Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

2.5 k mortgage
1.0 k student loans
2.0 k child care
0.5 k insurances of varying type
1.0 k college savings
0.5 k car payments
0.5 k metro/parking
0.5 k utilities/cable/phones
0.5 k groceries
1.0 k extracurricular/house keeping/ dry cleaning/ home upkeep and other incidentals
1.0 k savings

11k a month goes by quickly my friends

Wow - that must be a ton of debt!! And really expensive child care too. Why are you saving so much for college before you own student loans are paid off?

Professional degree. Median debt for said degree. Low percentage loan. Was told by a financial advisor never to pay it off early.

2k in child care for 2 kids is standard for this area, no?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:$4,000.

Remember that most people who respond to these threads are VERY conservative financially, so expect to hear low numbers.

If by conservative, you mean people who like to max out 2 sets of tax-advantaged retirement accounts, save for college, have adequate emergency savings, then yes, people who post on these threads are very conservative.

Not the PP, but what I mean when I call most of the posters on this board VERY conservative is that there are a lot of people who make choices in the name of being "safe" or "careful" that are in fact "stupid."

When is buying a less expensive home so that you can have extra cash on hand a "stupid" financial decision ?

Is this supposed to be rhetorical? The answer is "often." By your logic, the least stupid financial decision is to never purchase a home. Clearly anyone who does own a home has made a decision that there is some portion of their cash that is better tied up in a house than in cash in hand. The question in this thread is just where that line is.

Sending too little money on a home is too conservative and spending too much money on a home is too risky. The line is somewhere in the middle, but some people on DCUM don't seem to get that it is a balancing act in either direction. They like to say things like "err on the side of caution" or "better safe than sorry," when that analysis makes no sense when you are trying to hit a mid-point. There is no basis for viewing "too risky" as a vice but "overly conservative" as a virtue. They are both bad.

I also think there's something a little pompous and close-minded about accusing people who are comfortable spending more money on their mortgage as being reckless fools. Of course there is a point where spending becomes overspending and extreme overspending becomes reckless. But really all folks on here are saying when they shout about recklessness is "this person is listing a number that to me would feel like it is hard to do." Then when the poster responds "I have in fact lived on those numbers and it works for me" are responding by saying in the fact of direct evidence that they are wrong "well, you must be reckless and headed for disaster."

Seems similar to calling people who chose to be conservative with their financial decisions "stupid".

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:$4,000.

Remember that most people who respond to these threads are VERY conservative financially, so expect to hear low numbers.

If by conservative, you mean people who like to max out 2 sets of tax-advantaged retirement accounts, save for college, have adequate emergency savings, then yes, people who post on these threads are very conservative.

Not the PP, but what I mean when I call most of the posters on this board VERY conservative is that there are a lot of people who make choices in the name of being "safe" or "careful" that are in fact "stupid."

When is buying a less expensive home so that you can have extra cash on hand a "stupid" financial decision ?

Is this supposed to be rhetorical? The answer is "often." By your logic, the least stupid financial decision is to never purchase a home. Clearly anyone who does own a home has made a decision that there is some portion of their cash that is better tied up in a house than in cash in hand. The question in this thread is just where that line is.

Sending too little money on a home is too conservative and spending too much money on a home is too risky. The line is somewhere in the middle, but some people on DCUM don't seem to get that it is a balancing act in either direction. They like to say things like "err on the side of caution" or "better safe than sorry," when that analysis makes no sense when you are trying to hit a mid-point. There is no basis for viewing "too risky" as a vice but "overly conservative" as a virtue. They are both bad.

I also think there's something a little pompous and close-minded about accusing people who are comfortable spending more money on their mortgage as being reckless fools. Of course there is a point where spending becomes overspending and extreme overspending becomes reckless. But really all folks on here are saying when they shout about recklessness is "this person is listing a number that to me would feel like it is hard to do." Then when the poster responds "I have in fact lived on those numbers and it works for me" are responding by saying in the fact of direct evidence that they are wrong "well, you must be reckless and headed for disaster."

Anonymous wrote:

2.5 k mortgage
1.0 k student loans
2.0 k child care
0.5 k insurances of varying type
1.0 k college savings
0.5 k car payments
0.5 k metro/parking
0.5 k utilities/cable/phones
0.5 k groceries
1.0 k extracurricular/house keeping/ dry cleaning/ home upkeep and other incidentals
1.0 k savings

11k a month goes by quickly my friends

Wow - that must be a ton of debt!! And really expensive child care too. Why are you saving so much for college before you own student loans are paid off?

I think this depends what other things you want in life. I created a budget listing all the things we want/want to pay for (due to childcare, somethings are on hold). The list includes vacation savings, college savings, additional retirement savings, wedding savings. For us, just those 4 savings categories total $3500. You, though, might not be concerned with saving for these things. Our take home after healthcare, TSP (one maxed, one getting matched) is about $10k. PITI is $2400.

I suggest you start with figuring out the lifestyle you want and what you want to save for in the future and then base your PITI on that. I realize you could make more in the future, but at the same time, you might not.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:$4,000.

Remember that most people who respond to these threads are VERY conservative financially, so expect to hear low numbers.

If by conservative, you mean people who like to max out 2 sets of tax-advantaged retirement accounts, save for college, have adequate emergency savings, then yes, people who post on these threads are very conservative.

Not the PP, but what I mean when I call most of the posters on this board VERY conservative is that there are a lot of people who make choices in the name of being "safe" or "careful" that are in fact "stupid."

I don't follow.

+1

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:$4,000.

Remember that most people who respond to these threads are VERY conservative financially, so expect to hear low numbers.

If by conservative, you mean people who like to max out 2 sets of tax-advantaged retirement accounts, save for college, have adequate emergency savings, then yes, people who post on these threads are very conservative.

Not the PP, but what I mean when I call most of the posters on this board VERY conservative is that there are a lot of people who make choices in the name of being "safe" or "careful" that are in fact "stupid."

I don't follow.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:$4,000.

Remember that most people who respond to these threads are VERY conservative financially, so expect to hear low numbers.

If by conservative, you mean people who like to max out 2 sets of tax-advantaged retirement accounts, save for college, have adequate emergency savings, then yes, people who post on these threads are very conservative.

Not the PP, but what I mean when I call most of the posters on this board VERY conservative is that there are a lot of people who make choices in the name of being "safe" or "careful" that are in fact "stupid."

When is buying a less expensive home so that you can have extra cash on hand a "stupid" financial decision ?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:$4,000.

Remember that most people who respond to these threads are VERY conservative financially, so expect to hear low numbers.

If by conservative, you mean people who like to max out 2 sets of tax-advantaged retirement accounts, save for college, have adequate emergency savings, then yes, people who post on these threads are very conservative.

Not the PP, but what I mean when I call most of the posters on this board VERY conservative is that there are a lot of people who make choices in the name of being "safe" or "careful" that are in fact "stupid."

Anonymous wrote:op here. yikes, can we all just get along? Before i posted this thread, I too thought that about 1/3 of net would be a good safe amount for PITI...

so in my circumstance, PITI would be about 2700-2800 bucks.


I am going to have to stretch my budget a little bit to get into a house that I want.

So would everyone agree that a 2700-2800 PITI would be ok on my income? (even if my mother in law stops watching our kid and we have daycare expenses)

It all depends on how much you want to pay for childcare.

Also, do you have an emergency fund set aside for after the home purchase. Things break and repairs always seem to be $1,000+.

Our net is $9,600, piti is $2,000. Seems to be manageable, right? Except childcare is about $2,800 a month (kids are 2 and 3). One car became unreliable, so that's $500. It really does add up quickly if you have to pay childcare or have large unexpected expenses. Once the kids get into ES, I would feel comfortable going to $3,000.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think there are two things this OP needs to consider - 1) what if you suddenly need to pay for daycare? That's at least an additional $1k per month (likely more). Or even if your parents continue to watch the child, maybe you want to enroll in a preschool or something for socialization. Plans for other children? 2) Your cars are paid off now and should last at least 5 more years (assuming good condition), but either you need to save for new cars or make allowance for two new car payments in the future. While you can certainly go above $2k, I wouldn't go up to $5k either. Especially not if you want to save for college or have another kid.

This is the best advice so far. Grandma could have health problems and not be able to take care of the kids. That could get real expensive real fast.

+1 I would never bank on free childcare for all years before ES. I'd stay conservative for piti just to be safe. OP, check out the thread on how much people are paying for childcare and consider whether or not you could add that expense and still be comfortable with the piti.

Anonymous wrote:$4,000.

Remember that most people who respond to these threads are VERY conservative financially, so expect to hear low numbers.

If by conservative, you mean people who like to max out 2 sets of tax-advantaged retirement accounts, save for college, have adequate emergency savings, then yes, people who post on these threads are very conservative.

We net $15,500/month and pay $4800 PITI. I don't know where our money goes, but goes, it does. We couldn't handle any more mortgage. I'd say 1/3 of your net is a good rule.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:our net income is around $12K and our mtg is close to $6K a month. Amazing people are this clueless. Millions of americans live on a $100K income, and live well. So to have that lifestyle AFTER housing costs is hardly being reckless.

yep, that was us and we didn't sleep a wink the whole time we owned the house. it was an expensive nightmare. you are fooling yourself if you think a $6k mortgage on a $12K net is comfortable - unless you have an nice annual bonus you're not telling us about?

Are you serious? This PP just told you that they do in fact life comfortably with these numbers, and in the face of direct evidence that you are wrong or at least badly over generalizing, you accuse the PP of being the one who is delusional?!?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would think that $2700-2800 would be the max.

We make a bit more ($13,500/mo net and have a couple more kids too) and, all in, we pay $2500 for our mortgage. It allows us enough flexibility to not worry about money. We do pay for daycare ($1100/mo) We also save for cars when these crap out on us, max out all retirement accounts, save in 529 plans, not worry about eating out once in awhile, pay for kids extracurriculars and summer camp, and go on a small vacation once a year.

I consider all of the above pretty standard for middle class folks in this area and we still feel like we could be saving more. I wouldn't want to pay any more towards my mortgage.

It must be real tough living on $11,000 in take home pay

You spend 132K per year on incidentals and bills? Give me a break. You're being extremely conservative.

2.5 k mortgage
1.0 k student loans
2.0 k child care
0.5 k insurances of varying type
1.0 k college savings
0.5 k car payments
0.5 k metro/parking
0.5 k utilities/cable/phones
0.5 k groceries
1.0 k extracurricular/house keeping/ dry cleaning/ home upkeep and other incidentals
1.0 k savings

11k a month goes by quickly my friends