Would you agree that this house is too expensive?

[eeyores]

DH and I have seen an amazing house. It’s £350K. We do need to upsize due to having another dc. Anyway our current (dhs) income is £3950 a month. Council tax in this area is imo v expensive, it’s £300/12 months. After mortgage and CT and bills, we’d have £1200 for food for family of 5 (one is 6mo), petrol and savings/fun money/ Christmas, birthdays etc. Our current bills and mortgage is £1200 a month and it feels like a lot more for this house (plus all of our savings/equity in this house). Obviously when dc is a bit older I’d be looking to get a job but we can’t rely on that as it’s a rural area and I don’t drive. I’d say it’s too tight but dh thinks it’s fine and worth it. What do you think?

I would go for it. Could you get an evening or weekend job to get a bit extra money?

Your husband can’t afford to buy the house. He would be in severe mortgage stress.

Spending any more than 25% of your after tax salary means you’re in mortgage stress. The amount your husband is proposing to pay based off his income is ridiculous.

You need to get a car and learn to drive. You buy that house and you’ll be stuck in the house all day. When you want to return to work you can’t because you live so far away from civilisation.

How frequent are the buses etc? No point in moving there and getting a job that starts at 8 of theres no bus until 8:10 for example!

Sounds like the space would be amazing and that if you really tightened the purse strings you could make it work. How are you with budgeting? Would you have a small emergency fund left after the move? Could you trial living for a month or two on the discretionary income you'd have left?

Bigger house = more costs heating etc
Who is doing the garden?
Learn to drive and get a job. What job will you get? Do you have a profession?

Could you get an evening or weekend job to get a bit extra money?

No, because it’s rural and she doesn’t drive.

My baby is only 4 months old so I won’t be getting a job soon. FWIW, I had to work when the other two were really young, my situation was very different to now. DH wanted me to have the first two years with DC3 and I’m very fortunate to be able to do that. I would 100% be looking to work after that and would have space in this house to do something like customer service remotely if there are no local jobs. I have absolutely no room to do that here.

I had quite a lot of lessons in the past but I’m dyspraxic and really struggled. I could look into an automatic car and test possibly but I can’t guarantee it’ll happen.

Having just seen your update: no. Pass your driving test first if you can. Your husband being the only person working is probably too risky. I've lived rurally most of my life and lost count of people who moved out of towns to a village or hamlet thinking they would pass their test easily only to have to move back when they couldn't.

Then you need to live somewhere with good public transport.

I know you think everything is good at the moment, but women who isolate themselves and give up work are putting all their eggs in their husband’s basket, and if, in 5 years time, he up-ends that basket, well, all you’ve got are broken eggs (with apologies for the strained metaphor).

Okay so I just checked. No trains (knew that anyway). The bus timetable is something like this:
Depart:
7:45am
10am
1pm
6:30pm

Return:

11:45am
2:30pm
5pm
8:30pm

This is just to the town about a mile away. Also winter timetable, won’t let me see the summer one.

can you walk to town? Are there more public transport options in town if needed?

“A mile” is about 15 mins walk. Is it really that close to the secondary school and the supermarkets? If so then you can easily walk it.

Stay where you are and reassess in a year. In the meantime, prioritise learning to drive and then returning to work.

@Kagouleah good point. I just checked and from the house to the primary school isn’t far at all but to the secondary it’s an hours walk. The nearest supermarket is a 50 minute walk (apart from a local shop I think).

We have 3 primary age DC, an income significantly higher than that of your DH (though not "high earners") and a mortgage of £760 a month. And we are stretched every month - by kids' extracurriculars, repairs and improvements to cars/the house, by holiday clubs. This doesn't sound like it would work for you financially or practically.

I’m so sorry for the drip feed but I’m sleep deprived plus doing a lot of Christmas admin so I genuinely forgot; we never include this in ‘income’ but we also have £400 a month coming in for the next three years from giving a close family member a loan. They’ve been repaying it for a few years and never missed so I am confident that this will be continuing as agreed. So sorry I forgot. So we actually have £1600 after bills for the next three years.

Does the supermarket deliver?
Does the secondary have a bus service?
It s too much if you dont drive and all is on your dp

When we added a third child to our household the baby shared our room for 2 and a bit years before we moved. So I wouldn’t rush into a house move just yet. I don’t drive and don’t massively feel that I need to. But I live in a city. I don’t even check the bus timetable before heading out to go to the city centre as I know there will be one of 4 that come to the end of my road at least every ten minutes or so. If I lived rurally I think it would get very limiting very quickly - particularly with children.

Also I don’t know if I made this clear; it’s dh that wants to move. He lived somewhere rurally before and much preferred it and wants to bring up Dc like this. It’s me that needs convincing and we’ve had the conversations about driving et before.

Right. So he goes out to work and you roll around the big house counting pennies? Or walking an hour to the shop?

@cestlavielifeno either he/ we go to the shop or it does deliver to the area.

And one child needsa doctor or dentist?
How do you get there?

Do not move rurally if you can’t drive.
What if your DH breaks an arm or leg, any chance you could get snowed in?

So you say dh wanted you to spend the first two years at home with dc3 and you’re lucky to be able to. Except you won’t be able to if you move.

Given that you have double the proposed amount left over now, why haven’t you got driving lessons? You won’t be able to afford them if you did move.

Unless you’re willing to work (and I’m sorry but ‘customer service job from home’ - you’re having a laugh unless you already do that), moving isn’t feasible.

No, am sorry. I think you need to wait until you're working, and hopefully driving. If anything happened to your hubby, you'll lose everything. You really need to both be paying in and saving where can too for those unknowns.