How much

How much does it cost to + (verb)

 

 
You are simply asking how much you would need to pay to do something.

Here are some examples:


"How much does it cost to fly to Europe?"
"How much does it cost to own a house?"
"How much does it cost to play a round of golf?"
"How much does it cost to join a gym?"
"How much does it cost to repair my car?"
"How much would it cost to talk long distance?"
"How much would it cost to run a website?"
"How much would it cost to wash my car?"
"How much would it cost to rent a car?"
"How much would it cost to go to the movies?"

How much do you currently get paid?

"How much do you currently get paid?"

I don't think you can lie about this question. It's easy to find out the truth. I would recommend saying exactly how much you made.

"I was paid $50,000 a year plus an 8% bonus."

"I received $27.50 an hour at my last position."

In your previous position, how much time did you spend ...

"In your previous position, how much time did you spend on the phone?"
"In your previous position, how much time did you spend in meetings?"
"In your previous position, how much time did you spend working by yourself?"
"In your previous position, how much time did you spend working in a team?"

These questions all depend on the type of position you are applying for. If the position is a product support position, then time spent on the phone is going to be large. Let's say your previous work involved working alone a lot, and the position you are applying for requires a lot of teamwork. Even though you worked by yourself a lot, you should emphasize the work you did in teams. If this is the situation, then I would say I did a combination of both.

"In my last position, we had large projects that involved multiple people. We had meetings to discuss the project and worked in teams whenever it involved overlap of feature. After the meetings and working with the team, I was required to finish my work by myself. So it was quite balanced between meetings, team work and working by myself."

This is not an extravagant answer, but it definitely shows that this person is capable of working in groups and working alone. Most office work requires a combination of working in groups and alone, but if your situation is different, then answer according to what the interviewer wants to hear.

How much can I afford

 Listen The first step in buying a home is determining the price range of the home you can afford. If you are buying a home that is $300,000, then you don't need $300,000 to buy the house. You can probably buy the house with no money in your bank account. This all depends on how much money you make. Let me briefly explain what I mean here. Banks will give you a loan to buy a house. You are required to pay a monthly payment until you pay off the loan. The loan term is usually 30 years. I'll get more into the mortgage details in the lesson on mortgages. For now, let's figure out how much you can afford.

 Listen Banks determine how much money they will let you borrow depending on how much money you make. The common loan amount can be calculated by dividing your monthly income by three. For example, if you make $5,000 a month, divide $5,000 by three. This will give you about $1667 buying power. The bank will think that you can safely pay $1667 a month towards your mortgage. So now we have to calculate how much money $1667 a month will buy you. To get this figure, you can find a mortgage calculator. But to speed up the process, the answer is roughly $210,000. That means the bank will give you a loan of $210,000. This figure will vary depending on your credit score (we will cover credit in a different lesson), how much down payment you have, and how much other debt you have. But let's keep this figure for now and move on. 

 Listen If you have $40,000 saved up, then you can use that for down payment. That means you will put in $40,000, the bank will put in $210,000 and that means you can buy a $250,000 house without any problems. If you have $100,000, then you can buy a house that is $310,000. Finally, if you make more money a month, then the bank will allow you to borrow more money.

 Listen I gave you an example in the case you made $5,000 a month. If you make $10,000 a month, then any bank will allow you to borrow $500,000.

 Listen But moving forward, I will use the $5,000 a month figure for future examples. Now that we know how much house we can afford, let's determine what area we want to live in and the type of housing we want.