Planning Your Mortgage for Tough Times...

[Judi Dial]

When we first bought this house (VA loan) our house payments were something like $1200 a month, including the local and school taxes. When DH was laid off the first time we applied for unemployment, it was $1200 a month.
Hmmm.

After he went back to work (as fast as we could) we refinanced at a lower interest rate and our house payment went down to around $900 a month. When he got laid off the 2nd time, the same unemployment not only paid the mortgage, but bought us groceries and gas.

We were just talking about the new fed rate. He's working and we live on his income only. If the VA rate has gone down another whole percentage rate, we may look into getting a new 20 year VA loan.

Just an idea. It's helped us a lot. That first time we ended up living on the credit cards, and we're still paying them off!

Judi

[Telephus44]

It's an idea that more people should consider. DH and I want our total mortage payment (PMI and taxes included) to be no more than $1200. We've been to the bank, and the mortgage office was impressed that we wanted to keep out payment so low - she said that based on DH's income alone, we could carry a $1600 payment. I didn't even want to know what they thought the two of us could afford with both our incomes!

We want to keep it low in case an opportunity comes up for me to work part-time, or in the event that one of us gets laid off. Too many people just don't plan ahead.

[M55FF]

I bought a cheaper house than I could afford so I could handle any surprises.
Then later when I had the opportunity to trade up, I didn't because I like having smaller elelctric bills, smaller taxes and a place thats easy to clean.