Interest Rates on the Rise

[jeSteR]

$260K mortgage
WEEKLY payments of $400
that's based on an 18 year mortgage at 3.5% I believe... those are rough numbers on the last place I was contemplating.

[jeSteR]

You bump that up to a $380K mortgage and turn it into 35 years, it's still manageable.

[joel]

ouch! 400$ a week..

[Duncan]

errmm...

55k/yr income means ~44.6k/yr post tax according to

that means you have $857/week to live off of... minus $400 a week is $457 afterwards... (these are rough estimates) $100/mo for gas, $100/mo for hydro, $200/mo prop tax, $75/mo for prop insurance, $200/mo strata means you have $675/mo in expenses... that's $155/wk in utils... that drops you down to $300/week to do other stuff...

now factor in life insurance/critical illness insurance/car insurance/car gas which typically runs me up about $450/mo... that means another $103/week gone.. that leaves $200/wk to live off of... now say food costs $100/wk for 2.5 people... that leaves you with $100/wk for other things... birthday party here, busted tire there, i think that's a pretty tight budget... it'd leave you with no margin of error...

$400/wk is pretty steep... i'm thinking i'd probably go for a 35 yr mortgage... haha..

[nature boy]

that's another one of the points that i was trying to make. sure, on paper any one of us could probably afford $400 a week (which is just $1600 a month... less than a paycheque if you make 55k a year), but if you add on the other things that you don't think about on a regular basis it starts to become impossible.

i thought i could afford paying $1200+ a month for my old gti with my insurance the way it was, but because i enjoyed eating out and paying for gas, it took a huge toll on my finances.

so the best calculator for that (imho) is to set up that savings account that takes out a mortgage payment every month/week/whatever so see if you can actually do it. if you can't, no harm done and now you know. if you can, then go buy a house.

[jeSteR]

[jeSteR]

[nature boy]

[nature boy]

[joel]

I think that's like the statistic of how many of them declare bankrupcy...

[jeSteR]

78% of ex NBA and 85% of ex NFL players declare bankrupcy after their careers are over... It's in a thread in the sports forum somewhere.

[nature boy]

yeah, the same statistic goes for lottery winners too.

just because you have the money doesn't mean you should spend it when you're not ready for it.
not saying that buying a house is a waste of money or a bad idea, but i think it'd be prudent to be absolutely sure that you can manage in real life and not just on paper.

[Duncan]

[jeSteR]

[nature boy]

i think another thing to think about is that it's true that our parents went through all this financial hardship and stuff but it was different for them as well. they basically HAD to do all that to survive. we're in a luckier time when we don't really have to.