The 'We're saving for a deposit' thread

Dinah93

Manic cow, if your bf can't understand why higher interest on savings is better than lower interest I'd be very concerned!

I'd also rather put the 2k towards a house and go on a less expensive holiday (2 of my friends just went to Florida for two weeks for £485 a piece, so maybe still go there but scale down your aspriations?!). We put aside money every month to save up for a holiday, which is seperate from the house savings, so can always afford one. If you have a bigger deposit your mortgage will be smaller, you'll pay less in interest, and be able to afford regular holidays despite having a house.

Stop hinting, men don't like it! There is no point forcing it, if he feels it is right, it will happen. Why don't you start a little seperate savings pot for if and when this happens? It will make you feel like you are moving in the right direction. I know my OH is planning to ask (he asked permission off my dad AND my mum, and she can't keep a secret!), so I have cut back on my personal spending, and have put the money saved into a little pot, which is only growing at about £150 a month, but still its something. Means when he does ask we've already got the money there to book the church and a deposit on a venue, and eases some of my guilt that my parents can't afford to pay.

EAs know buyers are always bargaining down, so are trying to up the asking price so buyers still think they have got a bargain when they have got 10% off. You need to check what historic house price levels on that street are like for the last few years.

House prices are reported as down again this month, doesn't suprise me, lending is still tight, buyers are still wary, the rise coincided with prime house buying season, unemployment is still rising... struggling to think of why house prices would start to rise right about now!

And in personal savings news, we cracked the 10% mark today. Opened 2 8% HSBC regular savers and put the opening payments in. Roll on 20%!

manic_cow

Dinah93 wrote: »

I'd also rather put the 2k towards a house and go on a less expensive holiday (2 of my friends just went to Florida for two weeks for £485 a piece, so maybe still go there but scale down your aspriations?!). We put aside money every month to save up for a holiday, which is seperate from the house savings, so can always afford one. If you have a bigger deposit your mortgage will be smaller, you'll pay less in interest, and be able to afford regular holidays despite having a house.

This makes sense, we need to get better organised I think cos at the moment when we want a holiday we tend to just abandon saving for anything else for months! Just to clarify though, my £2k estimate was based on about £500 each for travel/accomodation then spending money, theme park tickets (which seem to cost a fortune!), holiday clothes etc. It'd probably come in less than that realistically but I tend to overbudget rather than underbudget!

Dinah93 wrote: »

Stop hinting, men don't like it! There is no point forcing it, if he feels it is right, it will happen. Why don't you start a little seperate savings pot for if and when this happens? It will make you feel like you are moving in the right direction. I know my OH is planning to ask (he asked permission off my dad AND my mum, and she can't keep a secret!), so I have cut back on my personal spending, and have put the money saved into a little pot, which is only growing at about £150 a month, but still its something. Means when he does ask we've already got the money there to book the church and a deposit on a venue, and eases some of my guilt that my parents can't afford to pay.

I know he does want to get married too cos we've discussed it, he just thinks we should get a house first. My concern is that once we've got a house we won't be able to afford a wedding which means your suggestion makes sense to save some on the side for a wedding. Only problem then is that it'll mean I'm saving less for the house which means everything will take longer. But it should make me more determined.

Congrats on reaching 10%! :beer: I'm going to go away and figure out how much I need to save so I can start working out how far off my goals actually are. Thanks for your help!

Dinah93

I'm making my future wedding savings from cutting back on personal spends so it doesn't impact on the house saver, but I do think you're right to think it'll be a lot harder to save for a wedding once you have the house, we're hoping to stay living with my parents for about 2 years to enable us to save for both.

happytails

Well after my crash and burn moment of loosing a house i thought i really wanted, im glad we did as ive found a better one

We viewed it today, been on the market a year and dropped 25k. Its a really good size and ticks all the boxes (like the last one but more space), we put in an offer 10% off the asking price so just waiting now.

Got another house viewing on Monday, slightly cheaper and not in the catchment for the school i want my daughter to go to and the garden is small but hey ho - might aswell look.

JimLad

butterfly72 wrote: »

Hi JimLad,
hows the 'old' job going? You've doing really well with your savings I see!!:T

Thanks for asking butterfly

My old job is going great. Im back to pretty much where i was when i left minus the pension. But can start that again in 5 months or so. I know that the long term prospects are not as good, and i will prolly have to move on in a few years, but the people are so nice and i have such a laugh at work

Savings are also going well. I keep getting tempted by new (second hand) cars though. My little fiesta is approaching 100k on the clock now! But, im managing to save the £500 in to my 5% regular saver and about £300 ontop of that each month so it increases the pot nicely

Dinah93

Know the feeling with the car JimLad. My 147 is only 6 years old and she'll hit 100k this month!

Orlando_Virgin

happytails wrote: »

Well after my crash and burn moment of loosing a house i thought i really wanted, im glad we did as ive found a better one

We viewed it today, been on the market a year and dropped 25k. Its a really good size and ticks all the boxes (like the last one but more space), we put in an offer 10% off the asking price so just waiting now.

Got another house viewing on Monday, slightly cheaper and not in the catchment for the school i want my daughter to go to and the garden is small but hey ho - might aswell look.

Did I miss something? What happened with the 93k'er?

happytails

Orlando_Virgin wrote: »

Did I miss something? What happened with the 93k'er?

We put in the asking price and 'someone' came in with an offer 'way above the asking price' so we walked away - not sure if this person is real or a fictional character at the estate agents office either way we have found another house now, a better one

We offered 90k on this other house and today it got rejected which was expected, we are viewing it again on fri and although i know i definitely want to offer more im going to make the vendor sweat a bit before i place my next offer - roll on friday! x

Castleman

Dinah93 wrote: »

A great house dropped its price yesterday near us, 1930s large 3 bed detached with a 100m rear garden and 80 m front garden/drive/double garage area. Partially done out, then partially needs a lot of work, big gap down the side to extend into and no neighbours on that side to overshadow/overlook. We'd be very, very tempted if we had a deposit! Love propertybee, tells me it was put on the market in Feb, yesterday was the first price drop, from 190k to 179k.

Got a link? I'd love to see where this is! Garden sounds lush.

Dinah93

Linky linky.

We drove past yesterday, they've finished rendering it, although the lower half is a different colour to the top floor, which is odd. However it still seems like a pretty good deal for that much garden and potential.

We're back to looking at building outselves though, planning on sitting down and making big future plans about houses and careers a week on Sunday.