Why we said No to Disney World
It all started 10 years ago. You have a child and you think about all the places you want to take them. All the things you want to do. Fantasyland Disney World enters your mind. Then you begin to realize no matter how much you want to take your children everywhere. You really can’t afford everything. You can’t give everything in the present moment. You have to be able to say “No” now so you can say yes in the future.
It has been a constant battle to say “No” to Fantasyland Disney World. I mean I love Disney and my husband and I have gone many times when we were dating. I had gone as a child and I wanted to take our children. We just haven’t been able to do so. I was recently on the other end of a conversation where two moms were talking about all the fun they have had at Disney. Where they stayed and what they did while they were there. I was puzzled, since one of the parents doesn’t have two nickels to rub together. Where they found the funds to go to Disney several times? We have checked rates, made plans, and then decided we just couldn’t do Disney. We would love to take our children to Disney or the 100 other places they want to visit. We would love to buy them the 1 million toys they have asked for. We have the money to take our children to Disney. We only owe on our house because we know all the frugal ways to save and get out of debt. In fact over the last ten years we have invested almost $100,000 into our children that doesn’t account for private school, food, clothing, birthday parties, trips, medical, dental, toys, and sports. We said no to Disney and to the other places for one simple reason.
We said, “Yes” to college. We have had to tell our children “No” to so many of the things our friends have said. “Yes” to because we couldn’t afford to do both. We had a plan to pay off all of their prepaid college funds prior to them entering kindergarten and we have just sent off the last payment for the amount of a BMW today. We have in fact achieve which you can read about here what I would call financial success. We said “NO” to new cars, a new house, expensive vacations, dinner out more than once a week, all new clothes, “blowing our tax refunds”. We gave up those one week trips that may be a great memory for that moment in time to give our children what they will need in the future. We wanted to give them the greatest gift their education.
I will say education is the one thing that you can not lose and it will be the one thing that we believe will help our child over any other material item that we can provide them. It is our gift to our children. It was the reason this site Madame Deals was started. It is the reason this site will continue because we are now done with our three children’s college funds but we will now say “NO” to others things because we are planning for our retirement because one day we will have a nice condo in Hawaii while all of our friends are still working to pay for all of the “stuff” they have. We say “No” to our children all the time and do you know what? They value money and they value what they have. They understand you can’t have everything and you can’t always have what your friends have.
We do intend to go to Disney this year if we have enough saved to do so. It just wasn’t a priority because it is a trip and it isn’t life changing. We have said, “No” and we will continue to say “No” because teaching your children about saving for the future is an important goal. Showing your children that you value education and that having the newest and latest and greatest isn’t as important as having a savings account. I believe in our society we are alway worried about what is the next best thing and in reality it is right in front of you.
What have you done to plan for your child or children’s future? The better question is what can you start doing today? The 52 week saving plans is a great place to start. You can print out the printable and make a difference. If you use the plan that can be the amount you spend on your child next year teach them how to budget. It is our job as parents to teach our children how to be financially solvent. 52 week savings plan <—– You can also teach children how to save money with our tips in this post get kids to save money.
You see “Fantasyland Disney World” is any place or anything that is just icing on the cake.
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