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.

Compassion? Perhaps an alien concept to some.

The thing is, this is the world he lives in; the DC are at a school that is full of very wealthy people, people who have owned and sold businesses, or have c-suite dads (rarely mums, they are mainly SAH). My husband and I are very comfortable but the other families are another level. Obviously comparison is the thief of joy but it’s hard for a 9 year old to comprehend it.
Anyway, I don’t want to derail, it’s very much a first world problem, I just hadn’t anticipated this as a side effect when we were choosing schools; we were focussing on academics, pastoral care, small classes sizes and co-curricular opportunities. Hey ho.

Hi OP

It’s a massive financial commitment after having been in a flat and lived in a very comfortable position for a while. I get it. The sums seem to work out but you’re worried about what you’re missing and also about the commitment.

Is it a big old Victorian house? Watch out for heating bills - friends of ours moved to one of these and happily put the heating on and then had a three month heating bill of over £2k. They turned the heating off, got better curtains, and thicker slippers.

If you don’t want to take the plunge now the alternative is to keep saving until you’ve got the deposit up further.

The other thing to consider is whether you can overpay the mortgage as much as possible meanwhile. You can afford this property but consider whether you can take a shorter mortgage term and overpay as much as possible to get the interest down. You’ll feel much more comfortable once you have taken control in this way.

I work in financial services and see people at both ends of the spectrum income wise. There is no discrimination to who can get into financial difficulties - ill health, redundancy or unexpected expenses can hit any of us at any time 🤷🏻‍♀️
we have no where near that salary. However we have a budget. Might be a little extreme for some but we update & track it monthly & consider ALL expenses. Keep debt to a minimum & look into income protections, especially for the highest earner if the lower would be unable to cover basic costs. Try to leave room in the budget to still top up your savings - they drop faster than you expect if you are needing to dip in! Check subscriptions - so many roll on for years unused because people just forget they’re paying them!

Get a will. You aren’t married. You need a will.

The reason for the derision here @JaneEyre40 is that on balance, there are more posts on this site about not having money than being comfortably off.

But to rub salt in the wound, you have been extremely rude (callous?) to anyone who has mentioned what comes across as insensitivity.

Maybe your post should have been in Property, or somewhere else.

Given you're in education you must have some understanding of people's incomes. And be able to read the room.
(You're either a snr management teacher, or former teacher who's gone into the 'admin' side of education.)

The reason for the sarcy comments is clear- you're both on good salaries but lack the initiative to make a spready sheet or take expert advice from someone qualified.

You'd be far better off working this out with an independent financial advisor who can help you with short and longer term decisions.

@NewMoonToday she’s taking initiative by asking other people who have taken out mortgages of this size. she’s looking to hear from peers - same as 99% of the questions here, ‘how did you find this pram?’, ‘how did you create sleep routines?’, ‘which supermarket brand do you prefer’ - it’s the point of the site, sharing knowledge and asking questions.

‘read the room’ is such nonsense - she started her own thread about her own issue, she’s not obliged to have to make it about people on lower incomes (that doesn’t answer her question, for a start).

If you find it difficult to read, or can’t relate, the best thing to do is just not participate in the thread.

Joining it just to attack OP is bizarre. And OP has been a bit rude, but tbh I have some sympathy for her as several posters have been astonishingly rude to her and about her.

Where is the line at which people can no longer ask financial questions? Please do enlighten us for future reference.

All those people saying that the OP should know how to manage her finances because of how much she earns I’ve literally no idea. My dad for example earns over 80 K in a mid management position. He doesn’t even have an A-level equivalent, so it’s not given that just because someone is going to their job and has progressed into a well paying role that they therefore must know everything about financials and have a really sensible head on their shoulders. My dad‘s job has absolutely nothing to do with financials and he is not the best at budgeting.

@MidnightPatrol I think the OP was worded very clumsily. Of course there’s nothing wrong with asking for help budgeting, or asking people to suggests costs of home ownership that the OP may not have considered having not previously owned a house, etc.

But it is crass to effectively say you’re worried you won’t be able to budget when you’ve got over twice as much money left AFTER paying your mortgage as the average household earns to begin with, BEFORE they’ve paid the mortgage.

This isn't true - it can be very arbitrary, councils vary hugely. I'm in band C for a house worth £550k, paying £148 a month/£1776 a year. Was previously in a flat in band A worth £350k. Two different councils in East London.

@MmeChoufleur

It’s not crass, she lives in a high cost of living area where this kind of income isn’t unusual. I’d be absolutely bricking it and asking anyone willing to share if I was looking at a mortgage of this size.

If her disposable income is eg dropping by £2k a month, this is going to feel significant.

Like it or not, earn more and you probably have a higher standard of living - and that costs more. That money might go into bigger pension saving, your ISA, cars, holidays - whatever it is, it doesn’t really matter. OP wants to know she can maintain the same quality of life while eg adding £2k a month to her mortgage (and losing what will currently be about a third of her total disposable income).

Different people, different lifestyles, different incomes. OP is well within her rights to ask the question and the idea it’s offensive to do so is bonkers.

There is a real crabs in bucket mentality on this website.

Me neither.

@NebulousWhistler he's sounds awful.

But how is that even relevant? I might have twice as much left as the average household but if my house costs 3 times the amount to run then that is something to consider, no?
Or perhaps OP wants to hear from people in the same boat, with the same disposable income to understand what compromises they have to make (we all live to our means in reality).
OP is hardly Kim Kardashian in this scenario. She is part of a hardworking couple who earn towards the top of the income scale - we’re talking a 200k joint income which really isn’t that unusual for two skilled, professional people.
I really wish people would leave high earners alone as we/they contribute a huge amount of tax and productivity. The attention really should be on business owners with off shore holding companies (thus avoiding UK tax), fraudulent phoenix administrations, dodgy R&D claims etc etc.

@Kitte321 The amount they earn isn't the issue- that's not unusual for two people working in London now. Most of my friends' adult children are on those kind of salaries (and more) in London. Well-educated professionals.

The reason the OP was given a roasting was because there appears to be a disparity between her level of education/ +income and her inability to do some pretty basic calculations with her partner. It should be something they, as a professional couple, sit down and do.

It's not hard to find information online. One old piece of advice that my generation used to follow was that your rent/mortgage should not be more than 30% of income.

However, she didn't cover herself in glory by responding to the sarcy comments in a very insensitive tone, rather than saying yes, I know we're very fortunate.

Especially insensitive given she's a teacher (or promoted beyond being in the classroom. ) Because surely she's been exposed enough to all kinds of families for whom her level of income is only a pipe dream.

There are places to ask these sort of questions - and it sounds like she needs professional guidance - but AIBU isn't one of them as it's a hard-hitting forum.

@Kitte321 But she didn’t just ask for other high-earners to share their outgoings, she asked anyone for reassurance that she could afford the mortgage, which is blatantly a very silly thing to ask. And I say that as a previous high earner myself (retired early). It’s like saying “I’ve got ten pounds. I need to buy a loaf and I’m worried that I won’t have enough for a pint of milk as well”.

Everything you read on the internet is of course, true...

But couldn’t you say that about large numbers of threads? I often see questions asked that I know the answer to, but I don’t feel the need to make shitty comments to the OP.
And yes, OP has answered in a sarky manner but has just mirrored the tone being levelled at her. In fact, I think she has remained level headed in the face of a torrent of abuse.
As to being ‘insensitive’ given the families she teaches…well she hasn’t exactly rocked up a school/work and started asking about has she?
Im sure she level of vitriol is to be expected. But I don’t think its something any of us should be accepting or proud of.

Are you actually serious? Of course there are. And more.

Yes, it's that.
But also how 2 high earning people can't work out their outgoings.

No one here has a clue what they spend their money on.

It's the gap between being seemingly intelligent enough to have a responsible role in education earing around £80K, and being unable to do some calculations.

These are not particularly massive salaries to take home 4200 per month you would be on ~70 K to take home around 5200 per month you would be on ~ 80 K. Despite what a lot of people think these are not massive salaries! a massive salary is 100 K+ it seems like a lot because they’re both on very good salaries.

If there are lots of these threads, does that make them right?

It's not relevant if she's asked 'at school' (assume you mean the parents not her colleagues.)
You're missing the point. The point is she appears to have lost or never had a perspective on how much most people earn.

It's that someone with her level of education, and supposed understanding of behaviour/psychology, should have foreseen how her thread would go.

She could have worded her post very differently.

Like acknowledging they as a couple in the top 1-2% of earners.
Like saying she was fortunate to be so (rather than replying 'work hard and get a better job.)

She could even have acknowledged that she knows bugger all about budgeting.

But no. None of that.

Bless you for pointing out the obvious. My DH earns extremely well. Mine is above average for a female. And on that basis, I know what is affordable on both our salaries.

The point it more that someone with the intelligence to be taking home £5k+ a month, can use a spreadsheet.

You'd hope so especially if they were working in education.

The point is not whether or not the salary is massive; the point is that anyone can see that you could easily pay the bills on a three bed house, buy food, and any additional costs with £6k a month.

@NewMoonToday they aren't in the top 1-2% of earners. To be in the top 1% of earners you need to earn £200k this year, as an individual.

On £70k and £80k, they are in about the top ~12 nationally based on individual incomes, and in London there will be an even higher number.

Asking for advice from other people in the same situation from her is completely reasonable, every decision can’t be solved with a spreadsheet.

V curious to accuse it of being fake based on the size of the numbers mentioned - shows the real discrepancy in incomes and cost of living across the country.