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I am glad you are realizing your financial mishaps and taking the steps to correct them! Acceptance and admittance is the first step of the process!
From reading your posts, I also think it is an issue of the fact that you and your husband are not really sure what you want. It seems like you guys want it both ways, but sometimes in life, you can't. Sometimes you have to choose.
Either you both stay in biglaw and keep making the big 200K+ salaries but you must know if you do that other areas of your life will be sacrificed (family time, commuting time, stress at work) etc as you will probably be putting in 10-12 hour days.
Or as others have said, you can downsize (maybe move into a smaller house, or a nice condo or townhouse), and make less money, but have higher quality in other areas of your life (like time with your baby, and less stressful work, etc)
Everybody wants to make 150K+ and work a normal 9-5 Mon-Fri, but in certain professions that's just not realistic (Law and medicine being two of them)
Your husband sounds miserable and he should really try to get a different job. With his credentials in biglaw I am sure it wouldn't be that hard.
Rent = borrow it. You don't have to pay for it, your tax dollars are being spent to purchase those library books. Be cheap where you have to be, buy it when you really need it. I picked up my copies at a library sale in new condition for $1.
I knew what you meant. I live in the library. Just thought it was cute.
Twingles, not obsesses with a certain kind of housing, although I can see how it seems that way from my post. We are looking at the housing as a way to motivate us to go. What we are obsessed with is being home at 6pm to spend time with our child and having some semblance of a normal life. Also, I don't think downsizing would be an option. Our house is only 1700 sq feet now. Also, if we sold, in reality we would be losing money even if we broke even on the mortgage and would have little or no downpayment.
WAIT....... 1700 sq ft..... and YOU went to a good college ......... AND you're mortgage is $4100 a month.....AND it still needs a lot of WORK ??????
Next time you want to buy a 1700 ft house take me to do your negotiating....
How in the world did you ever contemplate paying that kind of money for 1700 sqft
WAIT....... 1700 sq ft..... and YOU went to a good college ......... AND you're mortgage is $4100 a month.....AND it still needs a lot of WORK ??????
Next time you want to buy a 1700 ft house take me to do your negotiating....
How in the world did you ever contemplate paying that kind of money for 1700 sqft
Not so much a result of the price of the house - $480,000! It's what else is part of the mortgage, including the fact that the downpayment was only 5%.
Based on the (limited) information given, let's work the numbers one by one. Just an illustration!
...$150 Homeowners insurance
...$500 PMI
...$850 RE taxes (based on the lack of inventory, probably a desirable area = definitely NOT low taxes)
--------
$1,500
$2,600 Principal and Interest on a $456,000 mortgage**
--------
$4,100 total
**rounded and based on 5 1/2% interest rate--considered low at that point. While the best interest rate at the time of the OP's purchase was lower, given their debt radio and most likely lack of length of credit history, chances are they were not eligible for the lowest interest rate. The public tends to assume that the advertised rates are available to everyone; not so. Unless the credit score, etc. supports it, the actual rate is often higher.
Elke you are almost exactly on the money. Although the home was $480k we took out another $50k to make it inhabitable, so at the end of the day, the mortgage started out at about $525k, after downpayment. Because there was a construction mortgage, our rate is 5.25. With a conventional FHA we were looking at 4.75, which was toward the lower end of what was being offered 2 years ago, but you're right, probably not the lowest. RE taxes are about 1k a month, because yes we do live in a desirable area, one that I bet you're very familiar with, Elke Our homeowners insurance is also a bit more expensive than $150 a month due to our proximity to the sound, but yes, what kills us is that we only put 5. It has nothing to do with negotiating (we actually got a very good price for the home) and everything to do with impatience to buy a home and not waiting until we had at least 10% down.
$500 a month for PMI is crazy!!! I think anyone faced with paying that kind of money just for PMI every month should realize they can't yet afford to buy a house, at least not the house in question anyway. If you have to pay that for even 5 years, that's $30,000 thrown away!
$500 a month for PMI is crazy!!! I think anyone faced with paying that kind of money just for PMI every month should realize they can't yet afford to buy a house, at least not the house in question anyway. If you have to pay that for even 5 years, that's $30,000 thrown away!
An expensive lesson.
Sounds like it's a lesson learned.
What I find interesting is that the property tax on the north shore near the sound is only 12K a year? I was paying much more on the south shore in my 500k home of 1700 sq feet. Of course I am not a well educated attorney making 250K a year. But even so I never paid mortgage insurance for my home. I also was lucky enough to move to FL before Hurricane Sandy. Sales where I was living are stagnant now. I wonder if that is the same on the north shore since Sandy.
I logged in and looked at our mortgage. PMI is actually $371 a month. Not $500. Still a lot though. For those beating the dead horse about us not waiting to have a larger down payment. I got it thanks.
To those making passive aggressive remarks about my education, former salary and/or how you would never make such dumb decisions, I hope being able to post that made you feel better about your life and situation.
I logged in and looked at our mortgage. PMI is actually $371 a month. Not $500. Still a lot though. For those beating the dead horse about us not waiting to have a larger down payment. I got it thanks.
To those making passive aggressive remarks about my education, former salary and/or how you would never make such dumb decisions, I hope being able to post that made you feel better about your life and situation.
Hey there, this is the Long Island forum where everyone is perfect, they're from LongGuyIsland (one word). But then, they are all too busy trying to keep up with their neighbors by installing those fugly columns in front of their mansion(ahem,abode),the leased Navigator in the front of the home,the landscaped manicured squiggly bushes in front of the first floor windows and their idea of a fun time is driving to one of the 50 or so strip malls located within ten blocks of their home so they can people watch while trying to make believe their loads don't stink like the next person's.
And now a word from the realistic side of peninsula - you have time to turn it around, all is not lost. One day, you will get rid of that PMI, those columns mentioned above will still be fugly and LongGuyIsland ostentatious.
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Be cheap where you have to be, buy it when you really need it. I picked up my copies at a library sale in new condition for $1. 
Our homeowners insurance is also a bit more expensive than $150 a month due to our proximity to the sound, but yes, what kills us is that we only put 5. It has nothing to do with negotiating (we actually got a very good price for the home) and everything to do with impatience to buy a home and not waiting until we had at least 10% down.
). But then, they are all too busy trying to keep up with their neighbors by installing those fugly columns in front of their mansion(ahem,abode)
,the leased Navigator in the front of the home,the landscaped manicured squiggly bushes in front of the first floor windows and their idea of a fun time is driving to one of the 50 or so strip malls located within ten blocks of their home so they can people watch while trying to make believe their loads don't stink like the next person's.
