Advice on saving and buying/renting a house

djwolf

I'm looking at trying to move out from my parent's house in the near future, within the next 18 months to 2 years hopefully. I can't move out yet because my outgoings are too high and I have loans running. These both finish completely in about 15 months time. My credit card balances are slowly coming down each month. I'm not managing to save much at present as I have had extra things to pay out for like car maintenance/repairs and a holiday.

My current finances:
Salary - £1,400 a month
Outgoings - £1,100 a month (average)
Debts - £6,000 (£4,600 loans and £1,400 credit cards)
Savings - £4,300

So, 3 questions really.

1 - Would it be adviseable be completely debt-free before moving out?
2 - Would it be best to rent a house to start with or take a bit longer to save up a 5% deposit and buy a house and take out a mortgage?
3 - Roughly how much will I need to pay out to furnish the house to make it fairly comfortable to live in?

Thanks.

arbrighton

Your debts will be taken into account for a mortgage, and also credit checks for renting so the more you can do to clear them the better. I don't entirely understand why you are holding savings when you have debts- you probably pay more interest on your debts than you receive from savings.

You will need 10% min deposit.

If you only have £300 left over monthly at the moment, how do you expect to pay rent and all bills?
If you seriously want to move out, why are you putting money towards a holiday, rather than clearing your debts to enable you to do so?

jbainbridge

Start by paying off the credit card with your saving. Any interest you get on the savings will be wiped out by the card.

What's the loan for? Car?

savingmummy

You will need to get debtfree and build up your credit rating.Best time to do it is when your still at home with parents, debts will only be harder if not worse once your on your own!

djwolf

Well, like I said in about 15 months I will have more spare money each month as the loans will be paid off and when I move out I won't pay any housekeeping. I should then have around £800-900 left over.

The bigger loan was for my car. The other loan was for a diploma course I'm currently doing (trying to give myself career options for the future).

I understand what you're saying about my savings although I like to have it as a back up in case anything major crops up that I need to pay out for.