Close to 90 percent of timeshare owners who are surveyed say they are happy with their purchase, according to various studies that the timeshare industry promotes. It is safe to say that within that 90 percent — thousands upon thousands of people — there are people who are older, people who are younger, people who like to travel abroad, people who like to stay closer to home, people who like to visit new places each year, people who like to return to the same resort annually, and pretty much every combination in between.

So how do you know if you might fit in among those ideal timeshare owners, the people who say they are happy with their unit purchases? Start by taking a look at this list and seeing whether any of these statements describes you:

• You take a vacation for at least one full week every year.

• You spend a fair amount of your vacation budget on lodging.

• You would prefer to have larger vacation accommodations, such as a full kitchen, a living room, and additional bedrooms.

• You do not want to do year-round maintenance on a vacation house with your own two hands.

• You want to return to the same place year after year.

• You are willing to be flexible in changing your vacation resort, perhaps selecting two or three different resorts and visiting the one you are able to get an exchange for during a given year.

• You are willing to visit only resorts in your timeshare exchange company network for the length of your ownership — or trade your unit's value for other things that your ownership entitles you to, such as cruise-ship vacations and car rental discounts.

• You are willing to make a standard monthly payment for the next seven or ten years toward your vacation lodging, as opposed to saving money at your leisure and spending different amounts on your vacation lodging each year.

The odds are, if you are like most people, you do not see yourself in every single one of these statements. But if you see yourself in a fair number of them, timeshare unit ownership might be a good idea for you.

Ideal timeshare owners can be thirty years old or ninety years old. They can be golfers or skiers or sunbathers, and they can want to travel close to home or around the globe. The important thing to remember is that it is not whether you want to vacation that makes you an ideal timeshare owner. It is how you want to vacation that plays a much greater role — and how you want to pay for the vacations that you will be buying, timeshare or not, for the next decade or more.