The 'We're saving for a deposit' thread

immoral_angeluk

My savings are in a Norwich and peterborough 12 month account. It's an account which was advertised as for people with children only but they didn't do any checks or ask for my children's birth certificates or anything. The rate was 5% if you deposit at least £50pm for 12 months and don't withdraw. Max amount per month was something like £250 so might not be good enough for most people but for my it was perfect.

I have a standing order set up to put £60 every month in plus any extra I get (up to the limit) until I've paid off my debt

Lizling

Done it! :j :j

My parents have just offered £5,000 towards the deposit (unasked for, but gratefully accepted), which takes me just over my target £25,000.

I think some mortgage lenders might not accept a gifted deposit, so maybe I can count it as £k towards cost of moving and stamp duty etc. rather than directly towards the deposit.

Anyway, a few more £s in the bank would still be really handy, so going to keep saving while I start looking.

A colleague knows someone in need of a room just until September, so I might have found someone to help with the rent just until I move, too.

Joyce_M

Morning all

I haven't posted in a while but it looks like I am leaving the thread a little earlier than planned! We had been planning on saving for an extra 12 months because we were led to believe that there was no way anybody would give us a 90% mortgage. We went along to a 'first time buyers event' run by the local estate agents and we were advised that there were a few companies who would offer one and that if we did choose to look at places now we might get ourselves a bargain due to current market conditions- which is what we did! We managed to get a 2 bedroom house in Edinburgh for 4K under the asking price, we are over the moon as we never thought we could afford to live here.

Just wanted to say to everybody out there in the same circumstances as we are (i.e. low earnings, small deposit), it pays to keep going along to events that offer free advice even when it seems pointless as the market changes all of the time. A few years ago we were told we would never get a mortgage with a 10% deposit and this week we are entering missives.

Good luck all :j

Mikazaru

Well Done those who have reached their targets.

Now Natwest has sorted all my payments etc my total is now £2005.

SolvingDebtCrisis

Hello All

Great to read your posts. I have saved more into the house deposit pot and now I have 6050.

[Deleted User]

Little update from me - just transferred this months savings over....still a long way to go though!

andrea1968_2

Pay day at last, what a long month its been. The end is in sight as I've reached £15000 and my OH has £7000, so out target is nearly complete.

Just the dreaded fees and expenses to cover now and then we can start looking seriously on rightmove with a view to doing something about it - instead of me looking at every available house and wishing I was in there :mad:

Roll on next payday ..........:rotfl:

J_i_m

More annoying things getting in my way still, one or two self inflicted others completely outside of my control.

As it stands I've let one of my standing orders of £300 go through to savings which brings me upto £3100.36 but I'll have to wait and see if I can let the other £300 standing order (different savings accounts) go through as it may have to go to paying other things off grrrr.

So! I should have £3400.36 but just £3100.36 at this time.

I tell you, I've learnt never to trust, royal mail, PayPal and Internet forums collectively again that's for sure.

There is some goodnews though, I've wiped about £30 a month off my mobile contract. Orange panicked in that they thought they were going to lose me and offered me £5 a month off a £10.50 deal. So have gone from a £35 contract to a £5.50 one!

beckythemadcow

I tell you, I've learnt never to trust, royal mail, PayPal and Internet forums collectively again that's for sure.

Oh dear! What went wrong? Royal Mail are a Royal pain in the [STRIKE]ars[/STRIKE] bum.

Good news about the phone contract!

J_i_m

Off topic rant! (sorry)

Had, a surplus event ticket to Le Mans (group trip with friends, some had to pull out, hence surplus) and offered it on a specialised Le Mans forum. Had a few people messing about, but finally got a buyer with a couple of weeks before the event (cutting things fine).

I suggested a hand over in person at the event, (time was running out, and 2 bank holidays would further make postage a fine cut thing) they insisted on recorded delivery (but didn't contribute anything towards postage). As requested I sent via recorded delivery and sent them the tracking details via txt message.

Post office/Royal mail fail to deliver (alledardly), the tracking thing doesn't seem upto much as they don't actually track recorded delivery, just record the delivery via receipt signature.

In the days leading upto the event, I get several texts from buyer telling me the ticket had still not arrived, that they would be forced to get another and "what would I suggest?" (like I could magically pluck it from Royal mail's system).

I arrive at event, (I was scheduled to arrive a day ahead of them) still receiving txts asking for "suggestions". I advise them to contact their local sorting office to see if it got mislayed there, no joy. Buyer tells me the delivery would be insured and that I the sender would have to claim. I tell them I would chase royal mail up upon my return. Same day, I get e-mail notification from pay-pal that they'd opend a dispute against me. I refrain from taking this up whilst away from home. As the phone/data costs more overseas.

I get home, navigate through royal mail's automated switchboard system (hell of a task!) and inform them of the predicament. I was advised that recorded delivery does not insure against such things as event tickets privately sold. (wouldn't expect it to). Also advised that unless the delivery hadn't turned up by 25/6/12, they'd have fulfilled their terms & conditions and in any event would be unlikely to recieve any compensation, and if I did it wouldn't cover the cost of the ticket anyway.

I inform buyer of this the same day via txt message and pay-pal dispute resolution centre, buyer replys to tell me that the ticket still had not arrived (backed up by tracking on royal mail website), that'd they'd bought the ticket for a friend, who hadn't paid them for it because they then had to get another.

I inform them, that we were in similar situations, as I faced possibly having to refund both him, and the people who were supposed to use the ticket in the first place who pulled out of my trip, and maybe we could come to an amicable compromise between us as it was neither of our faults that royal mail screwed up.

Days of silence follow... Then one evening I get email, notification from pay-pal that buyer has escalated the dispute to be reviewed by pay-pal. I log in to resolution centre to see that they'd posted a message requesting a full refund and then 4 minutes later hit the escalate button. This really annoyed me because up until then they had made no direct request for a refund, just for a "suggestions".

They made no effort to discuss a compromise, and had made no direct request for a refund (simply asking for "suggestions") until that moment. Had they not hit the escalate button, I'd have probably simply granted the refund. But since they decided 4 minutes was appropriate to wait for a response, when I probably wouldn't be aware of the direct request for a refund until after the pay-pal email notification which was delayed... I decided to simply let Pay-pal review the case which apparently they're doing now.

If they side with the buyer fair enough, no problem I'll cough up. I know that I'd have been annoyed if I'd paid for something which didn't turn up.

But they way they've dealt with the whole thing has really got my back up...it was a private sale from someone who had too many tickets to somone who didn't have enough, there was risk for both of us, yet they weren't prepared to accept any of it, nor open to dicuss a compromise. So I'll let it draw out a bit.

But anyhow, I face having to refund them (I suspect it will come to that) and I need to give my friends their money back as well, because they paid for something they didn't get to use either. So I'm losing out heavily because of other peoples mistakes or organisational failures.

In future, I'm never going to try and sell surplus ticket again. If someone pulls out of a group trip, they'll have to cop the cost.

Anyway.. Hopefully soon.. I can get back to saving without other people's nonsense getting in the way!