What is a sensible amount to spend on mortgage per month?

[Nw22]

I’m hoping for some advice about how much people feel comfortable spending on their mortgage a month. We are hoping to move house and have a baby in the next year or two but I have no idea how much a baby will cost to work out how much is ok to spend on a mortgage. Our income after tax is about 5700/5800 after tax pensions etc. if it wasn’t for childcare I’d think 25% would be ok but we will need full time childcare.
Thanks

Maybe I’m missing something here but of course you can afford to spend 30% of your income on a mortgage and also pay childcare for one child? That would leave you with around 40% of your net income or over £2K for bills and general spending which is way more than most people have. What’s the issue?

Take home 4k mortgage £500 but pay £200 on top every month. With bills/food/childcare/dog walker we usually have couple hundred left at end of month. (Unless it's been an expensive month)

@Haus1234 we also have a car payment of £200 a month, commuting costs and a dog. We have always saved and don’t want to be in the position where we can’t save at all

@labyrinthlaziness it’s not that the house isn’t perfect. I don’t drive so I would be stuck at home alone a lot during maternity leave and most of our friends live in the area we want to move to

Ours is about 26% and childcare is another 18%.

[quote Nw22]@Haus1234 we also have a car payment of £200 a month, commuting costs and a dog. We have always saved and don’t want to be in the position where we can’t save at all[/quote]
I can see 2 x commuting costs could be high - would this reduce at all in the new area?

I do think it’s pretty common not to be able to save during the childcare years - if you have been saving for a while you will likely have some built up which will help psychologically?

Would you really rather be able to continue to save for a couple of years than have a child?

Just saw that you have a £200 car payment. Do you have a lot of other debts? If you have subscriptions (Netflix, Prime, Gusto etc) they’re easily cancelled to economise. We save less than we did. It’s a balance.

Concentration on moving first op.
You definitely don't want to be stuck without driving/ un walkable area.

Move first then baby.

@PurBal no other debt apart from student loans

My income is just under £1600 as a single parent of one and my mortgage is £300pm. School age DC so minimal childcare costs now, just wraparound club one day a week.

Speak to a mortgage advisor.
What are childcare costs like where you are?

@girlmom21 we know how much they’d lend us but that seems far too much to pay monthly

[quote Nw22]@girlmom21 we know how much they’d lend us but that seems far too much to pay monthly[/quote]
To be fair I understand this. We've got 2 in full time childcare so agreed we wouldn't pay anything more for a house than £40,000 less than we could borrow.

We live in an area with cheap childcare at the moment though. About £42 per day per child.

@girlmom21 I have seen child minders for around 40 a day here but nursery is quite a lot more

You'll likely be eligible for tax feee childcare so that £1000 will become £750.
How old are you? If you can only afford to do one thing right now and you have time on your side then I'd move first, but not overstretch and start saving £750 per month (childcare fund) to see if you can manage.

You haven’t specified your age and there is a huge difference in the speed of your decision making needed if your 40 rather than 30.

You have to decide which sort of childcare is acceptable, I opted for nursery which was more.

We are savers but there is no way we saved as much when we had children in nursery. Your personality type sounds risk averse, having a child is the riskiest thing anyone can ever do.

We paid 19% of our income on the mortgage it was a while ago though plus the area we lived in was very cheap it has now gentrified itself and the houses are as expensive as the other places we looked at all those years ago. So house prices have doubled in the other places but in our town they have gone up 400%.

Ours is 34% but that includes £250 a month overpayment.
We feel very tight for money (also do 20% pension) and have to remind ourselves that in future with the mortgage paid off early and a secure pension it'll be worth having shopped in Aldi and missed a few holidays. Our take home is less than yours but I'm self employed so hoping mine will go up soon.