You’re back...fantastic! If you’re just tuning in now, here is a link to the first chapter. We did it! We got there, our savings plan paid off, and I feel so stoked!
We purchased a new build! This is something I never thought I would be able to achieve; owning a brand new four-bedroom home!
We must have gone to about 30 open homes before finding our newbuild. We found this process fun, but exhausting! A website I used for guidance was www.homes.co.nz, this was really helpful as I had no idea what properties are worth, or what information to look for etc.
Houses, houses, houses
We had found two other houses we liked beforehand, but we missed out on both of those as other people had put on higher offers than us. This was so disappointing, as every house we liked I wanted to buy. I formed an attachment and could just imagine myself and my friends having a platter on the deck!
However, since then I have realized it’s important not to get hung up on every house you put an offer on, to take your time to find the right house ‘cos, after all, it’s a lot of money, right?
We signed our sale and purchase agreement in February 2019 and the Real Estate agent estimated about 12 months for the build. At first, I thought 12 months was so long away as I’m not the most patient person – I hate waiting as I get too excited!
But then, after thinking about it, I realised this was fine, as it gave us more time to save which would mean we could put more money towards our deposit. At this stage, we had just over 10% deposit and our goal was 20%.
All the extra expenses
When thinking about getting a mortgage I almost forgot about all the extra expenses that started to pop up, like insurance, power, internet, and, most importantly - furniture! Thinking about getting all this sorted started to get a bit overwhelming.
It felt like it was going to be so expensive. Luckily, we had some extra money set aside for furniture etc, we didn’t use all our cash in the deposit.
Something that could have helped me work all this out would have been a budgeting app like Booster’s mybudgetpal. This would help me allocate and save money towards these different expenses and I would know how much I would have left to spend on other things… like lunch with my girlfriends – because, let’s be honest, this is still really important!
Saving for now and our future
Just because we had secured a property doesn’t mean we could go crazy and go on holidays and buy lots of handbags (I would love this), we still needed to save and try to boost our deposit. Again, we increased our savings; we worked out how much our mortgage repayments would be and ensured we could save this much or more.
This means when our build is complete, we will already be in a savings routine and we know that we can manage both our mortgage repayments and keep on saving, all within our budget.
I’ve been on such a rollercoaster with my savings journey, and I’ve loved sharing with you what I’ve learnt from my own experiences and from working in the financial industry.
My next chapter will give you tips and tricks to potentially help you get out of debt faster, as well as ways to help you manage your money.
Anyway, gotta go, need to pick out the carpet, lampshades and plants for our new house... I could be some time…!
Ciao! 😊
