AFTER losing her job, Karis thought homeownership was a distant dream, until she found a nifty method to help her to save thousands.
Credit controller Karis Jacobs, 23, and her husband George, 26, moved into their two-bedroom home in Pease Pottage, West Sussex, in April 2022.
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The couple were keen to have a home of their own having saved up for a deposit whilst living with Karis’ parents in Horley, Surrey.
But their dream suffered a huge blow after the pair lost their jobs working for Gatwick Airport in 2019.
This meant they had to use every penny of their savings to support themselves leaving them with virtually nothing for a deposit.
After securing new jobs and reserving a plot in March 2021, the couple knew they had around a year to save around £34,000 they needed for the deposit.
READ MORE IN MY FIRST HOME
By living on just half of their combined income – known as the 50/50 method – and by living frugally, the couple managed to hit their target.
But it came at a price, because they completely gave up their social lives and even had a smaller wedding in order to get their deposit together.
They also used the Help to Buy scheme to allow them to get a foot on the property ladder.
The government scheme gave budding buyers an equity loan and allowed them to put down a deposit of just 5%.
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You can get up to 20% of the value of your property – or 40% if you live in London – under the scheme.
The loan is interest-free for the first five years – although bad news for any budding buyers, this specific scheme closed in March this year.
But there are others available that will give you a similar leg up on the property ladder and you can see them in our guide here.
The Sun sat down with Karis and George to see how they went from being savers to homeowners for The Sun’s My First Home series.
Tell me about your home
It’s a two-bedroom house in Pease Pottage, West Sussex.
The house was much bigger than we’d expected with an open-plan layout downstairs and good-sized bedrooms upstairs.
We have a kitchen island which I really love and French doors going into our south-facing garden.
The house also has a large driveway with parking for two cars, which you don’t often get with newly built properties like this.
How did you decide on the location?
George and I used to work at Gatwick and we would often drive by the development.
In 2019, we decided to have a look at the development, which was just a building site at the time but we were impressed with the plans.
We popped our names on the waiting list with a view to getting enough money together for a deposit.
How much was it?
Our house cost £349,950 and we put down a 8% deposit of around £27,000.
We took out a mortgage of £260,000 over 35 years at a fixed rate of 1.9% for five years.
Our monthly mortgage repayments are £820 a month.
We were able to afford our home because we applied for a Help to Buy equity loan.
It’s a scheme that helps first-time buyers as you need just a 5% deposit.
We had to put down slightly more than a 5% deposit because George is self-employed.
The government will provide a loan of up to 40% of the value of the property if you live in London, otherwise you’ll get 20%.
There’s no interest added to repayments in the first five years.
You have to buy a new-build in order to be eligible for the loan, but that suited us perfectly.
We received a £60,000 loan, with the mortgage covering the rest.
How did you save for it?
We reserved our home in March 2021 and that’s when we really stepped up our saving efforts.
We had been living with my parents in Horley, Surrey, from around 2018 until we moved into our own home in April 2022.
Initially, we were paying a few hundred pounds in rent a month, but we stopped doing this when we lost our jobs in August 2019.
At the time, I was a painter and decorator at Gatwick Airport and George was a carpenter until the company went into liquidation.
George started working again pretty quickly, but it took me until around January 2020 to find a permanent job as a business administrator.
During that period, I relied on my savings so we had to build them back up again from scratch to afford our deposit.
The Covid-19 pandemic was a huge help to our savings efforts.
From March 2021 until we moved in, we lived on just one person’s salary and put the other straight into savings.
We put George’s salary of around £2,000 a month into savings and lived on my salary of £1,500 a month.
At the time, our outgoings were £500 a month, including groceries, petrol, insurance and our mobile phone bills.
To be able to stick to our £2,000 a month savings target, we had to sacrifice our social lives and any treats or luxuries.
We didn’t go out for meals or drinks, we ditched all holidays and takeaways, plus we cancelled our subscription services like Disney+ and Amazon Prime.
This was made a lot easier because of the coronavirus lockdown.
Because of the pandemic, we were also forced to have a much smaller wedding than we had originally planned.
We had expected to spend around £20,000 on our wedding, but we ended up spending just £9,000.
We were able to put the £11,000 we would have used for our wedding towards our deposit.
My parents also gave us £2,000 towards our deposit as a gift.
We were very grateful for this cash boost and we know that not everyone is so lucky.
How did you afford to furnish it?
George and I bought everything in stages to spread out the cost of furnishing our home.
We made sure to pick up smaller items as part of our weekly shop like a spatula, cutlery and pots and pans.
At the end of the month, we would sometimes have around £300 left which we would spend on furniture, or save for an expenditure we knew was coming up.
We also bought a £7,000 furniture package from the homebuilder which included carpet, flooring, kitchen appliances and turf.
To afford this, we made sure we saved beyond our deposit and our habits had put us in a good position to be able to do this.
Do you have any advice for other first-time buyers?
It sounds simple, but saving really is key and you can’t rely on anyone else to help you.
It was a struggle and we did have to sacrifice a lot to afford our home, but it was definitely worth it.
Shop as and when you can for furniture to spread out the cost.
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Meanwhile, one couple bought their £453,000 dream first-home with a “lifeline” small deposit scheme.
Plus, another first-time buyer got a £45,000 discount on their first home while working part-time and claiming Universal Credit.
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