mxt0133 t1_iy9i7oi wrote on November 29, 2022 at 7:27 PM

As others have said you can do it on paper but if either one of you were to lose your job for an extended period you would be screwed with the amount of savings you have. You mentioned about 50K in cash, do you have any investments that can be liquidated if needed?

I personally would not be comfortable with a mortgage that high and $1000 in car payments. I assume you are not saving anything for when you need to replace the cars or major maintenance. If you buy a house that is more than 20 years old, things will need to be replaced. A new roof is 20k, HVAC 5-10k, ect., rule of thumb is about 1-2% of house maintenance per year, more if it's older for the first couple of years. Also if you are coming from a smaller place you will need furniture and a bunch of misc household items that you will need if you don't currently live in a house. It all adds up.

Will you be able to replenish your efund if you have to drain it?

7,800 - 2800 - 3400 = 1600, estimate increased utilities and housing costs at another $500 and you are left with about $1000 for all the discretionary items, are you comfortable with that?

You could ease back on the Roth contributions if things get really tight, but I personally would not be comfortable being in that position. Especially if you are planning to have kids down the line.

ProspectiveHomeBuye OP t1_iyb4hu5 wrote on November 30, 2022 at 2:10 AM

Thanks for the detailed response. We are fortunate that if we really had an emergency like a lost job and we had to drain our savings, we have family that we know we could lean on until we get back on our feet.

Those are very good points about the high cost of maintenance and repair items. After reading all these comments, a monthly payment of $3400 seems a bit higher than we would want to be stuck with. Cutting back discretionary spending is something I know we could do, but I like the advice of some people here who have said to go a couple months budgeting as if we had that mortgage payment and see how it goes.

One thing we are not taking into account is that I am fortunate enough to be in a very stable government job that gives yearly merit increases of 3-5%. While you can never know for sure what will happen, it is highly likely that my income will only continue to increase.