mid twenties looking to buy first home with gf

GrammarGirl

FirstTimeBuyer wrote: »

personall speaking:

my income 1200
my outgoings 860 (excluding food/living/petrol)

I could put max £2k away a year, so thats ten years to get £20k together. I'm not 'living like a king', I'm just not planning on living with my parents when I'm in my 30's!

How can your outgoings be £860 with no rent to pay? My outgoings are £900 including rent and all that goes with it, a loan and a car loan repayment AND fuel and food. Seems to be like you are living like a king, or you have lots of debt repayments?

GrammarGirl

FirstTimeBuyer wrote: »

car repayments
child maintenance

and I do pay rent actually!

Sorry, I didn't mean to offend. Maybe posting an SOA on the Debt Free Wannabe board would be useful? Or even in here, I'm sure people will be able to help. With such high monthly outgoings, I think you'd find it difficult to save a great deal. If there are areas you can cut back on, people will be able to spot them from your SOA.

There's a link to an SOA within a thread at the top of the Debt Free Wannabe board if you do want to give it a go. I found it really useful.

GrammarGirl

FirstTimeBuyer wrote: »

I'm sure there is - my point is saving for a deposit isnt a viable option for me, thats why social housing looks to be my best bet.

Rent/housekeeping: 450
car: 200
maintenance: 200
telephone: 10 a month

But as people have already pointed out, getting social housing is probably very unlikely. There are people who need it more than you.

That seems quite a high amount of rent and housekeeping to be paying when you live at home - is it negotiable at all? To put it in perspective, I pay £550 pm for my private rent.

Idiophreak

GrammarGirl wrote: »

My outgoings are £900 including rent and all that goes with it, a loan and a car loan repayment AND fuel and food. Seems to be like you are living like a king, or you have lots of debt repayments?

So, out of interest, which are you? can't save or won't save?

Seriously, though, whilst your low outgoings are enviable, they're far from achievable for many people.

Even in a shared house round here you'd be paying around £600 rent, even if that includes rates, you'd still have insurance, phone, food, fuel, car maintenance, clothing, cleaning etc etc to add on..that's before you think of broadband, tv and other things that might be considered "luxuries" and a long way before you think of a budget for social, or savings for a holiday.

Now, in your view that might be "living like a king", to others it would be "enjoying your youth, not living your 20s in poverty".

herbertthehelper

suisidevw wrote: »

Use these next 2 year to re-build your 'history'?

How is it so bad?

How much savings do you have?

What property price are you looking at etc?

Two years should be suffice - I guess at the moment your both living the life? with combined earning of 45k you should be)should have been able to save for a while!

GrammarGirl

Idiophreak wrote: »

So, out of interest, which are you? can't save or won't save?

Seriously, though, whilst your low outgoings are enviable, they're far from achievable for many people.

Even in a shared house round here you'd be paying around £600 rent, even if that includes rates, you'd still have insurance, phone, food, fuel, car maintenance, clothing, cleaning etc etc to add on..that's before you think of broadband, tv and other things that might be considered "luxuries" and a long way before you think of a budget for social, or savings for a holiday.

Now, in your view that might be "living like a king", to others it would be "enjoying your youth, not living your 20s in poverty".

Sorry, I meant my outgoings for all the boring stuff, like rent, bills, re-payments, food and fuel. I spent the rest of my money on fun stuff!

Maybe I'm being too general with my figures. I live in the North so understand prices are cheaper (although we do get paid less!). From my point of view, I don't think it's fair for a healthy young couple on a good joint wage to get social housing. If they want to live together away from home they should do what everyone else does - save and buy or rent.

In answer to your question, at the moment I'm a 'won't save' - enjoying life too much to life frugally enough to afford to save. Like I said, £900 is just for the boring stuff...

GrammarGirl

By the way - my loans didn't come through necessity due to ridiculous spending. I wanted a nice car, so got it (bit like the OP so it would seem...) and I took out a low-rate loan to pay off uni debts. I can afford both monthly re-payments, so why not?

GrammarGirl

FirstTimeBuyer wrote: »

i didnt have much choice, i need a reliable car for work and with my credit its the cheapest deal i could get

Of course, people have all sorts of different reasons for taking out loans. No need to explain yourself really.

GrammarGirl

FirstTimeBuyer wrote: »

exactly, I've been pretty silly in my youth with credit, theres no denying that - I'm just trying to move forward with my life in the best/easiest way possible

Good for you, the best thing is to take responsibility and put things right. I do understand your want to buy a house - I've rented for over 4 years and often get the pang when I can't paint the walls or re-tile the bathroom. But I know I can't afford it right now - I want my independence and to live away from home, and I want to have fun, go on holiday and live my life. With all that going on there's no time to save! I will start saving in the future though. There's plenty of time to be sensible.

Jowo_2

FirstTimeBuyer wrote: »

why? your income is irrelevant with social housing?

There isn't a cap on income when it comes to applying for social housing. Those in need are priortised. The needy tend to be poor. Applications for social housing tend to want to know the income of applicants and ask for proof - i.e. payslips.

In some areas, the shortage of social housing is so critical, the local authorities cannot even offer social housing to those who are priority 1 cases (i.e. homeless) and have to ship them out to private landlords, B&Bs and hostels. What's the demand like for social housing in your area versus the supply? If your local authority runs a choice based letting program, you can usually see how many bids are made for available properties and if they tend to go only to P1 cases. In my local area, the minimum number of bids is 29, the maximum is 349 and virtually all properties go to those groups where the LA has a statutory obligation to house them - noone else gets a sniff.

As indicated before, you and your girlfriend both gross approx £3750 per calendar month (and should be jointly clearing easily £2,800 per month after tax). You earn close to the national average.

You have already indicated that 1 bedroom flats are available to let privately for £700 pcm which is around 20% of your joint gross or 25% of your net income, comfortably affordable by many measures.

You aren't stong candidates for social housing. It doesn't mean you'll never get it but you should be realistic about your chances, clear your historic debts and repair your credit rating.

Living with parents for a number of years and saving up a deposit slowly is what many people actually do.