95% mortgages?

ViolaLass

tinkerbell1986 wrote: »

Outgoings;
£480 rent - could you move somewhere cheaper? (since you don't like where you are)
£110 council tax
£40 car insurance
£9 laptop insurance
£26 water
£12 tv licence
£19 union membership (for work)
£20 gym membership
£12.50 contact lenses
£5.00 ps3 insurance
£13.00 bank account charge (gives us high interest on all accounts, particularly savings accounts, mob phone insurance, travel insurance, etc) - have you checked whether it actually saves you money? You'd have to have sky high interest rates or a lot saved (which I guess you don't) for it to be worthwhile. Either that or you travel a lot etc.
£25 my mob phone bill - reduce
£35 husband's mob phone bill - reduce
£200 my car (I know you wont like this but it was a treat to myself when I graduated uni and got my first job and I can't do anything until next June. It is on a contract hire type thing and I will buy it on further finance in June and repayments should go down to about £150) - do you actually need this?
£60 gas and elec
£38 broadband and home phone - this could be reduced
£5 to the RSPCA
£17 lettings and contents insurance - Does this cover the other items you have insured above?
£300 food - ! OH and I manage nicely on £150 a month. Do you cook or buy a lot of takeaways?
£150 petrol
£500 (£250 each) as disposable income for nights out, clothes, toiletries, haircuts, people's birthday presents, etc (:-S) - this could easily be reduced, if you want to. Try keeping a spending diary so you can see where it's going and whether any is being wasted.

You seem to have a lot of insurance, is it really all necessary? How does its cost per year compare with just replacing the thing you've insured? Just for comparison, the only insurance I have is for my instruments (I'm a musician) and the premiums are less than 1% of the replacement value.

BitterAndTwisted

£500 a month on food! £250 a month disposable income! AND you can save a grand a month!

Lucky. Very, very lucky indeed.

Two years will speed by in the blinking of an eye.

misskool

You can easily save 2k a month by cutting down to the bone and halving the time spent in your rental

COOLTRIKERCHICK

tinkerbell1986 wrote: »

Thanks for the info! Save save save it is for the next couple of years :S

Our rented house is a two up, two down with lots of problems and I am so desperate to move into somewhere bigger and nicer but I suppose I'll have to wait.

I'm not sure what you meant by "welcome to the real world" theartfullodger. I am well and truly in the real world thanks but just know little about mortgages as I've never had one before. And I also don't understand, myhouse, why I am priced out of the market. In terms of deposit yet but in terms of getting a decent mortgage we should have no problem and could easily afford the repayments.

While we're on the subject of cutting back and saving money, if I tell you our monthly incomings could anyone help me on where we could save?

Total monthly income approx £3500 (my salary sometimes varies slightly up or down though depending on how much overtime I do and how many night shifts, weekends, etc)

Outgoings;
£480 rent
£110 council tax
£40 car insurance
£9 laptop insurance do you really need this insurance?
£26 water
£12 tv licence
£19 union membership (for work)
£20 gym membership save £20 and cancel your gym membership
£12.50 contact lenses
£5.00 ps3 insurance do you really need this insurance
£13.00 bank account charge (gives us high interest on all accounts, particularly savings accounts, mob phone insurance, travel insurance, etc)I would look closely at this one
£25 my mob phone bill If possible switch to payg
£35 husband's mob phone bill as above
£200 my car (I know you wont like this but it was a treat to myself when I graduated uni and got my first job and I can't do anything until next June. It is on a contract hire type thing and I will buy it on further finance in June and repayments should go down to about £150)
£60 gas and elec
£38 broadband and home phone could you get these cheaper if you swop provider?
£5 to the RSPCA you could stop this while you are saving
£17 lettings and contents insurance
£300 food go onto the old style board, and i am sure you could cut this by at least by half
£150 petrol
£500 (£250 each) as disposable income for nights out, clothes, toiletries, haircuts, people's birthday presents, etc (:-S)you could easily cut this right back with carefull spending

Total is £2076. Then we tend to keep an extra £200 for unforeseen things (cats vet bills, work needed on cars, etc) and then we are able to save £1000 to £1200.

Any help much appreciated (don't be too horrible though haha)!

I reckon you could save at least another £600 per month, if you really wanted too.so that would be £7200 a year towards your deposit

giddypenguin

tinkerbell1986 wrote: »

My husband and I are hoping to start saving for a deposit on a house in the new year but with house prices as they are we need about £20k for a 10% deposit with a little spare for fees and as we can only really save about £1000 per month this is going to take nearly 2 years

This actually annoys me a bit. A house will probably be the most expensive thing you ever buy - of course you have to save up for it - like all big purchases! Why should somebody else give you all the money for it instead?

colli

I know how you feel. It took OH 2 1/2 years to save up to buy. Whilst we were putting the money away each month it felt like a drop in the ocean towards what we needed and that we'd been saving forever but we got there in the end. It's worth it and whilst it feels like ages at the time when you look back it doesn't seem so bad. Good Luck!

TimBear

You are very lucky tinkerbell, to only have to wait two years! My calculations show I will be able to buy a house in around six or seven years...

Catatonia

As well as cutting down on spending, could you not get somewhere cheaper than £200k? You don't have to buy the dream house first time round.

tinkerbell1986

Thanks for most of the responses.

Poppysarah, what constructive advice, you have been so helpful.

In terms of our current property, anything of similar size and location would cost at least £100 per month more than we pay now. The house we rent now is owned by my father in law and he has kept the rent down because by lending to us he is saving himself money by not having to pay a letting agent and knows his house is in safe hands. It needs some things doing to it but unfortunately because it is family, it is sometimes tricky to push him to do them (I think he thinks we should sort things). But I'm working on that.

Giddypernguin, "This actually annoys me a bit. A house will probably be the most expensive thing you ever buy - of course you have to save up for it - like all big purchases! Why should somebody else give you all the money for it instead?" Where the hell did I say somebody should give us the money for a deposit on a house?!?! I am willing to save, I just wish it could be quicker that's all. And I'm asking for advice on how I can make that happen (by cutting back on outgoings). What's your problem?!

Bitterandtwisted I never said I spend £500 per month on food! There is only 2 of us!

Catatonia, when I buy a house I want to start a family in the next few years and don't want to be moving again anytime soon. We are looking at 3 bedroom detatched houses for between £160k and £180k so need £16-18k deposit, but I also want to make sure we have a bit of spare money for all the extra costs, hence aiming for about £20k.

I think this whole saving thing is going to cause disagreements between my husband and I. I am desparate to buy and willing to save like crazy whereas my husband is happier where we are than I am and is of the opinion that "we still need to enjoy life while we save". I have told him all your suggestions and he seems to have an answer to everything (some reasonable, some not);

If your laptop breaks then it'll cost hundreds to replace. £9 a month is nothing!
I need my PS3 insurance because it is a VIP PS3 and if it broke and I bought another, I couldn't buy a VIP one now.
£38 a month broadband and phone - we are in an area where we only really have one option and to have a BT line put in so we could change provider would cost about £160 therefore not worth it.
Loves his iPhone too much to reduce his contract or go PAYG. I am due to change contract in March so may go PAYG then.
Needs his gym membership to keep fit and keep weight low (for health benefits) using weights machines. Can't go out running, walking, cycling, etc as he is disabled.

I think I will cancel £13.00 bank charge and £5 RSPCA (only for now) and try to reduce food costs and disposable income costs (oh and keep working on the husband!) Any other suggestions?!

sonastin

You don't need to go too drastic with the cutbacks - after all you are already putting away £1000 per month. But each time you're going out or thinking of going out or in a shop wondering about whether to buy something just remember that if you spend now, it'll take longer to save. If you'd rather have a dessert now than save the £5, then treat yourself but if you decide that the house is more important, put the £5 for that dessert into your savings account. Similarly with the grocery shopping - the posh range might be tastier than the budget range but is it sufficiently better to justify the extra cost. If it is, buy the posh range. If not, buy budget and put the money into the savings account. Do that for everything that you lumped into the "disposable income" and "food" categories and you'll find that there's plenty of savings to be made on things that you don't really want. Things that your hubbie doesn't really want either but you're paying for out of habit or convenience. The £800 in those categories could swiftly be halved and that would be a few months off the time it takes to get £20k saved.