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It really saved us one year when my income took a large dip.
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If you’re like many people, housing is probably your single largest monthly expense. In fact, the national median mortgage payment was $1,964 in December 2022, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.
Of course, your specific mortgage payment may be higher or lower. But it’s important to take on a mortgage payment you can comfortably afford. That’s something my husband and I made a point to do. And it really came in handy one year when my income took a notable hit.
Why paying the mortgage on one salary makes sense
When my husband and I bought our home, mortgage rates were fairly low. But even so, we decided to push ourselves to make a large down payment on our home, and to stick to buying a home that wasn’t all the way at the top of our price range.
In fact, in the course of buying our home, my husband and I decided that we needed to be able to cover our mortgage payment on his salary alone. The logic was that my freelance income was variable, and we wanted flexibility since having kids was part of our plans. In the end, that decision actually saved us a world of financial upheaval.
A choice that really paid off
My husband and I bought our home before having kids. When I had my son a few years later, I was able to continue working full-time, even though it meant losing a large chunk of my income to daycare costs.
When I had twin daughters a few years later, daycare wasn’t an option. The cost of putting all of my kids into daycare at the same time was so exorbitant that it wouldn’t have been worth it. Instead, I decided to cut back on working for the first year of my daughters’ lives. Between constant feedings and diaper changes, there was barely enough time to give my son the attention he needed as a toddler, let alone sit at my desk writing. And so all told, my income took a massive hit that year, shrinking somewhere in the ballpark of 80% to 90%.
Thankfully, that wasn’t a problem from a mortgage perspective. Because we made sure we could cover our mortgage, as well as our other essential bills, on just my husband’s salary, we never had to worry about falling behind on our housing payments while I was largely out of work caring for my children.
We did have to cut back on non-essential spending that year due to my lack of earnings. But at least we knew our essential needs were covered.
How much flexibility do you want?
You never know when you or your partner might need to opt out of the workforce for a period of time. It could be due to expanding your family or another reason — even burnout.
If you make a point to borrow conservatively for a home and take out a mortgage a single salary can cover, you buy yourself that much more flexibility. In our situation, knowing my husband’s income could fully cover our mortgage eliminated financial stress at a time when we were overwhelmed and sleep-deprived due to having so many young children to care for at once. And so to this day, I’m really grateful we made that decision well before kids came into the mix.
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