To think we CAN live on the mortgage

[JaneEyre40]

Advice please -

Couple - Earn £10,500 a month
Mortgage - 3,700 a month
Nursery - 1,000 a month

Considering all other possible outgoings, do you think we can afford this and not feel pressured each month. What am I not considering? We've done the spreadsheet but I'm still unsure.

We will have about £65,000 in savings at the beginning of this venture.

Thanks in advance. House of a lifetime.

This is definitely doable - I agree things to consider are building up a buffer of house savings and a buffer in your bills account.

if your looking at this now then you’ll already be on a higher mortgage rate and it may come down in the future.

we are on similar amounts, our mortgage is lower but nursery £2k per month and I was on mat leave for a year, and just about to go on mat leave again.

you’ve already said you spend pretty frugally, this has been the key to us. My husbands hobby is golf, my hobby is spending time at home in my house with my dogs, and we don’t go on extravagant holidays. Going for a weeks hiking holiday in the uk would always always be our preference than a week in the Maldives for example. Neither of us for big buyers of clothes or “stuff” or tech or anything. So general outgoings like that are pretty low for us.

I agree with people saying about what if one of you loses your job etc - hence the buffer in bills money above. You can’t predict what’s going to happen tomorrow, equally I feel the risk shouldn’t dictate how you live today!

an enormous part of our life is happiness from living in a home we love and enjoy spending time in.

I think you are getting a hard time. Everyone has the right to post these questions, even with a larger income. And, as detailed in my pp, we wouldn’t be able to afford it without some cut backs and we take home more than OP. I am very fortunate to be in my position too, but we cannot be prevented from uploading legitimate questions because the fact of the matter is, people earn these incomes (whether you like it or not).

Its totally doable on this income. If your job is secure I would go for it. If not I would think twice about it as if one of you gets redundant, your house expenses will eat the other salary.

I personally wouldn't do it, as I think if one of us is jobless we will really struggle with such fixed cost.

If you can afford to overpay and get this down... maybe is OK.

Yes

It doesn't bother me in the slightest. Just sad to think there are so many bitter people (women I'm assuming mostly).

This thread is staggering - what the fuck is wrong with so many of you?
So what if she earns well? Are you really so embarrassingly jealous you can't just scroll on by? You have to pile on with yet another iteration of the same, tired snarky insults? The OP quite clearly doesn't give a fuck, but the comments keep piling on, just trying and trying to cause hurt or get a reaction.
Get a fucking life.

Wow you sound nice. Why would we be jealous? You admitted you have a horrible stressful job? I’ll take my easy work from home job for less money thanks. Why would I want a horrible stressful job? Life’s too short.

I think you will be okay, but it depends how much you'll worry about it. Our large mortgage keeps me awake at night, especially as we are currently on a low fixed rate and in two years we will likely face a significant rise. Plus we are in late forties/early fifties with fifteen years to pay so no option to take the foot off the pedal in demanding and stressful jobs. Perils of working in London from early twenties and necessarily taking some time to save a deposit due to high rents and working up the chain to a decent salary bracket to be able to afford a large mortgage.

This thread has shown a really nasty side to some mumsnetters.

Its a reasonable question and a lot of the principles apply at whatever salary level /mortgage level

Op and her husband earn decent salaries but they are hardly Bezos levels.

I think it's dependent on your age/future earnings. If you are in jobs where your income is going to increase, then quite quickly the amount you owe will be a lower percentage of your income.

Think ahead to school fees if you are considering private education. Even now £30k a year is not unusual, will likely be a lot more by the time your dc is of secondary age. If you had another child for eg then you're looking at £5k a month today!

No advice but there are some funny comments on here - people don't just earn large salaries without working for them (usually anyway) and not only poor people can ask for advice that is why it is a forum! Op is totally owning the batshit comments - favourite ever My room, my thread!!!

I actually love my job! But thanks for the concern. Highly stressful but in the best possible way (don't know where you saw horrible in my posts?) Also, I said bitter (potato/potAto) not jealous.

I guess you’re in a bit of a catch 22 because you’re in a very expensive area.

My main concern would be if your DH lost his job. Unlikely, but could it be possible? It’s the million dollar question. There are insurances but they are very expensive.

It’s very much a positive that the house doesn’t need any work, because projects always eat up a lot of money.

It would be well worth researching different lenders.

Thank you. So many asking about private ed, we hadn't considered it, both state educated age I work in the state sector. One child, definitely. I'm 40, partner is 45.

Some people hate the idea of others doing well. It's a problem in society in general, I won't go into that, wouldn't want to start WW3.

We have a similar net monthly income and commit £3100 to the mortgage each month (£600 of that is overpayment).
As other PP have said it’s the maintenance costs of the ‘big house’ that have been a bit of an eye opener - we pay over £400 per month gas and electric for example and because of the type of property we’ve had to use a specialist insurer (hopefully you won’t have this issue!).
It’ll feel tighter than it is for a while because the amounts involved sound enormous (another working class girl made good over here!) but as long as the percentages are right as soon as you’re free of the nursery costs and can put that into savings it should all feel much more comfortable.
Oh and this thread is the perfect example of why people don’t talk about money - the fact that you and your partner will pay more in tax and national insurance in a year than a lot of people earn seems to be completely unacknowledged by those rushing to slate you!

I've not read the full thread but what you've quoted as your net salaries don't add up to £10.5k.

Our monthly income is £10.5k and our mortgage is lower but we put a lot in savings every month. We could manage on your mortgage but our savings would take a big knock.

We have two kids, one at nursery (although starting (state) school soon!)

You literally got sh*tty with people saying your job was really stressful, it sounds like you love it. Maybe your stressful job is causing your anger. Life’s too short to work a stressful job for 40 hours a week.

Good for you. You live your life how you want, and the OP can live her how she wants. Great stuff. Everyone’s happy

I think it's doable. You sound sensible and will just have to keep an eye on finances - you have a good chunk of disposable income. As a few pp have mentioned, house bills and maintenance will no doubt be a lot more than now, and quite unpredictable so put some money aside for that. It sounds like you are happy to spend on the house and prepared to spend to keep it nice rather than a lot on socialising/holidays. Hope it works out for you!

She’s the one spitting at everyone they are jealous of her? I was just responding to that. Having to pay London’s rip of housing prices with a stressful job isn’t something most people are jealous of.

Another thought, have you based your mortgage on standard 25 year term? We took out a 35 year mortgage that allowed overpayments up to a certain amount each year. We were paying as if it was 25 years, knowing that we were building up an emergency buffer (and saving on interest if we manage to repay in 25 years). We knew that if times were tough we could easily put the payments back down to the scheduled amount.

Great idea, ours is 30.

Depending on how long your mortgage is for, don’t forget that DC can get more expensive before they get cheaper. We are currently subsidising our older son to the tune of £1000 per month as he goes through university, with DC2 soon to follow. Driving lessons, sports clubs, music lessons etc. All are obviously discretionary, but one of the things I have found, on an income similar to yours, is how ludicrous it feels to not have money to do those things because you’ve spent too much money on a house. Our basic outgoings, with an interest only mortgage of £1605 per month, are £5000 per month - mortgage, council tax, water, fuel, insurance on two not particularly smart cars, etc. So you are right to think carefully.

@JaneEyre40 Just on the marriage front.

There is no way I would be making such a huge purchase without getting married or having absolutely watertight legal parameters in place should the relationship breakdown.