Confessions of a financial commitment-phobe
Two self-employed people walk into a mortgage advisor's office, and other terrible jokes
Have you bought a house? In this country? In this economy? Well, you have my eternal admiration. And sympathy. And awe. I’m currently in the process of buying my first property with G (his third), and wow. Wow. How does anyone do this? Or more accurately, how does anyone do this and stay sane?
There I was, blithely living my life as an alleged grown-up, paying my silly little rent and signing silly little 12-month contracts, and forwarding on emailed landlord references, decorating with fairy lights and worrying about my silly little £650 deposit back.
And then: bam! Mortgages. Surveys. Insurance. Buying a house after nearly two decades of renting feels like upgrading overnight from a little after-school snogging to hardcore, dungeon-based S&M. The tens of thousands you’re talking about! The mucky trenches of your credit history being raked over! Joe Bank interrogating you about every penny of your past and future earnings. Solicitors going through your statements with a beady eye, no doubt sniggering at the amount of cash bunged at Uber Eats alone in the last year.
While I was quick to get over being a relationship commitment-phobe (it really does just take the right person, huh?) and even a cohabitation-phobe, this process has made me realise I am still absolutely terrified of Big Financial Commitments. G has had to talk me through every step like I’m a trembling thoroughbred racehorse, eyeing hedges and rifles at the Grand National. A simple emailed form requiring my signature can send me into a tizzy for 48 hours. Meanwhile G seems completely laid back, bandying about numbers in the hundreds of thousands, flicking through 80-page property surveys and DocuSigning endless forms.
Why am I such a mortgage wuss? In the past, I’ve always been good at confronting the next step: further education, internships, first job, first rental flat, promotions. Even amid redundancy and a global pandemic I’ve rarely found myself this rattled.
But it’s the unknowable. It’s the scale of the thing. It’s the maths of it all. (Maths is not my strong suit. Every statistic or price I’ve ever included in one of my articles has been calculated and recalculated electronically, along with a lot of googling in the realm of ‘How to work out percentage of…?’). To me, signing my life away like this feels about as sensible as agreeing to ‘store some stuff’ for the mob in my 1960s drugstore – surely no good can come of it?
I’m fully aware I’m not the worst human to ever manage their finances (certainly not the worst 20-to-30-something female journalist in one of the most expensive cities on Earth). But cor, they make you feel like an absolute criminal and an ignoramus, don’t they? (By ‘they’, I don’t necessarily mean the mortgage advisor, underwriters or your fellow purchaser, but more the general, all-seeing Property Gods.) Oh, you only have that many thousands in your savings account? They hiss. Oh, that’s the type of account you chose to put that in? Okay, interesssting choice. And where did your monthly paycheque go back when you had little more to spend on than a third of a rental and a Saturday night at the Tram and Social, Tooting? Hmm? Surely you could have done better than thissss.
(Yes, I hear the Property Gods as the voices of Ursula’s eel sidekicks, Flotsam and Jetsam. That doesn’t make me any less of a strong and capable candidate for a mortgage, thank you.)
Then there’s the uncertainty: what do you mean the whole thing could fall through at any moment? You could spend weeks mentally decorating the bedrooms and living room you’re in the extremely high-maintenance process of acquiring, and then the seller could just… duck out? When property prices are so high, how on earth is the buying process so shaky? I’m minutes away from just withdrawing every penny I own, sewing it all into a mattress and going off-grid in a hermit’s hut.
The hilarious thing is, I spent years archly commenting that I didn’t have to worry about the property market because I could never buy a house myself; the system was broken, single people were discriminated against, good luck getting a mortgage big enough to buy a garage if you’re a creative in London (etc, etc). And now here I am confronted with the possibility of doing it, really doing it, and I’d honestly rather do a runner to a Hebridean island than deal with the paperwork and questions. It’s not my proudest moment.
It probably doesn’t help that I’m self-employed and still trying to beef up my little business. The whole affair has prompted a genuine existential crisis: Why didn’t I pick a better career route? Why didn’t I stay at home for a few more years and save? Why have I stayed in a country where the property market hates me? Why did I spend all my spare cash on bao buns between 2019 and 2022? (Okay, I can solve that one: Daddy Bao, no regrets, get into it south Londoners.)
Anyway, I can’t change my delicious, dough-wrapped, chilli-oil-dipped past; but I’m sure as hell trying to change my future. And a monthly mortgage commitment can’t honestly be that much scarier than a rent payment, can it? And I haven’t missed one of those in 12 years.
Now to the upsides of buying a real-life, all-mine house. Painting the walls whatever colour I please. Making a ‘culture corner’ involving a window seat for reading, bookshelves, a record player and a retro magazine rack. Ripping out ugly wardrobes and replacing them with lovely fitted ones. Inviting friends to stay for the weekend in guest rooms (yes, plural!) Settling in with a glass of red on a Saturday night or a steaming hot coffee on a Sunday morning, knowing that no one is going to send me a blunt email saying I’ll be booted out in three-to-six months’ time. It does sound soothing, meditative even. If you have any more upsides, please comment with them below.
If this is finding home, I still want to do it. I’ll just have to put my big girl pants on, keep a calculator close by and ask for help on the many, many aspects I don’t understand. But man, will I be glad when this painful, forms-and-financial-anxiety bit is over.
Some helping hands for the financially freaked-out:
PODCAST: Life Kit by NPR
I love this little bite-sized podcast. It’s not exclusively about personal finance, but it has some killer episodes - Get a Better Handle on Your Money with a Financial Self-Care Routine; How to Cut Costs, Pay Down Debt and Save Money; and How to Pick a Bank That Works For You. Despite being American produced and hosted, it strikes a good balance between clear and intelligent; it’s never too high-falutin’ for this money dummy, and stays approachable and real-world in its remit.
YOUTUBE: Alex Kerr
Take it from a mortgage broker! Alex’s YouTube channel covers everything from mortgage application tips to whether house prices are falling or rising; in his video on How to Buy Your First House, he’s incredibly clear and uses loads of visuals to help keep each step distinct. It’s probably worth watching his Ugly Truth instalment to prepare you for the worst of it, too.
BOOK: Money: A User’s Guide, Laura Whateley
Aimed at women between 18 to 40 (God, I wish I’d read this when I was 18), this catch-all non-fiction book deals with student loan repayments, renting and buying property, paying off debt, investing and even money and mental health. It’s unfrilly and to-the-point, with no smug pedestal position of having a clean financial CV (Whateley has described herself as ‘bad with money’ in the past). Designed for women who want to take control of their finances and do things in the smartest way possible.