My First Year as a Homeowner

By Tiffany Holden

Start with this post about the seven-plus-year saga of buying my first home.

I spent more than I thought I would (oops). Okay, hear me out. I’d been saving for almost EIGHT YEARS and expected to pretty much zero out my savings with making this home purchase go through. Well, I was able to negotiate closing costs plus a hefty seller’s credit, which meant I had a lot more cash on hand post-closing than I’d ever projected.

…and also some major repairs (seller credits have a reason; they’re not just giving away money because I’m cute). Because of our constricted timelines (16 days to close), I chose not to press the time to get comprehensive bids for the necessary work. This was a mistake; but it’ll be okay.

I also budgeted for some fun stuff - entry-level living room couches, a porch swing, paint (thanks to my family for the hours upon hours of labor to get that all on the walls), and two chandeliers. Plus plenty of “odds and ends” from thrift stores ($200 in home decor feels like a lot but when you just spent $1100 on couches, it just doesn’t sting quite the same).

This was all planned for - along with the cost of the appraisal, the inspection, a year’s worth of homeowners insurance, and a year’s worth of car insurance (yay for rewriting all my insurance for that solid multi-policy discount). 

What I wasn’t prepared for was the sudden car repairs that would kick in just weeks after closing. 

And then the first mortgage payment was due. 

And then the next.

And that’s when my new life-budget sort of hit a bit harder. You see, mapping out a post-purchase budget on paper is just numbers and bills and math and the numbers added up just fine. Then real life hits, and the numbers need to get a lot more specific and actual life has to change to make it all work. 

And that’s okay. It’s just weird to get used to.

Working around the house is soooooo rewarding. I planted three rose bushes. They were little babies at Home Depot the day I picked up my paint, and there’s something about knowing that I’ll get to see them grow year after year after year.  My marigolds are blooming as I write this paragraph, and I had a fresh strawberry with my cereal this morning. “Putting down roots” is so very cliche, but seeing my plants put down their roots and knowing that I’ll be around to see them develop each summer is so incredibly fulfilling. 

Still stressed about the upcoming big repairs, but I’m taking it one month at a time and the bills are getting paid. 

Reflecting on 6 months in my new place. When I got preapproved last spring, one or two people suggested waiting longer to find the “right” house - and to see if maybe interest rates would drop. 

Boy am I glad I committed to a house and locked my interest rate right away.

The week I closed, the national average 30-year fixed rate was 6.73% (Freddie Mac) and as I write this in mid-October, that national average is up to 7.57%.  I asked Ian Mullen (RWM Home Loans) to re-run my numbers, and here’s what he found out: if I was getting preapproved for the same transaction right now, my mortgage payment would be $317 higher per month OR my purchase price would need to be $44,000 less than what it was.

One year at the Butterfly Cottage. I may or may not have forgotten about adding to this ongoing blog post, but here we are, 13 months into homeownership and here are my thoughts:. 

What happened with interest rates? Aside from a couple dips, they’ve spent most of the year above where I locked in (keep in mind that that’s still double what they were in 2022 - you can read the saga here). So my spring 2023 mantra - “if rates go down I can refinance; if rates go up I’ll be glad I bought when I did” - held true and I’ve also made it through the first year of mortgage payments - the year where a freakishly high percentage of the money out the door goes straight to interest. There’s no skipping that first year, but each year that ratio will improve slightly. 

What about the budgeting side of things? Well, I finally got my emergency fund back up to where I’m more comfortable, but I’ll still be contributing to it. And in anticipation of maintenance and bigger repairs on the home (roof, siding, a system going out, etc.), I set up a separate sub-savings account and have started socking away a bit each month in preparation for that (example: take the rough cost of a roof replacement that will be needed in five years, divide the cost by 60, and put that away in savings each month).

Life things: I’m SO happy with where I live. I’ve been able to host parties and learned my living room can seat 8 people comfortably or 18+ people with some imagination.  It’s also been a huge gift to live just 5-8 minutes away from my family. 

I’ve also learned the plumbing in the powder room is really loud and can be heard from the living room, and that I really need to keep the grass trimmed around the A/C unit. I’ve had the furnace replaced and A/C put in, some ductwork expanded, and the garage door fixed. I broke the garbage disposal and the storm door, and buried messages in a jar in the yard with my nieces and nephews. 

I hung up backyard lights, planted three rose bushes and moved in dirt for two garden beds, put in styrofoam blocks in all the crawlspace vents and threw out my back shoveling snow during that super-cold snap we had in January. I’ve bought cookies from the neighbor kids and thrown a few soccer balls back over the fence, and handed out Halloween candy to more than a hundred kids.

All in all, I feel the weight of the mortgage payment and the responsibility of upkeep, but I also see the principal tick down just a bit and know that the bills of today will have long-term rewards. Homeownership has been rewarding, messy, happy, stressful, and normal - all at once. I felt at home in my house right away, and I’m so thankful I took the chance on the green house with the funky layout and dark brown walls.