Layaway your vacation home? Give me a break!

Whatever happened to the idea that if you can't afford something, you don't buy it? Didn't living above our means get us into this recessionary mess in the first place? No, I'm not an anti-credit card fanatic; I just believe in paying them off each month. What I don't believe in is layaway. If you can't afford it today, why do you think you can afford it piecemeal or at all?

So this item got my ire: We are now being encouraged to use an installment payment plan to pay for our vacations. The writer in Realty Times says: Retailers are doing it, so why not vacation rental owners? Easy answer dude: Buying a washing machine may be a necessary expense and one you have to make on layaway. But taking a vacation, and I like to get away as much as the next guy, just isn't. Vacations are luxuries and in these times, luxuries are what we give up first.