Don't share any more thoughts. Just go ahead and do it. You can afford it and sounds like you'll get plenty of use out of it.

Anonymous wrote:OP do you take money from them or something? Otherwise why can’t you do what you want with your own money?

We can, it was just odd that both sets of our parents have the same feelings so I wanted a gut check to see if I was way off base here. We definitely don't take money from them. I've been self supporting since I was 18, my parents didn't even help me with college.

Get your own place. Set it up with bunk/twin/trundle beds in one bedroom for your kid so it a kids room. Set some guidelines for your siblings about who gets to use it and when. Expect all those 20 somethings are going to try to take over your space - maybe something like “when we are using our bedrooms there is a 8pm quiet time enforced.”

Op here, to clarify- the two cabins are 90 mins apart on separate lakes. We'd likely buy around my parents cabin because its an hour door to door from our house, in laws is 2.5 hours.

Other answers to questions:
-We do travel a lot. Our 5yo has been to 6 countries and our 2yo has been to 3.
-We are not rich, but live in a MCOL area with great public schools. HHI $330k with room for growth, $2000 PITI on our house, no other debt outside of our mortgage, won't be paying for private schools or anything, one more year of childcare for our youngest then that's behind us. The cabins we are looking at are like $200k.
-We both WFH and have pretty flexible jobs so our hope is even when the kids are in sports we could do day trips or even day trips while they're at school (which we have been doing often as we've been looking at properties). We can both block off a Friday or Monday on our schedules and work extra the other days if needed and it's no big deal.
-Currently, we are going to one cabin or the other probably 2 weekends per month in the summer and 1 weekend per month the rest of the year (we also sled, ski, ice fish, snow mobile). We'd definitely use it.

Agree we learned our lesson about sharing info with our parents.

OP do you take money from them or something? Otherwise why can’t you do what you want with your own money?

Your accommodations are ... not what I would call a vacation. That would be a trip to get through, that I would need to recover from.

Op, your facts are unclear.

Are these two cabins on the same lake and you are thinking about buying your own cabin on the same lake?

Or are they existing cabins on different lakes and you are going to choose one location or buy your own at a different lake?

I would never agree to sleep on the conditions you described. And if I was married to someone who expected to me, I would laugh and say no way in hell.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wouldn't get another cabin, but maybe I'm not a cabin person? I'd just go there when other people aren't around. If they want BIG FAMILY VACATION, it can be somewhere else.

Neither of our families do vacations, ever. Family time is at the cabins- we both grew up like this. I think the last family vacation we did was in 1996 when we drove to the middle of nowhere for a family reunion.

Why? You don’t have to do it because they want to. Go somewhere on your own that isn’t horrid!

Op here. To clarify, we (Dh, kids, and I) go on vacations. Our parents and siblings do not.

As PPs in other threads have noted, once kids get a bit older they tend to have activities which keep you from vacationing a lot. While I am jealous of others who have family ties/memories to a specific place, I personally (with HS/college age kids) am glad I didn't buy when they were little because there was ~10 year stretch of travel sports where we would barely have used it.

When you have not one, but TWO sets of parents who are as controlling as you describe, only tell them when something is a done deal. Not that you're considering or mulling over an idea. This goes for job choices, how to school your own children, what kind of car to buy and so forth.

OP you and your DH are self-supporting adults with jobs and children. You don't need to seek approval or permission from these overbearing parents.

Are the two homes on the same lake? So you can see both sets of parents?

1. Vacation homes are a lot of maintenance. You need to keep things at every house you own and spend time in, otherwise it's a hassle to bring it every time. Also, after a while it gets boring. Keep in mind that it might be relaxing now, while your kids are young, but after a certain age, they'll get bored, and you might prefer to bring them on international destinations that are a lot more fun, interesting and mind-opening.

2. There is no way I would stay in your relatives' homes given the accommodations you've just described, unless you go when it's empty! But then, there's no way I'd spend time in the same spot every year either...

OP, I have the same situation. We will inherit a share of 2 recreational properties and full ownership of a third recreational property that have been in DH's and my families for several generations. Using them right now is a lot of negotiation with family, together time, and we can't get quiet or privacy. We also got a lot of attitude when we considered buying our own.

We ultimately decided to do a 1 month rental of the same cottage every year, and then spend the other weeks of summer doing a mix of city activities and shared family property/visiting. We don't gain any equity but we also have none of the headaches of maintenance or commitment, and most of your list other than decorating has worked out for us. It has now been several years of us doing this and we have a good rapport with the owners, so they have now set us up with a locking closet for us to keep items in the off season.

Down the road we're hoping to buy out the others on my family's property but until then it has worked really well to just have a consistent rental.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wouldn't get another cabin, but maybe I'm not a cabin person? I'd just go there when other people aren't around. If they want BIG FAMILY VACATION, it can be somewhere else.

Neither of our families do vacations, ever. Family time is at the cabins- we both grew up like this. I think the last family vacation we did was in 1996 when we drove to the middle of nowhere for a family reunion.

Why? You don’t have to do it because they want to. Go somewhere on your own that isn’t horrid!

Why not just rent places near theirs, so you can enjoy extended family time without being crowded?