How much disposable income?

Glen0000

Lunar_Eclipse wrote: »

Or you might need another 30% to buy the same house. (Which you don't have and can't afford to borrow due to income multipliers).

Prices are not going up anytime soon. Do you watch the news/read a paper? Or was it a joke??

Lunar_Eclipse

Glen0000 wrote: »

Or was it a joke??

No, but I am being objective fyi. No-one knows what's going to happen.

Firstly, house prices are going up. And also going down. The headline data (aka average house prices) is going down, yes. But it is important to recognise and understand more than the headline information if you are using it to make serious lifestyle decisions based primarily on the finances involved.

I do watch and read the news yes. Does all that speculation and hype amongst the fact help much?

So you do rent ... or are you a hypocrite?

mustsave_2

It all depends on your other expenses really.

Our income is just over £3,000 pm with us both working loads of hours. £958 mortgage from that we really notice but we have other expenses. 3 kids who bring home notes nearly every week for a school trip of some sort. They also do drama costing us £240 a term and daughter's bus pass is £100 a month.

We have to run 2 cars and spend about £200 a month on petrol. We get by and have managed to let the kids keep up the drama. We both work whatever overtime is on offer to get the overdraft down when it creeps back up.

We seldon go out, buy the cheapest clothes and do not smoke.

Neither of us would want to increase our mortgage payment, cost of living rising and getting tougher every month.

Don't think we would be rushing to buy in your position. Loads of houses unsold round here, think prices will continue to drop. In a years time your children will be a little older and your other half may be able to increase her working hours.

Glen0000

Lunar_Eclipse wrote: »

No, but I am being objective fyi. No-one knows what's going to happen.

Firstly, house prices are going up. And also going down. The headline data (aka average house prices) is going down, yes. But it is important to recognise and understand more than the headline information if you are using it to make serious lifestyle decisions based primarily on the finances involved.

I do watch and read the news yes. Does all that speculation and hype amongst the fact help much?

So you do rent ... or are you a hypocrite?

I rent. I earn £33k, wife earns £7k. I have a £20k deposit and am waiting it out due to sound advice from MSE. I think only a fool believes the crash is not going to happen. It is well on it's way. In a few years time we will have a bigger deposit, wife will be working full time and prices will have dropped. Nothing is shifting round here. My friend just had to drop his house from £160k to £145k just to get some viewers in.

Yorkshirechick

I have a 175k mortgage, and a 22yr term on it. My mortgage is just under 1200 a month, and mine and OHs take home pay is £2700 a month (or it will be when I go back to work after maternity leave). We will be paying about £400 a month childcare costs, and our groceries and fuel come to about £400 a month.
To be honest I'm worried about how we'll manage if the mortgage rates go up, but we'll cope, we always do. If they go up too much we'll just have to sell the house and move somewhere smaller.
I think that when I go back to work by the time we've paid all our bills, mortgage, food, fuel and childcare we'll have about £200 a month spare. We're hoping to get rid of one car though so that should hopefully save quite a bit.
So - after all my ramblings our disposable income is about £200 a month for 2 adults, one baby, 2 cats and a dog

*Louise*

We are 2 adults and 3 young children

After mortgage and essential bills, we are left on average between £700-£1000 (wage depends on bonuses, it' a pain)

Then, deduct all food, clothes, diesel (getting scary!) gifts, savings etc we usually have anround £200 'disposable' left.

truescot

Really loving all these useful replies, ranging from "don't be stupid!" to "go for it!".

I forgot to mention that we live in Scotland where at the moment the property market is not as bad as down south, just levelling out a bit. We will make 65k on our present house and to go to the max mortgage I mentioned would mean moving to a house that we will almost definitely have for life, barring unforeseen relocation. I have a secure job in the public sector with a salary which will only go up, and as I mentioned my wife works part time so could go full time if money was really tight.

My previous post was wrong in that we would have nearer £300 after all the things I mentioned are taken off. Judging by many of the respones this seems ok and with a bit of prudence regarding shopping etc I think we will manage fine for a couple of years, after whhich the payments will propbably look fairly small. Feel free to keep the thread going as this is an ongoing debate!

Paparika

I'd say about £20.00 is what i'm left with

I rarely go out and if i do oh tends to get the drinks, i don't buy new clothes, shoes, make up what's that!!

Holidays, well i just managed one week in Portugal last year and still paying CC off for it.

Lillibet_2

Disposable income is however much you have left after all other regular costs have been subtracted, including fluctuating costs like car services etc. We deduct mortgage, utilities, groceries & car costs (insurance £35/Tax £12/service & mot £90), pet food, set aside an amount each month for petrol (£120) (if it runs out we either have to subsidize out of our disposable income or walk!), christmas, holidays (just slashed that from £50 per month to £25 due to rising costs of living, got to find the increased cost somewhere), plus our emergency fund. We are left with about £60 per month each to spend as we like on personal items, i.e clothes, books, CD's, birthday presents, entertainment & eating out (we don't!), I also clothe our nearly 3YO out of my share of the disposable income. If we need to find more money for groceries & bills then our disposable income will be the next thing to be slashed.
The bottom line is that there is only £X comming in & no matter how you play with the figures it won't add up to any more, it's all very well people suggesting figures like £1-200 but you need to meet your committed costs first and what your left with is your disposabel income, it might only be £10 but even that's better than -£10 then spending a further £100 on "stuff".

HTH;)

mintymoneysaver

You probably could manage on that, we now bring home about £2500 and only have a £400 a month mortgage payment and when I first read it I thought no way could you manage but your money changes to accomodate your needs, a few years ago we had a good bit less salary but managed to pay £300 a month nursery fees out of it. Then we used to allow ourselves £100 a month pocket money each, now we allow ourselves £300. That probabaly seems a lot but it never seems to go anywhere, I don't spend all of it but there's never much left at the end of the month, with birthdays, trips out etc. So if it's the house of your dreams and you're prepared to struggle for a year or two then go for it!