It has been just over two months since my last blog post on the First Home Buyer Journey series. I thought I might give an update on what has happened in the past two months.
I have started to pay off my home loan from when my home was settled in late January 2025. I have decided to split my home loan between variable and fixed rates at a 60:40 ratio. This was because, at the time I got pre-approval, the 2-year fixed rate was lower than the variable rate. I did not fix all of my loan, though, because I anticipated that interest rates might fall as the Australian economy eased up. Interest rates did fall in mid-February 2025 which meant a slightly smaller repayment for my variable loan. However, with the global economy becoming more unpredictable due to Trump’s actions, there is no knowing what will happen to the Australian economy, let alone interest rates. Nevertheless, I am glad that I have decided to split my loan into a fixed and variable rate. While I will take falling interest rates and repayments as a bonus, I can also feel comfortable about my fixed loan keeping repayments relatively steady should interest rates rise.
With the home loan now active, I have mapped out how I will be spending my money moving forward. I have dedicated half of my salary to keep up with repayments and build some emergency funds that I can use should the need arise. I am still dedicating a portion of my salary towards holidays and investing with index funds, as well as bills, daily necessities and fun stuff. I am still paying myself weekly at a slightly higher amount to cover my daily necessities, but with more things that I need to pay for myself it will take some time to spend within my weekly limit. It does not help that I need to spend some of my daily necessities to buy stuff for my home, including additional kitchen utensils, batteries and the like. Hopefully as the months pass there won’t be many additional expenses that I need to cover, allowing me to save more of my weekly pay to fun things.
Over the past two months, I have also been getting renovations done on my apartment before I moved in. These include:
- Replacing the carpet and old floorboards with new laminate floorboards which are lighter in colour, giving the illusion of expanded space;
- Replacing the wall heater with a split system air conditioner that can both cool and heat the living room; and
- Upgrading the switchboard which now has safety switches to instantly cut off electricity upon detecting an electric shock.
I had to organise contractors to get these renovations done before I moved in. Despite moving in, some of the timber windows still need to be replaced, and the fly screens still need to be installed. That is not an issue at the moment as not many insects have entered the house, but it would be good to keep them out with the fly screens once they are installed.
While the renovations were being done, my parents and I slowly moved my clothes and books into the apartment and built some small furniture. The bulky furniture was moved in late-March 2025 which involved the whole family. After that period, I am proud to say that I have started to live in the apartment by myself. Overall, the apartment has been fantastic. There is a lot of room for me to live by myself, and it has everything I need to have fun by myself without anyone else distracting me. The apartment is pretty quiet as well, so I feel at ease. Apart from going to my parents’ place every now and again, I will be spending most of my time in the apartment that I have bought for myself.
With the moving in done, this will be the last of my daily updates on my First Home Buyer Journey. I may publish a few informative articles on the series to give some tips on how one can purchase their first home. These may come out in the future when I feel the need to write them.