Before I had my job it was 36% of our monthly income! Now it's down to 25% which is much more manageable. This doesn't include utilities. It's more like 30% with utilities.
Dave Ramsey recommends that it be between 25-35% of take home salary. I'm so happy ours is on the lower end for now! We will move eventually to somewhere nicer but not anytime soon.
117 votes
coconut / 8305 posts
Rent alone is about 22% since we moved... we've added 2 utilities though so after that living shoots up to about 38%. =/
blogger / coconut / 8306 posts
Ours is 18% of our income, and our mortgage includes a percentage of our taxes and insurance.
bananas / 9357 posts
Ours is 16% of our take home pay. It's really nice to have a good amount of extra money every month to save and spend.
bananas / 9229 posts
About 25%, excluding utilities. Our student loans are closer to 30%. Womp womp.
wonderful cherry / 21504 posts
Ugh-- when I lived in NYC right out of college it was like 50%! It sucked so much.
Now... I have no idea, actually. That's terrible. When we moved we started paying the rent totally out of DH's accounts and I don't know what our total monthly take home is with his recent raises. It's about to be a higher percentage though, when I stop working after baby gets here. I think we are on the low end of the recommended amount, though, because we are saving for a house eventually and living below our means.
pomelo / 5257 posts
About 17 percent. We've lived in the same place for the last three years, during which my income has more than doubled. We don't want to move to a more expensive place, though, because we're saving for a house!
GOLD / watermelon / 14076 posts
Our mortgage is about 13% of our take-home pay (without utilities).
eggplant / 11824 posts
Mortgage + taxes + insurance + utilities is less than 20% of our take home. I've certainly had times in my life when it was a lot higher percentage, at this point I wouldn't feel comfortable spending more than 20% on housing.
watermelon / 14467 posts
Mortgage + taxes + insurance + utilities is about 22% of our take home pay.
coconut / 8483 posts
Our mortgage is 16% of our base take home pay. Less when you factor in DHs overtime.
grapefruit / 4819 posts
Considering we live in a ridiculously expensive country (Australia sucks for cost of living), we're doing pretty well in that our rent is 28% of DH's salary (42% of his take home salary).
Our rent though is $750 per week for a three bedroom apt on the beach;that works out to $3250 per month. I'm fairly sure we could live in a very nice house in America and have a mortgage payment that is a fraction of that price!
ETA: reading everyone else's responses makes me a bit sad. I can't wait until we figure out where we're going to live long term so we can buy a house already. We've got a massive down payment already saved and just want to buy already so we can stop wasting money on rent! Sigh...a few more years and we should be settled I hope!
grapefruit / 4819 posts
@runsyellowlites: Yeah, I know. Australia is soooooo expensive! We live in a nice place and love it here, but it's by no means super luxurious! To be fair though, we are living in a very isolated part of the country so things are a lot more expensive. When we were living in Brisbane, our rent was about $450 per week, much more reasonable. Ahh American prices, I miss you!
hostess / wonderful persimmon / 25556 posts
26% of take home but, we pay our mortgage plus 75% on top of that so we can pay it off early.
That's mortgage, taxes and insurance.
blogger / honeydew / 7081 posts
Including taxes, insurance and utilities, I think we're at about 35%. But I just estimated (don't have the bills in front of me). @Ree723: YES! Our best friends live on the Sunshine Coast, and when they came here for a year, they were amazed at the amount of house they could get for $1000 a month.
pomelo / 5326 posts
Not including utilities ours is 11% of take home pay. That includes property taxes. We live below our means, but I also have to set aside a large portion of my salary to my retirement savings because I work privately.
grapefruit / 4862 posts
Ours is about 26%, so I voted in that bracket. But that's the lower average for DH's work. He's hourly and often I think it could be more like 20%. But that's just the rent payment and not any utilities or insurance.
kiwi / 726 posts
Wow - I'm impressed with everyone's numbers! Right now we are around ~20%. However, we bought a house in an NYC burb where it will be closer ~30%.
honeydew / 7303 posts
Right now DH doesnt have a job, so its about 21% of my take home. Can't wait to have dual income again!
watermelon / 14206 posts
It's about 33%. Rent in this area is crazy expensive right now. Can't wait to mortgage and have it lower...and worth it!
bananas / 9628 posts
@Ree723: if it makes you feel any better, i live in the US, in MA, and my brother's rent for a 800sq ft 2 br apt is more than yours and it's no where near a beach =) he's moving out and the people moving in signed a 5 year lease @ $3500/month! yikes! i can't imagine committing to being stuck there paying that much and not evening owning it.
ours was ~15%, not including any utilities, as of last week since mine is the only income right now, it's 40% =*( hopefully that will be short lived.
pomegranate / 3809 posts
Just mortgage and taxes is about 30% of our take home pay. That's after home/car/health and dental insurance since we get that through work and auto deduct. And also after about 20% has gone into our 401ks. 30% is a bit higher than we want, but since retirement accounts are pretty much maxed out, we know there's room to cut back on that as a last resort if things got really tight.
blogger / watermelon / 14218 posts
19%. We are lucky to have very reasonable rent for the property we live in, and our landlord has never raised our rent in the almost 5 years we've been here.
cantaloupe / 6397 posts
Mortgage and property are rolled into one payment, it's about 27% of our take home pay.
blogger / wonderful cherry / 21616 posts
@mrs. bird: omg that's insane!! I wouldn't pay more than $1500 to rent... and we aren't anywhere near that!
@mrs. wagon: I had no idea you were renting your house! For some reason I thought you owned.
@delight: goodness! what a blessing that must be.
@Sadieloo: @Ree723: I'm really surprised by a lot of the low numbers here as well. I was definitely expecting more 25%+!
pomelo / 5509 posts
Right now it is about 19%, that is rent + utilities. However, SO's income is going to drop a lot in the fall because of school, so we'll be at the high end of the recommendation, unless I get a higher-paying job. Which I am trying to do!
blogger / watermelon / 14218 posts
@Mrs. Pen: nope! Our current place is a rental. We couldn't sell our 1 bedroom city condo so we rent it out and we rent the 3 bedroom, 2.5 bath suburb townhouse we live in. (For $100/month less than what we collect in rent...!)
bananas / 9628 posts
@Mrs. Pen: it's not even fancy! and while living there he woke up to someone standing over him during a B&E! he does have a parking spot though, parking in the city is more than rent in some less expensive parts of the country.
blogger / watermelon / 14218 posts
@Mrs. Pen: also, i HOPE it goes up some time in the near future... we are very much looking forward to selling the condo so we can purchase our next home!
kiwi / 726 posts
@Mrs. Pen: Seriously! I can't believe how low of a % folks pay. Something to work towards!!!
pomegranate / 3604 posts
Ours is 30%. We moved specifically to have a lower rent, otherwise it would easily be 50% or higher.
persimmon / 1230 posts
Our mortgage is 21% of our income, that doesn't include utilities. The real kicker is property taxes, which puts totally monthly payment up to 30% of income!
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