Hey there long time no speak!
I've been on hiatus recently as we moved into our first home and I got myself a new job! Feels strange to have left Boots after nearly 3 years and I'm sad to leave behind some good friends and more importantly, the staff discount.
I digress...
It's been 4 weeks since we moved so I thought it would be nice to look back on the experience and pick out the lessons I learnt during the process.
For those of you who are thinking about or have already begun the process of looking to buy your first home take a read of the below because if I could go back in time, this is what I would tell myself...
1. Buying a house is stressful.
There's no ifs or buts about it, buying a house was the most stressful thing I've ever done... aside from my GCSEs! The process is full of highs and lows and a lot of the time it felt like we were taking one step forward and two steps back. As cliché as it sounds though, it was all worth it in the end and I hear it's like the pain of child birth - you say you're never going to do it again but you soon forget about the pain and want to do it again and again.
2. Don't take on too much.
At the same time as we were going through the house buying process, I was also in the process of looking for a new job which added to my already high stress levels. Balancing interviews, solicitors, estate agents and my existing job was probably a bit too much to take on all at once. So don't try and be the hero and conquer everything at once. Trust me.
3. It's bloody expensive.
Aside from the actual costs involved in buying a house like the mortgage, the house insurance and the life insurance (don't even get me started on solicitor fees), decorating and furnishing a house to make it feel like your own is a pricey business. We went from a two bed apartment to a three bedroom house so not only did we have an extra room to fill, we also had to replace some of our existing furniture as it didn't fit in the new layout. My piece of advice here: Ikea is your friend.
4. Take the help that's offered to you.
Whether this is financial help, physical help with moving or decorating or just general bits of advice, there's no shame in accepting help from people around you. I know for a fact that we wouldn't be where we are today without the help of our families and friends. From using our relatives' homes for storage to getting half of my family round on the day we moved in to paint, we definitely got our money's worth out of them!
5. You don't need to do everything straight away.
I'm hugely impatient so this was my biggest downfall. I wanted to move in and do everything immediately. I wanted to paint every room, buy all the furniture, do all the DIY, sort the garden and pretty much have everything the way I had envisaged it by the end of the first week. Not only was this highly impractical, it would have also cost us a fortune. My advice would be to make a list of everything you want to do in priority order and then get cracking on the bits that you can't live with for the time being. I'm definitely still learning to take a piece of my own advice...
Until next time,
Jade x
I've been on hiatus recently as we moved into our first home and I got myself a new job! Feels strange to have left Boots after nearly 3 years and I'm sad to leave behind some good friends and more importantly, the staff discount.
I digress...
It's been 4 weeks since we moved so I thought it would be nice to look back on the experience and pick out the lessons I learnt during the process.
For those of you who are thinking about or have already begun the process of looking to buy your first home take a read of the below because if I could go back in time, this is what I would tell myself...
1. Buying a house is stressful.
There's no ifs or buts about it, buying a house was the most stressful thing I've ever done... aside from my GCSEs! The process is full of highs and lows and a lot of the time it felt like we were taking one step forward and two steps back. As cliché as it sounds though, it was all worth it in the end and I hear it's like the pain of child birth - you say you're never going to do it again but you soon forget about the pain and want to do it again and again.
2. Don't take on too much.
At the same time as we were going through the house buying process, I was also in the process of looking for a new job which added to my already high stress levels. Balancing interviews, solicitors, estate agents and my existing job was probably a bit too much to take on all at once. So don't try and be the hero and conquer everything at once. Trust me.
3. It's bloody expensive.
Aside from the actual costs involved in buying a house like the mortgage, the house insurance and the life insurance (don't even get me started on solicitor fees), decorating and furnishing a house to make it feel like your own is a pricey business. We went from a two bed apartment to a three bedroom house so not only did we have an extra room to fill, we also had to replace some of our existing furniture as it didn't fit in the new layout. My piece of advice here: Ikea is your friend.
4. Take the help that's offered to you.
Whether this is financial help, physical help with moving or decorating or just general bits of advice, there's no shame in accepting help from people around you. I know for a fact that we wouldn't be where we are today without the help of our families and friends. From using our relatives' homes for storage to getting half of my family round on the day we moved in to paint, we definitely got our money's worth out of them!
5. You don't need to do everything straight away.
I'm hugely impatient so this was my biggest downfall. I wanted to move in and do everything immediately. I wanted to paint every room, buy all the furniture, do all the DIY, sort the garden and pretty much have everything the way I had envisaged it by the end of the first week. Not only was this highly impractical, it would have also cost us a fortune. My advice would be to make a list of everything you want to do in priority order and then get cracking on the bits that you can't live with for the time being. I'm definitely still learning to take a piece of my own advice...
Jade x
I don’t know if there’s anything quite as stressful and educational as searching and buying your first house. Not to mention, once you finally find it, and buy it, you have to go through the process of moving. Nobody in their right mind likes that. But congrats on buying your first house, it’s an exciting and fun adventure.
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