which matter more to you?

what kind of person are you? are you a "vacations create memories are so worth the money" person or are you more of "i'd rather spend the money on items i need/want and forget the vacation"

i'm the latter... i prefer to have things which last rather than a vacation which ends in a week or two weeks.

i guess part of my reasoning is because i live where people go to vacation LOL so i live on vacation. 7 minutes from the beach. 2 hours max from the ocean. 45 minutes to ski resorts.

amazing views, waterfalls, hiking and drives...

but i much prefer to put my money into a new couch over a weekend away.

yeah, i'd rather buy things that last too. but, all my family is so far away so i usually end up on a plane about once a year! lol. but the last time my mom paid so it doesn't count right? i have yet to go on a vacation that wasn't a family visit!

idf rather buy snakes tht go on HOLIDAY :), but i would like to go to a cold place to a while. temps over 60C is not pleasent. :(.... but i live 30 mins from beach and ocean. 37min for a water park, and 1 hour fron a theme park.... *not tht they are good*

I think im the oposite of you guys, I love to get away on vacations and just relax hard to fully relax at home with work and all. But hey if you have money you can do both right?

My vacation started this week. It means house repairs will get done, cleaning, etc.. I will throw in a dog show and some horseback riding. I spend my money on bills and animals. I never go away for any reason for more than 2 or 3 days. Usually family reasons. Don't like using pet sitters.

Part of me is the latter, but I'm starting to realize how much I'm missing out on by feeling that way. I need to see and experience more of the world.

I enjoy traveling so from me the trip and the vacation is worth far more than a material item. :D

But thats just me :D

To me, going on vaca is just priceless. Material things just don't mean much to me anymore, after losing everything twice over. Now, when a cat destroys a couch by using it as a scratching post, I just shrug my shoulders. The couch is not what matters to me, it could be gone tomorrow and that's ok.

Right now we REALLY need new carpet in the living room. It's been through Marc's toddler years, so it's in horrible shape. All the carpet cleanings in the world won't fix this carpet, hahah. But oh well, it will have to wait until after our trip to Florida, because taking the kids there and meeting everyone, seeing new things, and playing in the sand is just way more important to me right now than what anyone thinks of my kool-aid stained rug.

Even my most prized possession, my wedding ring, could be replaced. I love my ring because it is SO pretty and has a really great diamond, but that's really all it is. If it got stolen, I would buy another one and love it as well. My marriage would still be as wonderful with no shiny bauble to represent it :D

I like getting away with the family... I do like new things that last but usually cant afford them..lol...Same with vacations cant usually afford them but when we do go the memorys are totally worth it..The last one we took was in august of 04 with my mom and dad, which happened to be my moms last do to her battle with cancer... That is one I will always rememeber and so will my kids.. I like making the memorys even if we cant go on vacations that offten..

Vacation is something that, in my opinion, is a waste of money usually. I live in a place where it feels like I am on vacation anyway, like you Aleesh :) Now, here's the thing that bugs me. I work in collections, and people have to pay monthly on their bills where I come from. Now, I just loooove it when I call one of my debtors with a balance over, say, 10,000.00 on their credit card and hear that they are "on vacation" for a week, sometimes even a month or more!! And they can't pay because they had to go to Maui for two weeks.. sigh..
I can definately see why such people are in their dire financial straits, and do not sympathize with them one bit. Let's spend 3-4K on a vacation when we have 6 debts in collections and our house is getting foreclosed on!! Woo-hoo.. I am not talking about good-managed debt that's in good standing; most people have it, and if you are making your monthly payments and working had, go on vacation as long as you want I guess. But I know where my financial priorities lie.
We will go away for a week.. to Mark's mom's house. We will spend the money we usually spend weekly on our commutes, on gas and food and fun there. I have a paid vacation and will not fall behind financially at all. Mark is self employed but has people who will cover his job for that week. So I am fully prepared to go on vacation.. lavish spending when debts are owed is piontless.

I have always been I like to buy things but now that is changing. I am getting restless and want to go out and explore the world. Which is why I am saving up money to go on one of those volunteer vacations where you go to another country and do something to help science the environment or humanity. I was thinking of doing one of the ones that involves working with scientists studying dolphins here is a link volunteer animal protection vacations its cost 2 to 3k for whta I want to do but I think it would be a great experience.
They have many things you can do in varying degrees of cost. I think some of it if not all is tax deductible as well. good way to spend money if you know you will owe the govt come tax time.

I am totally the vacations are unneccessary type of guy. I feel that my kids will enjoy it, but forget about it in a few weeks anyway. I would much rather spend my hard earned money on tangible items for the house, or even for toys and things for the kids. BUT, my wife is a vacation freak and feels that we should go each year on at least 1 family vacation.....so needless to say, We go every year on a family vacation. :D

I guess I sort of fall in between the lines on this one. I would rather save money when I need to for things that we want/need. However I think to many of us the "need to get away" is pretty great. For a high stress, monotonous, demanding, etc job taking a vacation or a break is very beneficial to physical and mental health. We go camping once a year for 3-4 days but its not all that far from home. I can tell you it helps me to push things out of my head those few days and just spend time with wife enjoying nature or other fun things we wouldn't normally do. This year we are debating camping or not because we are saving money with the hopes of buying a new home even though we already know we can get approved for a higher price range than we specified.

Here's something kinda funny about the couch comment...Last year we didn't even have a couch but a crappy futon thing. We knew we couldn't afford a nice new couch at the time when we looked at some. While we where camping a used couch in a driveway jumped out at us! We ended buying a nice lazy boy couch with fold out ends for $100 LOL We had to keep it at our site for the last night so I can imagine what people thought but we couldn't have been happier to find it.

Here's something to think about: Do people remember the "things" they had in life or the events in their life more? There are people of both sorts, and for us a house is a pretty "thing" which obviously would be a wonderful "event" with many more to come from it. If skipping one year of camping meant we could magically get our current home sold I would gladly skip it. But I know in reality it won't so I'm more inclined to get my wife and I away from work for a few days.

i hear you on the "do people remember the things they had in life or the events in their life more" question.

for me, i'd rather have a nice reliable car, a couple of guitars for my kids, all the pets they want, a gorgeous yard filled to the brim with plants making it a tropical oasis for us on a daily basis... that's the sort of 'things' i'm personally referring to. the things which make it so we don't have to 'get away from it all to keep sane' instead, we simply step into the backyard and feel like we are 'away from it all'

or get on our new comfy lazy boy couch and watch a movie with the kids...

the kids having the awesome skateboard/bike/guitar/video game systems/sports equipment/ etc means more to me than a weeks vacation and doing without those things on a daily basis. i'd rather make TODAY amazing instead of simply one week a year amazing.

im a vacation person. just got back from hawaii in march ( where i asked my girlfriend to marry me and she already set the date of sept 1st 2007) we were in ohio in January and we are going to Vegas in November for her 21st for a week...but i still like to buy things

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Originally Posted by recycling goddess

i hear you on the "do people remember the things they had in life or the events in their life more" question.

for me, i'd rather have a nice reliable car, a couple of guitars for my kids, all the pets they want, a gorgeous yard filled to the brim with plants making it a tropical oasis for us on a daily basis... that's the sort of 'things' i'm personally referring to. the things which make it so we don't have to 'get away from it all to keep sane' instead, we simply step into the backyard and feel like we are 'away from it all'

or get on our new comfy lazy boy couch and watch a movie with the kids...

the kids having the awesome skateboard/bike/guitar/video game systems/sports equipment/ etc means more to me than a weeks vacation and doing without those things on a daily basis. i'd rather make TODAY amazing instead of simply one week a year amazing.

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This makes alot sense to me. Being able to come home where everything is "just right" for yourself and family to me is definately worth more than a few days away each year. If we could afford to take trips like the guy who posted above (joking sarcasm) that might be different. I would jump at the chance to take a once in a lifetime trip to the Galapagos(sp) or something like that.