I have a really exciting announcement guys, something that has been in the pipeline for many months that I can now finally share with you all! I am really excited to be partnering with BNZ, a brand which I have used for many years, one which I stand by 110% and one that has helped get us get to where we are today. I cannot explain how I feel when I am approached by a brand that aligns and fits so perfectly with my values and beliefs and that feeling is what I instantly got when I received the very first email back in September last year about a possible partnership with BNZ.

I have so much to say and share but I thought what better way to start than from the very beginning. Back to where it to all began. Sharing how we came to bank with BNZ and how without them we would certainly not be in the position we are today which is why I am so passionate about this partnership and sharing our journey with you all.
To begin with let’s take it back to 2011.
We were 22 years old with a two year old son, we were renting but I had a goal of owning our own home. It was always a goal to get into the property market young. I didn’t want to let having a child at age 20 change that plan, if anything it was a drive to make it happen sooner!
We looked at all our options moving forward as to how to achieve our goal. We were very blessed to have the option of being able to move into the granny flat at my parents house so that we could save as much as possible as fast as we could. We paid board, but were in a position where we could put the majority of our income straight into savings.
Early 2012, with enough savings under our belt we got a mortgage broker and began the process. We found the perfect house. It ticked all my fussy boxes. That’s a whole other story and you can see the original post here.
Ryan and I had both been banking with the same bank since we were old enough to open our first account. That bank had seen us work hard throughout the years. We never thought there would be an issue getting a mortgage through them and neither did our mortgage broker.
We had all the paperwork done and boxes ticked and it all came down to ‘subject to finance’ but our broker told us he had it all under control. We had quite a few weeks allocated to getting our ducks in a row and getting lim/finance etc approved and he was confident in telling us that we wouldn’t have any issues. Weeks passed by and we were still awaiting finance. I remember on the final day that we had to secure the house with our finance approval I was sitting at the public pools with Kylan and panicking. I couldn’t get a hold of our broker anymore. He wasn’t answering my calls. Eventually I received an email or a voicemail (I can’t recall what it was but I know he basically just left us in the dark) stating that no bank would lend to us with our six months saving history and that they wanted to see us save for a longer time with regular deposits. After weeks of being told there would be no issues and he was on top of it this is what we get. We had already lost out on our house once, second chances like this don’t come around often and I did not want to lose it again.
Heartbroken, stressed and panicking we took things into our own hands. Ryan made some calls and was in touch with someone at BNZ who after seeing all our paperwork via email was able to give us conditional finance approval over the phone at the 11th hour so that we didn’t lose the house. We just had to head into the bank the following day to get everything properly formalised.
They took us on in 2012. Brand new customers with 6 months of savings under our belt. They approved us for our first mortgage which led us to be here where we are today and for that I am forever grateful. We knew that we could do it. We just needed somebody else to believe in us too.
Now you can see why I am so excited about this partnership. BNZ gave us the mortgage for our home our home which is where all of this began. I began my blog as a journal to keep track of our reno progress with the idea of it being something that we can look back on one day to see how far we have come and what we have achieved. A place to store all the blood, sweat, tears and before and afters. I never dreamed of it turning into what it is today. My blog was born before the days of Instagram. It was Instagram that transformed by blog space into what it is today, but the roots of it are based on our home. Our home made possible thanks to BNZ.
So that is how it all began. The beginning of our relationship with BNZ back in 2012. We have been with them for over 7 years now and we still couldn’t be happier. Over the upcoming months I am going to dive into telling you about how we choose to bank, how we structure our loans and how we ‘be good with our money’ to get the most out of it.
I hope you enjoy coming along with me on this journey, while you are here you should totally check out some of those before and afters! I Still cannot believe what our home used to look like!

I have partnered with BNZ and this is a paid partnership.
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