Reply to When no one else will admit they can't afford something

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]No, you should never borrow for a vacation but that was not the issue you raised in the last thread.  Perhaps I read it wrong, but I thought your ILs want to pay for your trip-or at least they have in the past- so the whole family can get together.  If you have the vacation time and this is a priority for your ILs I'm not sure why you are stressing about it so much.  It also sounds like you accept financial assistance from your family without an issue.  It sounds like something else is going on here.[/quote]

OP here. What connects the two threads is that we (read: I -- DH would probably just charge the credit card if I wasn't the one to put the kibosh on it) are the only family who will admit to not being able to afford the trip. If anyone else couldn't, they would never say so and just quietly go into debt ... so we look tacky and cheap by admitting our situation and trying to do the right thing for the good of our family. This is one of a few aspects of this situation that I find frustrating.

If they would just take "we can't come this year" for an answer I would be so much less stressed. We tried promising to come every other year (so we could save up) and that wasn't good enough for them. DH has suggested waiting until the last minute to tell them we can't come next year so they won't have time to force it, but I doubt that will work because my MIL will be hounding us about it six months in advance.

Money is the biggest source of stress in my life, no doubt. I am embarrassed about our situation and feel a lot of regret about decisions I made years ago that are having repercussions now. This trip causes stress because it is the only major instance where we are asked (demanded) by others to spend money we don't have. There are other things like fundraisers where we may be asked for smaller amounts, but we can elect not to participate without being called out. We can forgo family vacations, decline birthday invitations, sell belongings or pull a child out of preschool if need be and that is all our business. The expectation that we will spend $2-3k per year on this trip forces us into a Hobson's choice of poor mouthing to the whole family or going into (more) debt. [/quote]

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