Saving and Buying a House

This graph explains our sudden interest in the housing market. It shows monthly saving in Australian Dollars outside of retirement accounts and not including investment income or losses. The dark line is a 12 month moving average. Negative numbers mean that we spent more than we earned in that month. The main reasons for that have been major international trips or moves and a period of unemployment when I was single back in 2001-2 followed by an international move. The record high saving in 2001 is due to a termination payment when my job ended.

There is a recent move up to a much higher level of saving, which means that we could, in theory, afford mortgage payments that are going to be $2000-$4000 more than our current rent (plus other housing costs). As you can see, there's never been a saving level like this in my financial history. After we moved back to Australia in 2007 saving was minimal and then jumped to about $3k per month for a short while. So we definitely could not afford to buy a house during that period. I now have a permanent job. Snork Maiden is still waiting to find out if her job will be converted to permanent status.