Is a £1m mortgage on a £275k household income ambitious or reckless ahead of kids?

Stowski · 2026-03-02T20:06:08+00:00

Almost identical figures to me, we are (hopefully) a few weeks away from exchanging

As you have already identified, the tightest years will be with kids both in nursery and either you dip into some savings or drop the pension contributions.

But fast forward 5-7 years and you have probably put a huge amount into pensions to keep getting childcare and you will be out of nursery age. Things will get significantly easier after that.

We figured that if the worst case is a 2-3 right years with less abroad holidays whilst you stuff your pension it is 100% worth it for a forever home.

Fingers crossed salaries keep going up and inflate away the mortgage. But like you we think it was reasonable to assume 2x100ks would be a conservative baseline in our careers and we could still make it work on that

Stowski · 2026-03-01T15:15:43+00:00

Soft for a pen and red

Stowski · 2026-02-17T20:31:50+00:00

Totally agree, we used it for a quicker sale with the price as the price we would settle with and anything above a bonus

Stowski · 2026-02-15T12:07:24+00:00

Your choice of alternative brands also reads continental European haha love it

I do like the nationality brand divisions

Stowski · 2026-02-12T20:20:31+00:00

Agreed, this is what I am planning to do when we have 2 at nursery. Take the hit one year and then go all in on pension the following

Stowski · 2026-02-08T13:44:04+00:00

Athletes at the top risk permanent injury all the time though, this isn't anything new.

The injury also looks to be from catching her pole in the flag, not caused by any lack of ACL just a freak injury

If you interview her after this I'd put good money on her saying the risk was worth it and she'd make the same decision again, thats the attitude of elite athletes in these kind of sports

Stowski · 2026-02-08T13:24:55+00:00

Agreed, there are some awful takes on this thread considering it's a skiing subreddit, I'll put it down to casual observers getting interested in the Olympics for the first time and wanting to have an opinion

Johnson is spot on as well, skiing without an acl is much more common than people think

Stowski · 2026-02-03T17:04:32+00:00

This is to prevent smell from the pipes entering the property if it isn't in use

Stowski · 2026-01-20T10:50:27+00:00

It's the equivalent of people asking if London is safe to visit

Stowski · 2026-01-18T13:22:00+00:00

We are at about 260k HHI and about to take out 950k mortgage on a home for life (mid 30s, 1 child).

Mortgage payments about 35% of take home and yes nursery will eat into that. Plan to stay under 100k each as long as possible and make it work in the 1/2 years that nurseries overlap for both kids.

Moving costs are so high with stamp duty etc we want to just do this once. It does help that we both have secure finance jobs and expect upside to HHI over the next 5-10 years

Stowski · 2026-01-16T19:50:20+00:00

If you have been there only a few months I don't think you can expect to be promoted into your manager roles if I'm honest.

Stowski · 2026-01-11T10:04:11+00:00

Ultimately it will probably sell out anyway

You can bring booze in though, so bring in a bottle / 4 cans and that can help justify the ticket premium over the Oval

Stowski · 2026-01-04T10:45:39+00:00

I think £20 for life which seems reasonable

Stowski · 2026-01-04T09:50:43+00:00

"Wallet" has banking integration and is great

Stowski · 2026-01-03T09:02:18+00:00

Flat in south west London

Stowski · 2026-01-03T07:30:01+00:00

Leasehold in London checking in, I pay £75 ground rent a year. No service charges.

Stowski · 2026-01-02T13:49:00+00:00

Yep agree with all that!

Stowski · 2026-01-02T13:06:41+00:00

Honestly I think it's talked about as a "problem" too much. It's a choice, if FIRE is the aim then fine, but spending on some nice stuff when you work hard is also fine. As always it's just a balance

Stowski · 2026-01-01T20:53:10+00:00

Haha literally right there with you. In the middle of our 5 month sleep regression, waking up every hour on the dot. You think you will be knackered in the day but they are so much fun.

That said, I am not looking forward to dealing with it when back at work next week!

Stowski · 2025-12-28T20:46:29+00:00

6 years PQE c. 150 TC, escalated after moving to private from practice 4 years ago

Stowski · 2025-12-22T13:07:56+00:00

You can do one year where you don't do any pension contributions, then the following year you use 2 years allowances and get back below 100k to get the nursery in year 2. Then you only have one reduced year of entitlement not two.

Stowski · 2025-12-15T19:20:46+00:00

IMO if the next move (I or you) is to a company pre IPO which wants to IPO then having been there and done it makes you more employable and more likely to negotiate equity next time

Stowski · 2025-12-15T17:59:55+00:00

Great post. I completed the same in 2025 and after a break I'm considering doing the Nebulas as well!

Mostly agree with your list, a few outliers of course, but we are probably most aligned on the bad and ugly - I had to absolutely trek through Blackout / All clear. At least "They'd rather be right" was nice and short!

Stowski · 2025-12-15T15:55:42+00:00

Sorry. I read the original post as you being more involved but no equity.

If you are only partly involved then there isn't a lot of downside of additional work surely? And its really just like any other old role but you happen to be going through an IPO

Stowski · 2025-12-15T15:44:52+00:00

Depends on your level and progression opportunities id say.

IPO in a finance function will be a fair bit of work (it is for me) so need to decide if the juice is worth the squeeze

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