I know that the most common answer is probably “just save/invest all the new cash”, but I’m just looking for guidelines on when it’s not always the case.
My girlfriend and I are house shopping (currently renting for $1400 a month). Up until recently I’ve had between $1,000-1,500 left over at the end of the month after all bills. We want our total monthly payment for a house to be <= our current rent.
I recently got a ~40% raise at work, and would be able to save/invest all of that extra money (it’s about $1k extra take-home a month) if the expenses stayed the same. But at the same time, the houses that would have a maybe $100-200 higher mortgage are much nicer (e.g. we’re currently looking at houses in the $200-250k range, but the amount of good looking houses increases by a lot when we move than upper limit to like $275-280k).
At what point this increase in allowed budget becomes lifestyle creep? What’s a “normal” increase in spending vs raises etc? I can provide more info if needed.
EDIT:
- Combined income was $105k, now it’s $135k
- Total debt is around $35k, ($20k total left on 2 cars, $15k in student loans).
- We both max 401k up to the max company match (5% and 4%).
- I just opened a Roth in the summer
- GF is actually a fiancé
- After house down payment we’ll have a good emergency fund left, and ~25k in a brokerage
Submitted November 27, 2021 at 09:37AM by Earthquake14 https://ift.tt/3p4gnNI
