After reading the other things on here, I just gotta pipe up with how I do have a fixed rate and it's 6.25% so not too shabby there. I have NO other debts no credit cards.. nothing. just regular bills like electric, car insurance etc..
no car payment. nothin'. If I lost this job I could keep going the same way I am now for about 6 months or so, maybe 8. and if I tighten the belt (no eating out, no going to the movies etc..) I could maybe stretch it out a bit.
I didn't get as ravaged as some people here do, but they sure tried. Should I be less mad for all of that? hell no.
"But jim I only *TRIED* to rape you, I didn't succeed, quit cryin'. I missed that weaponbutt..."
I do run into a slew of people who get talked into an ARM or worse because they have shaky credit (already if you have shaky credit you AND the companies you are dealing with should KNOW you are more likely to default)
they get talked into fudging their income or savings. If you go to buy and someone tells you that you can only get the house if you do that, DON'T. If your mortgage ends up more than 50% of your monthly income you might be able to make it for a while, but that one emergency comes up and bam, you can never catch up. Car breaks down out of nowhere, kid goes to the hospital for something the insurance is balking at covering etc...
The finance guy who did our deal told us the day he was going to check the accounts for the balance and hinted that maybe we should dump as much in as we could to give the impression we had loads in savings.
He didn't mess with us about income since both her salary and mine made it where if only one of us was working the mortgage was less than 30% of income, but I bet anything he would have if it hadn't been that way.
We are paying less now than we were in rent. *snoopy dance* but we don't have a snazzy house either.
I figure if you add up what you have paid in rent over the last ten years, you can easily look at houses that run about twice that, and be fairly sure of making the payments. barring acts of god, or terminal illness etc...
if you get one cheaper than that, even better, make sure you have no early payment penalties, and pay more on it as you go. That was my intent with this, but my girl keeps snagging the extra money *groan* I told her what I wanted for christmas was to pay off more of the house, and to sleep all day without being bothered. :)
Not gonna happen but one can dream eh?