To think we could manage a £2200 mortgage payment

[Dyr]

on a take home pay of £4k.
After purchasing the house we would have £40k - £50k left in savings / investments.
The repayments would be about £2.2k per month but our combined take home would be £4k, and due to the jobs we are in its unlikely to increase. late 30s/early40s with 2 kids (primary school age)

No way. Our joint take home is just over £7k and our repayments are just about to go up to £2,200 and it feels ok, but on £4k? No thanks.

And you're really considering it? £63 is a margin of error in this scenario so your basically spending everything you earn, without accounting for incidental costs like house maintenance, car problems etc .

IMO smaller mortgage with money spare to do actual fun, life stuff. Being beholden to a massive liability like that is beyond stressful.

Does this take into account savings for your car breaking down or vets bills etc?

I have about £40 left over at the end of every month as I earn a lot less than you and I’m a single parent and it’s honestly very difficult.

I try and put £10 a month away in savings but even then when my car breaks down I often don’t have enough in savings to pay for it.

Things like needing new shoes or wanting to go to the cinema etc are just not possible without budgeting months in advance and I’m sick of working full time and being skint.

If I was on your wages and still budgeting and being skint then I’d be absolutely devastated!

You cannot afford this unfortunately OP.
I guess it’s your dream home which is why you’re willing to pay so much for it but imagine living in it for 6 months and then having to leave because you can’t afford to keep up with the payments - that would be way worse than never having lived in it.

£63 spare per month? No way. It's far, far too tight. You would be living in stress constantly.

That’s roughly our take home and there is not a chance we could afford that.

I mean, you could do it, but it wouldn’t be much fun. You’d need more than that £63pcm margin, to allow for unexpected expenses, house repairs etc (though maybe that would come out of the money set aside ‘in case’?) Nonetheless, you’d still need it as costs will increase each year, and you’ve said it’s unlikely your take home income will increase. You need to allow for that, or each year it will get harder.

We are on an after tax pay of around £5k, and with the cost of living etc we are finding our £1600 per month mortgage a lot.

Do you have any debt?

With that income I would say £1700 -£1800 at a push, but if you are happy to use your savings to cover the difference then that's fine I guess, providing you have £50k that are not tied?

I mean, my take home (1 adult, 1 DC at primary school) is roughly £3k, my mortgage went up to £1,800, bills I’ve managed to get down to £600 by being v frugal, and it’s tough. That’s on £600 after bills, to pay for food and everything else for 1 adult and 1 child. After paying for after school club (so I can work) it’s sod all. You’d have maybe double that for 2 adults and 2 children? Assuming you can get all your bills down. So yes, it’s doable. No treats, no foreign holidays, only visiting friends and family. No car, no eating out, no new clothes, and the endless praying that nothing goes wrong. It’s so, so hard. Ok I’m in an expensive area (SE), but nothings cheap anywhere any more! Would you need to pay for after school clubs? Holiday clubs? (So you can keep working)? That adds up.

No way would I do this. Our take home is more than yours and our mortgage is £1,600. Even that feels a squeeze.

We have a take home of £5.2k but won’t be going over £1.5k pcm. Luckily that gets us a 5 bed in the north

This is how we decided on the budget for our house. I wanted piece of mind that we’d be able to live comfortably on one salary if it came to it.

It also allows us to save aggressively for retirement which was another priority for us.

Yes but my reply was to why rent if you're paying mortgage rate rent.

£63 ???? and it’s even an option utter madness

Are the savings/investments retirement accounts?

Have you factored retirement saving into your plan?

It would be too tight for me.

Our take-home is about £6,500 and our mortgage is £2,500 and we still have to be careful in order to afford all the usual stuff including holidays etc.

There are 4 of us including 2 teens, so 4 adults really

Mad , no

Our combined income is just over £6k and a mortgage of £1k is plenty enough!!! And we don't have kids yet!

Is it still possible to get an offset mortgage? You keep the £50K on deposit with the lender, and don’t get charged mortgage interest on that - which is equivalent to getting paid your mortgage interest rate on your savings. If you need the cash you can get it - and then the interest payment on your mortgage goes up.

That would be madness.

Just to flip the question:

I have no mortgage or rent to pay. AIBU to think our family of 4 can live on £1,800/month?

if this was the question, I think you’d get a lot of support.

We’re about to take out a mortgage of £2,200 and our take home pay is £9000/month. I think a good rule of thumb is no more than one third of your wage on rent/mortgage. I’m uncomfortable with our ratio even so.

Also, we have an offset mortgage. Even though the rate tracks base, we’re still better off than if we’d fixed it a year ago on a normal product.