Resolved Question: How to deal with in laws vacation pressures?

02/02/12

My husbands Aunts and Uncles are all pretty wealthy, and so they’re planning an expensive luxury vacation this summer. His parents are not wealthy, but they’re planning on going on this vacation. We are not wealthy either, and while we can technically afford to go - we’re not because it’s not the wisest way to spend our extra money at this time in our lives. We’d rather pay off debts and invest it into our home and things that are more practical for us. We explained that to my husbands Aunts & Uncles, and they were very understanding, but now his parents are trying to pay for our vacation. They probably shouldn’t be going themselves, but that’s their own business. My husband feels extremely pressured to go because they “really want us to be a part of their memories”. I feel like it is inappropriate to let his parents pay for our share, given that we do have the money, and they are not wealthy.

We have been saving our pennies for home repairs, we even make our own laundry soap so that we can save every penny possible - and now that we’ve saved up enough, I can’t fathom blowing it on an expensive vacation, or even a small fraction of this expensive vacation (because even the gas to drive there costs more then the camping trip that we budgeted as our vacation this summer).

My husband is caught in the middle, and I don’t know what to do. His parents won’t let up, and I don’t know what to tell him. He doesn’t know what to do. Help?
We are inviting them on our camping trip, my husband is feeling like that’s not good enough.

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