Private poll. No one will know your answers unless you want to share them.

What percentage is of your take home pay are your housing expenses? ~ include mortgage, property tax and essential utilities (water, gas, electric, basic phone, etc) Don't include cable, internet or cell (unless you have no land line).

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Ours is high right now because of our change in circumstances - probably about 36% which I'm not happy about but we are making our payment and we are paying our bills. We should just be paying some stuff off a bit faster. Of course we've also spent on some "fun" things as well. So I cannot completely blame the house payment.

Mine is about 40% for my rent, hydro and phone line. It's not that my housing costs are expensive, it's that I don't make that much money... lol

What is The Appropriate Amount?

I am thinking its 25% -


Anyway - we are at About 40 % With everything - And Our Mortgage is High Hoping to Change that soon.

Ours is 37% now...with me working. If I quit to stay at home with the baby in January it will be...61%. Our mortgage is $1321 with taxes and insurance. That is a large chuck of our change. With the thought of staying home, it makes me want to go back to renting (although renting isn't too cheap around here either)

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IT'S A BOY!!!

Well, mine is high.. around 50%.. not that my bills are that high, I just don't make alot of money.. I didn't figure in my dh's income on that though.

We're right around 30%, but it still seems like we never have enough money to pay for everything.

I can't believe you all know that. It is too much work for me to figure out!!

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~Happiness is a large family~

I am lucky. Ours is about 20%. We bought at the right time and dh got a promotion since we refinanced in 2003 which helped the number, too.

Our's is barely less than 10% since we had a large down payment, low rate, live in an area where cost of living is reasonable, and purchased the house before the prices skyrocketed. This is a huge incentive to never move, especially with the equity built up in the house.