What % of your take home income goes to your mortgage?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Seriously, you 10% and 7% people are impressive (I mean it!). Tell me more?! I am the one that posted about the book "Stop Acting Rich" I think I could learn from you both.

I am the 10 percent PP. I am an economist (300k) and Dh is an engineer (130k). When we got married, we both agreed that we should be able to live comfortably on a single salary (the lower of the two salaries). This determined our decision to buy a house around 600k in the early 2000s. Since then, most of my colleagues have upgraded to more expensive houses, but I refuse to...I value my freedom to do my job because I like it, not because I have to pay a mortgage.

OK, I'm no economist, but are you saying that you could comfortably support a mortgage on a 600k house on 130k a year? Was that with some massive down payment that made your mortgage more in the 400k range? Obviously (as you'll see below) we are doing something wrong ...

To answer the original question - sadly - it is approaching 50%. Our net take home is just over 8k/mo - which includes fully funded 401ks and various FSAs. Our mortgage payments + taxes (but not insurance) is about 4k, although we are paying extra on the second mortgage so it is paid off in the next 3 years. It wasn't always this high - our house was reassessed shortly after we bought it and it basically was assessed at the sale price. Added a good $200/mo to our payment.

[Anonymous]

After 401k, taxes, and health insurance, about 40%. (Can't be more precise because we overpay our estimated taxes as a precaution.)

I choked when I saw that number - it's WAY too high - but ealized it's deceiving for a number of reasons:

- We'll max out the 401(k) before year's end, so for a few months won't have any deductions. If those months are pro-rated over the year, the percentage drops quite a bit.

- About 40% of our income is deferred - the percentage doesn't include that income (which is used for long term savings) at all.