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Old 06-29-2009, 10:38 AM
 
98 posts, read 337,946 times
Reputation: 45

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Just curious here. I am wondering about salaries/occupations and home purchase prices. I will go first:

Spouse: Oil & Gas IT professional: $125k gross per year
me: homemaker/dabble in Ebay sales: $20k gross per year

Just bought a home for $235k

Mostly I am curious because it seems like people at our income level seem to buy homes that are considerably higher priced. We bought at a price that felt comfortable and safe for us. We did not want to have the feeling of being really strapped every month.

Anabel
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Old 06-29-2009, 11:50 AM
 
Location: Houston, TX
17,029 posts, read 30,925,220 times
Reputation: 16265
Its all about location...I'm 20 years in the oil industry but desire to live in Midtown/River Oaks so I'm going to pay more for the dirt. I thought the wisdom on housing was 2.5-3x your gross income...unless you were in NYC or SF/LA.
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Old 06-29-2009, 12:05 PM
 
Location: Clear Lake, Houston TX
8,376 posts, read 30,702,433 times
Reputation: 4720
Quote:
Originally Posted by anabel View Post
Just curious here. I am wondering about salaries/occupations and home purchase prices. I will go first:

Spouse: Oil & Gas IT professional: $125k gross per year
me: homemaker/dabble in Ebay sales: $20k gross per year

Just bought a home for $235k

Mostly I am curious because it seems like people at our income level seem to buy homes that are considerably higher priced. We bought at a price that felt comfortable and safe for us. We did not want to have the feeling of being really strapped every month.

Anabel

Good move if you plan on sticking around for awhile. Do a 15 year mortgage and pay it off as fast as you can. IMO the key to true wealth nowadays in this debt-ridden country is to get all debts paid as fast as possible.

"Neither A Borrower, Nor A Lender Be"

Get those investment (college, retirement, etc) funds going and maybe buy some land in a strategic area instead of putting it in stagnant, suburban housing. When you get 100% paid off and get to a certain point within investment, more options are available... i.e. husband quits his job and does something he really wants to do instead of has to do. All he needs to do is pay bills, taxes & insurance, which will be like paying for a 1 bedroom apartment.
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Old 06-29-2009, 12:48 PM
 
Location: Texas
447 posts, read 1,766,001 times
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Our gross income is a little higher than yours, and we financed only 150,000. We also didn't want to be house poor. We also have no children at home, so we don't need as much space.

Hubby is IT professional; I am a nurse case manager for a large insurance company
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Old 06-29-2009, 01:18 PM
 
298 posts, read 954,942 times
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Yep - depends on location and modesty. I hope to buy soon but I am keeping it low (less than 100k for a townhome) and on a 15 year mortgage. Our gross income is also less than 100k though.
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Old 06-29-2009, 02:53 PM
 
343 posts, read 942,514 times
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gross income for me and the fiance $115,000
house $205k
no other debt

Our plan is too pay mortgage, utilities and necessities with my salary. Her salary will go to savings/retirement/investment funds. To be honest I was hesitant on buying a 205k house. I wanted to be in the $160k range as the max but for the location it was worth it.
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Old 06-29-2009, 03:17 PM
 
98 posts, read 337,946 times
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Ok, I am definitely surprised to hear how many of you are also conservative with your finances. Obviously, this is a very private issue, so we don't really discuss money matters with others in real life. My husband and I are big Dave Ramsey fans and quite honestly, have felt pretty alone in our philosophy of not buying things on credit or carrying debt. Nice to know there are others out there.
I do things like shop at thrift stores for my clothes, and my husband is big fan of pawn shops. Our cars are paid for and we live pretty simple lives. It seems like so many people are living high on the hog at our income level. I would love to know of other single income, low 6 figure families doing the same.

Last edited by anabel; 06-29-2009 at 03:58 PM.. Reason: correction
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Old 06-29-2009, 03:27 PM
 
Location: Houston, TX (Bellaire)
4,900 posts, read 13,736,420 times
Reputation: 4190
Similar salary. 260k house. I planned to stay in the low 200s but we got a mortgage at 4.5% so the payments are still very reasonable.
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Old 06-29-2009, 03:59 PM
 
98 posts, read 337,946 times
Reputation: 45
sorry my above post should've read mid 6 figure income, I guess.
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Old 06-29-2009, 04:21 PM
 
Location: Richmond, TX
193 posts, read 436,842 times
Reputation: 110
Quote:
Originally Posted by anabel View Post
Ok, I am definitely surprised to hear how many of you are also conservative with your finances.
It is also nice to see...and a stark contrast to what I am seeing a lot of right now in the SF Bay Area.

My wife and I have a little bit of a debt and a car that is almost paid off (we fully own the other one) so we are working on that right now. I have only been in the workforce for a couple of years so our total household income is not that high however I am being paid well for my experience level.

When we move to Houston, we are going to be renting a not so expensive place for a while so that we can eliminate the bit of credit card debt we have and save the rest. We're working on having that down payment plus some extra savings. We live pretty frugally as well, doing our clothes shopping primarily at Target and Ross, drive economical cars, etc.

We haven't dicussed how much we want to eventually buy a house for but I know we want to make sure we can afford it.

As somebody that's only been in my career for a couple of years, it's not been as easy as I thought it would be to balance expenses, save some money, invest, start planning for retirement, etc. Maybe just maybe my parents were smarter than I thought when I was a teenager.
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