Anonymous
Post 02/04/2012 11:29     Subject: Re:If you could only afford one or the other, would you choose a nice vacation, or fix up the house?
PP here. By the way, unless your two rooms are huge, $4k is a lot just for materials. I just had about 700 sq feet done (two bedrooms, including a walk-in closet), and the whole shebang including labor was $4k. Had I gone the DIY route, the materials from Home Depot (when you say materials, are you talking about the flooring or plus tools?) would have been about $2k for the wood flooring on sale.
Anonymous
Post 02/04/2012 11:27     Subject: Re:If you could only afford one or the other, would you choose a nice vacation, or fix up the house?
Can't believe there is even a debate on this. Sounds like your living expenses are pretty tight, if a $4k house job is competing with your vacation fund. In that case, you don't sem to be in a position to take a vacation -- fixing up your house may add to the value of your investment, whereas a a vacation to Disney (i.e., you could take a less expensive, more local vacation) is a luxury item. But you should take my thoughts with a grain of salt -- I believe that good parenting includes, among other characteristics, being financially responsible and prudent. I also get that this is just my own opinion, which is one of 6-7 billion out there, so if you disagree, or take the vacation, I would totally not judge you because, overall, I believe that you know your own situation the best.
Anonymous
Post 02/04/2012 10:41     Subject: If you could only afford one or the other, would you choose a nice vacation, or fix up the house?
Anonymous wrote:Our house is livable, but not "stylish". We have a big family and our flooring is starting to look thrashed. I'd like to replace it (2 specific rooms, not the whole house) with hard wood. My husband is very handy and could do it himself, but we would need to buy the materials...I think we could get what we need for about $4,000.

I'd also really love to take a nice vacation to Disney World. They are having that new race "Twilight Zone Tower of Terror 10 miler" in late September, which I would LOVE to do. I have never run any race--not even a 5k...but I run distances that exceed 10 miles just around town as part of my fitness routine. My kids would also love to go to Disney. We could do a trip there and the approx cost would also be about $4,000.

Our tax refund this year is just about $4,000...

Which would you do?


I'd do the house because you live there and is a long-term investment. Vacation is here today, gone tomorrow.
Anonymous
Post 02/04/2012 07:46     Subject: Re:If you could only afford one or the other, would you choose a nice vacation, or fix up the house?
Anonymous wrote:Can you go camping?


Camping is not a vacation. Go with the vacation, a REAL vacation. A nice house is nice, I've been to them and they are lovely, but as long as your house isn't in immediate danger of falling down, who really cares if it's not perfect?
Anonymous
Post 02/04/2012 07:19     Subject: If you could only afford one or the other, would you choose a nice vacation, or fix up the house?
Re: camping, if you like camping and if you are familiar with the distance (as in, you've run it before and it isn't too challenging), I think you'd be fine to camp before a run. 10 miles is a lot, for sure, but if you're casually running it now, a race day isn't going to be so much different, other than more exciting and you may run faster. Plus, you could use some of the money you'd save by camping at Disney to register for a small local race to see what it's about and to confirm that you could camp before the 10 miler.
Anonymous
Post 02/04/2012 06:25     Subject: If you could only afford one or the other, would you choose a nice vacation, or fix up the house?
I would do the house and save Disney for another time. Fantasyland a Magic Kingdom is being renovaed and they won't be finished until 2013 or 2014. Do the house now and visit Disney when you can see the entirely new Magic Kingdom without some attractions being closed for renovation.
Anonymous
Post 02/03/2012 21:42     Subject: If you could only afford one or the other, would you choose a nice vacation, or fix up the house?
Anonymous wrote:Our house is livable, but not "stylish". We have a big family and our flooring is starting to look thrashed. I'd like to replace it (2 specific rooms, not the whole house) with hard wood. My husband is very handy and could do it himself, but we would need to buy the materials...I think we could get what we need for about $4,000.

I'd also really love to take a nice vacation to Disney World. They are having that new race "Twilight Zone Tower of Terror 10 miler" in late September, which I would LOVE to do. I have never run any race--not even a 5k...but I run distances that exceed 10 miles just around town as part of my fitness routine. My kids would also love to go to Disney. We could do a trip there and the approx cost would also be about $4,000.

Our tax refund this year is just about $4,000...

Which would you do?


How big are the rooms? $4k sounds high if all you need is materials. We did a couple of rooms in hardwood, and I'm thinking we were in the hundreds, not thousands. We used bamboo.

As another matter, $4k for Disney isn't much.

Personally, I'd do the action, but it wouldn't be Disney.
Anonymous
Post 02/03/2012 21:27     Subject: Re:If you could only afford one or the other, would you choose a nice vacation, or fix up the house?
Anonymous wrote:Can you go camping?


OP here...I've thought of that, we've certainly done other camping vacations in the past...but I'm just thinking if I'm going to be running my first race, I'll probably want the best/most comfortable sleeping arangements prior--so I'd rather have a real bed.


Thanks everyone! I"m leaning towards Disney too. We are elligible for the military discount promotion they have, which happens to end the same weekend as the race...so we might be able to do the vacation for less than I thought...and we will definitely look at the off site options for hotels as well

My youngest is 5 years old, and my kids are all boys...so there are still plenty of years of destruction ahead of me...and I don't think we'll be trying to sell our house any time soon or anything so I might just let the floors stay trashed a while longer.
Anonymous
Post 02/03/2012 21:13     Subject: Re:If you could only afford one or the other, would you choose a nice vacation, or fix up the house?
Can you go camping?
Anonymous
Post 02/03/2012 21:10     Subject: Re:If you could only afford one or the other, would you choose a nice vacation, or fix up the house?
I feel like wood floors for two rooms materials only should be less than 4k, just FYI.
Anonymous
Post 02/03/2012 20:24     Subject: If you could only afford one or the other, would you choose a nice vacation, or fix up the house?
Go to Disney but stay offsite in a house or condo. Goggle Windsor hills. There are a ton of houses that rent by the week there.

You might have enough money to stay at windsor and do the one room that bothers you the most. Pick a floor or color that is readily avail so you can do the other next year the same.
Anonymous
Post 02/03/2012 19:45     Subject: If you could only afford one or the other, would you choose a nice vacation, or fix up the house?
Vacation, memories last forever!
Anonymous
Post 02/03/2012 19:37     Subject: If you could only afford one or the other, would you choose a nice vacation, or fix up the house?
disney isn't worth 4k
better you go to universal/busch gardens
Anonymous
Post 02/03/2012 19:20     Subject: Re:If you could only afford one or the other, would you choose a nice vacation, or fix up the house?
We're finally in a position from which we can do both, but for years we weren't -- and we chose the vacations. I don't regret it one bit. For us, home remodeling/rebuilding/renovating takes a LOT of patience that I don't have in store, but it's a lot easier to bear downtrodden rooms or aging furniture when you can take mental "memory trips" to awesome family times.

I honestly wouldn't try to economize Disney too much: go and love it so that the memories really are about all that you did rather than what you couldn't do. We took that approach and I don't regret it for one second.

Good luck and live the magic!
Anonymous
Post 02/03/2012 19:11     Subject: Re:If you could only afford one or the other, would you choose a nice vacation, or fix up the house?
Anonymous wrote:My husband did two large rooms of hardwood (wide plank maple) and the materials were less than $2000 (really shop around). I'd try to do both!


Ditto or house and staycation.