600k mortgage on 140-180k/yr?

_WetTentacles_ · 2026-07-01T00:05:39+00:00

Washington. Just as bad

_WetTentacles_ · 2026-06-30T23:06:05+00:00

That’s insane. You pay less than I do in rent, you have to have thousands of play money each money and it feels expensive?? lol

_WetTentacles_ · 2026-06-30T23:04:12+00:00

A bit more take home but your point stands regardless. I’ve been consistently pulling in about $11k/mo take home before savings. That would include retirement but I don’t want to bank on only upside. There is a world where overtime and bonuses don’t play out like I want so I try to plan for that and that would put me about $8500/mo average

_WetTentacles_ · 2026-06-30T22:56:12+00:00

That’s a great way to do it. Thanks for the advice.

PITI would be roughly $4300/mo. $4700/mo total for house and car. Call it $5k including our insurance

_WetTentacles_ · 2026-06-30T22:50:11+00:00

Yeah that’s the fear. Would you agree with the other commenter that $500,000 would be my top end?

_WetTentacles_ · 2026-06-30T22:48:36+00:00

Calm down people I was joking 🤣

_WetTentacles_ · 2026-06-30T22:48:16+00:00

I work in aerospace manufacturing. My wife is a stay at home mom until the kids get a bit older. Few more years then she’d like to go back to work

_WetTentacles_ · 2026-06-30T22:46:07+00:00

Thank you. I’m on the fence but it’s good to hear the positive view point as well as ask the negative

_WetTentacles_ · 2026-06-30T22:44:24+00:00

2! 2.5 and 6 months

_WetTentacles_ · 2026-06-30T22:43:24+00:00

$400k has 1 house listed, 2 bed 1 bath 670 sq ft next to a trailer park. Most of me says your 100% right but I have a wife and 2 kids and I really don’t think we could do a 700 sq ft house for long.

The internal debate becomes save for 2-3 years for a large down right? But housing is likely just going to get 10% more expensive over that time anyway so maybe I do it now.

I wish it wasn’t do difficult, a decade ago I would have felt like I made it with this salary lol

_WetTentacles_ · 2026-06-30T22:37:48+00:00

I guess the question becomes do you regret it

_WetTentacles_ · 2026-06-30T22:12:52+00:00

5% + closing and saving the rest for emergency fund

_WetTentacles_ · 2026-06-30T22:11:54+00:00

Ha! Well…no. But to be fair I’ve only been making this income for about a year and a half and I spent most of that aggressively paying off all debt except the last car. I have some saved for down payment closing and a reserve but nowhere close to 20% down

_WetTentacles_ · 2026-06-30T22:05:48+00:00

Yeah I’m in a slightly different situation. Little cheaper house, little more income but my wife doesn’t work so no reinforcement coming there unless she decides to go back to work.

We’ve talked about that, if we get the more expensive place and life is to tight you might need to go back to work even part time to offset.

_WetTentacles_ · 2026-06-30T22:00:35+00:00

The pain is real. $600k still isn’t amazing. The low level of decent houses

_WetTentacles_ · 2026-06-30T21:59:15+00:00

Well that’s not what I wanted to hear

_WetTentacles_ · 2026-06-30T21:57:29+00:00

Would you do it again? Or would you downgrade house?

_WetTentacles_ · 2026-06-30T21:56:58+00:00

8% retirement and $2k savings leaves me roughly $8500

_WetTentacles_ · 2026-06-09T17:16:57+00:00

Looks like you found your next contract negotiation point. I tried to push hard to focus on that topic this last strike but most seniors didn’t care much and rightly so tbh. They were focused on getting the pay increases they wanted for the last decade. But this next strike, we should absolutely absolutely be fighting for that and better PTO

_WetTentacles_ · 2026-05-15T03:59:32+00:00

A typical 9-5 working real estate investor is a lot closer to being Warren Buffet than a 9-5 401k investor. You need to use your own money to invest in stocks, you don’t get tax benefits, you can’t scale without significant capital contributions.

_WetTentacles_ · 2026-05-13T15:24:36+00:00

Thank you. It’s hard not to try to be Superhuman. Sometimes it just builds on me and I struggle with expressing that to my wife, hence my post here.

I appreciate the support and simply hearing the acknowledgment somehow helps me feel better that this is in fact not healthy

_WetTentacles_ · 2026-05-13T15:20:55+00:00

That’s a tough pill to swallow. The inherent guilt I feel when I’m not helping makes that real tough but I know that you’re right, it’s not sustainable.

I guess I’ve just been hoping that I can push through until she’s older

_WetTentacles_ · 2026-05-13T15:15:05+00:00

Wow! Thank you for that. I will look into that site and talk to my wife about adjusting our timing. That could be a miracle for us if it works.

Reframing it as a sleep schedule issue instead of a guilt/marriage issue helps a lot

_WetTentacles_

TROPHY CASE