Life Lately- WE BOUGHT A HOUSE!

We exchanged on our house last Friday!! That means that on Friday 23rd August, we will officially be home owners! It's such a massive achievement. Not just because it's obviously incredibly difficult to get your foot on the housing ladder these days (thanks recession, credit crunch and brexit!), but because we haven't exactly made things easy for ourselves.

After graduating university I found out I was pregnant almost 6 months after starting my first job. Which meant Dave became the sole earner for our family before we were even married. We rented a ridiculously overpriced cottage in London, which was falling down and left us unable to save anything for a deposit. And for a while, it was just about surviving and keeping costs down. Then we had Tommy and Dave got a new job so we were able to rent a better house. Again, this left us no money over to save towards a deposit, but we were a little more comfortable and became kind of accepting of the fact we may never own. We even talked about travelling for a bit or moving abroad somewhere.

Suddenly, a job came up at the children's school for me. A job that would fit around our family reasonably well and so I took it. And as if by magic, we were suddenly able to save, and get the mortgage we needed to get our foot in the door! And as if that wasn't lucky enough, a pretty but run down little 2 bed victorian terrace came on the market for way way under market value. There had been 4 offers on it by the time we got to look around, but it was love at first sight!

The owners were keen to sell it to a family, and after accidentally meeting us on the way out of our viewing, they picked us and accepted our offer! Suddenly, everything we thought wasn't possible for us, was.

It needs lots of work, and it wont be done overnight, but it's ours. Our little space to call our own and next Friday we will no longer have to rent from someone else. No longer have to have our property inspected. No longer have the threat of being moved on or kicked out when the landlords decide to sell.

We are so incredibly grateful and lucky and so excited for what the future will hold. We did it!!