I’ve never been the most financially minded individual, but marriage, a new job and the credit crunch have been rapidly sharpening my focus. My wife and I have been considering buying our first house for some time but with house prices climbing continually we have been focusing on saving for a deposit.

As house prices are starting to fall and we both have good, stable jobs we have begun looking in earnest for mortgage options. We have both found the variety and complexity of mortgage products confusing and as our home will stand as security, we wanted to make sure we got the best deal available.

One Saturday morning visiting banks was enough for us, some mortgage providers didn’t want to know and others were just a bit too keen for our business. Having a little look online was a bit more productive. We found www.creditchoices.co.uk it’s a comparison website aiming to show all the available products in one location. The site has many great features to help us make informed decisions.

The mortgage calculator is a great little widget to show whether or not the mortgage you’re considering is affordable. As this will be our first mortgage a lot of the terms and products on offer were quite confusing, but there are some good articles on the site explaining the jargon and pointing us in the direction of the products most suitable to our situation.

So now we know what a tracker is and how it works and whether or not we should look at 100% mortgages or a cap and collar.