“Am I a bad mom if we can’t do a $7k Disney trip?”

You guys like getting played by your kids?

I think it's guilt. Me and their dad divorced, so I feel like maybe I put them in, you know, a bad situation when they're with me. I don't want them to feel sad or I don't want them to feel hurt, or I don't want them to, you know, negative feelings when they're around Mom.

Regardless of what we set down, I'm going to be a complete pushover for my family, especially my wife. If she says, well, I want to do this, I'm not going to put my foot down and say, no, we're not.

You're a pushover for your wife. Your wife's a pushover for your kids. Who runs that house?

I mean, when it comes to running the house, it's me. When it comes to, like, rules and chores and things like that.

How about if they say, I want to go to Disneyland, like five of us, I want to go to Disneyland. How about that?

If they ask me. Dream on. Yeah, good luck.

No, and then they ask mom, and then what does mom say?

Let's plan a trip to Disneyland.

Let's go to Disney.

Meet Christine and David. Christine is 32. She's a business operations manager. David is 38. He's in the military. He's actually about to retire now. They have five children together in a blended family, and they're here today because they have serious spending issues. It all starts with them describing a recent trip to Disneyland. But what you're going to hear in our conversation today are skills around setting boundaries, around working as a team, and even parenting. Have you ever wondered how much money other people make or how much they spend on groceries or vacations? Well, for the last month, I have been getting hundreds of real spending plans from readers all over the world, all different income levels, all different ages. And each week in my newsletter, I select one to critique. I'll show you how much they make, how much they spend, how much they save and invest, all of their real numbers, plus what I would do if I were in their situation. If you've ever wanted a peek into what real people are spending, make sure you're signed up for free@iwt.com podcastnewsletter. I'll show you a new spending plan every Saturday@iwt.com podcastnewsletter. What do you do when you're in debt? You can't say no to your kids, and one of you is about to retire. Let's listen into today's conversation with Christine and David.

Disneyland in October. I spend my money on my kids, my wife, and my family. And that's just how it works when it comes to, like, eating and, you know, things like that. That where we go to Disneyland and it's $40 for a plate, and I'm looking at it like it's a bag of chips and a sandwich, guys. Like, we could have saved literally hundreds. We had five kids with us that we were paying for hundreds of dollars on the three days that we were there. Not to include the drive there and then the drive back.

You went to Disneyland for three days? Yes, sir. Okay, if you had to underline it in a sentence or two, what is your issue with the Disneyland trip? Is it that you spend too much on sandwiches or is there something bigger?

We did not identify a budget. It was just kind of a free for all. And even I. I had requested, like, let's look at 100 bucks a day. What are you, Just for fast math, 100 bucks a day. And it was more like 250 a day. And I'm like, what is going on here?

Could you afford, quote, 250 a day?

Absolutely. Yeah.

That.

That's. But it's, you know what I like to spend my money on.

Okay, well, you did say you like to spend your money on your wife and your kids, so you're not wrong.

I think it was poor planning. Honestly, the whole trip was a fiasco to begin with. So we rented out a 15 passenger van. I'll set up the scene. My mom, my stepfather, our four kids, my daughter's friend, my husband and I were all traveling. We rented this van, we started to go, and all of a sudden, in the middle of the freeway, the van broke down.

Oh, no.

Yes. This is very scary here. We are panicking, the kids are upset. We had just started our journey to Disneyland, and that was the first thing for me was, hey, let's just rent another vehicle from budget. It's gonna be easier. We'll take off, we'll go.

Okay. How much did that cost?

That was about $2,000.

Two thousand for the rental. How much had the Turkey Turo, would that have been.

That was only like $500.

Okay. I assume you didn't have to pay for the Turo, right?

No, no, no, we didn't have to.

All right, so you spend an extra 1500 bucks, which is a lot on this rental. Okay, so you're already starting off kind of way over budget. What happened then?

So it's like, okay, well, let's go get some snacks for Disneyland tomorrow. And we Went to a Walgreens, I believe was the only thing open at the time that was nearby. Like, they had very limited snacks. At this Walgreens that we went to, I was very surprised. I thought there would have been a lot more options. So I grabbed as many snacks as I thought would last us the couple of days at the park. Come to find out, with five kids in a park all day, those snacks were pretty much gone the first day. And so after that it was like, well, you know, we. We don't have any more snacks, so let's just buy them food from around the park and, you know, limit to a point where it's like we're not gonna buy a hot dog and an ice cream and a popcorn and this and this and that for each one, it's like we're gonna eat one meal and then we'll find some snacks in between.

Okay. Where'd you stay at Disneyland?

Our suite had two rooms. My daughter and her friends slept out in the living room. Pull out bed, and then there was a bunk bed where our three boys, 12, 14, and 4, all slept on the bunk bed.

It's a perfect Disney hotel. I love it. Okay, okay, so, and then how about the tickets? How much was all that?

So altogether the tickets came out to about 1500.

1500, okay, for the tickets, 1500 for the van, that's 3000, about 500. Probably more like 700 for the hotel with taxes and all that stuff, we're talking about 3700. What else? How much did it all end up.

Being for the kids mostly? I want to say maybe 300 a day for food and drinks, maybe anything that. And everything that we were paying for for all of us a day, that's.

300 a day total. So talking about like 5,000 bucks for the trip, probably. There's other stuff you're not including here. So 6,000. Would that be fair? Six to 7,000?

Yes.

All right. What do you think, David?

Sounds about right.

Okay. Is this normal? What did you think it was going to cost before you went?

We were, we were out of whack on the. The coordination and communication. To begin with, the whole purpose for the trip was my daughter was turning 16. So that was. It was on her birthday. We, you know, we were there for the weekend. It just so happened to be their spring or their fall break. My intention was to take my daughter, her friend, and my youngest, being that her two boys, who at the time that we planned this, lived in Tucson, were not going to be on fall break. But then that Switched because last minute her oldest came to live with us and then her youngest basically just took the time off and joined in. So it turned in from going with five of us to going with seven of us.

But did you have a number in mind before you went? Sounds like you didn't.

3,500 bucks. That was my idea.

Okay. What about you, Christine? Did you have a number in mind?

It probably would have been close to 5,000, but honestly I don't. That's one of my faults is I don't put numbers on things before I go or spend things.

How come David's shaking your head? David? Why?

She, I, I tried. That was an initial conversation. I was like, we need to talk about how much we're going to spend. And she's like, okay, if you want to. Basically, like, we can, but not going to stick to it.

How do you know you can afford it?

Based on what I know is in my account and what I know is in like our shared accounts. I know there's enough money in there to put, to pay for that.

Okay, and what about if you had to buy something like a car? You don't have that much money in your checking account. How do you know if you can afford that?

So I look at our bills, look our income and outgoing. I use a spreadsheet. I have it very detailed as to everything that comes in and everything that bills wise, we need to pay. So there's always going to be enough and then some in that account to pay our bills. And then I know how much after that David and I both have in our accounts. Approximately.

Very nice. All right, so you go to Disneyland. Unfortunately, the van thing happened fine. It was unplanned. You come back. Did you talk about the spending at any point?

I told her she spent too much.

Consider the following. They had no clear communication about the trip. He had one vision, she had another. There was no real conversation about the financial part of it. Then unintended things happen, like the van breaking down. Now, that can't be predicted, but it can be planned for. Finally, speaking of planning, there was poor planning. The kids ran out of food, meaning that they had to spend a lot of money at the park. As you can see, bad outcomes are most commonly a result of several layers of, of poor communication and decisions. This is why I use techniques like the five whys to really get at the root of what's going on. It's not about the pretzel at Disneyland. It's much deeper than that. Don't go anywhere. We'll be Right back. Now back to the show. Incidentally, doesn't this story read like so many typical American vacations? Mom is excited, dad is grumpy about the budget, and somehow it all kind of works out. Except if you actually see beneath the surface, you realize that it didn't work out. And this trip is just a symptom of how both of them do not have a shared vision around money.

And I was like, yeah, it's definitely more than you probably would have wanted. But don't worry, you know, it's covered.

Is it?

I will, like, use our credit cards, right? We have our credit cards. They have high spending limits on it. We've always had the idea that if we put it on a credit card, we're going to pay it off as soon as possible. And we've pretty much stuck to our guns on that. There's been some times where, you know, we've. We've gotten to places where we had to put it off a little bit, but we're really good about paying off our credit cards. For me, it was like, it's all covered. And within. I told him, within the next month, it'll be paid off. And it was okay.

I respect that. You have a vision. You have a point of view on your credit cards. I'm a little nervous how you said, we pretty much stick to our guns.

Our mindset is that we have to have no credit card debt. Like, we should not be using it. David's very much so, like, let's save. What are we going to do? Let's save and then do it where I'm like, okay, well, we have the credit card. Let's do it, and then we'll pay it off.

Well, are you going to pay it off that month?

Not always. I don't. I. And that's. I don't know. That's why I'm struggling, because I don't know if that is my upbringing or it was like, it's fine. Just if we need to put it on a credit card, we'll put it on the credit card and pay it off later.

Come on. You know. You know, you've heard a million people talk about pay off your credit cards every month. This is not new. You don't need me to be. You don't need me to be here telling you that. You know that, right?

Right.

Why are you BSing me right now?

Because I don't want to be the problem.

Can you reconcile that with what you just told me about Disneyland?

Like, I'm building on my business and gaining More money. And seeing that I have a lot more money than we've had in the past, so those things are easier to get paid off of. But it just feels like we make more money, but it's always going out and we don't really know.

It's not a feeling. It is reality. You make more money and you spend more money. That's not a feeling. Do we agree?

Yes.

It's math. So can you connect what you just said to the Disneyland story you told me about?

Well, for me is that I'm not budgeting. I'm just saying, well, we have all this credit, credit card. We can just use that. And I'm not focusing on actually what's coming in when it comes to spending, making those or budgeting or doing things like that. I'm like, we can just spend it.

Okay.

Because I'm okay using credit cards. I'm okay spending out. But I just. I guess being okay that when we get to a point when David is retired and we don't have that money, making sure that it's. There is credit card debt. Okay. You know, being able to.

No, You said, I'm okay using credit cards. You have credit card debt right now, right?

Yes. Yes, we do. Yes, we do.

So you're in credit card debt right now, and, David, you're going to retire pretty soon, like in about two months, Correct?

Correct.

All right, so you're definitely going to have credit card debt then. So what are we talking about here? We know exactly what's happening today, and we know exactly what's going to happen tomorrow. What's the question?

I think I'm. There's things that I like to buy. There's things that like to keep. One of the things. My biggest thing, and we. We argue about this all the time, is to ensure, like, our kids are happy. Right. That's probably a big, huge thing. When it came to the Disneyland fiasco is.

Why is it called a fiasco? I thought it was totally fine. Besides the van thing, why do you call it a fiasco?

Just because we did go back and forth a lot about taking all of the kids. It was a sweet 16 trip. My thought was that we were taking everybody. His thought was, it's just my daughter and her friend. So when I brought up, okay, well, we can't leave the other kids out. Like, that's not fair. He's like, why? Why does that matter?

I have a question. So I understand that as parents, you don't want to leave kids out. You want to bring them along, make everybody Feel welcome. I totally get that. But putting that aside, financially speaking, did that affect your decision as to whether to bring two kids or five kids?

No, to me, I didn't even think about those numbers because I figured, yeah, you know what? We'll. We'll get it paid off. It's going to be fine, Right?

We'll figure it out. Okay. And David did two versus five kids. Was there a financial component to that for you?

1,000%, yes. I literally broke it down saying, like, her two boys are. One of them is 14, one of them is 12. They're both the same size. They're monsters when it comes to eating. We can't go to McDonald's anymore and just grab a Happy Meal and everybody's happy.

It's.

That literally is eaten as much, if not more than me. Not to mention the tickets, also the snacks, the food, all that stuff. And I said, just along with the food, I mean, we're probably looking at another five or six hundred dollars for the four days.

You said that to her and Christine, how did you reply to that?

I was just thinking of feelings. I was thinking, had we left the kids out, they're going to be upset. And I think that's a huge thing for me. I always think about their feelings, and David's quite the opposite.

What do you think about David?

So I didn't have the best upbringing. You know, we had issues. And I tell her all the time, I'm like, these kids, I feel like I'm a very good dad. And I feel like she's an amazing mother. We give them the world for them to skip a Disneyland trip, which, mind you, we go almost every year, is like, so you'll go next year, or we'll take you on your birthday to go, you know, do something else with just you. We have the finances for that. That's not a problem. And I have no issues telling my daughter, hey, dude, we took you to Disneyland. I'm taking this kid to Universal. We'll see you later.

I hear that, Christine. There's a lot of feelings. Of course you want to bring kids together. You don't want anybody to feel left out. I totally get that. And David, I hear that two additional kids, or two or three, especially at that age, they're going to eat a lot, they're going to take up extra hotel room, you're going to need a bigger vehicle. I totally get that as well. What I don't hear is the two of you breaking it down in a way that takes the antagonism away and Says, hey, we're a team and let's look at our plan because we're not fighting each other. Christine, you're a great mom. Christine says, david, you're a great dad. We all know that. But we gotta have some vision, some plan that we work through together.

Yes. I think we see we have our own separate plans and our own separate ideas, and then we kind of just go along that path and not really put them together. When it comes to things like planning a trip and how much money we're gonna spend and who's coming and all that, it's always just, oh, well, I thought it was gonna be like this. And he thought it was going to be like that.

The planning thing is how to say it. It is, it is good in theory. I always try to have a plan. I always try to, you know, say, we need to do this, this is that. And regardless of what we set down, I'm going to be a complete pushover for my family, especially my wife. If she says, well, I want to do this, I, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna put my foot down and say no. Like, we're not.

You're a pushover for your wife. Your wife's a pushover for your kids. Who runs that house?

I mean, when it comes to running the house, it's, it's me. When it comes to, like, rules and, and chores and things like that, no, absolutely, I'm. Nobody's gonna push me around when it comes to that kind of stuff. You don't wash dishes. I tell you wash dishes, you're gonna wash dishes.

Okay, how about if they say, I want to go to Disneyland, like five of us, I want to go to Disneyland. How about that?

Most likely, if they ask me, I. Dream on. Yeah, good luck.

No, and then they ask mom, and then what does mom say?

Let's plan a trip to Disneyland.

Let's go to Disney.

All right, so you guys like getting played by your kids?

I don't want it to make it sound like our kids just run all over us and they can do whatever they want. But when it comes to, for example, my daughter's a sophomore right now. She's like, hey, for my graduation, can we go to Hawaii? And I'm like, for your graduation, I got a backyard barbecue. And you're asking for a. I can't even tell you how many thousand dollar trip it would cost us to go to Hawaii. And, and also, can we bring my friend? And I'm like, wait, hold on.

That's. That's actually A really interesting example. So when she asked that, what exactly did you say to her?

My initial response was, you're tripping. That was verbatim.

Okay, and then what did she say then? Did she say, come on, dad?

No. She was basically like, why? It's like two years away. I'm sure we could say for that. We, as in like, she helps with.

And then what did you say at that point?

That's when I was like, okay, a two year. Two year away trip. We. We could definitely plan for that.

I feel like I'm in a horror movie right now, and I just. It's all clear. And then I'm turning the corner. I just saw a freaking zombie walking towards me. Like, does anybody else see what I just saw? Yeah, she. All she had to do was be like, come on, dad. And you were like, sounds good. We'll save for it. No problem. I think I'm starting to understand what's going on. Christine, you want to add anything?

No, I mean, that's. That's pretty much what it is. It's the convincing. If you could get him a good. He's very. Logic. Logical. Right? So if you can convince him logically and the kids can convince him logically of something, they're like, oh, okay, well, maybe we can do that. We'll discuss it sometimes. We'll discuss it sometimes. I'll just take the kids and we'll do whatever it was.

Okay?