saving for a house/flat advice and help needed

charleybear

I'm currently trying to save money to buy a home within the next 6-10 years (hopefully). I'm 19 and has a job at primark where I earn different amount of wages every month depending on my shifts as some months I get bombarded with working every weekend and some months I just do 4 hours every Saturday. This is extremely hard for me to create a plan to save as I can earn less one month and more the next.

I have a savings account set up and so far I have £620 In the bank I have only saved £20 myself as the £600 is what's left of my inheritance from my grandparents. The AER rate is 0.50% until I save a substantial amount.

How can I create a budget and save for a house when I don't have the same amount of wages? I've created a budget of £120 as the lowest I've ever earned was £125 . Looking through my payslips I seem to be getting paid more each month and as it is the holidays I will be trying to get extra over time just to make use of my time and work which could help me save quite a bit.

-taff

Create a monthly budget overall, with the lowest amount you've earned since April. On that budget put in you monthly outgoings.
Also divide the budget into weeks, for things like weekly shopping etc.
If you're good with spreadsheets, you can put them on the same page.

Then work out how much money you can spend each week for weekly expenditure and stick to it. Work out your other bills total, then leave that amount in the bank each week to cover them.

Set up another account which is spending money only, for things like food etc and keep another one for all your DDs, the at the end of each month, transfer anything left over to a savings acount.

charleybear

I have created this budget so far
£50 repay mum for laptop
£10 pc world insurance
£20 savings account
£10 a week {£40} anything left over from each week would be put in my savings tin and anything saved there is emptied monthly
Total = £120

How much a month would you recommend to put in the account to spend on myself/gifts?

midnight_express

Try and find an account that pays a higher rate of interest, maybe and ISA.

emg

When I first started saving i had a current account and an ISA which both used internet banking. As I was always paid on the last day of the month I would just log on the night before and transfer anything left in my current account to my ISA before my new pay check went in.

-taff

Your budget for yourself will have to be worked out by you. Add up the amunt you spend on bus fares, petrol, transport, food etc now, and factor that in.
How many gifts do you buy? Add uphow many and roghly what you spend on them, and either set aside another account/jar for them, or buy them out of your savings aco!!!!.

maman

Just popped in to congratulate you on such marvellous foresight! :T

Keep a spending diary for the next month. Write down every penny you spend, keep all receipts. Just keeping it should make you think about what you're spending on. After a month, analyse your spending and see if there is anywhere you could save. Think do I NEED this not do I want it! There's an expensive difference. Obvious places to save are packed lunches,, coffees, clothes etc.

Have a look at the Banking/Saving section at the top of the page and find yourself a better rate of interest. The idea of an ISA is a good one as that'll be tax free.

I know it's none of my business but and jobs are hard to come by but I'd advise you to keep looking for another job with a more regular wage. It'll help now but when you have saved a deposit, you'll need a regular income to get a mortgage.

Good Luck!!

sonastin

In your shoes, I would probably do the following:

First work out what you have to spend. looks like laptop repayment + PC world insurance on your list. I'm guessing some sort of travel cost to get you to work - bus pass or petrol or something like that? Do you have any other "must pay" outgoings? Rent (board)?, mobile phone contract? anything like that?

Once you know the money you are committed to pay out, estimate what you want to spend on the things that make life bearable but don't necessarily have to be paid every week e.g. clothes, make up, pocket money for going out (incl. transport if necessary), presents, holidays. Some of these will be "must haves" but not all the time (e.g. clothes!), some will be treats. The more you allow for treats, the longer it will take to save! You should set aside some money each week for these things even if you don't spend it every month. I allow myself £20 per month for clothes but I'm more likely to have a £120 binge every 6 months than pick something up every month. Ideally, this will all come in below what you earn on your minimum hours. If it doesn't, you might need to rethink your treats. Put this money aside every month into an instant access savings account if you don't spend it all.

After you've taken out money for your commitments and money for your other spending, the rest of your wages can go into your house savings account. You can probably afford to lock this away so that you can get a better interest rate. As the others have said, and ISA would probably be a good thing for this money. Some months you'll only have a wee bit to put in if you've not had a lot of hours. If you do a lot of overtime, you can maybe consider boosting your instant access account with a bit of extra "treat" money but remember that the more you treat yourself, the longer it will take to save! I know I've said that before but it is the thing to keep reminding yourself when you're thinking about spending your hard earned money on something frivoulous.

If you build up your instant access savings account to a big balance because you're resisting spending it on stuff you don't need, you can then transfer some of it over to the house savings. I'd suggest leaving enough for at least 3-months worth of your commitments & other spending budget in there, maybe longer if you're saving for a holiday or christmas presents but if your house-savings account earns higher interest, you should move the surplus over to there.

HTH

Dark_Star

As interest rates are rubbish, try stashing your money in premium bonds.

Minimum buy is £100 to start with & you're best off buying in £1000 chunks as large holdings seem to win more. For some reason 1 x £1000 will win more than 10 x £100.

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/saving/article-1637084/Premium-Bonds-winning-numbers.html

list of july winners...if you look at total holding & value of bonds for the winners, you can see that not many £100 holdings come up but the £1000 do

just a thought!

-taff

the 1000 ones have 900 more chances

theoretica

As said, if you can budget for everything you absolutely need from your lowest wage then you can look at the extra you get most months and decide how to divide it between spending on yourself, presents and savings. You need to decide how much you want the home compared to the other stuff.

How expensive are flats in your area? If you want £15000 in savings in 8 years time you need to save £150 a month (leaving inflation and interest to cancel themselves out which is rather inaccurate).