Stay at home or rent? [never lived alone]

AdrianC

never_summer wrote: »

All my income, both photography and salary which I stated in the above post is net profit, so money I'll actually get after giving the taxman his share!

Gross figures would normally be used for PAYE salary, and for self-employment income. Turnover minus costs of doing business before income tax.

martinsurrey

http://www.roombuddies.co.uk/rooms-to-rent/546D39E517497

£230 a month inc bills.

Worth a try for a few months.

I know this is a money saving site, but money in the bank is nothing if you dont enjoy it, and in 5 years time you may regret not giving it a go.

never_summer

martinsurrey wrote: »

£230 a month inc bills.

Worth a try for a few months.

I know this is a money saving site, but money in the bank is nothing if you dont enjoy it, and in 5 years time you may regret not giving it a go.

Hmm, definitely worth thinking about. With my fuel saving and rent at home I'd be paying £80/month plus food. Seems more realistic I guess and that way it'll be easy to save. I think I want to look into buying a 50-70k house in the next year so at least that way I can put savings towards something usefull and get on the property ladder asap.

ilikecookies

Personally I'd stay put and set yourself a clear goal - eg. I will move out in x years having saved x amount so I can buy/rent a property. Then comes the hard bit of sticking to the plan!

The costs associated with renting for a couple of years, if you want to buy, will just be money down the drain ...

never_summer

ilikecookies wrote: »

Personally I'd stay put and set yourself a clear goal - eg. I will move out in x years having saved x amount so I can buy/rent a property. Then comes the hard bit of sticking to the plan!

The costs associated with renting for a couple of years, if you want to buy, will just be money down the drain ...

Yup, think I'm going to do this. Going to get X amount go into an ISA each month, and also get myself a credit card (which is something I should have done years ago), to build up a better credit rating then maybe look at buying a house in 1-2 years.

TartanSaver

Check out the bank accounts section of the forum and the article on in-credit interest. You could do a lot better with your cash in current accounts than an ISA. (6% interest in regular savers, and 5% in current accounts.) Even after tax you'll be much better off. Since you'll need the money in a couple of years for a deposit anyway, there's no point in worrying about long term tax free interest implications.

ilikecookies

TartanSaver wrote: »

Check out the bank accounts section of the forum and the article on in-credit interest. You could do a lot better with your cash in current accounts than an ISA. (6% interest in regular savers, and 5% in current accounts.) Even after tax you'll be much better off. Since you'll need the money in a couple of years for a deposit anyway, there's no point in worrying about long term tax free interest implications.

Top advice! As perverse as it sounds interest rates on select current accounts spank ISAs (think 3-5% interest vs 0.5-1.5% on ISAs)! You'll need to open quite a few accounts to shelter the requisite sums of money but well worth doing! Good luck!