95% mortgages?

mynameisdave

£100+ per year for Laptop insurance? You could probably pay for a more comprehensive contents insurance and get it covered in that, might add £20 to the premium but will save a fortune over the year. To be honest unless it is top spec I wouldn't bother with insurance. If it screws up early in its life you should be covered by guarantee anyway, if it screws up and its old then you can replace it with a similar sec model for cheap.

I'd cut back on the food, I dont think it would take much to cut it to £200 a month instead of £300 and with £250 each per month for spending there is plenty of money across both budgets for takeaways and such.

If you can be bothered with the hassle you can open a co-op bank account and get the free phone insurance (currrently free for 12 months). Travel insurance is cheap enough anyway - about £1 a week for a worldwide cover for a couple valid for 12 months. After 12 months you could switch account again. Not wanting to sound blunt but the high interest on a savings account isnt really going to show the returns untill you get to deposit level as a balance!

Rent / Petrol
There is the possibility you could move. Obviously you need to factor in will this mean more driving, less driving each month. If you could both move to within walking distance of work but the rent was more expensive the net saving could help there too.

dizziblonde

You've taken a bit of an unfair battering to be honest. The only reason we managed to buy was getting a very hefty cheque as a wedding present (basically hubby's parents gave us as a gift what they'd paid towards his sister's mahoosive ceremony) - saving for a deposit was looking like an impossible goal for us.

Some things that might help - we've got things like council tax, water etc that are on monthly direct debits but actually only collected for 10 months out of the 12 - instead of doing what we (if I'm honest) tend to do of blowing it on junk - tell yourself you don't have it and squirrel it away.

Food - I'll be honest here - our average spend is about £60 a week for the pair of us, but if I really plan and do it carefully (and don't impulse buy - hah hah - I'm basically lousy at this) I can bring it down by meal-planning and making the most of the slow cooker to cut out the "can't be bothered to cook ring for takeaway" factor. We do save more if we go online via mysupermarket.com and really hammer the downshifting/sending it to the cheapest place - but to be honest, lots of the time it doesn't happen.

Laptop insurance - do you need this? I've never really bothered to be honest - when you're looking at something that's about £300 to replace... is it going to be cheaper just to take the hit if anything DOES happen, and are you someone likely to actually NEED it? (To this day I've never ever needed mobile phone insurance for example - so I don't have it because I know I'm not a habitual mobile phone wrecker... unlike my husband!).

If something finishes that we've got a payment scheme for - we try to keep the same payment going and running into the savings account instead - on the you don't miss if it if you've never had it idea... we've just finished paying for some computer kit that we got on a buy now pay in 12 months deal, and covered by running the monthly cost into a savings account because we may as well have the interest for 12 months rather than PC World - and we've left the standing order running.

Gym - worth if it you actually use it (it's cheaper than ours is!), not if you honestly don't! We're considering junking ours since we're in the middle of getting a dog which will force us to exercise that way more.