My Saving log

I will change my target from £15,500 to £12,000, so the £3,500 will be going towards the deposit target.

And there was me trying to save you money! Any reason you've added £3500 on to your deposit target? Will it make a meaningful difference? I ask as I often find myself getting hung up on saving specific figures without actually running the numbers to see what figures I need specifically

Thank you spikyone for your post. I rather not deal with Santander, even if it means a lost in potential interest. I have good reasons why I don’t wish to deal with them.

I would rather poke myself in the eye than deal with Santander again! They have the worst customer service I have ever had the misfortune to experience and have failed to meet my financial requirements during a stressful separation, have messed up DDs (which could have led to black marks on my credit report) and failed to open ISAs for both my fiancee and I in a manner that was truly awful last year (wrong documents sent out 3-4 times, with a different set of wrong documents received each time!) In fact, the only easy experience with them was closing my branch based account and choosing never to bank with them again!

If you don't mind me asking edinburgher, how much is your deposit target?

Not at all, although it's tiny in comparison to your own as house prices are a lot more reasonable in our neck of the woods (Glasgow). Fiancee and I are aiming for either a nice two bed tenement flat or a small three bed house in a safe, but not wildly exciting area.

£25,000 should cover us for 15-20% deposit and fees (we're at about £16,000 just now and are adding to it at a rate of about £700/mth). This will go up once we get our wedding costs out of the way (September) and hopefully we should be on target to buy next May or thereabouts Just signed up to a year's lease on a rental property, will hopefully be our last.

Unlike yourself, we're not really aiming for an emergency fund as such (although I absolutely believe they're a good idea and we will build one once we buy). We invest some money through our S&S ISAs and these currently have enough money to tide us over for about 3 months if the worst happens. We'll continue to grow these investments before we buy and don't really want to add another year onto our target date as it would mean delaying starting a family (which I'd rather do when I'm old enough to enjoy it/cope )

We've also looked at getting a car, but as I hear nothing but horror stories about the costs involved, I'm a little wary!

Glad to hear you're giving your savings accounts a new financial year workout - it's always good to trim the fat. We mostly need to make sure we get all of our cash into tax-free accounts, as it's sitting spread across previous year ISAs/regular savers/instant access accounts at the moment.

Hello edinburgher, I hope you had a lovely 28th birthday last week

It was cracking - I went for a float and then got taken shopping for fancy food (I love cooking).

Your maths is spot on, not planning on spending more than £135k at the moment.

You appear to be looking for a fairly small mortgage LTV - 70% or thereabouts? What sort of difference do you think this will make in terms of percentage points on your mortgage rate? I ask as I've been looking at some mortgage rates for highstreet banks etc. and rates seem to go down at the following LTV points - 90% -> 85% -> 80% -> 75% -> 60%

There doesn't seem to be a 'break' for someone looking to take out a 70% mortgage. Assuming a max price of £130k, a 25% deposit would be £32.5k, a bit lower than you're allowing for.

which means I have to use my very dusty oyster card to use the lovely London Trasport, being packed on the tube like sardines

I lived in Bromley for the best part of 2 years - I always loved the fact that I didn't have to take the tube in London, don't think I could cope in summer!