You are doing the right thing by thinking about your bills before going house hunting. I'm not sure however, how helpful it is to collect other people's bills from random other places when trying to figure out your own budget except perhaps to gain perspective on what others are allowing themselves to spend on the "nice to do" stuff.
If you want to get an idea of what you can afford to do, you might want to start by organizing your expense categories into 3 groups:
(a) fixed costs you currently have and which are unavoidable - like student loans, health insurance, medicine, anything you truly are required to pay for
(b) current costs but whose amount you have some control over - food, clothing, savings, cable TV are in this group. this can be a contentious group since we all have alot of things we pay for that we don't want to give up but that plenty of people do without.
(c) potential costs - even if you don't have a car payment now, might you have one later on after you've bought a house? other things you depend on that might break or need replacing, such as a computer all need to be considered before you decide if you can afford to take on a mortgage.
You'll notice that rent/utilities/mortgage are not on the list because what you are aiming for in this budget exercise is to get an idea of how much money you have available for a house & the insurance & maintenance & utilities that go with it. Maintenance and utilities are highly dependent on the property and locality so you'll do best to ask neighbors for that sort of info. You have to know how much you can afford and how tight a budget you are comfortable with before you ask a bank what they'll lend you because banks are more than happy to loan you more than you can afford and then take your house later.
Alot of what goes into budgeting is soul-searching stuff about what is truly essential versus what is nice to do so you can allocate your dollars to the things that give you the best life. I bought a house half the price the bank and real estate agent said I could afford because I wanted my family to be able to survive on one income if necessary. It means the house is not as big or nice as some of our friends, but several years after the house purchase, our son was born with CF and my spouse was able to quit working and stay at home without forcing us to give up eveything.
Good luck.
If you want to get an idea of what you can afford to do, you might want to start by organizing your expense categories into 3 groups:
(a) fixed costs you currently have and which are unavoidable - like student loans, health insurance, medicine, anything you truly are required to pay for
(b) current costs but whose amount you have some control over - food, clothing, savings, cable TV are in this group. this can be a contentious group since we all have alot of things we pay for that we don't want to give up but that plenty of people do without.
(c) potential costs - even if you don't have a car payment now, might you have one later on after you've bought a house? other things you depend on that might break or need replacing, such as a computer all need to be considered before you decide if you can afford to take on a mortgage.
You'll notice that rent/utilities/mortgage are not on the list because what you are aiming for in this budget exercise is to get an idea of how much money you have available for a house & the insurance & maintenance & utilities that go with it. Maintenance and utilities are highly dependent on the property and locality so you'll do best to ask neighbors for that sort of info. You have to know how much you can afford and how tight a budget you are comfortable with before you ask a bank what they'll lend you because banks are more than happy to loan you more than you can afford and then take your house later.
Alot of what goes into budgeting is soul-searching stuff about what is truly essential versus what is nice to do so you can allocate your dollars to the things that give you the best life. I bought a house half the price the bank and real estate agent said I could afford because I wanted my family to be able to survive on one income if necessary. It means the house is not as big or nice as some of our friends, but several years after the house purchase, our son was born with CF and my spouse was able to quit working and stay at home without forcing us to give up eveything.
Good luck.