Are we doing it right?!

krlyr

If you're really serious about saving for a house, there's a lot you can do to cut your spending - any you're in the perfect place to do it
OH and I are similar ages to you and decided to start saving quite seriously for our own place. Careful meal planning, ditching the takeways, and bulk buying/cooking drastically reduces food costs - we were spending probably £40-50 a month to feed the two of us when we were following it at its strictest. We limited spending money to about £100 each - which we're still following now we've bought the house as we want to make as many overpayments as we can. We don't have the busiest of social lives, and having cars probably makes it slightly cheaper when we do go out (OH's is a company car so limited running costs) but we haven't struggled too much with this limit. Still go on meals out, went to a theme park for my brother's birthday last month - it's just a case of tightening the budget slightly a month before/after these big events for example.
Pet food is another area you might be able to save costs, supermarket food can work out to be false economy as the foods generally aren't great quality and you need to feed more of them. Switching to a better brand could reduce your costs - no need to go for the top of the market stuff but there are lots of cheaper brands that aren't quite so 'mass market' that are a bit better value-for-money.
Good luck, anyway - some of our friends probably found us a bit boring with us passing up the weekly pub visits etc. but we certainly don't regret it now we've got our own house, can't say we particularly miss our old 'spend it all' lifestyle!

sulkisu

Personally, I wouldn't be using my £2k rebate to pay off his overdraft. With £300 play money each month (assuming half of that to be his) he can put that towards paying off his debt. Also (again, this is just my personal opinion), but I would advise separate accounts if you have not already done so, and that you both save your money separately.

anteatergirl

krlyr wrote: »

If you're really serious about saving for a house, there's a lot you can do to cut your spending - any you're in the perfect place to do it
OH and I are similar ages to you and decided to start saving quite seriously for our own place. Careful meal planning, ditching the takeways, and bulk buying/cooking drastically reduces food costs - we were spending probably £40-50 a month to feed the two of us when we were following it at its strictest. We limited spending money to about £100 each - which we're still following now we've bought the house as we want to make as many overpayments as we can. We don't have the busiest of social lives, and having cars probably makes it slightly cheaper when we do go out (OH's is a company car so limited running costs) but we haven't struggled too much with this limit. Still go on meals out, went to a theme park for my brother's birthday last month - it's just a case of tightening the budget slightly a month before/after these big events for example.
Pet food is another area you might be able to save costs, supermarket food can work out to be false economy as the foods generally aren't great quality and you need to feed more of them. Switching to a better brand could reduce your costs - no need to go for the top of the market stuff but there are lots of cheaper brands that aren't quite so 'mass market' that are a bit better value-for-money.
Good luck, anyway - some of our friends probably found us a bit boring with us passing up the weekly pub visits etc. but we certainly don't regret it now we've got our own house, can't say we particularly miss our old 'spend it all' lifestyle!

That's all really helpful and reassuring, thanks so much! Yes, I suspect we have become rather boring in the eyes of many- my friends in particular get quite shirty with me when I decline expensive activities, but I suspect that's a necessary side effect of having a more adult lifestyle than most of your friends. The majority of people I know live very hand-to-mouth and probably wouldn't even consider saving, but could if they went out less. I guess that culture shift is something that happens to everyone at some point. We have been looking into changing pet food as well, there's just so much advice and discussion that it becomes a bit baffling! We should definitely do that. Thank you!

Person_one

anteatergirl wrote: »

Thanks very much. You're absolutely right about my overdraft- the first month's savings will go to pay most of that off, we're just being cautious in case we have made some sort of huge error and end up needing the money for something else (the contingency plan point is a good one, and that's sort of what we're doing with that in the short term. It's definitely something to bear in mind, and once we get a clear picture of how much we can save we'll probably divert some of it into an emergency fund.)

Just to clarify, by contingency plan I didn't just mean a 'fund'. I don't know how you're splitting bills and things now, or if you've pooled all your money as 'ours' but you need to think about how it will all work logistically if one of you is suddenly not bringing in any income.

anteatergirl

Thanks very much for all the advice. I'll follow the deposit-saving thread from here on. I appreciate your replies very much.

rdchick

sulkisu wrote: »

Personally, I wouldn't be using my £2k rebate to pay off his overdraft. With £300 play money each month (assuming half of that to be his) he can put that towards paying off his debt. Also (again, this is just my personal opinion), but I would advise separate accounts if you have not already done so, and that you both save your money separately.

Yeah this rang alarm bells with me too.. the amount of times you see on the debt free wannabe boards about people paying others debts - it's not a fun thing to read, I would think hard about this - it seems a lovely thing to do at the time but if anything happens you feel rather bitter about it (I did the same thing for my now ex and am now in financial do do myself!) xxx

surfboard2

sulkisu wrote: »

Personally, I wouldn't be using my £2k rebate to pay off his overdraft. With £300 play money each month (assuming half of that to be his) he can put that towards paying off his debt. Also (again, this is just my personal opinion), but I would advise separate accounts if you have not already done so, and that you both save your money separately.

Totally agree with this.

Lara44

Hi Anteatergirl

My HB and I are also based in London and we have saved up for a wedding fund and house deposit in the past 5 years. We chose to minimise rent and bills to have more spends for food and going out - as we didn't want to miss out on dinners out with friends, the cinema and visiting galleries.

You and your partner have much more money to play with than we did, so you still have decent monthly spends. However your rent and bills chunk still seems high at £1548? You don't mention how that breaks down, but taking off £300 for bills and £250 for travel still leaves your rent at £1000. This can be one of the best ways of saving money - looking at phone contracts / cash back / electricity and gas usage / insurance / water etc. Don't forget about looking for good deals there too

Also if you're decluttering you can make some money from your old things on ebay. Visit the Debt-free wannabe section and old-style area for some mega inspiration!

If either of you live near work consider getting a bike through the government cycle to work scheme - it can be one of the fastest and healthiest ways to get around town. Plus you can cancel that gym membership, Lol.

Good luck :beer: