Anyone at $330K HHI have a mortgage that is $4900/month (37% of net pay / 17% of gross)?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. The credit card debt pre-dates my return to the full-time work force in 2013. We're still chipping away at it.

Still chipping away ? You have gotten 24k from grandparents most years , even while working part time , has continued while you are now back to work full time
That means you continue to live above your means if you have credit card debt plus little savings .

Retirement is typically money you out away from your paycheck and is easier to discipline.
You are spending every penny you have now and don't even have a few hundred dollars extra to allocate per month to your current debt

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, I'm confused. You said your DH makes the max - $157k, but you also said he is a GS15 5. If he is a 15 5, he is not making the max.

http://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries-wages/salary-tables/pdf/2014/DCB.pdf

OP here. My DH makes $157K. He tells me it's the top salary for a GS employee. (I am not an expert on the GS system as I work in the business world.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, I'm confused. You said your DH makes the max - $157k, but you also said he is a GS15 5. If he is a 15 5, he is not making the max.

http://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries-wages/salary-tables/pdf/2014/DCB.pdf

OP here. My DH makes $157K. He tells me it's the top salary for a GS employee. (I am not an expert on the GS system as I work in the business world.)

He is a GS 15 step 10.

[Anonymous]

OP here again. I posted this question several months ago, and some responders said it was do-able to have a mortgage of $4900/month (with $330K HHI), and others warned that it would leave us feeling house poor and cash strapped.

We've been looking for houses in a lower price range, but didn't find anything worth moving to. Now a house has come onto the market that would be a good fit for us (within our school district and with more space and a street with nice trees and no cut-through traffic.) I really want to bid on the house, and DH is a bit reluctant, but OK too.

Any more thoughts from people with an HHI of $330K (two full-time working parents)? The mortgage would be $850K – which would be 37% of net pay (and 17% of gross pay).

Thank you!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here again. I posted this question several months ago, and some responders said it was do-able to have a mortgage of $4900/month (with $330K HHI), and others warned that it would leave us feeling house poor and cash strapped.

We've been looking for houses in a lower price range, but didn't find anything worth moving to. Now a house has come onto the market that would be a good fit for us (within our school district and with more space and a street with nice trees and no cut-through traffic.) I really want to bid on the house, and DH is a bit reluctant, but OK too.

Any more thoughts from people with an HHI of $330K (two full-time working parents)? The mortgage would be $850K – which would be 37% of net pay (and 17% of gross pay).

Thank you!

Made any further dents in your CC debt? If your parents gift you money this year (or early next) your first order should be paying off that debt and then putting the rest in your emergency savings.

[Anonymous]

Seems like the question is what the rest of your expenses are. If they are less than what you have left after your $4900 payment then you can do it. However, I'd add to my expenses paying down credit card debt faster and building up savings. Do an HONEST budget that will ensure you do not go into deeper CC debt and see if the math works out (or if there are things you can (AND WILL) cut so the math works).

[Anonymous]

NP here. We're at $4300 for the mortgage with $380k HHI, close to a million in retirement/investment accounts, $75k in liquid savings/cash, $36k/year in childcare though that may rise if we get a nanny, and probably $40k across two 529 plans (kids are under 5). We are in our mid 30s and not sure we're done having kids. No debt aside from mortgage. We feel okay about our situation, but sometimes the size of the remaining balance makes me uncomfortable. The monthly payments are manageable, of course, but boy we have a lot to pay down still. The big difference between our situations is that I do NOT consider our jobs stable. One biglaw and one at a startup and both likely to change jobs within the next year or two, probably with a drop in salary.

The other thing I'll add is that I've found chipping away at the edges of our spending (bringing lunch to work, for example, or using FSA where possible) doesn't make any kind of a dent in things like the big ticket items do. Mortgage and childcare is where most of our money goes, so don't overestimate how much you'll be able to save by hanging around the house more.

Hope this helps.

[Anonymous]

Personally I would feel strapped. We have a $700k mortgage make around that (depends on DH's bonus). Our PITA is $3,800 and pay our nanny around $40k. We are still able to travel (not as extensively but we have a 14 month old anyway) and put away $2k/month into a taxable investment account. We already have an 8 month emergency fund and fully fund roth 401ks and grandparents have maxed out DD's 529 plan.

FWIW in the first two years we owned our house we flooded 3x & ended up spending close to $40k in repairs/modifications to the house. There is no way we could have handled that without the emergency funds!

[Anonymous]

We are close to that - but for different reasons. We have a 15 year mortgage so that we will have significant financial flexibility upon retirement. We also need to save for college for our 3 children.

We live pretty frugally - but there are months we feel really stretched - like when all of the bills for paying for camp hits in addition to the car breaking down. For this we have emergency reserves - but always prefer to pay bills out of our income as opposed to tapping savings.

If I was in your family's situation, I would spend the next 4 months living as if you were paying that type of mortgage. It might seem like a long time - but it a whole lot shorter than 30 years in a house you can not afford.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Thanks for the helpful posts so far.

Here's some additional info. We are both 44 years old. We have retirement savings of about 800K. Thanks to help from the grandparents, we haven't had to save for our 3 kids' college educations because the grandparents have chipped $175,000 for each of the 3 kids. We have a decent amount of life insurance (about $2.5 million on each of us). My DH is a federal employee and, as I understand it, upon retirement in about 23 years, will get 1 percent of his salary for each year worked (which would be $23,000/year for the 15 years he's worked there so far).

In 2013, I rejoined the work force on a full-time basis (after working part-time when the kids were younger). Part of the reason that I did go full-time was that we only have about $10,000 in non-retirement savings, and on the flip side, we have about $10,000 in credit card debt.

We don't have student loan payments or car payments.

We seems to spend an outsized amount on our nanny ($50,000) and on our kids' activities because my DH is an active type (skiing, hockey, swim team dues). I'd be happy to cut back on these if we could just have a more spacious and open home where we can enjoy time together as a family and our kids can host their friends. Perhaps our relatives would be willing to visit us, instead of us having to fly to visit them?

Remind me to stop opening posts like this. I hate it when people think they're struggling when they have well paying, stable jobs AND the grandparents have helped so much. I have 3 kids and if I didn't have to worry about college, I can't imagine what I would do with the extra money. Oh yeah, I still wouldn't have any because I don't get paid like these people. I just need to avoid knowing people like this exist.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Personally I would feel strapped. We have a $700k mortgage make around that (depends on DH's bonus). Our PITA is $3,800 and pay our nanny around $40k. We are still able to travel (not as extensively but we have a 14 month old anyway) and put away $2k/month into a taxable investment account. We already have an 8 month emergency fund and fully fund roth 401ks and grandparents have maxed out DD's 529 plan.

FWIW in the first two years we owned our house we flooded 3x & ended up spending close to $40k in repairs/modifications to the house. There is no way we could have handled that without the emergency funds!

GODDAMIT! I didn't stop reading and found more effing grandparents paying for college. I'm going to go eat ice cream now so I can come back and post about not just being poor but fat too!

[Anonymous]

We have a $4600 payment on a 400k HHI and I regret it. we're not stretched every month, but I live in fear of what might happen if one of us loses our job. Not worth it.

[Anonymous]

I wouldn't do it. A lot can happen in 23 years. This can include job loss, illness etc. Many people have to retire earlier than planned for health reasons, or because they are laid off at age 58 and can't find another job.

[Anonymous]

I wouldn't do it. You don't have enough savings (emergency fund), credit card debt too high, assuming too much about what the next 23 yrs as a Fed will be like in terms of retirement (I was 20+ yrs in when things started getting chipped away but if you have 20 to go you're going to take the full brunt of any cuts, and I am sure there will be significant ones in both retirement benefits, contribution to health plan, etc.) ... IMO you're assuming too much and taking on more than I'd be comfortable with but you have to gauge your own risk tolerance and realize where you're pushing it.

[Anonymous]

We have $4300/month at $225K HHI and we are fine. We are, however, pass the point of daycare/afterschool care.