What’s the most you would pay for mortgage payments in this situation?

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Total income ~7,000 pcm (can be a bit more due to overtime etc) but basic is 7k

looking like it would be 1500-1900 pcm

is this too much?

No you’re good with that - you’ve got more left over than I’ve got to begin with.

Yes, I agree with PP, you have 5 times the amount left than I have before I have to pay my mortgage and bills, so you should be absolutely fine.

I will say what I and others always say on these threads…. it all depends on your outgoings.
Secondly - is it fixed? And if so, for how long? If Truss/Kwarteng #2 tanked the economy again, could you agree the rise in payments?

No I would say that's fairly conservative

We are torn between fixed and variable as we might want to pay off more in future and would like to do so without penalty however the idea of it going up makes me nervous. 2 dc and no other major bills or loans. It’s a brand new energy efficient home so electric boils be low enough.

prepare for the "we earn 20k a month and would feel uncomfortable with anything more than £500 a month mortgage" though!

You know it isn’t…enjoy the flaming you’ll get soon

I appreciate everyone is in different positions,I just want some opinions, I can’t go asking friends or family really. 🤣

Some fixes allow you to overpay by thousands per year/per fix period without a penalty. Ours also allows to completely pay off the mortgage with an exit fee of £5000 - if we are ever in a position to have a windfall that we can clear our mortgage then £5k would be nothing relative to the interest payments we would save so we wouldn’t mind paying the penalty.

It totally depends on what you want from life. For me I prefer to invest to be able to retire earlier rather than to have a big mortgage.

I earn quite a bit more than you but prioritise paying £5k into my pension every month so wouldn’t want a mortgage as large as you are proposing. If I didn’t invest as much then the type of figures you quote would be easily affordable without any noticeable impact on lifestyle.

The only thing I would suggest considering is that property is probably not a good investment at the moment. Of course you need to buy a house to live in but the days of over stretching with the expectation that prices will rise to compensate are over and will provide a much worse outcome than buying a more modest house and investing the difference elsewhere.

We decided £2000 max relatively similar income to yours and got a mortgage for 1400 but overpay the extra. didn’t want to stretch to the limit

i would like to keep it at the 1.5/1.6 mark personally. Pension wise we pay in through work and usually when I get my bonus I’ll add that into my pension.

Have you spoken to a mortgage advisor yet?

Something in the back of my mind is telling me you can only do a fixed rate on an energy efficient home.
I could be wrong/it could be different in NI.

I think you have enough to do it. The word is energy efficient homes "should" appreciate more than normal

houses...again unless the market tanks
But if its for your forever home and your salaries are stable go for it.

Just speaking as someone who bought a house and then became disabled I would look into insurance, but then I didnt think of it for me and thought this would never happen so most people wont see the need. Its just something to think about.

But im on the go for it side, it sounds fabulous and i hope you and your family will be very happy there

I don't know if your figure is after tax. I'd limit mortgage repayments to around 25% (max 30%) of take home pay ie after tax and any wage deductions. I think that gives a good balance where your mortgage doesn't run your life and if there are any interest hikes, you don't have too much impact.

Yes those figures are after tax. we already haven life insurance/income protection policies in place. Thank you.

Yes after tax. Thank you

It sounds plenty to me however...

• Council tax
• all utility bills
• transport costs
• insurance

And then lifestyle choices like subscriptions, holidays, extra curricular, tutoring etc.

ETA... and food. If you are organic steak and salmon type of people you need more than those who are happy with omelette and sausages.

No council tax or water bill where we are so bills would be
electricity
broadband/tv
phones
petrol
home insurance
car tax
car insurance
life insurance
subscriptions
holidays

most of which are within control.

our wages will increase annually but I presume other costs will too so I don’t think that will have much effect unless it’s a promotion which is quite possible for either of us I suppose as neither of us are in management positions.

no childcare costs, but you’re right tutoring may be in the future.

Definitely happy with omelette and sausages 🤣

And dc activities

I would cost up all your monthly expenditures some of which you have mentioned:
commuting costs,
all the DC activities, (holiday clubs, childcare, music lessons),
school fees?
clothing
haircuts/treatments e.g getting your hair dyed every 6 weeks
cleaners/gardeners, house maintenance (estimate factoring unexpected expenditures such new white goods, boiler)
MOT/service
car finance
all insurances - building, contents, car, life, critical illness, income protection travel, private health
food
mobile phones
broadband
landline
netflix, Sky etc
hobbies
holidays (not just flights and hotels but an estimate of spending money whilst there)

They add up pretty quickly and you maybe paying a few thousand.
I suspect your mortgage will still be very much affordable unless you spend really big on some of the above.

(Just noticed that there are no childcare costs).

commuting costs- this can vary as I wfh two days a week and on other days we could travel together depending on other variables (I will have to keep an eye on this and tot up)
all the DC activities- most activities are annual of 150ish and then 25 pcm for one activity
school fees- none
clothing - we are not big spenders in This area probably average about 100 per month at a push
haircuts/treatments- again I don’t have any of these, just an annual haircut, although I may have to start dying soon with the amount of greys popping up
cleaners/gardeners, house maintenance - none of this (estimate factoring unexpected expenditures such new white goods, boiler)- it’s a new build so I’m hoping the boiler would be good for a while! White goods we will cost into the decorating etc
MOT/service- 300-400 per year I’d say on average
car finance - none
all insurances - building, contents, car, life, critical illness, income protection travel, private health - pay 60 for life insurances pcm. Building insurance I’m estimating at 500 per year. Travel and health are covered by work
food- 100ish per week
mobile phones- 3 at 20pcm so 60
broadband- 45
landline- no need
netflix, Sky etc borne of these in broadband packages
hobbies- gym for me is free through work, dp works out at home.
holidays (not just flights and hotels but an estimate of spending money whilst there)- this I’ll have to add up too.

thanks for that. It’s a massive help.

We take home £5.5k net between us and our mortgage is £1200 a month, so probably a similar % of income to you, assuming your mortgage is on the higher end of the scale. We feel fine with it and tend to have quite a bit left over at the end of the month.

Thank you, yes I think we should be ok
if mortgage plus bills including food comes to 3-3.5k we’ll still have 3.5k left for savings/holidays etc.
1600- mortgage
150- electric
100- phones/broadband/tv
60- life insurance
45- house insurance
520-food
260- fuel (I think that may be enough on average)
kids clubs 40
that’s about 2,775 so I reckon with a few things I’ve forgotten and the costs of car tax/insurance that’s paid annually factored in…that’s the bulk of the costs included.

Looking like payments will be pretty much 1900 😩 but it’s still manageable I reckon