Age: 28
Spouse’s/Partner's age: 30
Annual gross income from employment or profession: 50,000 + ~20% bonus per annum
Annual gross income of spouse: 50,000 per annum
Take home pay after tax and pensions ~5300 pm between us
Type of employment: e.g. Civil Servant, self-employed
Semi-state (him) and private (me) sector, permanent.
In general are you:
(a) spending more than you earn, or
(b) saving?
Saving ~ 1,600 a month between us + my bonus + 150 a month on company share scheme
Expenses
Rent 1250pm (reduced by 100 euros since last year)
General day to day living (food, car, bills etc) 1,100pm
Other borrowings – car loans/personal loans etc
None
Do you pay off your full credit card balance each month? yes
If not, what is the balance on your credit card?
Savings and investments:
~40,000 + 6,000 in company shares + 50,000 gift from parents for deposit for buying a home
Do you have a pension scheme?
Both of us do through work
Do you own any investment or other property?
No and we are potential first time buyers
Ages of children:
None
Life insurance:
Yes, through work
Question: I have posted here last autumn with a question about long term saving. At the time we were planning to buy a house and start a family (not necessarily in that order). We are going ahead with the latter but we are reassessing our plan to buy a house (ironically now that we can afford a house we are questioning if we want to). We both work in Dublin but are originally from the country and we would like to move back there in the next 5 to 7 years. The idea would be that we could continue to save and potentially buy with a very small mortgage or non at all. I would like to look at the option of renting until then as logically as I can. Of course there is other more emotional feelings like the drive to own your own home, the worry of having to move more then once with a young family but I can overcome if we have a longer term goal to work towards. Just to note that we are happy in the house that we are currently renting and would consider it suitable for our needs for the next 3 years +
Here are the Pros and cons to our plan as I see them:
Pros:
Cons:
Spouse’s/Partner's age: 30
Annual gross income from employment or profession: 50,000 + ~20% bonus per annum
Annual gross income of spouse: 50,000 per annum
Take home pay after tax and pensions ~5300 pm between us
Type of employment: e.g. Civil Servant, self-employed
Semi-state (him) and private (me) sector, permanent.
In general are you:
(a) spending more than you earn, or
(b) saving?
Saving ~ 1,600 a month between us + my bonus + 150 a month on company share scheme
Expenses
Rent 1250pm (reduced by 100 euros since last year)
General day to day living (food, car, bills etc) 1,100pm
Other borrowings – car loans/personal loans etc
None
Do you pay off your full credit card balance each month? yes
If not, what is the balance on your credit card?
Savings and investments:
~40,000 + 6,000 in company shares + 50,000 gift from parents for deposit for buying a home
Do you have a pension scheme?
Both of us do through work
Do you own any investment or other property?
No and we are potential first time buyers
Ages of children:
None
Life insurance:
Yes, through work
Question: I have posted here last autumn with a question about long term saving. At the time we were planning to buy a house and start a family (not necessarily in that order). We are going ahead with the latter but we are reassessing our plan to buy a house (ironically now that we can afford a house we are questioning if we want to). We both work in Dublin but are originally from the country and we would like to move back there in the next 5 to 7 years. The idea would be that we could continue to save and potentially buy with a very small mortgage or non at all. I would like to look at the option of renting until then as logically as I can. Of course there is other more emotional feelings like the drive to own your own home, the worry of having to move more then once with a young family but I can overcome if we have a longer term goal to work towards. Just to note that we are happy in the house that we are currently renting and would consider it suitable for our needs for the next 3 years +
Here are the Pros and cons to our plan as I see them:
Pros:
- Not loosing first time buyers allowance (which might = 2years worth of rent)
- Flexibility: renting always freedom to move quickly if there is a job offer in the region that we want to move to.
- We can potentially save more effectively while renting (our rent is definitely lower then having a mortgage for the same house and any wear and tear/problems with the house comes out of the landlords pocket)
- Eventually having a very small to no mortgage in the 10 years
- Ability to reduce renting costs if necessary (i.e. one of us looses a job/parental leave)
Cons:
- Not getting a mortgage until we are in our mid to late thirties – what if we decide to stay in Dublin?
- Rents could going up (I know we cant speculate but just factoring it in a possibility)
- House prices could going up (I know we cant speculate but just factoring it in a possibility)
- Not being able to save as much with childcare costs, maternity leave breaks in pay. It might be easier to be committed to paying a mortgage then saving when things are tighter.
- Present from parents sit in their bank account and I’m guessing we don’t get any interest on it (that would be cheeky)/can we count on this money in 5 years time?
