To think we CAN live on the mortgage

Interesting you’re in London too. I think that size monthly mortgage in London probably isn’t that unusual given the prices of family
homes, but probably sounds absolutely astronomical to anyone outside of London

‘Public sector and secure’ - unless you’re a doctor I wouldn’t bank on it, eg if Reform got in. Plus public sector jobs more likely to burn out (eg head teacher).

On paper it sounds absolutely fine. But one of the benefits of having two good salaries should be not having to worry if one of you loses your job or is facing physical or mental burn out and needs to leave their job.

Have you gone back to work yet after maternity leave? Also nursery at £1k in outer London is low, unless you have family help (don’t count on it if you do) or are part time.

High savings removes some of the worry and if you are still young you can presumably extend your mortgage if rates go up (assuming you aren’t taking it to 67/70 already!).

I’d strongly suggest taking out income insurance if you don’t have it already. If the worst case scenario happens and you lose your jobs, getting work easily to cover that mortgage would be challenging.
We earn slightly more than you guys but our mortgage is less than half - I wouldn’t dream of not being insured.

Sounds doable to me.

That’s nice dear.

OP I voted YABU because in no way can anyone say if you can afford this or not as you have missed any cost of living…these may not all apply but you get the picture….

Cars
Car insurance
Council Tax
Pensions
Home Insurance
Electric
Gas
Water
Travel
Holidays
Groceries
TV Licenses
Streaming subscriptions
Phones
Phone contract
Broadband
Gym
Pets
Lunch at work
Birthdays
Christmas
Going out
Beauty - hair cuts, nails, makeup etc
New clothes
etc etc

Make a spreadsheet and work it out.

We have a take home of £14k pcm.

This is our breakdown pcm:

Mortgage: £2,500
Bills (including 2 x nursery): £4500
DH car monthly payments: £500
Petrol: £600
Train fare: £500
Hobbies for kids: £300
Days out for kids: £250
Sofas/peloton (finance): £500
cleaner: £250
gardener: £250
Car insurances/home: £200
phones: £100
Dentist plan: £45
Clothes/takeaways/meals out/birthdays/christmas/extra treats/amazon/holidays/beauty treatments/lunch at work/miscellaneous: £1k
Savings: £2.5k

If you’ve worked it all out, it should be possible to do - especially with one DC.

Damn, that sounds tough. Only fans? bit extra income.

Exactly this - in the longer term, will you be paying school fees, private health insurance etc…the money dwindles quickly if so.

Factor in how much you’ve spent on annual costs over the last year (MOT, car service, home insurance, holidays, gym/golf memberships that kind of thing) and average out over the year - you need to be able to put that aside per month. I don’t know how big or old your dream house is but we moved from a small 4 bed modern house to a large 4 bed older house and the utility bills went up a lot! In the south, spend £350/month gas & electric, £350 council tax, £80 water (though we do a lot of laundry as one adult daughter is battling OCD and changes clothes a lot).

think about if you will have any more children, also nursery fees will fall away but then there might be clubs which can start cheap but end up costing loads if they get good at sport/dance/cheerleading/whatever!

we pushed ourselves a few years back to get our dream house and I love it, we were very lucky and the first couple of years were hard but things are getting easier. There are things that could do with being done (wonky block paving on drive and patio) but they aren’t essential so we will save for them.

For the house of a lifetime, I'd be inclined to say go for it (I'm a sucker for the dream home).

BUT be very cautious with interest rises, so live frugally, keep hold of those savings, you sound sensible anyway, and I always think financially responsible people are going to take these things seriously.

I would give private school consideration though, are the state schools in the area any good? If not, I'd be looking at private.

Once you've done a full spreadsheet of expenditure for the new house, also see if you'll still be able to contribute to the savings pot. Not being able to save anything per month would make me more cautious, as that essentially means you'll not be able to afford any interest rate increases. Also bear in mind when your child is in school, all of the hobbies and interests that cost a fortune, dance classes, music lessons, sports etc.

Suppose it makes me think I'm being too cautious. My net income is about £7000 and my mortgage is £850. But once I add on all the other fixed bills it's £1600. Our buildings insurance is over £200 as it's a listed property. I'm sure you'll be fine given new house and London but it would make me anxious.

@JaneEyre40our bills are basically another £650

This is peak Mumsnet surely

Yes, DD is in outer London too. Council tax here is higher than Wandsworth and nurseries are expensive and rise regularly.

Based on your updates I would go for it.

You can always sell photos of your feet if you find you have more month left than salary.

Based on this, yes I would be comfortable with it. How I like to look at it is, if one person lost their job, how much pressure does that put us under? If the other person could take a minimum wage job doing absolutely anything and make the important ends meet, then it’s a yes.

If your split was £9000 one person and £1500 another I would say absolutely not, because if the high earner lost their job and couldn’t very quickly find another, you’d be totally screwed. This doesn’t apply here, so I would go for it.