Thinking of buying one day!!

blondy24

Pawpurrs - Our rent per month is £695 not £400! We are thinking about moving to another rental place at the end of Sept with cheaper rent, perhaps just a 2 bed rather than 3 bed place but with a bigger garden. Find it very hard though with two dogs - which we are not getting rid of!!

Getting better - Thanks for the advice. Hopefully things will be better in a couple of months after b/f gets paid monthly. I might well join the sealed pot challenge. I have been the one paying all the rent, car loan (£260 pcm) and some other bills - so I have no money left for other things. I am going to get my b/f to start paying half the rent from now on tho

pawpurrs

Sorry I realised after I posted that it was another poster who paid 400pcm sorry.
The car loan is a biggy, how long has that got left? Could you sell the car and get a cheaper one?
On that income, unless your debts are very large saving a deposit should be doable. But obviously firstly you need to concentrate on getting the debts down, it sounds like you are quite young, most FTB these days are in their thirties, so you have time on your side.

gettingbetter

hi blondy

what i do
and it wont work for everyone
i am in the position that i dont have a mortgage anymore
but i still try to put my mortgage payment away
in my sealed pot every month

every time you clear a debt
keep putting the money away
at the moment i am aiming to save £600 p/m

thats my debt money and mortgage money
alright i had help cause of inheritence
but i want an extension and i need to pay
for it somehow

when you pay off your car loan
dont say oh thats an extra £260
in my pocket treat it like you
still have to pay it

if you get b/f to help with rent
take what you would have paid
and put it in your sealed pot
it will soon mount up

hope that helps

kas xx

blondy24

Pawpurrs - It's okay I thought you got mixed up with another person's post.

I am 26 and b/f is nearly 30.

Car loan is till Sep 2010 we were naive and stupid just under two years ago and got a really nice car but had to sell it last year as we needed two because we both need to drive to work. It was not a car loan but a personal loan which is a bit better I think and only over a year to go. Just something I could do without paying

I agree we need to get the debts down and that is why I am trying to be very tight with what we spend money on e.g. cutting down on food bills, not going out etc.

blondy24

getting better - Thanks very much for your comments. Yes that is what I am thinking I will save the majority of half the rent I pay and put it away every month in case of an emergency / for a deposit. I will save the car loan money next year when I have paid it off.

LEEFTB

blondy24 wrote: »

Thanks Leeftb. Where would be the best place to look for developments with an initative to attract first time buyers? We are looking for somewhere in Wiltshire. It annoys me that I have no money left at the end of every month - have no idea how many people save deposits any advise please on how to.

If there are any regeneration areas or even new builds in Wiltshire get in touch with the developers to see what they can offer.

As other posters have advised, pay off your debts and you will be able to save more money in the future. You may have to stay patient for years but if you really want to get on the property ladder I am sure you will get there some day.

I am in my early 30's and hope to be moving into my first property by the end of September!

mbga9pgf

I live in wiltshire too.

I started by looking, at depth at my monthly statements. I looked really really deep and started cutting back on the monthly stuff - mobile phone bills, internet package, monthly rental subscriptions - these were the things I found added up. Once I had minimised those (we went on a business O2 package for 18 quid a month, sim only. 300 mins any network, 10 unlimited landline numbers, unlimited texts, unlimited calls to other O2 Users You dont save 75K in 4 years whilst owning an Iphone). I got rid of any other memberships - magazine subscriptions and daily newspapers. I get all that stuff online now.

I then went into debt reduction mode, with my newfound monthly credit making overpayments on credit card debt (3K) car loan (7K) and overdrafts (4K). I paid it off in 12 months. Once I had got there, I started a savings plan. Let me tell you about savings. They dont just happen. Savings grow as a result of one simple thing; a reduction in your quality of life now, so you have a much better quality of life down the line.

Food. I refuse to eat crap. Which meant I had to learn how to cook. But that was fine, becuase it was a new hobby and I really enjoyed how to actually MAKE those delightful melt in the middle Goo puddings, how to roast a chicken, how to cook 3 dozen differnet main meals. THe thing about saving - its not the time to get a boner over "animal Welfare" or "Organic food". Saving is all about cheap - that doesnt mean low quality though. If you want to whine about some pampered corn fed chicken tastes better than a 3 quid tesco special, be my guest Gordon Ramsay, but dont be surprised when you dont hit your savings targets. LEARN THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN COST AND VALUE! Fairy Liquid for example. 2X cost, lasts 3X as long.

Going out. I havent in a long time. Much prefer having friends around for a bottle of wine and showing off my new found culinary skills. Much better than waking up with ringing ears, a banging hangover, a black eye and stab wounds from that bloke that thought I was looking funnily at him, and 80 quid out of pocket. And my clothes smelling of ciggy smoke.

Holidays. I found Camping. Its actually awesome, I really enjoy it, together with doing more outdoorsy stuff, far better.

These are some of the multitude of areas I managed to reduce expenditure. Use your imagination.

Spending plan. Dont bother saying "We only have X to spend this month". It doesnt work. Try and come up with an annual saving plan by going through everything you are expecting to pay over the next year. Everything. Food, insurance blah blah blah. Use the MSE COE to help. Divide your realistic savings target by 12. That is your monthly savings target. Our house has one rule and one rule only. We meet the annual target, not the monthly. If we go over the monthly average, we try and work back to it the following month. It works a treat and is much easier than taking out 600 Quid out the bank on day one of the month and trying to live off corn flakes by day 25.

Credit cards. Pay them off, then consolidate. Get rid of all the High APR ones and get a 12 or 9 month 0% APR card. Appy as joint members if you find it appropriate. Now, important bit. Pay everything, I mean everything that has A direct debit off your joint account, as well as any other stuff that is non-reducible (home insurance etc). All the other stuff, put on the Credit card. What you have done is created a very easy method of tracking discressionary savings. For Free (you pay off the card each month remember).

Other hints.

1) Pay off everything in full. Dont pay car insurance off monthly. You can save quite a bit in interest by paying in a lump sum.

2) Track expenditure and every 6 months, re-appraise and try and skim back.

3) Try and make it fun. Its going to be a massive B*llache, but you can learn the value of your money by living like a complete scrooge.

4) Shop around. Then shop around more. Apart from clothes, dont buy ANYTHING in the high street, apart from places like TK Maxx for home goods. You can always find a cheaper deal online I promise. Car insurance, home/contents all reviewed annually as premiums change, some insurers will insure at a loss on their risk premiums just as other companies will sell you stuff at a loss just to get you through the door. Dont just accept the renewal, see if you can match it.

5) Presents. Most controversial here. We dont do them. That may sound really bad, but our family know exactly how hard we are saving and dont mind. We do cards and maybe something home made, but we dont buy needless consumerist tat for people that dont need it. If we do buy a present, it will generally be for young kids, not grown ups. If you do want to do the present thing, then make something for them. Some brownies. Perhaps help with christmas dinner.

6) Hobbies. You dont save a fortune by riding horses. You dont save a fortune clay pidgeon shooting. you will need hobbies though to fill the time that you will create by purging those evil consumerist splurges you are used to in those shopping malls on a Saturday. You mention your dogs. I would invest in a good pair of walking boots and discover the fantastic walking opportunities that wilsthire has. The dogs will love you for it.

Finally, there will be times where you will both struggle with it. You may lapse back in to your evil consumerist ways. But it will pass and you will feel like a junky that has gone back on the skag. Dont worry, you will fall off the bike time and time again. But it wont matter. Because you will have thousands of pounds in the bank to make you feel really good about yourself, as a reminder of why saving is important. I can promise you, this experience will be either a maker or breaker for a relationship. Either you are both with it, or you are not. I see savings as a much cheaper way of going through the whole marriage/Divorce thing. You will either save your deposit, or split up trying.

Rockporkchop

blondy24 wrote: »

I hardly ever get my hair cut and no way can I afford to go to Toni & Guy!! lol For the last two years we have probably been out for nights out say 5-10 times at most and we haven't been abroad on holiday for the last two years either.

Don't take this the wrong way but please don't forget to live your lives as well as paying off the debt and saving for a house! Nights out don't have to cost a lot (you can get free cinema tickets on here for a start). Try to get a good balance so you don't look back and regret scrimping and staying in and not seeing the world during your twenties.

poppy10_2

gettingbetter wrote: »

hi blondy

what i do
and it wont work for everyone
i am in the position that i dont have a mortgage anymore
but i still try to put my mortgage payment away
in my sealed pot every month

every time you clear a debt
keep putting the money away
at the moment i am aiming to save £600 p/m

thats my debt money and mortgage money
alright i had help cause of inheritence
but i want an extension and i need to pay
for it somehow

when you pay off your car loan
dont say oh thats an extra £260
in my pocket treat it like you
still have to pay it

if you get b/f to help with rent
take what you would have paid
and put it in your sealed pot
it will soon mount up

hope that helps

kas xx

Wow poetry. Beautiful :T

hostie1985

just an idea, is there any new build developments in your area - i know bellway are doing equity loans where they give you the 30% of the value of the property you want so you can put that down as a deposit. prob would have to get rid of loans etc first as the lender will look into how much you can borrow and monthly commitments etc. all the best.

keep us posted on how you are doing.

hostie

xx