Yup. I am kind of in a conundrum though. I promised DS this car when he turns 18 which means I need another one in a year (he’s 17), but then I’ve also thought if I’m permanently working from home and will have just one teen left in the house do I really though? I can uber to the dr. or take hubby’s car cuz he also permanently works from home. How many Disney trips is that? Then again DD is 14 so I suppose I should buy something I can give to her when she’s 18. Less Disney trips it is…sigh. Kids cutting into my Disney budget, darn it. LOL
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Apparently right now this isn’t an issue. My uncle traded his Corvette in for this Italian thing…I don’t even know what it is and it had only depreciated 4K because of the market right now for cars with all the Covid issues created in the new car market.
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I work with kids that have disabilities (Early Intervention) so my daily life is helping others. I and my DH (who works his butt off) deserve a nice vacation. My middle class parents also made it a priority for us and they took us to DW twice, as well as many other places. I have some of my favorite memories with my family from when we traveled and I wanted the same for my kids. (We do save for retirement and put some back for the kids’ college as well).
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Ah yes, some weird things have gone on in the market since we bought our last vehicle in 2018.
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Yes, me too on the savings for kids’ college and retirement but I don’t do stock market things beyond retirement. Hubby does though. I wanted to be a teacher but decided to get a math degree because I didn’t want to be dependent on my husband like my mom and grandma were, both teachers. So I know how hard you work when you work with kids and have mad respect. You made a different decision than me and for the right reasons. When I retire, one of my goals is to tutor kids. Teaching is in my blood but it just doesn’t pay for Disney trips. (We went twice as kids too; my parents went to WDW twice and DLR once but I didn’t get to do the 2nd WDW trip cuz I went to Italy instead with a school group…it was the right decision; even my mom said so but she couldn’t afford for me to do both.)
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This is so me too! I bought a condo in what was the boonies 2 years out of college for $121k. I’m now half way to paying it off and in one of the faster growing and most expensive zip codes in town and could sell for at least 50% more than I paid for it. Drive a 2014 Ford Edge I got a steal of a deal on in 2016 that was still under warranty. I mostly grocery shop at Walmart, rarely go shopping for other things, buy new clothes when needed not just because. There are tons of ways to alter your day to day so you can funnel excess funds into the things you love, like Disney vacations!
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I don’t do the stock market thing outside of those either. My DH has a few stocks in the company he used to work at. He lets it sit because it is a company where stocks keep going up.
It does look like we may fall in the upper end of middle class this year due to my DH’s overtime, which is weird for us. We are going to look into a financial advisor to help us plan a little better.
Anyway, back to DW. I can understand most people’s frustration with pay to play. I don’t do that, not even on Disney Emojii Blitz. 
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I will feel rich when I’m not paying for two teens (well, 18 and 21) on my car insurance any more!
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My dad was the first in his family to graduate high school. He started in retail sales in a clothing store then climbed his way up to be a VP of Sales for a men’s clothing manufacturer. Then the recession hit in the early 80s. He was laid off. And, in your mid-40s at that time with no college degree he couldn’t find anything comparable. He bounced from job to job for the rest of his life. My mom was an X-ray tech and learned MRI technology when that was first starting. She was our primary bread winner. And I suppose her salary allowed us to be squarely in the middle class if not upper-middle. However, the few years my dad had earning well gave them both a taste of upper class life and they could never let that go. When I was 10 I would tell credit card collectors my parents weren’t home when they would call about outstanding payments. When I started my first “real” (“corporate”) job 15 years ago, I had $100k of student loans, nearly that much in credit card debt (because I refused to ask my parents for a dime so would charge groceries and whatever else along the way), and a DC rent payment. I am incredibly fortunate to have had success in my career such that today I am largely debt free and can afford periodic Disney vacations. But I live in constant fear that it’ll all be gone in an instant.
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We have always leased. For several years when the kids were very small and I was working less we limped along with one car. But otherwise we know ourselves enough to know that we would never be disciplined enough to save for repairs or for a new car when it was time to junk the old. This keeps us with a predictable monthly payment over time and vehicles that are covered by warranty for the time that we drive them. And then we get a new one three years later which is always fun (except I really do LOVE my Mini more than anything I’ve ever driven and I am not sure how I will part with her by next August 
)
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Same here 
(Although I have to admit to treating myself to a diamond box for Christmas 
)
We have the same back story 
Seriously, my dad was a primary care doc who started in the military and had four kids by the time he finished residency. I have gone from being a broke grad student to upper income, but always knew my parents could bail me out if things got really bad.
On my 3 night trip in July, I was staying on DVC points, flew on SW points and paid with discounted gift cards, but that short trip still felt so decadent. I realized the sisters weekend I desperately want to happen would be a struggle for one of my sisters, even if we stayed on my DVC points. The expenses just add up. And this made me really sad. It seems so far away from our 1-2 day stop over at Disney as kids when we were driving up and down Florida to visit family.
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Yes Maryland!!
This is us. We’re at the lower end of middle class, but we live very modestly most of the time to be able to spend on experiences that are important to us.
My kids inherit my old cell phones, we are a family of five with ONE car, we live in an ok home in a cheaper neighborhood that’s about an hour from where we’d like to live. We were cord cutters before it was cool.
The one thing we do spend money on is our car. Like @OBNurseNH, we primarily lease because we are unlucky with cars needing expensive repairs and our sons SSI makes it so we cannot hold savings in any decent amount as a “rainy day fund.”
Unfortunately the system requires us to live this way as the Medicaid we recieve through SSI pays over $50k a year in medical expenses, and that’s AFTER our private insurance through DH’s work pays.
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Also, I hate camping too, @Alewis678
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Fess Parker tried that years ago after branching away from Disney and was snubbed so badly by the DC locals that he gave up on the idea. Ever notice you don’t find any amusement/theme parks in the DC area? Closest one would be Kings Dominion.
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I’d rather spend a pretty penny on a Disney resort room
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But have you tried lamping? Our trip thru the Grand Canyon by river raft and sleeping under the stars on a cot was pretty life changing. But we did it with guides and they cooked for us and provided the tents, etc.
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I can’t sleep a wink under the stars. Severe anxiety overtakes me. I’ve been camping many times in tents but I don’t really like it.
Camping is expensive in the US??
Here, that is a budget holiday. There are definitely some campsites that charge for every tiny thing, like how many are in the tent, but most just charge a fixed rate for the pitch and it’s significantly less than a hotel room.