Paying For a Disney Vacation Club Membership

I am so excited to be a part of the Disney Vacation Club, my kids don't really understand what all the fuss is about, they just know they get to go to Disney often and well, CJ is not feeling it one way or another - but he's definitely supportive. I am so happy to be able to call such a magical place 'home'

All this talk and excitement surrounding us becoming Disney Vacation Club members sometimes over shadows the reality - how do we pay for this? There is a huge debate over buying outright vs financing. As I stated in a post title 'Why We Chose Bay Lake Tower'

"Seems most people feel since this is a luxury purchase one shouldn't buy unless they have the money. Well, could we save about $35,000 (just a ball park figure based on price of 320 points before incentives) - sure we could but WHY would I want to spend my entire savings in one shot? We financed the loan for 10 years. We plan on paying it off by or before the 3 year mark since there is no early payoff penalty. This way, we still have our savings in case we need them and we have a VERY affordable payment every month with the option to pay more on principle whenever we want. I don't know, people take car loans all the time, really, what's the difference?"

We are financing. With my excellent credit we got the 'preferred financing' which is 10.75% - high? Not for 'timeshare' type property. The maintenance fees are $1,175/year - I chose to pay that annually. I will pay that with my Disney VISA card to get the Disney points/dollars, then just pay the bill when its due, rather than have $98 added on to my monthly payments.

Speaking of monthly payments, just what is mine? Well, we decided to finance for 10 years with the full intention of paying this off in 3 years or less as there is no early payoff penalty. My monthly payment for 50 years of deluxe vacation accommodations is: $383.06

Once we pay off this loan we will no longer have to worry about paying for accommodations for not only Disney vacations but many types of vacation destinations AROUND THE WORLD! Yes, this means that if CJ and I want to take the kids on a vacation to somewhere other than Disney, we can and we won't have to worry about paying for accommodations! There are so many benefits to becoming a Disney Vacation Club member!