Did Inflation Ruin Our Dream Vacation?

Brought to you by CHM, a budget-friendly faith-based alternative to health insurance. chministries.org slash budget. My husband and I have been dreaming about taking ourselves to Hawaii and now we have three kids so we would love a family vacation to Hawaii. We've wanted this for about 12 years now and started saving. On the bad side of things we started saving only $100 a month for almost the last 12 years. Where we failed is thinking that would get us somewhere in the ballpark of $10,000 to maybe $15,000 and that would be enough to take five people to Hawaii for a week or two. We've failed to think for inflation. No, you failed to save enough money. Inflation didn't have anything to do with it. You just weren't saving enough money. So you truly were dreaming. You weren't working a plan. So the question then is now we only have $14,000 and every time we try to run the flights. What's your household income? $70,000 between the two of us. So what does it need to be or how much do you need to spend on this vacation for you to get to go actually go not just pretend 15 to 20. You've got 14. Yep, exactly. So put some stuff on Facebook marketplace and buy the tickets. That's the question is do we just say, you know what, let's take it. We've always dreamed of this. Let's do it. Let's find the money. Let's pull it out because we're not putting anything on debt. So let's just work harder. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Oh, you mean you're not going to borrow the money for the vacation? Yes. How long is the trip? How many days or nights? We right now we want to go seven nights. Okay. I was just wondering what the levers we can pull because if you go six nights, well, all of a sudden you can afford it. So have you done the research to actually see who has the best price? I've been researching for two years consistently thinking we had enough for two years and we just keep pushing it off. And so my thought is let's push it off another year or let's just go to a lesser quality hotel. Everyone's tired of hearing about this trip. When you're in the baby steps, every expense deserves a second look and healthcare is one of the biggest. That's why I recommend Christian Healthcare Ministries. CHM is a health cost sharing ministry and their programs start at just $115 a month. A lot of families find CHM gives them more room in the budget. And it's why members say they're better with CHM. Right now, new members can get a 50% credit towards their first month. Go to chministries.org slash budget and use promo code Ramsey. Everyone's tired of hearing about this trip. I think you just need to go ahead and go. You're tired. We can't wait another year. I mean, I just, so this is just for fun, Julie. I like Costco travel. I jumped on there, found a Maui package, five travelers, two rooms, 11 grand, including flights from Greenville. So I'm just saying. He did that while we were talking, Julie. That's 60 seconds of research. The goal is spring break only because children, summer sports. And so we're just thinking through all the options. Did you not hear what he just said? Yes. And he went on Costco.com and booked a trip while you were talking. This is for August 4th. We're talking like a month from now and it's a week long trip. So I'm just saying we need to get some options here and not kick the can down the road because the kids are free this summer. Here's the problem you're going to have overall. You need to go on the trip and you need to pay cash for it. And you need to figure out a way to do it between now and spring break and stack up whatever cash between now and then to add to this. So you get to do close to the trip as you want to go. But the problem is, is you have put too much psychological bull crap on this trip. You have, your expectations are so stinking high. I don't care where you stay. You're going to be disappointed because you've been dreaming of this for 12 years. And I, and I've been researching not well, but you've been researching George beat you in 30 seconds. I might go. I'm excited about George about the book, a trip right now, Whitney, here comes George. We're going to Hawaii. But yeah, you know, I, I seriously think you're going to be, you've got this thing built up to being some kind of Nirvana. It's nice. I've been to Hawaii a couple of times. I'm not mad about Hawaii, but it's not actually my favorite place to go. Um, if I was going to spend that kind of money, there's probably a different Island I would go to, honestly, but you go, it's going to be nice. You're going to enjoy it. It's y'all to go see diamond head and y'all go see Hanama Bay and, you know, run over to Maui, go see the big Island. If you can, with active volcano, there's some great diving there. If you guys know how to do diving and, uh, I mean, you know, it's a good, it's a good trip. It's a good trip, but not, there is no piece of travel. It's like owning a, an item. As soon as you buy the car, stupid thing breaks. As soon as you buy the house, the hot water heater goes out and all the little shine and all the little gloss on this dream goes away. 90% of the excitement was the fantasy of it happening. Exactly. The anticipation and, and the actual event is going to be a letdown because you've got this thing up so high in your brain. It's going to rain. Someone's going to get sick. The kids are on their phone every afternoon. It rains and they call it a blessing, a Hawaiian blessing. Nice way of saying it's freaking raining again. Okay. Like what are we in Seattle? I mean, it's crazy. It's not like the pictures don't show that on the brochure, the famous website of the hotel, right? It's like, where is this hotel? Not the one I'm staying in, but yeah, but yeah, I want you to go and I want you to have a good time, but let's be more, um, uh, let's have reasonable expectations as to what this trip represents and what this trip is. It'll be a fun thing to do. Your family is saved gradually to be able to do it for a long time. Uh, you finally got into where it looks like you're going to be able to do it, but maybe not the Ritz Carlton version instead of the motel six version or whatever it is. I don't know. Where were you staying on your little Costco flight? You know, they, they only choose quality hotels. So I trust them with my whole heart. Yeah. And you can upgrade, you know, no, really. I mean, I've went, I did two trips. I did Cabo and I did Cancun. I don't tell you the hotel. They will. If I keep going. Oh, you got to buy it. Yeah. I got to keep going. I'm in airfare right now. You know, it's a whole process, Dave. I can't it's hotel. What's in the package. Oh, there we go. Continue to hotel. Here we go. This is very exciting for me. I feel like I'm getting 90% of the thrill of booking the vacation. Costco owes us big time for this freaking endorsement. Yeah. I don't think they even do marketing. Here we go. These are, you know, three and a half star hotel. What is it? It's the, uh, Aston Conpoly Shores. Three and a half stars. Okay. It's not a bad room. Three and a half. That's not good enough for Dave apparently guys, but you know, it's almost a four star. Yeah. Yeah. You're you're right. It's, it's almost a three. You want to lecture, but you can actually choose different hotels, which is nice. You can go down here and you can upgrade that. Here you go. Waldorf Astoria four and a half. That's going to cost you a pretty penny. Oh, that goes up that double the trip. The double the cost of the trip. Oh, okay. Now we're, now we're up to where Sharon Ramsey wants to go. That's the live like no one else package right there. Okay. All right. But Hey, go on the cruise. That's that's less than half the price of Hawaii. There we go. Think about it. Could be three kids. Yeah, that's a lot. I don't know. I don't know. It could be Christian healthcare ministries can save your family hundreds of dollars on healthcare every month. Learn more at ch ministries.org slash budget.