Living with a mortgage

[PrettyCandles]

We're very lucky and have a negligible mortgage. Dh has never had to live with a mortgage, and when mine was a substantial part of my income we were DINKYs. Now we're discussing how much mortgage we could afford in the future. I'm a FTM, he's the money-earner. We like not having a major debt on our shoulders, but that would really limit what we could afford to buy when we eventually move. So what's it like living with a 3xsalary mortgage when you've got a family to support, plus a larger home to maintain?

One day we wrote a list of everything we pay out in a month and because we both work as and when required we knew we needed to have x amount to be able to survive each month. Luckily now Dh has taken on a part time contract job as well as the sessional job we have so we have some peace of mind that there will be a set amount coming in.
Our mortage is about 40% of what we pay out a month.

I found a helpful calculator on the Natwest site here that can find your mortgage amounts with different types of mortgages based on your repayment per month (look at the "based on what you can repay" calculator).

We're renting and happy with the rent and want our future mortgage to be about the same amount, so it's really helped to get an idea. We're going to go to a mortgage broker (an ifa here?) to do the numbers and find one, but are going to put an offer on a house tomorrow .. just because it's perfect, almost, and well within our budget.