AD – Today I wanted to let you in on another important aspect of my life. We currently rent our apartment and obtaining a mortgage and buying a family home is high on our list of priorities.

But it isn’t as simple as just wanting to do it. 

Disclaimer – I am not a financial advisor and none of the information contained in this post should substitute financial advice.

Barriers in our the way of us buying a family home

With current house prices in the UK soaring, it’s a difficult time for first-time buyers buying a family home. But obviously, it’s an amazing time for sellers at the moment.

This Guardian article gives an overview on how the housing market reached this point and it’s quite grim looking at the historic decisions which may have led us here.

Money or lack of it is the main reason why first-time buyers struggle to place a mortgage deposit on a house. The current schemes out there to help are designed to address this upfront cost. We will talk more about this later on in the post.

Time to get personal…

Our current financial circumstances 

Many people are reluctant to discuss their financial circumstances and there can be shame around struggling financially. I believe it’s a personal choice about what information you disclose and I’m more open about money since we’ve learned the value of it recently. 

It’s no secret we’ve struggled financially over the last year. I’ve talked about it a lot on the blog. Looking back, I think difficulty arose from reduced income, due to maternity leave and then the pandemic. The UK lockdown was announced about three weeks after I returned to work following my maternity leave. 

Pre pandemic, we heard people talk about ‘saving for a rainy day’ and ‘unexpected circumstances’. Well, those circumstances happened to us all. Everyone around the world was impacted in some way. I must say I feel lucky our situation wasn’t worse financially and my thoughts are with anyone who was seriously impacted by financial worries or Ill health over the last few years. 

The numbers don’t lie 

For us, the mortgage deposit is something we can now realistically achieve over the next few years. If we work hard to save money and set out our priorities. Then stick to them! It feels great to finally be able to say we can afford it, without worrying about how we will pay our bills. Things are finally looking up for us.  

One of the goals we have is to never financially overcommit ourselves monthly again. We did it just before the pandemic and it was the worst thing we could do. But hindsight is a wonderful tool. We didn’t have the privilege of it back then.

From now on, the plan is to save a percentage of our income each month and pretend it doesn’t exist. I’ve lived frugally over the last year and I enjoy saving my hard-earned pennies. The goal of obtaining a mortgage and buying our dream house is something I’m passionate about achieving. Therefore I am motivated to ensure I don’t spend the money on other things.

We must calculate our payments and continue to assess exactly what is affordable and achievable for us. House buying, just like anything else in life, can cause you to get carried away. But it’s important to stick to a budget and only make financial decisions within our remit.

How I will use the numbers to inform my financial decisions when buying a family home

I frequently use a mortgage affordability calculator to work out what we could potentially afford. Because I also want to achieve a work-life balance, we may have less monthly income to work with. All of these factors need to be considered and I will pay attention to the numbers before making future home-buying decisions. 

Another significant factor open to change and we need to keep discussing, are calculations for the deposit, interest rates, and what the mortgage loan would look like over several years. I mean nobody can predict the future. My parents were hit with an interest rate hike of 10% when we were kids and almost lost the house. We must plan for all eventualities when making the biggest financial decision we will probably ever make. 

Schemes in the UK to assist us 

Although buying a family home isn’t always easy, I am happy there are certain schemes in the UK, such a Help to Buy, which helps first-time buyers achieve their mortgage goals. 

We also both have a Lifetime ISA and we now intend to pay significant amounts of money into it, to reach our home buying goals.

The market 

Naturally, when dreaming of buying a family home, I frequently check out the housing market and Rightmove is my preferred website. As a couple, we regularly discuss the area we would like to live in. 

Because life with a toddler brings certain responsibilities, we also have to consider schools and how it will be for a little one growing up in the house. Where I lived in my younger days became the focal point of growing up, and it’s where memories were made. My friends were those who lived on the same street. My parents still live in the area and we’ve known people who live there for years.

The downside was, I lived in a village, which meant access to a town centre and amenities involved planning travel. Ideally, we want our little one to grow up where we live now. In a town, with transport links, cafes, parks. But the price tag for such amenities is high. For us, this means higher mortgage payments. The reality is it may come down to a decision of fewer amenities and lower mortgage payments. These are the compromises we are currently weighing up.

Future goals for buying a family home

Once I am eventually settled in my new home (I literally have a list of house goals, including a wine fridge!), I dream about being financially savvy enough to overpay the mortgage and get to a great place financially by doing this. We just need to get one foot on the property ladder first! And save for the wine fridge. I am finishing up this post to check out #housegoals on Pinterest.

I am sure you will be hearing more about our home buying journey on this blog. Stay tuned!

Final thoughts 

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading my post and getting to know me a little better. 

This is one of my main personal goals and I wanted to share it with all of you. A house of my own, to decorate how I want. How wonderful. 

Do you own your own home or are you looking to buy one soon? 

Like me, do you check out Rightmove and work out different variations of calculations?

I would love to hear your experiences in the comments below.