LogFAQs > #972604345

VHCOL area.

Mortage + property tax + home insurance + bills + home maintanence expenses will end up being 60% of my take-home pay (Not including wife's income)
Student loans will be 15% of my take-home pay.
My usual credit card (gas, my own food, etc and willy nilly spending) is about 5% of my take home pay

That leaves me 20% to save.
Wife works part-time so all of her paycheck will go towards groceries, kids expenses, and her own expenses.

Honestly, it'll be a bit tight but in about 18 months I get a 35% raise. At that point I calculate my savings to be about 30% of my take home, the home expenses should to 45% of my take home.

And if I refinance in the future, my "home expenses" drops to about 37% of my take-home with the mortgage alone being about 30% of take home.

So I'll be living tight for a few years but I'm only 33. I'm sacrificing a few years of investing (dollar-cost-averaging into index funds) for owning a dream home that we'll raise our family in and live in for the rest of our lives. We don't ever anticipating moving, like literally, its an amazing house.

Just typing this all our to organizing my thoughts. I've been doing this verbally with family and friends just to see if going over it again may make me think of some new factor that pushes me in either direction. I've been on the fence about whether I should pull the trigger.