The 'We're saving for a deposit' thread

lostinrates

butterfly72 wrote: »

We managed to hit our deposit target and now have a new target of £15,000. This should cover fees, moving costs, changing locks, rent (incase there is an overlap) and hopefully some left over for a few items for the new house! Best be prepared. And also remember you need an emergency fund too... 6 months salary if poss.

We'll be stinting on the emergency fund for a while.

We've alllowed for fees in our current savings amount BUT depending onlength of exchange might be able to use earnings that would other wise have gone into the saving fund/or redirect this into emergency funds/savings. Alternatively, if this became very pushed can look towards our ISAs (which we have not considered as part of our house fund.)

Preobrahzskoe

New member here, very happy to have discovered this group, count me in! I'm saving for a deposit as a FTB. It all seems rather daunting (dare I say impossible) when you think of the end target. However, reading what people are achieving, and breaking it all down into small manageable targets, offers the inspiration needed. Fingers crossed I can keep to my targets - Im aiming for £20k by this time next year, whilst also hoping that the housing market at least stays static over the period from where it is now. Cheers, Preo.

dippykitty

Preobrahzskoe wrote: »

New member here, very happy to have discovered this group, count me in! I'm saving for a deposit as a FTB. It all seems rather daunting (dare I say impossible) when you think of the end target. However, reading what people are achieving, and breaking it all down into small manageable targets, offers the inspiration needed. Fingers crossed I can keep to my targets - Im aiming for £20k by this time next year, whilst also hoping that the housing market at least stays static over the period from where it is now. Cheers, Preo.

Welcome to the thread! I know what you mean about it being daunting - I feel exactly the same. This thread is brilliant for encouragement and support though, and really does help me with my goal.

lostinrates

dippykitty wrote: »

Welcome to the thread! I know what you mean about it being daunting - I feel exactly the same. This thread is brilliant for encouragement and support though, and really does help me with my goal.

Its certainly great to take stock, isn't it.

We were looking at some properties last week and saying what huge sums of money everythig seemed, and how it felt we were making lots of choices for now that seemed bigger comprimise than the amount they saved when looking at the bigger figures of actual house prices, but actually, we're really chipping away at it. And there used be a good signature of a poster wo no longer contributes that showed every pound you borrowed against a house would work out like paying three pounds back...thats pretty depressing really, except that every pound we add to the savings now is a pound we won't be borrowing!

but things like this also really help life the spirits:

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1249239

Indeed, if they were to accept a 20k reduction on asking price like they did for us last year, then that would put the property at below 170k. A 40k saving on what we would have paid, and a 60k saving on the asking price at the time, and an 80k saving on the asking price a couple of months before that time.

I don't think I'll ever earn 80k tax free in such a short space of time Not to mention all the costs I would have incurred actually proceeding with the purchase would probably have made it more like 90k savings!

Oh, and the interest (albeit minimal with rates dropping so much!) that I have earnt from the savings I would have used as a deposit! At 3% the interest earnings alone is an extra £750

dippykitty

lostinrates wrote: »

but things like this also really help life the spirits:

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1249239

That's encouraging

Dinah93

Well no huge jumps in our savings atm, although we do have over £200 to add on once Barclays finish setting up the ISA. However my OH just got a new job, only £80 a month more, but it's £80 a month for a 40 hour a week job 15 mins from home, where at the moment he works 2 jobs totalling 48 hours a week and spends over 10 hours a week commuting between them! So the new job will also save us around £140 in petrol a month too.

With the new job we will have a flat £850 going straight out of wages each month into savings, hoping to put at least £100 in at the end of the month that is leftover from that months wage, and then we do the £10 a day challenge at £20 a day, so if we hit this given all OHs new free time that'll be £1570 into savings each month, which is almost enough to have us on target for when we are looking to buy at our ideal deposit.... fingers crossed.

(sorry know that this is a bit of a ramble that only makes sense to me!)

MrDT

A house we viewed last year will be auctioned next month, it's not a 'forever' house, but does tick most boxes in the shortish term (say 5 years) and we could live with it longer if we had to. 3 bedroom, terraced, good sized rear yeard, onroad parking. Could move in right away, though some modernising would be needed over time. Not perfect, but certainly ok.

If the place sold for guide price, the mortgage needed would under 1x our joint earnings. I expect it would probably sell for less than this.

A repayment mortgage on this place would be a fair bit cheaper than what we pay in rent on a one bed terrace right now. It would still be a smidge cheaper even if the interest rate on the mortgage was 10%! I have to admit, I feel a little tempted.

Of course, a lot of equity (hard saved deposit) could be wiped out when moving house later on, so it's not as simple as "rent is higher than mortgage payments therefore buy". Buying for the short term could end up being a not too smart move. Argh!

I think a better approach would probably be to wait a while longer, save a bit more, and buy a more future friendly house in a year or two, but this place really has got me thinking. Braincogs whirring around like crazy, hmm...

Maybe it's worth a 'refresher' viewing and see how we feel after that.

Norton_Blade

Well we're on track to hit 50% of our deposit total next month (well... this month's payday) and saving at the rate we are doing, we should reached our initial target amount in around one year and seven months.

I'm hoping to get the OH more on board with this saving lark though and trying to juggle for the best rates without driving myself too insane.

I am considering getting another job because the difference between what money we can get together and the prices of houses we would realistically like to live in doesn't seem to be lessening.

Got mardy the other day and told my OH we'd end up living in a bucket in the park... he just laughed at me :rolleyes:

^!£$&

Had some money paid from quidco this week so have just managed to hit the £13,000 mark :-)

dippykitty

snowbrow wrote: »

Had some money paid from quidco this week so have just managed to hit the £13,000 mark :-)

Congrats!