Home ownership

[rutgers07]

Well as of 1pm today my wife will be closing on our home and be official homeowners! It has been an exhilarating few months with the process having many bumps along the way. We've cut our cable and trash removal services saving about $100/month right there. DW has a new job which will net about a $12,500 to $13,000 raise with much better benefits. House is turnkey with very minor cosmetic changes that would happen slowly. Definitely some big projects (master bath, siding) loom in the far horizon. Here is our new monthly breakdown.

Income - About 8k gross at minimum, likely closer to 8600-9000 with my overtime which is all but guaranteed
Mortgage + PMI + taxes + insurance = 1541/month
Car Payment = 376/month (should be paid off in the next year)
Student Loans = 600/month (some will be paid soon which will drop this quite a bit)

Those are our only monthly obligations for debt. Other payments will include:

Electric: last 12 months at new place average 120-130/month
Heating: budgeting about $400/month (home heats with pellets, propane, and oil)
Hulu/Netflix/Amazon/other: 35/month
Car Insurance: 90/month
Gym: 47
Food: who knows, maybe 3-400/month (will need to better track)
Retirement: will end up putting ~15% away, maybe more, once I have a better sense of our monthly expenditure

There are probably a million and one other expenses to consider but these are all the big ones off the top of my head. Exciting times!

[Fishindude77]

Congratulations ! Enjoy your new home.

[sv2007]

Well as of 1pm today my wife will be closing on our home and be official homeowners!

Exciting times!

Congrats! It's good to live in your own home.

[97guns]

good job

[snafu]

Congratulations, closing on your first house. It's such a big milestone and so exciting. Next up is stress of packing up, actual move and re-settling making so many decisions about what belongs where. Be prepared for extra charges on initial utility bill. I wonder...do you have yard care or the equipment needed if DIY? We found our first year of home ownership tobe a river of spending

[Eagle]

Congrats on the new home! It's an exciting roller coaster ride packing, moving in, and unpacking.

[bjl584]

Congrats.

Work on paying down the mortgage so you get rid of the PMI. How much did you put down?

[Joan.of.the.Arch]

Have you signed all those hundred or so dotted lines now? How'd it go?

[rutgers07]

We're all finished! First guests to the new house were the two pups

We just need a lawn mower, they left us their string trimmer and weed whacker. May have someone come in to do a lawn consult and walk us through a bunch of things that we need to learn. House will be mostly furnished with items they sold us for pretty good prices. All we need are two dressers and a coffee table to be comfortable in there.

We only put 5% down but will aggressively work towards getting towards 20% within a couple of years.

We're mostly packed and ready to move tomorrow save for a few odds and ends. More frustrating is Comcast who cannot hook us up with internet until 7/5 so we'll be left figuring that out. Probably not the end of the world for us.

Thanks all! We've kept plenty of wiggle room in our budget and have enough financial flexibility to manage the extra costs. We're planning about $2100/month for our mortgage + escrow payments and then all of the utilities. That's mostly because heating costs might be much higher than planned, depending on how cold our winters are.

[Gailete]

That's mostly because heating costs might be much higher than planned, depending on how cold our winters are.

Oh yeah that one is a toughy if you use propane. Check with the company/s that you will be using to find out if they have discounts for prepaying. We do every years because even if we have to put it on a credit card, the savings are enormous. ~$1000/year by prepaying the years. My first year with this house, I was having a heart attck every time they filled us up at ~$700 a pop!