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Original poster

What’s the maximum mortgage you would pay in these circumstance?

33 replies

Mirrorxx · 14/02/2020 07:17

I’m hoping for some advice from those who have experience of how much a child costs. DH and I are looking for a new house and I’m pregnant with our first. We haven’t found anything we like but I’m unsure about increasing our budget. We will have to pay full time childcare so I don’t want to overstretch but I have no idea how much a child costs apart from childcare.
So with a take home joint salary of around 5200 what’s the maximum you think we could afford for a mortgage each month?
Thank you

OP posts:
Espoleta · 14/02/2020 07:20

For most people it depends on the deposit as that’s a factor. But I probably wouldn’t want more than £1500 in that circumstance.

LajesticVantrashell · 14/02/2020 07:22

Same - £1500. Our take home is slightly less (around £4,700) but DS only has a year of FT childcare left, and we bought a house with a £1,200 a month mortgage.

Standrewsschool · 14/02/2020 07:24

I think I read someone that’s roughly a third of your income, so £1500 would about right.

Why don’t you use Martin Lewis’s budget planner to work out your outgoings?

budget planner

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General money
SoloMummy · 14/02/2020 07:24

Your maximum would be 2500 but you have to make allowances for the really low rates. So negating that I'd say 1500.

Original poster
Mirrorxx · 14/02/2020 07:26

Oh 1500 is much higher than we’ve been looking at. The houses we’ve viewed would mean a mortgage of around 1000 as I am expecting nursery to cost 800-1000 a month

OP posts:
ememem84 · 14/02/2020 07:28

Ours is £1600 for a three bed end terrace.

Mortgage of £480,000.

Nursery costs are £1800 pcm (two kids 2 and 6m three days a week)

Original poster
Mirrorxx · 14/02/2020 07:35

@Standrewsschool I have completed the budget planner With our current costs but I think I’m just struggling to work out how it might change

OP posts:
TalaxuArmiuna · 14/02/2020 07:41

it does also depend on your other lifestyle aspirations. if you don't want to spend on contracts for the latest mobile phones, gym memberships, regular activities like music or dance classes, or regular going out to restaurants etc then you could probably stretch to more like £1800pm

happytoday73 · 14/02/2020 07:49

Ring around some local nurseries to area want to live for ft prices as its expensive everywhere but does vary. I'm out of the loop price wise now so can't advise. Ask for baby prices and then what it works out with free hours.
You obviously save when go to school but with wrap around care and holiday cover it's still quite a cost... Wrap around for us is just over £20 a day per child and holiday covers £25-35 a day each dependent on what doing.
I always set our bills so we can afford to live on one wage..and overpay when both working.. . So wouldn't be happy with a mortgage over £1k as would feel like big proportion of lower wage but that's just me and in many areas won't let you buy much.

Rollercoaster1920 · 14/02/2020 08:09

Plan for a single salary rather than joint. Because life choices! Also 2 children are more expensive than 1.

Original poster
Mirrorxx · 14/02/2020 08:19

@TalaxuArmiuna we still want to be able to go on holiday and save, and I would imagine activities like music lessons once they are older.

OP posts:
YappityYapYap · 14/02/2020 08:42

Our joint take home is around £3,000 a month and our mortgage is £565 a month. That works out about 19% or something.

Bare in the mind the first few years of your mortgage are the most expensive. We took a 2 year deal and paid £737 but when we took a new deal after that one was up, we were paying £595 a month. We're on our 3rd two year deal now and paying £565.

I was working full time when we got our mortgage 5.5 years a go but we've since had DS and I work part time now but our earnings still work out about the same joint as DH earns more than he did 5.5 years a go

99problemsandthecatis1 · 14/02/2020 09:06

That's our current take home. We have 2 kids in full time childcare (one gets 30 free hours) and we pay £1100 in childcare and £1000 in mortgage. It's very manageable. We are looking at increasing the mortgage to do an extension, about £300 per month. So total mortgage of £1300.

We own our car outright and spend about £2k a year on holidays. If we had car loans and more expensive holidays we wouldn't be able to afford that much though.

So in answer to your question - what are your lifestyle priorities? Ours is house.

99problemsandthecatis1 · 14/02/2020 09:09

Nursery costs vary massively. For example, our 2 are in nursery at £1100 combined bill. It's the next borough over which is a lower socio-economic area to where we live. If we moved them to where we live we'd be paying £1500 in nursery fees at least.

Original poster
Mirrorxx · 14/02/2020 09:12

I think I will ring a few nurseries in the area we are looking to move to. Hopefully it won’t be quite as expensive as I’m expecting

OP posts:
Alarae · 14/02/2020 09:21

Our mortgage is £1200 and our joint salary is £4200. We also pay back FIL an extra £500 per month as he lent us the deposit.

With forecasted fees of £750 (if we are lucky to find a decent childminder when the time comes) we should have a disposable income leftover of around £500. A lot less than we are used to, but a lot more than a lot of people.

As your salaries are higher, a mortgage up to £1500 should be absolutely manageable for you, as long as you dont have other finance commitments (ie car payments or debts).

BarbaraofSeville · 14/02/2020 09:22

I have completed the budget planner With our current costs but I think I’m just struggling to work out how it might change

By far the biggest cost in the early years will be childcare. As they get older, obviously food, school uniforms and activities will creep in, and you'll still need wraparound care, plus if you want to go on holiday, you'll be tied to school holidays, so ££££s.

You'll just have to make a guess really, there are such huge variations depending on your expectations - the amount people spend on things like eating out, household decoration and a whole load of other things varies hugely.

Don't forget if you move house, council tax and utilities might change, but these won't vary hugely with or without DC.

Original poster
Mirrorxx · 14/02/2020 11:13

@BarbaraofSeville thanks for the reminder about higher council tax. I’m just trying to look at the budget calculator and make some estimates.
Do most people just not save very much for the first 2/3 years? It seems irresponsible to not include even a reduced amount of savings in the budget

OP posts:
LajesticVantrashell · 14/02/2020 11:42

DS is three and we've saved nothing since he was born. All cash has gone on living but we have done bits to the house (new flooring, bathroom update). From April we'll be saving £750 a month but that's down to me getting a payrise, DS getting 30 free hours and DH finally paying off his student loan!!

Original poster
Mirrorxx · 14/02/2020 11:44

@LajesticVantrashell is 750 a month for holidays too or just long term savings?
Thankfully apart from student loans we don’t have any other debt but moving will take most of our savings

OP posts:
Mydogatemypurse · 14/02/2020 11:48

I agree with the advice of planning to be able to manage on a single salary. We dealt with 2 redundancies in 18 months and 2 kids in childcare. It was very very tough and we are still recovering now debt wise.
You do get thru it but I wouldnt wish it on any family.

Mydogatemypurse · 14/02/2020 11:50

I realise what happened to us was unusual and I'm probably over cautious now too.

Love51 · 14/02/2020 12:03

We didn't save until both children had some funded hours. But we already had a (small) emergency fund and access to interest free debt, which we never used! A home was more important than holidays, but once you are looking at more expensive houses, you have to think 'pricer house Vs better holidays' which is quite a personal equation!

Original poster
Mirrorxx · 14/02/2020 12:21

@Love51
I think that’s part of my reluctance to spend more on a house. We are used to spending a lot on travel but I know this will change with a baby. But it’s still hard to give up my budget for that

OP posts:
Spudlet · 14/02/2020 12:37

Our current monthly income is about £2.5k, and our mortgage is roughly £600. We live in a fairly cheap part of the country and bought a house that needed work. Because of that, I’ve been able to be a SAHM for a few years and we are still able to save a good chunk into pensions every month, and (touch wood), apart from the mortgage and student loans, we’re debt-free. We’re just about to remortgage and take some extra to get some work done to the house - very exciting. We deliberately chose a cheaper house than we could afford to allow for these sorts of life changes - our house is a bit small and shabby compared to many of our friends’ places but we will make it nice, and we haven’t got the stress of a big mortgage to worry about.

We’re still a bit tight at times, and we had a worrying time when we thought one of the cars was about to blow up (we need two cars here) but we manage fine. We do go to an independent mortgage advisor every time - he’s great. He always gets us a good deal and normally takes his fee from the mortgage company (we did pay him the first time but the last couple of times we’ve gone for deals where they pay). If you can find a good one I highly recommend seeing someone like that, they make it a lot easier and less stressful. DH was self-employed when we first bought this house but our advisor got us a great deal, no fuss.