What % of your income is your mortgage?

[DeerMyDear]

I realised I have no idea what other people do. For transparency, ours is 10% (household income £5000, mortgage £500. But think we might move house and up the % but then that feels scary. But maybe I’m being a wuss.

Just interested in what others do x

35% 😫

About 33% of our household take home income. Which is more than my salary.

I'm amazed how low these are!!

Mines been 45% and I think anything under 35% is very affordable.

What are people spending the rest of their money on??

Surely paying off the mortgage is the top priority in spending?

@PattyPan

You don’t really need to know what you’re doing - active trading doesn’t generally give better returns than just sticking it in a tracker fund which you can do with any S&S ISA.

Not disputing this at all! I have many investments and understand it well. But it’s not automatically better, depending on all the other factors I’ve mentioned, which need to be considered.

And if you invest money that you could offset against your house, your are borrowing more, which often comes with higher rates, a longer mortgage duration, and more fees (a thousand each time you remortgage!

So It’s not the case that you shove it in an ISA and you’re quids in whilst paying off a mortgage over many years!

I don’t know one decent IFA who would tell you to do this, unless you had a lot of spare money floating around.

@felulageller

I'm amazed how low these are!!

Mines been 45% and I think anything under 35% is very affordable.

What are people spending the rest of their money on??

Surely paying off the mortgage is the top priority in spending?

What else do we spend our money on? Well childcare is higher than our mortgage (and is non discretionary), bills, food and toiletries for 5 of us, extra curricular activities for the children like music lessons etc, running the cars we need for work, the occasional holiday…

And if you invest money that you could offset against your house, your are borrowing more, which often comes with higher rates, a longer mortgage duration, and more fees (a thousand each time you remortgage!

We’ve never paid a fee to remortgage. We fixed for 5 years last week at an extremely low rate with no fee.

Zero now, but before we paid it off it was about 25%

20% of net but only have 50% equity and still 21 years on the term so we're overpaying an additional 5% of net income.

It feels quite a burden, especially as we're in our 40s. But next move will be downsizing!

Was 25% of joint net income
Will be 14% as of next month

Planning on remortgaging for home improvements in the next year or so, so that % will go up again

@ShallWeTalkAboutBruno

And if you invest money that you could offset against your house, your are borrowing more, which often comes with higher rates, a longer mortgage duration, and more fees (a thousand each time you remortgage!

We’ve never paid a fee to remortgage. We fixed for 5 years last week at an extremely low rate with no fee.

Then you are the exception! Arrangement fees, which is how many mortgage lenders make their money now as rates are so low, are par for the course! You don’t pay it up front, it’s added into the loan!

@felulageller

I'm amazed how low these are!!

Mines been 45% and I think anything under 35% is very affordable.

What are people spending the rest of their money on??

Surely paying off the mortgage is the top priority in spending?

Before or after tax?

We pay 4% pre tax income on gas and electric, 1.5% on water, 6% on food and 14% on childcare. 1.5% on car plus 0.5% on petrol and then 2% on children's clothes and shoes, 1% on kids swimming lessons, and 4% on other household bills like mobiles, broadband, insurances, Netflix. Totals 50% of pre tax income including our mortgage. We only take home 62% of our pretax income once tax, pensions and student loans are taken in to consideration. That 12% that's left is for everything else - Christmas and birthdays, adult clothes and shoes, household maintenance, savings, spending money, school trips, holidays, pets, days out etc etc.

@ShallWeTalkAboutBruno

And if you invest money that you could offset against your house, your are borrowing more, which often comes with higher rates, a longer mortgage duration, and more fees (a thousand each time you remortgage!

We’ve never paid a fee to remortgage. We fixed for 5 years last week at an extremely low rate with no fee.

www.moneysavingexpert.com/mortgages/mortgage-fees-stamp-duty/

Again, always exceptions to the rule. But mortgage lenders are there to make money from you, so look at the fine print!

Your no fee, extremely low rate mortgage surprises me.

Which deal and lender did you use? I will point a friend in this direction as she is looking to remortgage.

I've calculated it based on both our incomes as we have joint finances and house/mortgage in both names. Based on that it's 12%, and I will be almost 40 before it's paid off! 😩

Currently 7% of our net household income, however when we move later this year it will be closer to 15%

@5keletor

I've calculated it based on both our incomes as we have joint finances and house/mortgage in both names. Based on that it's 12%, and I will be almost 40 before it's paid off! 😩

Average age to be mortgage free I’m in UK is 59! You’re doing very well to be clear by 40.

Household costs are considered affordable if under 33 percent btw

Just over 20%

Bloody hell, 40 is amazing to be mortgage free!

South East

40%

@Quincythequince you have access to Google, right? Don’t tick the filter for ‘only show no fees’ on comparison sites though because some are £17 like HSBC (1.76%@

It decreased from 30% to 15% over the years ....all paid off now

20-25% of household take home salary.

12%.

0%. We spent our 20's over paying and any additional money went to overpaying too (thank you PPI payouts!). So mid fourties, household income of £60k, living in London and mortgage free.

24% when we took it out but that’s on a short ish term (considering our age). Pay rises since we took it out mean it’s now 17% but we now make overpayments each month to reduce the term