The 'We're saving for a deposit' thread

AcidHouse

Hi all,

I’m new here - though I’ve read through the entire thread over the last few weeks! :hello:

It’s really inspirational & motivational to read your individual progress and targets - and to see you finally reach your goal of getting a property :T

My background as it may help others - I’m 34, I live with the parents (never moved out!) As I’ll be buying on my own, I want to put down as large a deposit as possible, definitely over 60% to avoid a huge mortgage on a single salary (and to be mortgage-free asap!)

As for my overall target - I'll assess that when I've put a substantial enough sum of money away - at the moment I'm setting annual targets instead :j
I’ll keep you all posted on my progress, good luck to all & keep going until you get the keys!

Also happy Christmas and New Year to all you savers :xmastree:

AcidHouse

Eponym

Retroo wrote: »

How many percent are people putting down for deposit?

I'm planning on 25% but if the difference in monthly payments is small I might put down somewhere between 20 and 24% and keep the extra back to put towards decorations / furnishings / emergency fund.

johannalf88

I live in London, n as an effort to get on the housing market ASAP will only be putting down 5% and using the htb scheme.

eviekins

Not sure on percentage tbh, but I'll be putting down a minimum of 50k.
To answer an earlier question, I'm allowing approx 5k for fees.
I'd also like approx 10k for furniture/improvements etc and around 7.5k left in savings as a safety net!
All approx figures but gives a rough idea!

J_i_m

It's continuing difficult times for me due to personal issues involving work, I shall be lucky to put away somewhere between £300 or £400 this month which means that I'm likely to fall slightly short of my end of year target.

I don't know exactly how much I'll be saving yet, but I'm going to end up a couple of hundred short of the £15k I aimed for (so not too drastically bad).

I recently traced my entrance to this thread and followed my progress to this point. It's been a rough ride and it's taken a lot longer than I planned so far, but life will take it's unexpected twists.

So far saving for my deposit has been a learning process and a period of living with concenquences of earlier decisions and some unexpected costs too.

My car thrice failed it's MOT on brakes and set me back financially to the point that I needed to sell treasured items to help cover the cost. (I suspect the dealership didn't play with a straight bat as well if I'm honest and I've since taken my custom elsewhere).

It's taken quite a long time to build up a consistent routine of saving and to begin with my progress was painfully slow due to some ineffective management of the ilregular costs... road tax, car insurance, people's birthdays, events which exceeded budgets etc.

It's taken some careful analysis of my cash flow and some sensible decisions which hit my savings hard at the time but made better sense going forward into the long term.

I settled all my debts (early in some cases) and hence eliminated some significant monthly outgoings and saved some repayment interest. I changed the tarrif plan on my phone cut my bill down by about a third. I walk as a way of commuting whenever it's even remotely practical to do so and so use less fuel in my car.

I arranged my savings to get the best combination of benefit and practicality out of them and now maintain a regular saver and ISA.

It's been a slow start, with many setbacks (which keep on coming) but at least I now have some momentum, I put away over £7k this year and doubled my balance. I actually now have more in savings than I have had at any point in my life and enough to put down 10% on a modest property.

Now I need to keep on going to 20%.

LibertyBelle

Ending the year on £3k - hoping to get to a nice round £10k by next Sept.

On reflection I don't think we'll be in a position to buy a house till 2017 so will keep saving at this rate until Sept 2017 which should give us £40k which would be a great way to start a mortgage Plus nice amount of interest if I invest it wisely!

amiehall

eviekins wrote: »

Not sure on percentage tbh, but I'll be putting down a minimum of 50k.
To answer an earlier question, I'm allowing approx 5k for fees.
I'd also like approx 10k for furniture/improvements etc and around 7.5k left in savings as a safety net!
All approx figures but gives a rough idea!

Okay cool, I think I'll be looking at a property in the region of £140,000 so I want to save up my stamp duty first I guess.

I don't think I'll leave anything for furniture haha. I think I'd rather have a house and sit on beanbags for a couple of months!!

eviekins

Depends on the contents included in the sale, but some places won't come with important 'furniture' such as washing machine or fridge.
So probably best to have some extra money aside just in case!

Still unsure of what my end of year figure will be. As I said before I'm still waiting for some money to be paid. (The joys of self employed!) Hoping ill get it this year so I can add it to my 2013 total!

CocoD

Season's greetings! Right, end of year total for me is £13343.44. £400 short of what I'd hoped for but I should be able to recoup the shortfall over the next few months. Still really pleased with what I have managed to achieve and am mostly on target

Here's to a great 2014 everyone :beer:

J_i_m

Preliminary (or provisional) declaration of end of year balance..

I've got £14912.90 which is some £87.10 short of what I aimed for. Small pickings by perspective.

Next month though... is car insurance month closely followed up by road tax... and the work situation is extremely uncertain for me right now. So January savings might have not happen at all for me, I might actually have to take some out to put bread on the table

I've set next years end of year target at £21'000 with the aim of putting £6k away. Which seems a bit presumptuous at the moment considering I don't know what I'll be doing work wise.

If the work situation works out for me, I'll be settling for saving £600 a month, if not.. then who knows?