Saturday, September 19, 2009

Going to Get Married, but No House!

I encounter one colleague who is going to get married to a guy. She has a problem. Almost all of her salary that she earned, went to feed her own family, ie. her father, her mother and brother. However, she wanted to get married and stay together with her future husband in their own house, as she do not want to stay with the parents-in-laws due to her mismatch of characters to the mother-in-laws. So, this means, they got to buy a new house, new furniture, new stuffs and items that can make the house decently to live in.
They got 2 cars to pay. One for herself and one for her husband.

Her problem is, how to buy her dream house, while she need to feed her own family & pay for the 2 cars (both her and her husband) ?

To, understand this problem further. Let me put some figures in.
Her income, $2500
Her hubby income $2800
Her car instalment : $500 per month.
Her monthly expenses : $800 per month.
Her money to family : $1200 per month (for house rental, food, utilities bill, etc)

Hubby income : $ 2800
Hubby car instalment : $1000 per month.
Hubby expenses : $1000 per month
Hubby money to family : $600 per month.

Target dream house : $200,000

Dear fellow readers, how can she find a way to buy the house she wanted? Please give some suggestions.
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12 comments:

雷門 said...

$2500 is her take-home-pay?
her total monthly expense is 500+800+1200=2500, equal to her take-home-pay, no saving at all.

her hubby is better, got 200 for saving, but do you think 200 is enough for house loan monthly installment?

i suggest that both of them have to reduce their monthly expense first.

in fact, both of them are not afford to own a new house for now, else they will be in financial problem (negative cash flow).

mind mgmt said...

Good input. They could not afford the house yet, if they don't trim down.

Michelle said...

1) Trim down their expenses by setting priorities according to their needs and wants;

2) Change their lifestyle. Perhaps sacrifice to one car instead of 2 cars?;

3) If they can't trim or change their life style, then they need to consider to get a part time @ get a new job with higher pay so that they can increase their income.

Investinternals said...

hmm it seems these couple going to get an amount of 200 as their surplus. they have below possible options:

1. Reduce the expenses to a maximum to meet loan amount in each month. They have to sit together and think about how to reduce the expenses to get more savings. For example, if they sell one car, they will get enough money to pay loan EMI.

2. They should identify some side income than present to increase their savings.

Above are the core points. If think deeply, they can easily manage their expenses including a home loan EMI.

Mrcoolku said...

Actually I have same suggestion with Yan.
1) Change their car to more affordable, or just one car is enough.
2) Cut expenses
3) Part-time job to have extra income for small investing.

Thien Rong said...

More information about savings, investment and debts will be more helpfully.

Hopefully, they have a few months of emergency funds before they think of marriage.

Do they have other debts that are in their expenses? Eg credit card, personal, student loans.

If the interest of those loans are higher than current interest rates, they should refinance or paid them up to reduce their expenses on interests.

The house will probably be a dream for quite a while till they get better cash reserve.

mind mgmt said...

Hi Thien Rong, they do have other debts :- credit card debt ( as they use it as downpayment of their car), but by now, should have been settle & manageable.

Isley Chang~ said...

1.reduce expenses and save more

or

2. buying cheaper home.

by the way,What is thier EPF status??

Anonymous said...

Where are they located? If they are in a city with a good subway network, just sell the cars and take public transport for a couple of years. Between getting stuck in a jam and in a crowded train, both sounds the same to me. By doing that, you take away the car installments and the credit car debts (if it works that way).

And maybe try setting up an part-time online business to do in the evenings/weekends?

mind mgmt said...

Hi The Envoy,
They don't leave in a city. Local public transport, is too infrequent for them.

Shingo T said...

If she can't afford to buy a house, try renting one instead.

Sometimes the interest one pays the bank every month for house instalment can be close to the monthly rental of a house.

Kris said...

Wow..going to be hard if you just have RM200 as savings..They should rent first and slowly built up their income (get 2nd income revenue stream) before buying a new house.