19% of our gross and that includes taxes and insurance. We are in a VHCOL area, so I think that’s good. It will go up soon though when we do our remodel.
I wanted to add that when I was divorced, with a kid, getting no child support/alimony, my housing was 42% of my gross income. But I had a nice house for ds and me and made it work. I think you will be fine. I live in LA also.
Makes me a bit ill, but currently it is 42% of gross if I add in PITI. (Over 3 dwellings and single income as of this month). It will drop to 30% next month when the lease on DH’s old apartment is finished. Old house will go on the market about then too. Hopefully I start a new job shortly.
Post by mrsukyankee on Oct 20, 2018 10:53:28 GMT -5
Between 10-15% depending on my income which is not stable as I have a private practice in therapy and work in schools too, so less income in the summers. I'm happy with this as we live in a VHCOL area and we can afford our mortgage on just one of our incomes.
Once my MIL is no longer with us (may it be many years), we'll downsize but we'll probably move to a more expensive area so will have a similar mortgage (unless we're able to pay it all off before then).
Our income is variable as my H is in sales but about 10-15% of gross and about 20 -25% of net?
We have a 2 bed cape and will need to move or do some work at some point when the kids can’t share a room anymore so someday it will go up. Hopefully not until they are both in school and we can reduce our child care cost which is finally less than our mortgage now that my daughter is in first grade.
The problem is that we spend so much on daycare that everything just feels so absurdly tight all the time. I'd like to reduce our housing expense, but I don't see that being an option really. Maybe by a few hundred bucks depending on what's available when we look at moving in the spring.
We moved from about 1400 sf to over 3500 and I wish we hadn't. I'd like to move back into a smaller ranch (<2500 sf) closer to the city in the spring, but the market is still so crazy here that I don't know if we'll be able to get into something for less than or equal what we're paying now.
This board will never make you feel better about your finances LOL.
Your new rent sounds fine to me. You don't have home ownership costs like repairs, maintenance, etc. or kids. Sometimes I feel like we should be destitute if you look at prevailing wisdom but we seem to be fine. :-)
I’m perfectly happy with our mortgage/tax/insurance payment at $2100 a month- there are a lot of other expenses I wish were less. Like for instance kids sports. We spend about $10-12k a year and our youngest doesn’t do anything yet. Two are in a competitive year round sport and also do some other things. I’m not sure it’s something we should continue but it is ‘hard’ to stop. Ok, not hard, just complicated to make the decision solely based on finances.
Post by lolalolalola on Oct 23, 2018 11:54:07 GMT -5
If I were you, I wouldn't think twice about spending the extra.
Frankly, people with mortgages vs rent, home maintenance costs, kids. can afford to spend less on housing because we have so many other things siphoning our money. Plus when asking those with a second income, you are not comparing apples to apples at all.
If I were single and free I would live where I wanted, within reason of course.