Sounds like you have a bargain there mate.
You get to a time where things might detoriate quickly and lots of
things will go at once, but generally it's worth spending on them, even
for "An Old", "High Mileage" car like your, which really is neither. It
will never actually be worth what it will cost in work, but it will be
worth it to you as it will keep going just the same.

You maybe lucky as a VW mechanic, he may have kept nicely on top of wear
and tear.

My T16S was £325 which is an absolute bargain, because it was starting
to look a little bodily shabby. It has now cost me all in about £1500-
1800 including buying the car. Not bad seeing as I've put 12k miles on
an 18year old car that was already past 100,000 (now at 132k).

Apart from balljoints and wheel bearings and 1 warped disc, and a
seizing caliper, most of the other stuff has been piece of mind. The
shocks past one MOT, and would ahve passed another, but I'm sure they
were getting more gummed up. I changed the other disc and caliper for
balance, and was advised to have the camchain tensioner updated to a
newer style one (by a different indy to the one I now use), so did the
chain while I was at it (Wrexham/Chester indy garage that is very good
with loan cars).

You are going to like this car. I can see that you are already hooked.