The Gibberish trek to a deposit! 9 September 2016 at 4:57PM edited 11 September 2016 at 10:51AM in How much have you saved? 45 replies 24.3K views

atrixa

Well done on clearing that credit card! It's such a pain when everything breaks at the same time when you're trying to save

savingwannabe

Well done on clearing credit card and savings. Glad you are back.

Gibberish94

Another month, another pay day so time for an update.
July was rather an expensive month as I've been away a few weekends with friends which was obviously rather costly and also a few birthdays etc too. However we have been able to make some usual savings so here is this months update:

My LT ISA: £1,915.62
OH LT ISA: £6,053.89
Total: £7969.51/ £25,000 - 31.9%

I've revised our aim to £25,000 from £50,000 as originally we were planning on savings loads and getting a really nice first place but we'd rather move out sooner and live in somewhere 'nice' for a while before investing in our forever home therefore we need less of a deposit for a 'nice' starter place. We've just signed on our current rental property for another 12 months so the dream would be to have enough in 12 months to buy however that might be a little steep but one can dream right?!

I've also managed to put aside £1,000 in an emergency fund over the last few months which is great because this time last year I had £1500 on my CC whereas now the CC has been cleared and on top I've put £1000 aside. So thats essentially an additional £2500 this year that technically could go into mortgage savings which is nice to think about .

Expected costs this month will be my cars MOT at the end of the month but other than that I don't have too much planned and I'm also doing some extra teaching work this month so that will be some extra income too.
Balancing normal work, revision and teaching work isn't going to leave me much time to spend money anyway ha!

savingwannabe

The savings are looking good and well done in sorting out an emergency fund. It's a big decision to save for a house and you will have time to do research which is good. Good luck with MOT money.

Gibberish94

Update for August payday

Not too much to report this month. I have an expensive month coming up so haven't been able to save too much and also had to sort my car MOT and service which ate into my emergency fund however that what its there for right?

My OH and I are both starting further education courses for different things in September so both of us have just had to pay these out too this month hence not much has gone into the savings however this was anticipated and main thing is we still managed to save something (albeit only a little).
We've broken into the £8,000s woohoo!

My LT ISA: £2,083.12
OH LT ISA: £6,103.89
Total: £8,187.01/ £25,000 - 32.7%

Skint_yet_Again

Cars can be so blooming expensive cant they ! I had to buy 4 new tyres in August which has emptied my bills account. Well done on the deposit savings despite all the other expenses. That's a great amount. :beer:

Gibberish94

Oh yeah I forget I just had to get two new tyres for my car on top of that which was another £100! So that plus the MOT and service was not a good month for the car expenses!

However, huge difference compared to my old car that would have something wrong with it almost every month and would cost me over £100 each month just on repairs not including the MOT service etc! So I've had my new car 7 months and besides petrol and my insurance this is the first money I've actually spent on it which isn't bad going (I've been blessed with £0 road tax with this car too )

savingwannabe

Really well done on the great savings and its fab that the car is so efficient and saving money for you. Have a great weekend.

Gibberish94

Time for my October payday update.
First things first...Good news I got a pay rise at work yay! Less good news, my boyfriends new course is really hitting him hard so I'm having to help and pick up the slack with money going into our joint account etc however I'm still able to save what I want to just much of the pay rise is going into the joint account but we're no worse of .

I made my penultimate repayment into my OH's ISA this month so next month will be my final payment into it and I can really then start cracking down on my own. (For those that don't know, earlier in the year my laptop went kaput so I got a new one but lovely OH purchased it for me (back when he had spare cash) and I've been making the repayments into his ISA since then - oh and it was a Mac hence so expensive (but worth it for the amount I'm on my laptop and work I have to do on my laptop)

Anyhow... the interesting stuff.. the figures:
My LT ISA: £2,457.50 (plus £83.24 bonus due)
OH LT ISA: £6,707.52 (plus £144.26 bonus due)
Total: £9,165.02/ £15,000 - 61.1% (£9392.52 with bonus)

In addition to this I have £1300 in 'readily accessible' savings which serves as basically an emergency fund / legal fees when it comes to the purchase. And the next payment for my own course is in January and will come to £550 of which I already have this money put aside in a separate account so this won't be a shock to the bank balance when it comes to paying.

I'm starting to feel like I'm able to make much more of a dent on these finances for the next 4-5 months which I'm excited about as it has been a struggle until this point. Thinking back to when I started this diary I was earning about 10k less a year, I had credit card debt and no savings. To then see where I am now with no credit card debt, a nice car (being payed off monthly in manageable amounts) and actually having some savings that aren't just my ISA savings feels pretty good.

Here's to the future and lots more saving.

(Those that are paying attention will have noticed I've reduced our target again to just £15,000, we're getting twitchy and have discussed that we are going to go for a 5% deposit as the reality of getting a 10% deposit is just so far away especially in the South East where prices only seem to be rising, so the aim is 5% deposit for a property around £250 - £300 mark and to be in our new home by this time next year - we'll see!)

savingwannabe

Hurrah for your savings and for the wage rise. I hope boyfriend's course get's better.

Keep up the good work.