Moving house- are we doing the right thing?

[ChandAL]

Morning. Happy Monday!!

we’ve just had an offer accepted on a house in the town that we’ve wanted to live for years. It’s our hometown and near to friends and family. We’ve always wanted our kids to be raised there.

Our mortgage has been accepted abd will cost £500 a month more than we pay for our current house with a longer term ( will be paid when we’re 57). We’ve opted for a 5 year fixed as I can cope with rate anxiety!

yesterday I sat and made a mega spreadsheet to work out exactly what II financial position will be once we have moved. In our new house, we need £2985 to pay all of our essential costs. This includes mortgage, all household bills, insurances, food, petrol, emergency savings- basically everything that we pay now plus the extra mortgage, c tax and energy costs ( bigger house so I’ve factored in a 30% rise)

we take home £4179between us so this means that we’ll have just shy of £1200 ‘leftover’. This is Money that we can save, use for holidays, nights out, meals etc.

on paper this looks fine but I can’t help feeling slightly worried. Am I overthinking this? I am prone to a bit of worry/anxiety

Will you be increasing your earnings over the next few years? You’re right, it’s tight but as long as you’re sure you’ve really factored everything into the essential spends (car repairs, Birthday / Christmas costs, the fact that stuff always breaks in a new house etc etc) then it’s more left over than lots have.

Sounds fine to me

It sounds fine for 2 of you at the moment, do you both keep some money back for personal use (haircuts, clothing etc)?
Think about future costs like childcare, could you save enough to cover mat leave for instance?

How many of you? What stage are you in with children / retirement / job prospects?

Sounds like you are in a very comfortable financial position both now and in the future. Having mortgage paid off in your 50s is something many many people could only dream of.

Of course it is physically do-able (although we do need more context as to number of people relying on that money to advise to what extent we feel!) it just depends on your overall expectations from life. Is your house your no1 priority? Are you happy to live within that £1200 potentially at the cost of something else in order to do so? If so that's fine. When buying we've always looked at the bigger picture; what holidays we want, what cars, how much freedom we want doing food shops, how much disposable income for leisure/eating out and Christmas etc, and factored that all into our "affordability" if that makes sense rather than just literal affordability against bills.

I would work out what holidays, Christmas, leisure, emergency fund etc looks like to you, can can you fit that comfortably within your disposable, if not, is the house worth the compromise? Hopefully that'll help you weigh up that it's worth it.

Sounds ok to me and I’m quite risk averse.

I was chatting to my long term friend. We have very different attitudes to spending. She literally needs stuff to look perfect so spends many hours looking for rather perfect and beautiful items. She needed a tray when I was staying with her but she will have to have in her eyes her perfect tray, to me it’s just a tray to carry cups and as long as it doesn’t clash or fall apart who cares.

Attitude to stuff seems to be integral to peoples psyche. We were the last people I knew to upgrade from a big back tv, we waited till it broke. My friend also loves clothes and spends a lot on looking I must say rather lovely whereas I am far less bothered.

How old are your kids? I think one thing would be do they have any expensive hobbies or are they very good at something? One friend of DS was driven all over by their parent as exceptionally good at a sport, cost a lot. They tried out for the Olympic squad as a young adult but didn’t make it sadly.

Being near family and friends is wonderful, I live hundreds of miles from where I grew up because of work and it’s tough at times.

Thank everyone. Kids are 6 & 8 so it will involve a School move. My parents are keen to help with before and after school care, so we’re lucky with that.

we don’t have extensive hobbies. We like to have a week away in the summer bud usually alternate with a UK destination o r year, and somewhere abroad the next. We usual have a couple of Uk weekend breaks using Wowcher/ groupon deals etc

we will need to save for Christmas. As a family we’ve decided that we’ll multiply but gifts for kids, so that will help. I’ll probably budget £750 for December/Christmas

I do the same but for £200 more. My worry as is my worry that our bills keep going up. So can u factor that in. We have a £10000 emergency fund. Which makes me happy if the roof needs doing etc.

How are your finances now? Do you have over £500 spare each month - as I guess council tax and utilities will also be higher. If not do you know where you will be cutting back to find the extra?

She said she's factored in 30% extra on house bills to account for it being a bigger house

I think it’s quite tight with two growing children, but not an unusual position. And it sounds like the benefits outweigh the risk.

If £1200 is literally for holidays, meals out, nights out, xmas, I'd say that's absolutely fine. Is there anything else that would come out of that budget? Also, sometimes we have to compromise if we want something, so if the move is right for you, then it's worth cutting back on other things, ie no holiday abroad for a few years, or say one in three, rather than one in two. Meals out could be a bit cheaper, ie no pudds and have some nice ice creams for DC at home. Perhaps, only essential nights out. We spend less on Xmas, so you might be able to cut that as well.