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.

Other things to consider, which will need a spreadsheet going and I haven't got that far yet. But a big mortgage means huge amounts on interest in the early years. If you instead focus on being mortgage free in 5 to 10 years, what would that mean instead for your life?

It doesn't feel right to me as i feel like i would have a more secure future with more equity and it is a ladder for a reason. If you settle in a small place for the rest of your life you'll not have made the most out of your financial power when you could.

My other half is of the opposite view and would rather have a simple life and no mortgage to pay and get out of the rat race to enjoy life. I'm not so sure, home is where the heart is for me.

Ours is £216, for a 3 bedroom terrace in Southwark. We just moved from Lambeth, our council tax there was £165. Lots of now-expensive houses were worth pennies in 1991, and are in a stupidly low council tax band as a result.

I saw you quoted me but by the time I looked it had gone 🤣

Someone has had a sense of humour bypass. It's supposed to be AIBU afterall lol.

This is real life.
and a real salary.

You might not like it, but it doesn’t make it any less real!

. Council tax is 230 monthly. Well fuck me sideways, I live alone in a tiny two up two down Band A inner city terrace on a filthy littered and fly tipped street and I pay £135 a month! I also live on just over double your monthly take home wage for the WHOLE YEAR! Where did I go wrong, I am thick, lazy, untalented, a bad person? who knows but sometimes I reas stuff on here and feel like an utter failure who is inadequate in every way and then I think that maybe the OP is making things up to get a rise out of people

TBF, OP might also be buying a two up two down terrace, it’s just in London and so it’s £700k.

The £700k does not mean you avoid the filthy and fly-tipped street either, depending on where you’re buying.

I am actually envious, I earn between 4 - 5 a month. My God that extra 5 k would be so liberating. Enjoy it and if you want the house and think you can afford it with all else and bill increases then go for it and I hope it is a very happy home for you all. Just don't forget factoring in any more little ones at the same time as they are rather expensive lol

There are some angry, bitter keyboard warriors around these days.
I was going to start a thread recently about how much worse off I feel compared to most of the other school parents.
We are rich relative to about 99% of the UK but decidedly less well off compared to the school crowd.
My 9 year old recently wrote a comprehension piece that his mum drives a “poor (wo) man’s Porsche” and he was annoyed that we didn’t fly business to a specific holiday destination, . That’s neither a stealth boast nor a lie. He also complains about our tiny house compared to his friends’.
It actually really bothers me because we work hard to provide the DC with every possible opportunity but it never seems to be enough.

Given the vitriol you’ve had here this evening, I’m glad I haven’t.

Also OP rule of thumb for water bills, if there are more people than bedrooms, don’t get a water meter; more rooms than people, do.
We have a meter and my water bill has been £25 per month for years. It went up last month to £36 per month but that due to a routine uptick for water in general.

Me too. I thought it was 'to think we can live on the moon...' Because all I could see was 'to think we can live on the mo.....' in trending. 😆

You need to swap that porsche for a 12 year old people carrier and drive him everywhere in it until he learns to stop validating himself by what his parents can afford.

OP we have a similar income and mortgage to you, but when we first bought, DH was out of work so we had to manage on my income alone (£6300 net, after stoppages, hope that’s clear enough for those at the back). It was tight but manageable. No nursery fees but afterschool club and hobbies. Our utility bills are about £500pcm in this house (includes life insurance, house insurance, water, gas and elec, council tax, internet, but not food).

We had to cut back on coffees and socialising/meals out, cancelled the gym membership, didn’t go on holiday for two years, and we don’t run a car anyway (I cycle to work, DH works from home). Neither DH or I spend much on clothes or hair/beauty. No savings which was a bit scary having previously had a massive buffer (which all went into the house) and so couldn’t do much to the house to start with.

Once we got past the expense of the move, it was perfectly manageable - it wasn’t nice to suddenly have to watch our spending, when previously we hadn’t had to at all (we’d paid the mortgage off on our flat about 5 years before, so this was a significant change in disposable income). But our lifestyle was still perfectly fine, it was a psychological change not a material one.

Now DH is back in work we are very comfortable on this income - we have £3k per month spare (which we are saving to spend on the house). You will be absolutely fine.

So ignoring all the horrible responses you’ve had on here, you’re right to be cautious.

our household income is about half of yours, our mortgage again is slightly less than half of what yours would be, and our childcare costs are half.

We bought when we had a small baby and decided to move out of London, and it was a shock with the increase in bills that comes with a larger property, but I would say it’s manageable. We get by each month and can save some. Our Financial advisor is currently looking at getting us out of our current mortgage to one that is a few hundred pounds less a month which will help, and once that opportunity comes around we will take it with both hands and lock it in for as long as possible. Hopefully by the time it comes round to changing mortgage again the interest rates will be down further, not up. But it’s the gamble we made and is paying off so far.

Agree - he sounds like a complete snob which is a pretty sad state of affairs at only 9 years old

OP,
In case you're interested, this website can calculate the cost of different mortgages quickly
If you're borrowing 670k at 4.5 % for 25y, your repayments will be 3724
But if the interest rate increases to 6%, your repayments will be 4316

The cost of borrowing 670k at 4.5 % for 25y is 447k on top of the 670k.

https://tedfrick.sitehost.iu.edu/loan.html

Or give him a bus pass.

Dear me. Sell your body perhaps? Become a dominatrix?

There's such a thing as reading the room and I'm afraid you didn't.

Of course you can live on that, you know that really.

I do think YABU to forgoe holidays and eat nothing but sweet potato and veg but each to their own, if that’s what makes you happy then go ahead.

He sounds spoilt.
I’m not angry or bitter about your wealth.

I'm didn't cause the cost of living crisis, why don't the posters put their energy into something useful if they are so concerned with the economic status of Britain and not into my personal situation.

We've had this chat...see above.

Thank you, we're going 5 year fixed. Difficult to predict that far down the line, rates dropping now but for how long?

I do think you and some other well paid people on here should remember that poorly paid people often do extremely stressful, hard jobs that often are skilled but aren’t valued like social care and child care.

Its great for you that you can afford your dream home but some extra self awareness would have made you think twice about rubbing peoples noses in it during a cost of living crisis.

I just saw that! Sorry to disappoint, it is a bit boring, people keep repeating themselves. I read the room....dull.

Not my problem. You have no idea how much or how little I help others. Today, this is MY problem.