Mortgage and holiday of a lifetime

My partner and I are hoping to buy our first house in the next few months but a friend just told me she is getting married in Australia in July. Is it insane to try to do both of these in close succession or has anybody else managed it. We're thinking of about 3 weeks down under, and would love to hear your thoughts.

Can you afford it? (Can you pay for the trip in cash?) If you cannot currently, can you cut down spending enough to afford it by July? If you cannot, can you cut down spending before and after the trip so that you can pay it off in a reasonable timeframe?

If not, then it will be the trip of a lifetime, as that's how long you will be paying for it!

If you have the money, then don't worry about the logistics, as you are the buyer, and it's a buyer's market (apparently) the seller will have to wait. You can always appoint an attorney to sign on your behalf/say-so so you can complete any paperwork by phone call to your attorney.

You'd need to post details about your overall financial situation and plans - e.g. your gross/net income, existing savings/investments/debts, house purchase budget (including all expenses such as legal, SD if applicable etc.), holiday budget etc. Do you have mortgage approval in principle and if so for how much and on what basis (e.g. 100% mortgage or less)? I'm sure that people who can afford to do both have managed it but that may or may not be relevant to your specific situation.

Thanks for the reply yoganmahew, can pay for the trip by dipping into the house deposit which we don't want to do. I guess saving more now is the best option. I'm just wondering in what state we may find ourselves in after getting the mortgage, and extra cash needed after moving in for furniture, appliances etc...will we end up kicking ourselves for spending on holiday.

tic-tac said:

...will we end up kicking ourselves for spending on holiday.

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Probably, but if you've never traveled anywhere exotic/distant/trip of a lifetime before, you're probably not going to be able to afford it in the near future after buying a house, so you may also end up kicking yourself for not going!

As Clubman says, more info about your current savings/spending plans would give a people a better idea to crunch some numbers and see where you might be tight.

My point mainly is that you should only consider it if it is genuinely the trip of a lifetime and if you accept the pain to your lifestyle to pay for it in the short term. But, and it is a big but, you should only consider it if you can pay for it in the short term. It is a holiday, after all!

Well we moved into our first house in June, got married in September and went to Aus for 3 weeks on honeymoon 4 days later. We paid for everything, wedding, honeymoon and house fit-out in cash and had a few quid left over at the end, so it's possible... I have no regrets of spending the money on the holiday but we had saved for it as opposed to borrowing, hence had no financial worries when we got home.

Thanks guys, definitely cleared up that we need to get it all paid for before entering into the mortgage. Our combined gross income is 65K. We have mortgage approval for 350k and have just over 35k savings. From a few quick checks i think we would need about 8-10k for the holiday, and hope to have flights paid in the next few weeks. So I guess it's about 5k we need to come up with before July.

What is your combined net income? What sort of house price range are you looking at or will you be getting a 100% mortgage (or have lenders tightened up on giving these out lately?)? What mortgage rate and type are you looking at? What sort of term? Have you estimated the monthly repayments (see Karl Jeacle's mortgage calculator) and other monthly and annual outgoings to see what sort of budget you need to live on?

Tic-Tac I would recommend saving like mad to make sure that you can cover both.

My partner and I went to Australia for a year several years ago and our savings covered our expenditure. Six months later we put down the deposit for our apartment. I'm now extremely grateful that we didn't borrow money for the trip - I have friends who took out loans before they travelled and are now struggling to pay them off (financially and mentally - a mate feels trapped in her present job because of her financial commitments.)

In short, the scrimping and scraping we went through to save enough money for the trip was absolutely worth it IMHO!

Thanks for the link and advice ClubMan, yep these are all things we need to make a decision on and calculate, thanks for the wakeup.
HelloJed, sorry to hear about your mate, it's definitely moved me off the idea of borrowing. Scrimping and saving looks like the way to go.
Thanks a million to you all.

tic-tac said:

Thanks guys, definitely cleared up that we need to get it all paid for before entering into the mortgage. Our combined gross income is 65K. We have mortgage approval for 350k and have just over 35k savings. From a few quick checks i think we would need about 8-10k for the holiday, and hope to have flights paid in the next few weeks. So I guess it's about 5k we need to come up with before July.

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I think you could do oz for less then that - flights would be around €1200 each I always Malaysian airlines the cheapest- going in March. Then the biggest expense is accomadation and you can cheap or expensive. THere are lots of Hostels etc- what part of Oz are you going to? Eating out is quite cheap there. July is winter time there so depends on what part of Oz you are going to- Queensland warm, Sydney - OK, Melbourne could be cold

Hi
4 yrs ago my husband(then boyfriend and i) went on a lifetime trip down under for 3 wks, cairns to sydney. Total cost was 10k.(for everything). We decided to do it before we got the mortgage, now 4 yrs later we are moving into our new self build at the end of the month and have money for nothing but the house and arrival of our 1st baby(due in april).

Our friends got married in NZ a year ago and we just couldnt afford to go so, when getting a mortgage some sacrifices must be made...

When we started with planning permission etc the interest rates were 3% and now they are 5%, also materials have gone up in the past few years (we naively didnt think about these things) so we are finding it tight but im sure we'll get used to it!!

But i still reckon go for the holiday as you may never get the chance again (until your about 60)!!