for.  I am a very ambitious procrastinator.

def:  ambitious procrastinator:  a person of great ambition who is afflicted with extreme procrastination.  this person often is able to achieve higher than average accomplishments, but is stopped from succeeding at higher levels because of extreme procrastination.

There is always something I want to do, to accomplish.  Right now, I am set to take a PHR Certification exam in three months.  I am also set to give birth in four months.  I am looking for a job, trying to figure out if we should continue living here in this overpriced piece of paradise, or if we should move back to the continental USA where salaries are higher and cost of living is much, much lower.

But right now all I do is watch Bones and play games on my iPhone.  Oh, and I haven’t started studying for the $300 exam that I’ve already paid for.

I am a very ambitious procrastinator.

I have been through company sponsored time-management seminars, and take guidance from watching other people who manage to accomplish everything in what seems like no time at all…and I have put together a brief list of things that ambitious procrastinators should be wary of.  (obviously I haven’t figured out a list of things that will help ambitious procrastinators…given that I haven’t cured myself yet)  

  1. Netflix.  DO NOT, and I repeat do not, begin watching a TV program like LOST after you have decided a goal for yourself.  You’ll never get started on your goal until you finish the entirety of the show.  There are 121 episodes.  That’s 121 hours, which is 5.04 days, if you watch 24 hours a day.  If you watch 5 hours of LOST a day, you will lose 24.2 days to it.
  2. Video games.  I just bought my husband Batman Arkam City for Christmas and I am fully regretting that decision.
  3. Video games…but more specifically MMORPG:  Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games.  I hate these things, especially when a group of people online decide to come together to fight some dragon or go bounty hunting together and you have to schedule it for 4am because that’s when people on the East Coast can log on and you bounty off together in make-believe land for the next 12 hours.  There’s a website called Gamer Widow because of these damn things.
  4. Pinterest.  The most insane thing about Pinterest is that there’s always something new to look at on it.  Some blogs I read, even very popular ones, aren’t updated each second with new, pretty things to look at.  When I’m procrastinating, there’s nothing better than being on Pinterest for hours.  Hours!
  5. Words With Friends – Hanging With Friends – Scramble With Friends.  Zynga is evil when it comes to procrastination.
  6. TV.  Obviously.
  7. Smartphones.  Smartphones are a curse when it comes to trying to get things done.  Imagine, for instance, you’ve just started studying.  Yay!  Good for you.  Ding!  Someone has tagged you on Facebook.  Ding!  News Update!  There is a storm coming!  Ding!  You have mail.  Ding!  It is your turn in Words With Friends!  Ding!  Are you still studying now?
  8. Sleeping.  I’m not saying don’t sleep.  Definitely get your 8 hours in.  Even a nap in the middle of the day if you’re lucky enough to.  But otherwise?  I am one who is absolutely guilty of going back to bed when I don’t want to do something (back before kids and I could do that).  Don’t do that.  Likewise…
  9. Drinking.  When I wanted to procrastinate in the past (Before Child) I’d have myself a cocktail.  One became a dozen, a dozen became passed out on the couch, passed out on the couch became waking up at midnight with a hangover and having another cocktail to make the hangover go away.  Not as hard of a drinker as I was?  That one drink will relax you…which includes relaxing your ambition and determination to complete a project.  Save the drinking for the celebration when you finish your task.
  10. Finally…the internet.  Blogs.  Chat rooms.  News sites.  The internet is a great place to be…but when there is a goal in sight for you (unless that goal is internet related where then duh.  Obviously you need the internet), there is nothing worse than turning on your computer to check you email only to turn it off six hours later after you’ve read everything there is to know about Justin Timberlake and Jessica Biel’s engagement.  Or every single article there is about the new iPad.  Did you sit there reading every single live update when it came out?  Don’t lie.

There you have it friends.  A list of what to avoid when you have tasks to complete.  Or goals to attain.  Or a test to study for.

Who else is an ambitious procrastinator like me?

4 Comments »

interweb reflection and foodie friday: smoked salmon pasta

March 9, 2012 in interweb reflection, recipe

Women's Money Week 2012 Participant
I was very happy to participate in Women’s Money Week this week.  Not only was it a pleasure to focus on topics I may not have normally focused on, but the company I kept was impressive to say the least.  Yay for us ladies and our dough!  Please take a look the wonderful things that my fellow ladies wrote about this week.

Here are some of the interesting things I read about this week from the inter webs:

  1. J. Money discuss how he got sweet-talked into a presentation of solar panels…something I feel strongly (pro) about.
  2. Daisy at Add Vodka wrote about pretending you’re broke…and why it makes sense.
  3. The Bloggess managed to get a whole bunch of celebrities to do random stuff.  Which I loooove…
  4. The Londonder created the Double Stuffed Oreo Cake.  Which led me to ask my husband how she stays so thin when she created things like that.  And the slutty brownie.  God I’d like to be (and look) like her.

and now for Foodie Fridays….

When we were sailing the open seas last week, somewhere between Puerto Vallarta and Cabo san Lucas, we had our anniversary dinner.  At dinner, I had a smoked salmon pasta that was sort of divine, told my husband that our son would rather be eating that than the shill he was being (not) fed at the nursery, and recreated it tonight.  I was right, he inhaled it like he was starving.  Please note that if you are truly interested in accurate measurements, I will go back and really measure what I did, but I cook in a throw-stuff-in-until-it-looks-right sort of way.

okay, i totally thought i took a picture of the smoked salmon pasta but I didn't. so here's a picture of a fresh, 30 sec old tortilla wrapped around a fresh Chicharrón.

and here's a towel monkey.

Smoked Salmon Pasta a la Disney Wonder Cruise.

make a roux.  2-3 Tbl butter, melted in a sauce pan.  Add 3-4 Tbl flour, stir and cook for a min or two.  Add 1c + of milk (the plus is if it thickens too much, add more to get the consistency right for your taste buds.  I like it sort of pancake batter thick.), stir until milk is thickened.  Freshly grind 2-3 turns of pepper, add in a dash of dill weed.  Take off burner and put into blender along with 4 oz of smoked salmon.  Whirl.  Mix in 1/4 c capers, and add to cooked pasta of your choosing (16 oz).  Stir it up and enjoy.  I like adding more capers on top when I plate my dish, but that’s just me and my love for salty capers.

Everyone have a lovely weekend!  Hawaii is expected to be thunderstorm city for the next few days, so holing up with my three loves seems like the action plan.  I’ll be eyeing the house next door to make sure it stays up in the rain…

2 Comments »

emergency fund…natural disaster fund?

March 8, 2012 in budget

This post is part of Women’s Money Week 2012. For more posts about budgeting see Budgeting Roundup.

The last few days in Hawaii have been a giant, rainy mess. Really.  I joked about standing outside and taking a shower – that’s how crazy the rain was.  The thunder and lightning were intense – about 4 miles away at the closest – and sounded like someone was exploding bombs nearby.  The Governor declared Kauai and Oahu a disaster zone, and someone floated away in their truck on Kauai (not into the ocean).

It was awesome coming home from a wonderful cruise vacation to a rainy mess.  Seriously.  I like calamity.

Luckily for me, since I do like calamity, my husband and I woke up on Tuesday morning to the sound of what sounded like thunder and lightning right outside our bedroom.  Rocks crashed into our window, our cat freaked out, and so, honestly, did we.  My husband thought someone crashed into something outside and ran (as evidenced by the car in our driveway turning around and zooming the wrong way down our one way street), I was convinced lightning struck something outside, and our cat was convinced that it was the apocalypse.  Our son slept through the entire thing.

view from my house

So what did happen?  The rain caused the rock wall of the house across the street from us to collapse onto an SUV, leaving one side of the (ramshackle) house precariously teetering on…nothing.  We stared at it.  Would it collapse?  Because if it did…it would fall onto us.

The police suggested that we evacuate for the rest of the day and the night, as they were worried that if the rain continued, the dirt that the house sat on would give way, and the house would collapse.

our driveway was yellow taped off! oh, and there used to be a wall over there.

Now we stared at each other.  Where the heck are we supposed to evacuate to?

It struck me later on – should we have a budget for natural disasters?  Or is that truly what an emergency fund is for?  I always think of our e-fund as something that we fall back on if one of us becomes unemployed (hi me!), or breaks their shoulder snowboarding (hi husband!).  It should be for medical emergencies when you think someone is dying (hi cat!) or when your son breaks your sister’s Kate Spade sunglasses (thanks kid!).  But for rain?  Should our e-fund really cover rain?

We have renters insurance in case the house next door falls on top of ours and destroys our possessions, but what about where we will live?  A hotel/motel/short-term housing is really expensive!  Whose insurance covers that?

I guess this is why I really believe in having a huge emergency fund.  I believe in budgeting for things that cannot even be imagined.  My aunt has over a year of her six-figure salary in an e-fund – I think especially after her husband was diagnosed, treated and passed away from cancer within 2 years, after they spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on treatment out of pocket for him (travel to specialists, etc.), she decided that there was no limit to how big an emergency fund should be.  I’m sort of in the same mindset as she is.  I wish I could be more aggressive with investing my money, maybe save more in the investment side instead of the savings side, but I can’t help but feel safer knowing that we have a big security blanket should the need arise.

I don’t budget for calamity, exactly, but when it does strike I’m glad that there’s something to fall back on should the need arise.

What about you?  Do you budget for calamity?

8 Comments »

the beauty of savings accounts

March 7, 2012 in Uncategorized

This post is part of Women’s Money Week 2012. For more posts about saving and investing see Saving and Investing Roundup.

During our Disney Wonder Cruise, we spent a ton of money.  It would have been prohibitive had we not decided a while back to create automatic savings plans especially for our anniversary trips.  Since we were married on Leap Day, this means that every 4 years we have $4,800 to spend on a fabulous trip.

We use ING Direct for our automatic savings plans.  We love it (and this isn’t a sponsored post) because they allow us to have multiple savings accounts with different names.  I know there are other banks that allow the same thing – but the only one I’m really familiar with is ING, which is why we went with them.  I cannot emphasize how much I love this idea – and the automated savings that comes with it.  Here are the savings that we have being automatically deducted from our local checking account at the beginning of each month:

  • basic savings – $200
  • anniversary fund – $100
  • wine fund – $200

We have additional accounts as well – one for our son (all his birthday and christmas money goes into it), and another for our NWM life insurance premium fund.  The wine fund is for my husband because he’s a Sommelier, and is studying for an exam that costs $900 plus airfare, hotel and meals for a week.  The cost is obviously more if I decide to join him for all or part of that week.

Automating our savings made it possible for us to take a cruise without dipping into our normal savings.  Things become so much more manageable when you take out a small amount every month to save up for something big.  My only problem is I want to start savings accounts for everything.  New pots?  Savings account!  New clothes?  Savings account!  I even considered, after our couples massage on our trip, of starting a savings account for our couples massage on our anniversary!  I figured $10 a month for 48 months would equal $480 we could ultimately use for a luxurious couples massage…but where does it stop?  Do I save $5 a month for 48 months for an anniversary dinner?  I think things were getting a little ridiculous…

But besides my sort-of intense desire to automate everything, I do think that automating finances into things to save for is absolutely imperative when it comes to saving for things like vacations or education fees.  It has helped us immensely…plus it appeals to my sense of extreme organization.

Anyone else an automated saver?

9 Comments »

the cost of delayed reality (aka “a week on the Disney Wonder”)

March 6, 2012 in budget, life

Yesterday I posted about our week on the Disney Wonder (it was great!).  But now is the time for the hard-crunching numbers…how much did a week of fantasy life really cost?  Here’s the breakdown:

Before the Cruise  
Voyage Fare (2 adults, children sailed free on this cruise): $2,226.00
Vacation Protection Plan: $207.08
Government Taxes & Fees: $100.74
Ground Transfers: DECLINED
   
Total Initial Cruise Costs: $2,533.82
   
On the Ship  
Port Adventure – Puerto Vallarta Tequila Making (2 people) $100.00
Port Adventure – Cabo San Lucas Canopy Zip Line (1 person) $99.00
Spa (couples massage, anniversary tradition) $268.00
Dining – brunch $50.00
Dining – anniversary dinner $60.00
Merchandise – Nemo bucket $5.95
Merchandise – lip balm $1.95
Merchandise – funny light-up cup $5.46
Merchandise -  birthday gift for friend’s son $14.95
Merchandise – pirate hat for daddy/son $24.95
Beverages – mocha $5.54
Room Service $3.00
Babysitting $12.00
Babysitting $12.00
Babysitting $15.00
Gratuities  
Head server, maitre d $15.00
Server $90.00
Assistant Server $63.00
Housekeeper $84.00
   
Total on Cruise Costs $929.80
   
Travel Costs  
American Airlines check bag fee (used miles for the airfare) $25.00
American Airlines check bag fee $25.00
Prime Time Shuttle to and from airport $137.45
   
Travel Costs $187.45
   
Total Trip Costs $3,651.07
   
Additional expenses (tips for drivers, Starbucks, food at airport, cash used in Mexico, spare diapers, Cabo boats and bikes…things like that – an average.) $148.93
   
Total Total Trip Costs $3,800.00

holy…?

We used miles to pay for the airfare because it was $600 per person to get from Hawaii to LA.  If we had paid out of pocket, our total anniversary trip would have been $5k.  As it was, $3800 is a lot more than the initial $2500 that the cruise actually cost.  Incidentals cost a ton.  When our boys are bigger and we go on a cruise, they (and I) will want to do the fun adventures like the zip-line canopy/rock-climbing thing that my husband did.  Obviously our costs will go up a ton, even if we were to find the kids-cruise-free deal like we did this time.  I’d anticipate another $2-3K.

how will we pay for it all?!?

Needless to say, this is a lot of money.  We put aside $100 every month for our anniversary trip (every 4 years, go go Leap Day anniversaries!), and I saved all the money we got from Christmas to use for incidentals.  My husband saved a portion of his bonus for it too, and his parents gave us $100 to celebrate our first real anniversary.  We could’ve shaved off $100 if we hadn’t gone to dinner at the fancy restaurant, but it was our anniversary and we really wanted to.

tip me!  tip me!

The unexpected large expense was, of course, the gratuities for all the crew members.  That was $252 I wasn’t expecting.  We also had to tip the fine dining server ($30) and the massage therapists ($40), plus the room service guy ($3, wasn’t expecting that because on the Norweigan Cruise Line we didn’t have to), so that all being said and done was an additional $325 we weren’t adding into the budget.  Everyone was trying to sell us something – the spa girls had a list of things they used on us and wanted us to buy, when we bought the flashing lit cup for our son an automatic gratuity was added onto it (he refused to drink milk, so we tried every possible beverage vessel we could find).  Plus, oh man, the tips that are expected everywhere in Mexico.  The guy who held out his hand to help me off the boat wanted a tip, the kid who told me where to find the bathroom wanted a tip, the bathroom cost money to use; everyone wanted money.

paying for it all

The cost was doled out slowly over the course of a few months which made it very manageable.  The deposit for the cruise was paid for 6 months ago, the remainder was paid for in December.  This credit card bill will have the rest of it, but really, parceled out into three payments does make paying for a large vacation expense much, much easier.

how we could have saved money, by Captain Hindsight

Captain Hindsight tells me that we would have forgone the balcony and shaved off $200-400 of the trip (we thought we would be spending a lot of time out there while our son napped…I napped instead.).  He also says that we wouldn’t have spent $20 on groceries for the boat since we lost on the shuttle when the driver drove off with them (organic milk, bottles, snacks to keep kid occupied).  Captain Hindsight also thought that the vacation insurance could’ve been avoided ($200) but seriously I’m pregnant and we have a toddler.  There was a chance I was put on bed rest or something, and the entire amount would’ve been gone.  But I guess we could’ve done without those expenses, saving us $600.

but really, Captain Hindsight is a South Park character and not to be taken seriously

Anyway, that is the breakdown for the trip itself.  I may have forgotten a small cash something here or there  (my husband spent $20 on carne asada tacos for our lunch on his way back from the zip-line tour, but it was confiscated on the ship.  Did you know you can’t bring food from Mexico onto the cruise ship?  Weird.) but that’s really about what we spent in total.

What do you think?  Too much?  Too little?  Just right?

obviously i’ve been reading too much goldilocks…

Tags: , ,
15 Comments »

…and we’re back

March 5, 2012 in life

reality, for a week.

We are back on dry land and woozy as all heck.  We haven’t lost our sea legs yet (plane legs for the last 6 hours), and as I brushed my teeth I felt my legs shifting like I was still on the boat.  I’m not.  I wish I was, but I’m not.  It’s back to reality for us.

For the past week my family has been living in a blissfull reality where phones and internet were nonexistant, and soft serve was available 24/7.  In this reality, Mickey and Minnie were the celebrities and desserts were served with every meal and with snacks in between.  Steak was for dinner each night and there was an entire ship for my son to play in.  For a bit it was, shall I say, the happiest place on earth?

boy. boat. and beyond.

I know a lot of people are a little wary of cruises, and I certainly don’t blame them.  There was a point that I got tired of being on the Disney Wonder but luckily it was the last day.  The ship was cruising back from Mexico to LA and the boat was a bit more rocky than it had been.  Add pregnancy and I was a bit miserable.

But in all it was a fabulous vacation.  We loved (almost) every second of it, and we loved our brief, fantastic reality.  For a week I wasn’t unemployed, we weren’t broke, my parents weren’t crazy, and we had nothing to do but enjoy ourselves.  We got to wake up each morning and snuggle with our son in bed while watching whatever five Disney movies happened to be on at that time.  We got to stand on the top deck and watch fireworks go off above our heads.  We got to have “fine” dining for every meal.  And we got to do it without any contact from the outside world.

oh hi caviar.

There were pros and cons of course.  Our son hated the Flounder’s Reef Nursery, and we didn’t trust the people that worked there to have his best interests in mind.  We had serious misgivings about how he was treated there as well as if he was fed the way they said they would.  When I found out that they had locked him in a baby swing twice (he’s 26 pounds and almost 2 years old), we figured that was enough and we cancelled all our future reservations.

scooby doo rock @ cabo san lucas

Another con was the Port Adventure we went on – a tequila tour.  We thought it would be great – it was touted as a mile walk to a tequila maker who would show us the mashing and distillation process of my favorite spirit – and in reality it was a 6 hour bus tour of the poorer areas with a half hour stop at a tequila place.  The tour guide made a point the entire time to tell us how rich America was and how poor Mexico was.  One of our favorite things she said was “Do you see the public school there?  There are 50 students to one teacher.  They have no AC, only one room.  They have no playground, and only have curtains to block themselves from the blazing hot Mexican sun.  It is my duty to tell you amgios this.”  For almost 6 hours she said things like this: “There is a golf course, but it is not for us Mexicans my friends.  It is for Americans.  It costs one hundred American dollars to golf on the course, so it is not something that us Mexicans can afford.  It is for tourists only.”  It was, to be honest, not a terribly enjoyable time at Puerta Vallarta.  It’s not that I didn’t find the dialogue fascinating, but rather that I found it to be out of place.  I wanted a tequila tour.  I got a lecture on poverty.  Wasn’t quite the same.

tequila~

Those were the few cons though of the trip.  Some slightly yucky food, some grumpy people working on the ship.  But all in all it was a fantastic time, a true break from reality.  Usually on vacations you can’t help but live in reality – your email dings, your facebook pops up, you get a phone call from a client or family member.  This stuff didn’t – couldn’t – happen on this cruise.  No one but my siblings, my in-laws and our house sitter had the satellite phone number that they could call to reach the ship.  There was no internet.  It was magical.

this molten lava cake was pretty magical.

Tomorrow I’ll post the breakdown of the cost of the trip.  It’s something not to be taken lightly, for sure.  I almost squawked at the final bill.  Until then…I’ll be working on making my brain stop trying to convince my body that its on a boat.  Because damn if I don’t feel woozy and I haven’t drank a bit!

Tags: , ,
10 Comments »

The Best Meal I Ever Ate

March 2, 2012 in food, guest post

This is a guest post from Edward Antrobus, part of the Yakezie Challenge blog swap.   

Edward Antrobus provides kitchen tips & tricks and easy
recipes at If You Can Read, You Can Cook. He doesn’t
believe that people “don’t know how to cook.” If you can read a
recipe, you can cook it.  Please visit his site to see my guest post there!

Food means different things to different people. For some, it is a
means to an end. It is fuel for the body to keep you moving towards
things that are actually important to you. For others, the ascetic
experience is all consuming. I typically find myself somewhere between
these two extremes. However, in one important aspect, I find myself
similar to the ascetic. For me, food is a memory. A bridge to all the
pleasant times experienced with that food in the past.

One meal, through repetition and love, brings back more
memories than any other. That is why macaroni & cheese is the best
meal I ever had.

The sight, smell, and taste of this meal always brings me back to a
memory. This memory could be from any Sunday throughout my childhood.
This memory could be from the first time I made my wife dinner when we
were dating. It could be the first meal I cooked in my first
apartment. This memory is any and all of those times.

I am sitting in the living room with a mixing bowl, a box
grater, and a block of cheddar. The TV is on, but I’m not really
paying attention. I’m listening to the conversation of the people
around me, participating in it. I am feeling the love and connection
with my family around me. Whenever I think nobody is looking, I sneak
some of the cheese. Later on, I’m mixing the Mornay sauce. This is
my least favorite part. The stirring seems endless. I crack a joke
about setting up the mixer on the stove. It always amazes me how the
sauce stays thin and runny for so long and then *poof* it’s ready.
When it’s done baking, I can never wait for it to cool, and I burn
my mouth on the hot, gooey cheese and pasta.

Because this macaroni & cheese is so important to me, I am sharing
the recipe with you. I hope that you will be able to create your own
memories with this dish.

Baked Macaroni & Cheese

Summary:This baked macaroni & cheese will
leave you wondering why anybody ever bother’s with the boxed
stuff.

Ingredients :

  • 1 lb. macaroni (elbows or shells)
  • 1 1/2 lbs.shredded cheddar cheese
  • 1 can cheddar cheese soup
  • 1/2 c.butter
  • 1/2 c. flour
  • 4 c. milk

Instructions:

  1. Preheat oven to 350°.
  2. Cook macaroni according to package directions.
  3. Drain. Put in greased baking pan. Add 1/2 can cheese soup.
  4. Melt butter in sauce pan. Stir in flour. Add milk, stirring
    constantly. Add remaining cheese soup and half of shredded cheese.
    Stir constantly until thickens.
  5. Pour cheese sauce mixture over macaroni, mixing in.
  6. Top with remaining cheese.
  7. Back until browned, approx. 1 hour.

Details:

    • Prep time: 30 min
    • Cook time: 90 min
    • Total time: 2 hours
    • Creates: 8 servings
  • Serving size: 1 1/2 c.
  • Calories: 578
  • Fat: 29g
  • Saturated fat: 16g
  • Cholesterol: 82mg
  • Protein: 23g
  • Carbohydrates: 28g
  • Fiber: 3g
  • Sugar: 8g

6 Comments »

more on timeshares…

February 28, 2012 in life

Thank you to Jeffrey for his great guest post yesterday about timeshares!  I thought I’d add in my two cents on the whole timeshare idea.

The fact is, I love timeshares.  I love using them, I love staying in them, I love their availability.  You know what I love even more about timeshares?  When they’re not mine.  

westin princeville ocean resort villas - a beautiful timeshare on the island of Kauai.

no one ever said timeshares can't be beautiful

I don’t own a timeshare.  I admit, I felt the pull toward them; which for someone like me who won’t even buy new clothes is sort of concerning.  The lure is impressive, when they sit you down and explain it to you.  More than once I’ve taken the sales-perfect-pitch written upside-down on a piece of paper back to our room and stared at it.  (God I find it so tacky, when the sales person sitting across from you writes the maintenance fees and mortgage upside down so you can read it, circling the amount you save just by owning!)  More than once I’ve done more research on the topic online to see if it’s for real.

For reals…ain’t no way we can afford a timeshare, no matter how logically they break it down.

We’ve stayed in the timeshare owned by a former coworker of mine four times.  I love staying in them.  They’re huge, luxurious, and extremely cheap compared to hotels.  My former coworker had a bajillion points that she never used up every year, so she would either just give me the points (very generous, I know), or I would pay her market value for them.  Sometimes market value was equal to what a room in a hotel would have been. Sometimes market value was way, way less than a hotel ($150 for 3 nights in a 2 bedroom condo in Kauai?  Sign me up.).  In all cases, the timeshare offered free wifi, free parking, and a giant condo that held a kitchen and other great amenities.

It’s no wonder I really, really thought about owning one.

But behind the scenes of every great idea is reality.  In reality, my coworker was paying $600 a month on maintenance fees for the timeshare properties.  On top of the mortgage she paid for the points.  Holy…what?  That was $7,200 annually she was spending on fees alone!  I just looked up a timeshare rental for a resort on the Big Island of Hawaii – it’s a 2 bedroom, 2 bath at a great resort…and it costs $1,500.  She could stay there almost 5 weeks out of the year, on her maintenance fees alone.

But wait!  There’s more!

My coworker likes going to Las Vegas.  I just found a 2 bed, 2 bath timeshare for rental at the Marriott Grand Chateau for $1000 for the week.  That means that for maintenance fees alone, she could stay in Vegas for seven weeks.  Seven weeks!  I don’t even know how many years I would have to go without vacation just to accrue 7 weeks of vacation in one year.

So is a timeshare for you?

It’s not for me.  I still feel the tug of the timeshare (Imagine!  A mandatory vacation you pay for every year!), and sometimes the number logic that they deal me when I’m trying to get my free $150 American Express gift card pulls at my yearn to travel.  (Note to friends with babies – they don’t allow kids.  But they don’t allow spouses to sit in the presentation alone.  So…they grudgingly allow the baby to be in the room, but the presentation ends up rushed because the baby is screaming.  You still get the gift card.)  But reality prevails, for sure.  We just can’t afford that type of vacation mortgage, when we struggle to find a way to get a regular mortgage.  Plus their interest rate?

Fuggedaboutit.

Thanks again for Jeffrey for his gust post!  Have you/will you/what do you think…timeshare-wise?

7 Comments »

why timeshare freebies aren’t free

February 27, 2012 in guest post

This is a guest post from Jeffrey Strain. He is a digital nomad with a personal mission of trying to help people avoid falling into the timeshare trap. He’s also a writer on a large number of other personal finance issues.

The next time you travel to a resort destination, there’s a good chance that you’ll have an opportunity to get free stuff simply for attending a timeshare presentation. Don’t do it. While it may appear that it’ll be an easy way to get some free stuff, the reality is that there are a lot of catches that come along with that “free” tag. The reality is that timeshares are a terrible deal for the vast majority of people. If there is any chance at all that you may get pressured into purchasing a timeshare, that “free” gift will end up costing a small fortune. Even if you are sure you can withstand the high pressure sales presentation, the “free” gifts still come with some costs. Here are four reasons that those free timeshare gifts are anything but free:

Sales presentations are always longer than they say:

One reason these freebies aren’t really free is that sales agents waste your time. They promise that in just an hour or two, you could have a free vacation or tickets to a popular local show. What they won’t say is that the presentation is specifically geared to keep you there as long as possible, and much longer than they initially promised. One hour can turn into three very quickly when multiple sales agents use
tactics to keep the conversation going. Basically, they sales agents use time to wear you down and become more invested. They know you want the freebie, but if you leave early, you won’t get it. There hope is that you will sign a contract just so you don’t leave the presentation
with nothing (often giving the assurance that you can cancel the timeshare if you aren’t satisfied), rather than sit for another couple
of hours.

Sales presentations can be invasive:

In order to get a better sense of who you are and how much you’re willing to spend on your vacations, sales agents will ask you a lot of questions. Many of these questions may be personal and financial in nature. They will sneakily ask about your vacation budget and other private matters in order to find that sweet spot price that you just might fall for. Even if you don’t buy, they may sell this information to other companies to solicit you.

Gift promises likely aren’t what they said:

Timeshare prizes and gifts are rarely what they first appear. Once you attend a timeshare presentation, the gifts are often presented in some sort of surprise or lottery in which each person must blindly draw for which prize they will receive. After sitting through that whole
presentation, surprise! The prize you’ve drawn is a “free” vacation, sponsored of course by the timeshare resort. Rather than go home with a brand new TV, you face a vacation with hidden fees and more mandatory presentations.

When timeshares offer free tickets to local events or shows for attending the presentation, the free tickets often come with catches.
The entrance to the show may be free, but there may be a two drink minimum at outrageously inflated prices. It’s important to know the
fine print in detail before you set off to get your freebie because it probably isn’t nearly as free as you think it is.

Small prizes are not worth your time:

Sometimes after attending a presentation, the sales agents will indeed fulfill their promises to you and hand over some free gifts. Everything from hotel stays to gift cards can be up for grabs, but is a $25 dinner or a $50 hotel stay really worth the hassle of attending and being pressured into an expensive buy? Consider how much it cost you to travel to the destination, and how much your time is really worth. Vacations are meant to be enjoyed outdoors with family and friends, not indoors with a stranger who’s asking about your spending habits. This is just another reason these free deals are not truly free.

It might sound cliche, but the old saying “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is” aptly applies to freebies at timeshare
presentations. If something sounds like it would be an amazing freebie, incredible value, or smart buy, there are probably plenty of
associated hassles and fees. Always remember that the salesperson’s motive is to make money, and the first step towards accomplishing this is by luring you into a presentation with the promise of freebie gifts.

Thanks to Jeffrey for this great guest post!  Have you ever thought to own – or do own – a timeshare?  

10 Comments »

← Previous Entries
Next Entries →