The traditional advice in the UK is 3.5x joint income.

We put an additional qualifier in place: can we afford the mortgage on one salary if one of us loses our job and interest rates rise to 7%?

With neither of us on a decent salary at the time, it made our options very limited indeed.

Where I live is a lot like Silicon Valley — order-of-magnitude gaps between wages and housing. We couldn’t afford to buy in the city where we work.

We couldn’t even afford to buy in the next city along.

So we live right out in the sticks, an hour away on a good day, though we’ve had plenty of miserable two-hour drives in the snow.

I’m sure prices will come down now, but we’ve learned to enjoy the tranquility, especially in lockdown.

Cities don’t seem so appealing when there’s nowhere to go.