the rent is about 27 and bills another 10 to 12%. I'm working on bringing in more. odd jobs. cleaning houses ect. i have to seance our gas cost is about 10% and that's splitting it with DH's brother because his car takes the expensive gas

Ours is only about 12%.

When we bought the house 10 years ago, we got a break for being first time homebuyers and got a great rate because we had good credit.

I am a homemaker and my husband is in a strong union and our home is typical for our city - 4 bedrooms, 1 1/2 bath, 2 car garage, full basement, decent size yard.

The key in our area is union jobs - people in our city doing my husband's job for non-union companies make about 1/3 his wage, so we are lucky that he has been with his company since 1996.

We started at 17% and are now at 26%. Our home needed a lot of work when we bought it. I will clarify, we refinanced to pay for home repairs.

Ours is 20%, we were lucky and got a really low fixed interest rate

Mine is easily 50% plus. I rent and then electric in the town I live in is a full double what it is in the next town over. I'm trying to move to the next town over but until then it's very high.
I also am a single mom so only 1 income and it isn't much so there's another reason why it's so high.
Oh well!

33% and even third of our budget. I had never figured it out with bills included. Our home is not very energy efficiant. Water, gas, electric and garbage account for 6%of our budget making our home itself around 27% which is an ok amount.

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Kimberly Proud Mommy to Bethany Rose April 2006

I put 40% but I forgot to calculate in DH's other job. With his one job it's 40% but with both it's more like 22%. But he's quitting one job in the fall so we'll be at 40 then.

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Tiffany, Full-time SAHM/Part-time WAHM to Tiernan(2.5yrs) & Ava(14mos)
I'm a sewing, crafting, baking, cloth diapering, eco-friendly, frugal canadian mama.

Experts say it shouldn't be more than 35-40% of take home including everything (utilities, mortgage payment, insurance, property taxes) etc.

Ours is high too but that's because our income is low.

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Ours is 45%. EEK! We live off one income, and for where we live we are low-income. Renting and buying is very high here, from what we are used to.

I voted the 10-20 because I didn't read it first, and thought you meant just the rent. I think it is probably 25-30. But my husband doesn't always make the same amount every month, on a bad month, it could be more like 40. We don't have a regular house payment, just lot rent.

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I have nothing to declare except my genius."
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) upon arriving at U.S. customs 1882