Saving for a house (deposit)

Dill

JackieO wrote: »

Gosh this takes me back a few years ,when we first started saving up back in 1969 it took 18 months of living on virtually egg and chips and the bare minimum to get our first house.It cost us £6.850 and our mortgage was £60.00 per month.sounds absurd by todays standards but it was just as hard as I had a 2 year old and a new born baby and we lived in a tiny rented flat that cost us 4 guineas a week (£4.20p) My OHs basic was £21.00 then plus overtime and we were so broke when we first moved in January 1972 that we had lino on the floor, no stair carpet at all just wooden floors.No central heating and the house was a falling down victorian bay-fronted money pit.In the dining room there were still working gas mantles :):). Black and white old tv that worked when it felt like it and all our furniture was second-hand and pretty tatty.But it really was worth the effort and I never regretted it. I can remember having 20p left over at the end of one week once everything was budgeted and paid and my oldest friend who lived down the road said 'I'll look after the kids while you get a job.I worked as a temp locally and I'm still good friends with her today .good luck to all of you who are saving and keep it up as you will never regret it
JackieO x

That puts things into perspective. People talk about baby boomers (which I am guessing you are?) "having it easy".. but it sounds like it was just as hard decades ago to find the money for a house as it is now.

LittleOne

DWhite wrote: »

I know it's not the end of the world, but every time I spend anything now I'm beating myself up and telling myself that it won't help me save or the mortgage people won't like it when I'm trying to get one. Doesn't help that it just seems like there's always something at the moment, such as DD needs a haircut and my phone charger broke, not big expenses but things I'd rather avoid. Am I alone with this?

You're not alone :-) I have been so worried about my spending recently. Most of it is for things we need but I am trying to withdraw cash to buy the little things here and there so that I don't have 10 different transactions on my account as opposed to withdrawing some cash to cover them all!

MandM90

Dill wrote: »

That puts things into perspective. People talk about baby boomers (which I am guessing you are?) "having it easy".. but it sounds like it was just as hard decades ago to find the money for a house as it is now.

My mum was a baby boomer ahad the same sort of experience when she bought her first home at the age of 22. It inspired me and we bought our first place last year at the ages of 23 and 24 respectively. We moved in, had no sofa, spent 4 months sitting on camping chairs (we now have one from freecycle), and had spent about 48 solid months basically living on beans whilst being higher rate taxpayers to get a £60k deposit together. It was all worth it in the end though! The problem is, I can't ever see myself not being thrifty now...

LittleOne wrote: »

You're not alone :-) I have been so worried about my spending recently. Most of it is for things we need but I am trying to withdraw cash to buy the little things here and there so that I don't have 10 different transactions on my account as opposed to withdrawing some cash to cover them all!

I do this, constantly. Now I use a budgeting programme called YNAB that has relaxed me a lot. I put aside spending/saving money and I always know what's what now! I'd really recommend it to anyone and everyone. There are quite a few devotees if you hunt around the MSE boards.

DWhite

LittleOne wrote: »

You're not alone :-) I have been so worried about my spending recently. Most of it is for things we need but I am trying to withdraw cash to buy the little things here and there so that I don't have 10 different transactions on my account as opposed to withdrawing some cash to cover them all!

Ah it's a hard balancing act isn't it? I found a £20 note in my jacket pocket the other day, made me very happy as it was getting quite tight close to pay day so I used it for half term fun stuff and still have some left! :beer:

DWhite

wow! £60K! :eek: I'm working hard just to get a £5K deposit I don't earn much though and I'm doing it on my own.
You've done well getting your own place at your age, I wish I'd done it! I'm just about to sit and work out my budget for the next month to see what I can put into my savings. Just been paid and as I started my new job a week or two into the pay month it wasn't a full months pay but was more than I expected as it was below the tax threshold so I'm using that to my advantage to get on with making savings.
Learning slowly how to be thrifty. Treated DD to costco lunch twice this week, jacket potatoes are huge there and delicious! Not bad for £1.50 to have lunch whilst out and about (Yes I know I can make them much cheaper at home, but I was a lot closer to costco than home and it was quicker).

FairyPrincessk

We spent today visiting one of our 'dream' areas to buy and it was lovely. We took a pic nic lunch so spent little. We've mainly gone for the slow and steady savings plan, we could cut more from our budget and eat beans (although camping chairs we have definitely been a feature of our furniture while renting, but we also replace things when we find them in charity shops etc!) but that would only shorten our savings by less than a year, so to us it is worth it to have five years with reasonably healthy food etc. than to cut to the absolute bone. The first year was very tight--we ate very cheaply and had no luxuries (including central heating) but were able to save even as two students.

I've intentionally not said what our savings target is on here, although clearly we're aiming within the help to buy ISA range. We're in our 30s and due to several factors this will be a long journey for us. I try not to compete with others. We have friends who have bought houses long before us in price ranges we wouldn't dream of, but they have different needs and priorities and comparisons won't pay the bills or land us our deposit money.

I must also confess that neither of us is interested in the 'ladder.' We want to buy once and be happy with it. I don't object to those who do buy something and then change it in a few years. If children were in our future etc. then we might consider that.

I did manage to colour in another square on our savings chart. I'm also shading squares when one of them is fulfilled by the help to by top up. Just 19 squares left until we start looking!

DWhite

You have a healthy approach to it Fairy, I'm trying to do that as well. Just sat and worked out a budget with YNAB and it's not looking too bad thankfully! Soon as I know what's left it will be moved into savings. I'm enjoying the challenge now!

FairyPrincessk

A lot of people really like YNAB, I hope it works for you! Work has slowed down for an undetermined amount of time for me, so I'll be trying to stretch the shopping budget a bit more. We're also slowly getting rid of things as we hope to move closer to where we want to buy about a year from now. We anticipate renting somewhere a bit smaller, so we need to get rid of a few things--particularly books and things like OH's enormous CD collection! I've just found out that I'm on the list for more of the paid stuff next year, so fingers crossed that will come through.

DWhite

I've got so much clutter to deal with at my parent's house, probably worth quite a bit tbh. Just need to get around to dealing with it, trouble is it has sentimental value for me so it's difficult.
Pay day today, I've worked out a budget on YNAB and transferred the rest into my high interest savings. Anything left by next pay day will go towards the deposit as well. Feeling very positive now I've made a payment towards it :-)

FairyPrincessk

That sounds like great progress! We pay our savings accounts as a 'bill' when we do our budget. Our budget is pretty fine tuned by now so we rarely have any left over. We have our high interest savings and ISAs at other banks, but we keep a small savings account that is easily accessible for emergencies.