Anonymous wrote:We earn 225k and pay 4K a month.

I think that is standard for those in the DC area who do not live the DCUM dream (900k HHI and a $600k mortgage).

We earn 225k and pay 4K a month.

We make $240k and our piti is $4800. No other debt. We fully fund retirement, and college will be paid for with investments. We have no childcare costs. Out previous house piti was $1800. We recently bought our new house for the excellent schools.

Also about $2500. Child care is $1500.

$2500

We wouldn't. We're at about 400k, (give or take 50k) two jobs, so childcare factors in. Our mortgage is $2500/mo (live in outer burb where our jobs are located). We save aggressively for college and absolutely will have both kids fully funded for 4 years in school. We max our 401, max IRAs and put a lot into travel.

Is someone already paying for your kids education? Becauseven I my world, one of the Great opportunities afforded to my children born to high income parents is a great a day debt free education. We are very modest with our home, cars, clothes, furnishings, but ashe far as education goes we thrown all, but the kitchen sink at them.

Of course, in addition to having outrageously high incomes, posters here are pretty conservative. After the latest financial crisis, banks came up with their own answer to your question: piti is no more than 28 percent of your gross income, and total debt payments including student loans no more than 36 percent. Under this, assuming no other debt, you would be approved for up to $4,666 monthly mortgage. Not saying yo SHOULD, just that you could. We live in an expensive real estate market. No shame in paying much of your income to mortgage.

We make 250k and live just fine with a PITI of 3900 olus daycare expenses and student loans of 800/month.

$4500 PITI with $200k in income is about twice as much as I would be comfortable.
Why are you not saving for college?
I have two children, both with SN - whose SNs were not figured out until lower elementary school. In the intense years, we spent close to $20k on the various therapies.

If you really want to do this, try living on $200k for 6 months to a year to see if you can do it. Then plow the extra savings into college and paying down your house. See if you can really do it. If you can, do it for several more years until you can get your PITI down further and have in state college (tuition + room and board) saved- it should be fairly easy with your income.

Or move to a lower cost house.

We make $200k and don't have kids yet but max out retirement and no other debt. $4500 would make me very uncomfortable. Do you have substantial savings outside of retirement?

Won't $4500 be almost 50% of your take home? That's a lot, OP.

We earn 220k and piti is 3300 and that's too much imho. We manage but now with one kid and a nanny that's all our income. We were really good savers before so 2 years of nanny is coming in part from that. 4500 would not work for us at all.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We currently earn about $390k and our PITI is $4500. We fully fund retirement accounts. We have no car payment and no CC debt. I am sick of my job and thinking of moving to a kinder, gentler work environment. It would cut our income in half. If you earn around $200k, would a mortgage or rent of $4500 do you in? I really don't want to move, but I will if I have to.

Do you have kids? It really depends on whether you have childcare expenses and whether you are saving for college (or if that's already funded)--or whether you have other expenses, like various therapy for a SN child.

We have two kids. Expenses are about $600/month for preschool for them. We are not saving for college. No SN issues have arisen (knock on wood).

Anonymous wrote:We currently earn about $390k and our PITI is $4500. We fully fund retirement accounts. We have no car payment and no CC debt. I am sick of my job and thinking of moving to a kinder, gentler work environment. It would cut our income in half. If you earn around $200k, would a mortgage or rent of $4500 do you in? I really don't want to move, but I will if I have to.

Do you have kids? It really depends on whether you have childcare expenses and whether you are saving for college (or if that's already funded)--or whether you have other expenses, like various therapy for a SN child.

We currently earn about $390k and our PITI is $4500. We fully fund retirement accounts. We have no car payment and no CC debt. I am sick of my job and thinking of moving to a kinder, gentler work environment. It would cut our income in half. If you earn around $200k, would a mortgage or rent of $4500 do you in? I really don't want to move, but I will if I have to.