Jennifer Hind's condominium is one of five units in the Bay View development in Bailey's Bay. It's a conversion of an old house, "Rivendell", which overlooks the water. It's an attractive conversion which still resembles a single house from the road.

A former teacher at Warwick Academy, Jennifer is now The Royal Gazette's Education Services Co-ordinator.

She comments that her mortgage payments are now much lower than rent would be: "If I had to rent this property at a market rate, I would not have been able to afford it on a teacher's salary."

She and ex-husband Bill Ingham got onto the property ladder when they were in their twenties. In fact, it was at Bill's insistence, that they got themselves a mortgage and bought the property for $200,000.

Jennifer was against it at the time: "I didn't want to go into debt, but he was right - debt is ok if it's working for you."

As she recalls, it was only possible to get a mortgage for 50 percent of that amount. They put down a ten percent deposit and with family help took out a further $80,000 loan over a five year term.

The early years were a struggle. They could not afford to live in the property but were able to rent it out to US servicemen stationed nearby in St. David's. "We lived in a bed sit and scraped and saved."

They moved into their home after several years and later invested in a further property. They hung on to the Bailey's Bay property and after they split up, Jennifer chose to keep the condominium while Bill took the second property.

In their case, having two properties allowed them to keep things fairly tidy when they went their separate ways. Even though things did not work out as they planned, she says it's a good thing that they made their sacrifices early and managed to get their piece of the rock before property prices went through the roof.

In recent years she has had to invest a lot of money in replacing window frames and doing other maintenance.

Her mother kindly made her an interest free loan to help her to get the work done.

While trying to fix the problem of a persistently damp wall, all the plaster had to be stripped off.

It was then that they discovered a huge hearth that had been walled up. As a history graduate, Jennifer was fascinated to find some old bits and pieces in a corner of the hearth which she thinks date back to when it was a private home.

These days even though interest rates have fallen and she could reduce her mortgage payment amount, Jennifer prefers to put as much as she can towards paying off the loan.

She regards it as the best savings plan she could have.