were looking into buying our first house shortly and have approval for the loan etc but will be borrowing the depoisit from family. we could wait and save but the market is definately in the buyers court atm so we decided to take advantage, we will pau back the deposit when we build up some equity in a few years time.

were on a single income +FTB A+B as im a SAHM and student for now until the kids go to school (about 5 years max)

anytips for manageing a mortgage on a single income?

whatever your repayments are, pay a little extra even if you don't think it's much, over time it will make a big difference. also, try to have some savings in case something does happen. have an amount directly debited from your account into your savings account at the same time you get paid, that way it's like you never got paid that amount and you learn to live off the rest. even if it's $20, like the extra repayments it will build up.

We're thinking about buying soon too, its pretty stressful hey? I would say don't buy a house where the repayments are too much more than the rent you are paying - as you will need to also be forking out for rates, insurance, repairs/upgrades and whatever extra costs there are tied up with owning a home in your area.

Until you go back to work you could get a revolving mortgage, where it is kind of just like a big overdraft - easy to re-borrow against if you find yourself in the poo financially. But I guess it takes a bit of will power to reduce it when it is so easy to just keep borrowing up to your limit. But later on when you have two incomes you can make it so it has a reducing limit.

Our lender said to do the sums and make sure you can afford for the interest rate to be 1% higher that it is now.

this wont help with the managing of your money but have you heard of the first home owners grantits a one time payment of 7000 that you dont have to pay back i'm not 100% of the conditions of getting it
but if neither of you have owned a home before you should be elidgable (sp)

My tip is to make sure you don't borrow too much. Keep your debt to income ratio well under 36% because otherwise you could eat up with debt spiralling out of control. Here's how you calculate it:
https://sites.google.com/site/munniesleetlehelper/review-your-debt-loans

This probably means you won't get your dream home (eg. you may need to look in a cheaper suburb, or get a smaller property etc). But what's the point of having a dream home if you can't afford to spend any money on little luxuries?

Another thing you can do is look at all your bills and try to get better deals with different suppliers etc. Here are some tips
https://sites.google.com/site/munniesleetlehelper/review-your-bills

Good luck!

Things are pretty tight in our household since we're now a single income family- we often joke about how the bank owns us!!!

My best tip would be to make sure you will still be able to pay the repayment if interest rates went up. We always work it out for 8 or 9% even though its probably not going to get that bad. Also remember to factor rates, insurance etc into you anual budget smile

All the best- so exciting!!!

We bought our first house last august.. It is a bit of an adjustment..

A practical thingthat we do is have our mortgage taken out the day after DH gets payed. That way we know that we've payed the mortgage live on whatever is left. We pay weekly, quick means that we are two weekly payments ahead each year.

dont forget the cost you will pay for home /contents insurance and those lovely council rates. Banks never tell you about paying those. Those only consider the repayment and not extras that come with owning a house. goodluck

Our lender said to do the sums and make sure you can afford for the interest rate to be 1% higher that it is now.

good idea we hadnt thought of doing that! i think our rate is 7.8% so maybe calculate it at 8.5% or higher?

this wont help with the managing of your money but have you heard of the first home owners grantits a one time payment of 7000 that you dont have to pay back i'm not 100% of the conditions of getting it
but if neither of you have owned a home before you should be elidgable (sp)

sad not eligable as DH owned a house in his 20's im eligable as long as hes not on the mortgage or loan and i have to do it under my own income lol yeah thats not alot ahh well as i said were borrowing the deposit from the ILs

dont forget the cost you will pay for home /contents insurance and those lovely council rates. Banks never tell you about paying those. Those only consider the repayment and not extras that come with owning a house. goodluck

we forgot about insurance, weve taking into account rates and a few other things..stupid insurance lol
hmm when we take all that into account our max loan amount we can afford goes down considerably sad but the home we want need s a bit of TLC and DH is really handy so its a fixer-uper job over a good 10 years. but definately live-inable now well just have to be really pushy with the price

Hi Gypsy,

I bought a budget program off the net for about $5! There are heaps of free ones, I just liked that one.
simpleplanning.com is the web site

So every cent we spend goes into a spread sheet along with all our bills. You can see ahead what a tough month looks like when all your bills come at once and plan for it. We love it and there are no arguments about the money and who is spending more as you can see it all!!

Hope that helps smile

Hi Gypsy,

I bought a budget program off the net for about $5! There are heaps of free ones, I just liked that one.
simpleplanning.com is the web site

So every cent we spend goes into a spread sheet along with all our bills. You can see ahead what a tough month looks like when all your bills come at once and plan for it. We love it and there are no arguments about the money and who is spending more as you can see it all!!

Hope that helps smile

cheers ill have a look, we use an excel model speadsheet that sounds similar but its not too good for forcasting month to month just for overall general budgeting

cheers for all the tips its s daunting step for me, i know DH has done this before and with success and knows what to do and consider but i havnt a clue!

Also, we decided to go with a fixed rate for the first 2 years. This way, we are not stressing about the rates going up and know exactly what our weekly repayments are for the next 2 years. During this time we can pay up to $25,000 extra too (like that's going to happen).

Hi gypsy kylz smile

How exciting for you and your family!!!
I agree with pp to factor in future rate increases, hopefully it doesn't happen for awhile but at least you'll be prepared if it happens.
Pay repayments fortnightly or weekly.
Also agree with pp to pay extra off your loan whenever you can afford it, It really saves you in interest.
Shop around for insurance as you can get some really good deals out there and also if you combine policies it usually gives you a discount.
Have a look at what other interest rates are at other banks as quite often the banks are willing to give a better rate if they think you are shopping around plus they usually waive fees for other accounts etc.
Have a look at your grocery bill and see if theres anyway you can make saving there.
Buy in bulk your staple ingredients and toiletries,nappys when on sale.
Try not to use credit cards keep them for emergencys and use cash for day to day expenses.
Figure out how much you want to spend on grocery's each week and only withdraw that amount.
Bake your own biscuits and cakes etc for the family I find it works out cheaper for me to do this.
Plan cheaper going out ideas like packing a picnic to go to park or beach.
Buy your kids clothing at end of season and buy some in their next sizes, you can make big savings. Or if you don't mind going to op shops you can get really good clothing for really cheap prices.

Good luck, it will be so nice for you to bring your children up in your own home smile

Here are some good free budget planner tools (I liked and downloaded the Family Budget Planner): http://christianpf.com/10-free-household-budget-spreadsheets/

Another tip is, the more you stick to whole foods (rather than processed) the more you save and it's so much better for your health.

[quote name='gypsy kylz' date='02 February 2012 - 01:29 AM' timestamp='1328146155' post='3136781'] good idea we hadnt thought of doing that! i think our rate is 7.8% so maybe calculate it at 8.5% or higher? If i were you i would be looking around at other interest rates, as that seems fairly high, even for fixed. i have seen fixed rates for 6.5%. also my interest rate is only 6.60% variable. so it maybe worth your while to look around or see someone from mortage choice. thats if you are in australia

HI gypsy kylz

I would say all the above info is pretty good but also try and get an OFFSET account with your loan, ANY extra cash/mortgage repayments in here until they go out as it will save you THOUSANDS in interest smile

Great advice from so many people! My advice would be to see a mortgage broker. Many of them are free and invaluable. We've just moved lenders because a broker got us a fixed rate at 5.98% for 50% of our loan foot 2 years and variable at 6.18 for the other 50%.

I also calculated how much our bills were a year in advance and then we put enough away each week to cover them. My DH and I both get an 'allowance' each week and anything extra has to have a good reason. Some banks allow you to set up xmas accounts thar you can regularly put money into but only access from nov-jan. This means that christmas doesn't come as such a shock. Man, I've got heaps of ideas! DH and I saved a 10% deposit while he was an apprentice and I was fulltime student. We bought or home at the ages of 22 and even though I didn't work fulltime we are $10k in chance on home loan. It is totally possible ifyou are frugal. Good luck!!

We have a budget working out approximately how much each bill is divide it by how many pays we have in a year and then have a separate account for each major bill and put aside enough money each pay so that when the bill arrives the money is there. We also pay a bit extra on our home loan which so far has cut about 10 years off our loan (only had the mortgage for 4 years so far) good luck with it all nothing quite like owning your own home and being able to do whatever you want to it smile