👉 Okay, settle yourselves down, let’s unpack this, alright? We hear a great deal of financial jargon thrown around these days and some of it just sticks like gum on the bottom of your shoe. Let's talk about a phrase I personally now regret overhearing at a frankly rather stuffy little retirement planning seminar: "…and you guys really need to be looking out for your mortgage 40 of income, frankly. It needs serious attention."
Now, the immediate gut reaction is probably something along the lines of, "What in the blue- even…?" Let's dismantle that, properly. Basically, a “mortgage 40 of income" is shorthand for an egregiously bad financial habit: spending over 40% (and frankly, a good amount more than 36%, it's a ticking time bomb) of your gross monthly income on your mortgage – the damn loan you need to buy that beige rectangle of suburban despair. It’s not just a house; it's a gilded cage slowly bleeding the life out of your cash. Let's unpack it further, because the stupidity here is astounding. When I say “gross monthly income," I mean what comes in before taxes and deductions. You're essentially saying you are shoveling 40% of that money directly to a bank for the privilege of owning a building. It’s a beautiful, horrifying system of debt perpetuation. That
