What percentage of your take home do you spend on your mortgage & tax every month?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This thread is making me feel so much better. We recently moved to a bigger house and increased our PITI by about $1100, bringing us to spending 25% of our net whereas in our old house we were spending maybe 15% of net on PITI, especially since we refinanced last year. I was worried about going back up to 25% but it sounds like that is considered average. We definitely ran numbers and didn't make the purchase until we knew we could comfortably afford it and had enough savings built in (plus we made some money on the sale of our old house) but still, it's always a little scary when a major expense goes up like that.

It is scary! But then you adjust and it becomes your new normal. As long as you didn't overspend (and it sounds like you did not), you'll be good.

[Anonymous]

13% of net (answering the question asked, and I don't care if the "rule" is gross)

Used to be 26% before we refinanced.

I'm including condo fee in this calculation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is anyone sticking to that 20-25-30% guideline these days?

We're at 12% of gross, but we've been in this house for 8 years and our incomes have doubled, so it was 25% of gross when we bought.

We have a similar situation. Our mortgage is currently at 9% of gross and 16% of net.

But we bought it when we were 24 and had no experience and no graduate degrees and we could barely afford it. We have been fortunate to have our incomes rise a fair bit, and we made the choice to stay in the small house in the crappy neighborhood to put away some cash.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:risk avoidance is avoidance of sucess

Boy, there are a lot of uneducated platitudes being thrown around on here. I am not risk averse. I am smart. I am 100% risk tolerant in my investments because I have a long time horizon for retirement and I can afford to be. But in terms of household budgeting, I refuse to mortgage myself to the hilt at the expense of retirement, savings, investment - and yes, the ability to have money for fun. We have chosen to do it all because we did not buy anywhere near the top of our approved amount. What is not to understand here?

A house is an investment

No. it's a place to live. relying on your house to "make" money for you is foolish.

[Anonymous]

Oh, we're supposed to use gross? Cool.
18% net, just under 10% gross.
Used to be a lot more than that, but while income went up, refi's took the payment way down. We didn't take cash out, just kept riding the interest rates down.

[Anonymous]

7% of gross and around 13% of net.

[Anonymous]

14% of gross, 26% of net. Also includes homeowner's insurance in addition to taxes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Life's too short to be conservative. Conservatives generally are narrow-minded thinkers and live cautious, unfulfilling, and sheltered lives. Not for me.

People like you are why we had so many foreclosures in the area in 2007-2009. There were tons of people in my neighborhood who had great jobs in secure fields who suddenly found they were one of thousands being laid off from secure fields. All these people who had no backup plan. I also got laid off in 2009, but we had plenty of savings and used about 15% of our emergency funds for the six months that I was laid off.

And FYI, we paid 18% gross, about 30% net of our income for our mortgage.

Well if something catastrophic like that happened it would effect everyone including you and the government would intervene

Ha ha. I feel like you missed most of the last 5 years. Some people did really well during the contraction. And it was those who had lots of rainy day money to buy assets very cheaply.

Not really, I bought again recently without a rainy day fund and borrowed.

Right. You bought during a bubble and over paid. Genius!

in 11?

[Anonymous]

I hope that those that are being very judgey realize that some of us with higher percentages (mine is slightly over 40% take home) have 15 year mortgages and substantial savings. It is hard to say that putting $2k towards equity a month is anything other than an investment. Whether it is a good or bad investment is a completely different question.

[Anonymous]

18.5% of gross, 28% of net

[Anonymous]

11 % of gross, 21 % of net. Net is after retirement contributions are made. We pay extra on the mortgage because we did not reduce our payment when we refi'd

[Anonymous]

You all are old as fuck new buyers didn't benefit from the massive boom

[Anonymous]

Piti is 22 percent of gross, 40 percent of net. But we're guilty of withholding too much and this includes some Tsp and flex account withdrawals.

[Anonymous]

18% of net, but we overpay after refinancing. The monthly payment on our (hopefully) forever house, to be purchased in the next year, will put us closer to 30% of net.

[Anonymous]

15% of net, 8% of gross.

But our TSP and 401(k) aren't maxed out, and we don't have much short-term savings for home repairs, etc.

Probably because we eat out 4 times a week.

But no kids either, so I don't feel strapped.