FLIPPING burgers at McDonald’s in the day while working as a secretary in the evening helped first-time buyer Andreea Gherasim save extra cash to buy her first home.
The mum-of-two worked an extra 22 hours a week and her family cut back on Christmas presents and spending in order to save up a £7,750 deposit.
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The 29-year-old, and her husband Sebastian, 36, used the shared-ownership scheme to put down a 10% deposit for the £252,000 three-bed house in Northampton.
The shared-ownership scheme lets buyers purchase a portion of the equity in a property if they can’t afford to take out a mortgage for the total value of the home.
Andreea and Sebastian own 30% of the property, and pay rent on the remaining portion of the house that their housing association, Metropolitan Thames Valley, owns.
They said they would never have been able to afford a home of their own without using the scheme.
To get on the ladder quicker, Andreea took on a second job at McDonald’s to get £700 extra per month.
She worked five shifts a week, which she managed to slot in around her full-time job as a secretary at a transport company – which she could do flexibly.
The family also had a stripped-back Christmas for two years to save them a total of £400 to put towards their dream home.
We sat down with Andreea and took a look around the family home for The Sun’s My First Home series.
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Tell me about your house
It’s a three-bed house in a new-build development in Northampton.
There’s two bathrooms, which is great as we’re a family of four – the extra space saves a lot of arguments!
There’s a toilet downstairs as well.
We have a separate living room from the kitchen and dining area.
We have a lovely garden outside.
How did you decide on location?
We wanted to stay in the local area because our work is nearby – and the kids’ school too.
I was at a friend’s house and I noticed a sign on the opposite fence for shared ownership homes with SO Resi.
Me and my husband had been saving for a while, so we decided to take a look around the development – and soon after put an application in for a home.
How did you afford to furnish it?
We had already bought a lot of furniture previously when we were renting in the local area – so we didn’t need to buy too much when we moved in.
A lot of the kitchen appliances were already installed, which saved us having to buy them ourselves – including the dishwasher, fridge, oven, and washing machine.
We also had built up our savings over two years to pay for furniture we did need for our house.
How much did you pay for it?
The house is worth £252,000 in total, but we bought a 30% share of it at £75,600 because we used the shared ownership scheme.
That means we pay £456 in rent on the remaining portion of the house that the housing association, Metropolitan Thames Valley, owns.
You can put down a deposit as little as 5% on the portion of the house that you are looking to buy through the Shared Ownership scheme.
But we decided to put a deposit of just over 10% down instead at £7,750 – it means we pay less on our monthly mortgage repayments.
We took out a mortgage of £69,000 for our home over a 30 year-term on a 4% two-year fixed rate interest period.
Our monthly mortgage repayments are £335 a month.
We want to staircase – which means slowly build up the equity in our house – and eventually own the whole property.
How did you save for it?
We used an easy savings trick to save up for the deposit – and furniture – needed for our home over two years, between 2019 and 2021.
Every month after we had been paid, we would take roughly £400 per month out in cash and put it in a box that we found – it became our savings pot.
Sometimes the amount we took out would vary – one month, we sold a motorbike we owned for £700 and took all of that money out to put in our savings box.
But sometimes, it was less than this during months where there were birthdays or things we needed to pay for for the kids.
We raised just over £10,000 in total from the savings method.
There was a slight complication when it came to putting the deposit down for the house.
Because it was in cash, we were told we needed to take it to the bank and get it put in our account, so we could wire it over as a digital transaction to the developer.
We decided to take cash out in order to save because it helped us keep on track of our money more.
It was easier to forget the money and not spend it by putting it in a box.
I also took on an extra job at McDonald’s for the two years that we were saving for a house.
I took on five shifts a week and got up to £700 more a month from this.
It was easy to fit these shifts in between the job I have with a transport company – I work remotely and the job is more flexible.
Going to cheaper supermarkets helped us halve our food bill.
We go to Aldi or Lidl for our weekly shop, and we spend £60 to £100 each week to feed a family of four.
But going to another supermarket like Tesco can see our bill rise to £200 easily.
We also cut back our spending over two Christmases in 2020 and 2021.
Usually, we spend £300 on presents for the whole family.
But when we were saving for our home, we knew we needed to cut back – and spent just £100 in total for each holiday.
I made sure to buy less expensive presents for the kids, and made the most of offers on toys.
We still had a lovely Christmas – it just wasn’t as big as it usually is.
Advice for other first-time buyers?
You should always reach out to other people who have gone through the housebuying process.
I helped a colleague from McDonald’s buy a house of his own – he was really happy I helped him and it felt good to share what I knew.
Make sure you keep your goal in mind – owning my own home was a big wish of mine.
Make sure you get mortgage advice on what you can afford – you need a good advisor on your side.
Here’s how one first-time buyer nearly lost out on his £105,000 first home due to an ISA mistake.
While another had to quit the job she loved to make her house buying dreams come true to get a higher paid job.
One saver got £3,100 worth of freebies on his first home – including £1,000 in vouchers for furniture.
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