The 'We're saving for a deposit' thread

CocoD

Congrats Jaybo10! Super news. Lovely to hear of a success; it gives me more hope thanks.

babes21

I am now a homeowner too, moved in around 7 weeks ago now, house completion date was in mid May. Keep going everyone.

littleclaire

Hi everyone

I'm a long time lurker of the boards, finally ready to show my face (so tospeak).

A little about me.. I'm in my early 30s, live with my long-term BF and we'renow seriously starting to save for our deposit. For a long time, we thought buying a house wouldnever be attainable as we both earned fairly modest salaries, but we haverecently both changed careers and started to earn some decent money.

Where we live (South East) is not cheap to buy so we're working on the basisthat we'll be looking at properties worth around the £300K mark. As BF is self employed and neither of us havespotless credit histories, we're fully prepared that we'll need to have atleast 25% as a deposit. I've calculatedthat we'll need around £95K in total to pay for everything (including stamp duty,fees, surveys, white goods etc. etc.). This is probably a bit generous, but I’d rather that than fall short.

The plan is for us to save about £1,500 a month each starting immediatelyfor me, but I have given BF a deadline of January 2014 to start. Still negotiating with him how much he canafford to put away.. but I’m sure I’ll keep you posted on that! Before he can join me in the quest forsavings, he needs to pay off his overdraft (although it’s not huge, we think itis important to clear it), and he has a few other financial commitmentsapproaching in the next few months.. hence the Jan ‘14 target. We have also committed to a holiday nextmonth which is a bit of a luxury but in the line of work we are in, a break isessential.

So, bottom line is, we would like to be in a position to buy towards the endof 2015. I have just over £6,700 stashedat the moment and am currently looking at ways to maximise interest once I’vemaxed out the ISA. Barclays Direct rateis an appalling 0.4% (one year rate matured last month), so that’s definitelygetting closed but many regular saver accounts have a maximum monthly depositthat is lower than we need. I think theanswer is to open multiple accounts? Ifanyone has experience in juggling several savings accounts and can give me advicein this area, I’d be very grateful.

It's so encouraging reading everyone's stories about saving, and readingthis thread is the kick up the backside I needed to get serious. Thanks to you all!

Claire

littleclaire

Not sure what happened to my text there.. some of my words are merged. I can type, I promise!

tara747

(Copied from the other thread because I'm lazy)

*ahem*

I've broken the £70,000 barrier! Whoop! :beer: I saved £979 in August so my new total is £70,127! Just updated my sig.

That means that I've saved nearly £8,000 so far in 2013. Getting to my target of £13,000 in 2013 is going to be a huge challenge, but hopefully I can do it.

^!£$&

Hey all update from me! Since starting my savings journey as a singleton I have now met my oh who also had been busy saving for a deposit! Between us we now have £33000 and plan to keep saving until next spring when we hope to buy.

Pocketsaver

Keep it up everyone!

I am a new joiner. I am 24 and recently got into my dream career. With the ideal job I have decided to formally start my saving journey aiming for a 10-15% deposit in London and I am currently on £23,140.18! Once January comes around think I am going to have a chat with the bank and see how the Help to Buy scheme can help mortgage wise. Next pay day is Friday, so bring it on!

EGGP1878

Glad I've found this thread. Me and my fiance have just started saving for a deposit.

We're aiming to get around £24,000 by the end of next year. However, I've got £9k worth of student debt i want paying off before getting a mortgage, so I'm concentrating on paying that back whilst my partner saves at the minute. I should have that paid by May, then I can help out with the deposit.

I earn £39k and my partner earns £14k. We live with parents and have few outgoings so are able to save quite quickly. Still seems a million miles away at the moment though!

So far we have a grand total of £6000 saved, so a fair way to go yet! It's scary reading this thread, feel very underprepared now, people with £80k savings! Crazy. We're looking at max £180,000 mortgage because we're only early twenties and want to be able to live as well as own a home! So £18,000 deposit and a few grand for all the other necessary bits and pieces should be enough.

eviekins

Hi EGGP1878, welcome to the thread!
Hope you don't mind me asking, but why do you want to pay off your student debt before applying for a mortgage?
Student debt doesn't go against you for mortgage applications, and its probably the cheapest loan you'll ever have. Martin always says its better not to pay the loan off with savings if you're saving for something else such as a house deposit.
I also have a small amount of student debt which I could easily pay off in full with my savings, but I'm far better off to keep the money so I have as big a deposit for a house as possible!
Not sure if you were aware of this?

Anyway, back to my saving progress!
In 2 weeks time I will have hit 60k - eeeek!
Very pleased with myself about that. Work hard, save hard!
Before I get too upbeat though, house prices in my area are dramatically rising! I was hoping to purchase a house up to 180k but can't really see this happening anymore and think it could be anything up to 230k instead now, especially by the time I eventually buy! (Sorry to end on a negative!)

Really enjoy reading all your saving journeys though!
Best of luck everyone! Keep up the hard work! X

sugarpants_2

Well I am a married mother of three kids. We have rented for 10 years and finally had enough and we have moved in with my Dad to save money.

We are aiming to save 1k a month but with three kids its very hard. Id love tips on helping me save and give me motivation.

Also living with parents when were in our 30s is so hard. GRR

Anyone out there doing the same?

I work part time from home earning 6k and hubby works full time earning 29k.

Houses here are 180k+ so we are hoping to save 20k. OH DEAR LORD HELP!:rotfl: