The 'We're saving for a deposit' thread

lildoonbuggy · 1 April 2018 at 9:26AM

Hi all, hope it's okay to hop on this train! My OH and I are saving for our first home in the UK, having bought our first in Australia. That little fact has been a real pain when it comes to stampduty and first home buyers accounts, whilst the legalities and huge housing costs in London are daunting to say the least.

We have been saving at full force since October, which has been helped by getting a lodger into our rental (all approved by landlord, no rental increase thankfully!) and a generous temporary promotion. That has been funnelled straight into our savings alongside anything else left over at the end of the month.

So far we have saved a solid £15k, and hope to have £40k by next March - meaning we need to live off one income for the next 12 months :eek: - that would give us a budget of £330k plus stamp duty, but little else!

I'm back in my previous role now with a lower pay packet, but will be applying for permanent promotion soon. Fingers crossed it goes well! Looking forward to hearing all your stories along the way :beer:

*little.squirrel* · 2 April 2018 at 9:19AM

lildoonbuggy wrote: »

Hi all, hope it's okay to hop on this train! My OH and I are saving for our first home in the UK, having bought our first in Australia. That little fact has been a real pain when it comes to stampduty and first home buyers accounts, whilst the legalities and huge housing costs in London are daunting to say the least.

Wow, so the fact you own a home in a different country impacts your buying status here in the UK?! That seems crazy.

We are also having to allow for mega stamp duty costs because I own a home that we currently rent out. (Haven't decided what we are going to do with it yet so saving for extra stamp duty just in case) My DH is a FTB though so we do have one Help to Buy ISA.

lildoonbuggy · 2 April 2018 at 9:31AM

Hi little squirrel, yes it's thrown a real spanner in the works - but upwards and onwards! Could you not get a 50% reduction in stamp duty for your husband?

How far are you into your plans? Are you doing viewings already? We started last week as we also need to settle on a location, but the house and location were quite disheartening! Watching location location location does depress me, I'm so desperate for a place to call home but being London our expectations are quite tempered!

*little.squirrel* · 3 April 2018 at 7:37AM

lildoonbuggy wrote: »

Hi little squirrel, yes it's thrown a real spanner in the works - but upwards and onwards! Could you not get a 50% reduction in stamp duty for your husband?

How far are you into your plans? Are you doing viewings already? We started last week as we also need to settle on a location, but the house and location were quite disheartening! Watching location location location does depress me, I'm so desperate for a place to call home but being London our expectations are quite tempered!

Oh, I'm not sure. I'll need to look into it. We did see a mortgage advisor but he seemed rather tired the day we saw him and I don't think he told us everything we need to know :rotfl: We have a 2 year plan that should see us save enough to put down a deposit plus fees. We haven't gone to look at anything but I am watching what is becoming available. We know where we want to live, it's just finding something suitable that we can afford!

SamJ35 · 3 April 2018 at 3:49PM

Quick update - I got my GF to open a LISA with Skipton last week, and within a few days we maxed it to the 4k limit. The remainder of my (first grad job!) bonus which was higher than expected helped out there!

We now have 8k saved and will be 10k in the accounts once the govt bonus arrives in May!

I looked back at my previous post and I stated that I was hoping for us to have 8k in the 2018/19 tax year. Looks like now hopefully we will be on for over 20k this time next year!

diggingdude · 3 April 2018 at 7:50PM

Well March wasn't as bad as I was expecting, cashed in a couple of cashback payments and FINALLY returned to work (albeit only a couple of days a week). My H2B to LISA transfer went through thankfully before the deadline and have moved another few accounts about to get my updated figure.

Savings this month £800. I am only putting round figures away for now

Current Savings - £2325
LISA Account (not including bonus) - £7900
Target - £20000 April 2019

WodaSodowa · 8 April 2018 at 3:02PM

Hi everybody! I was gone for almost 2 months- crazy busy with work, kids and life in general. Great to see so many new money savers on this topic, everyone is doing so well with their money!

I just totalled our savings and we are at £7900. We had some unexpected expenses!!!55357;!!!56877; so we have a bit less than we should right now but I'm not going to beat myself up about it as long as we are going forward.

At the end of February I was quite stressed and felt sluggish so I decided to join the gym £28/month but that includes my 1 yoga and 2 spinning classes every week. It's a bit of money but I have to say that I'm feeling so much better and happier it's definitely worth it.

lildoonbuggy · 8 April 2018 at 3:10PM

Hi WodaSodowa, that's a great deal on gym membership, especially including yoga - my local charges £18 per class :eek: was it a special offer? I'm just starting to look at cheap ways of improving fitness. Have been purchasing Groupon deals and spacing them out. Does keep things mixed up!

I've just started using Yolt as YNAB wouldn't sync accounts and Wallet was charging for the privilege. I've found it really good so far, really helps as a psychological deterrent knowing it's going to scream red if I go over budget on any category! Interested to hear what others are doing...

LollyPop0312 · 8 April 2018 at 3:43PM

Hi all! This is a great thread so many good ideas/stories, we are at £6000 savings from the last year, but we have the obstacle of living off too smaller income to get approved a mortgage big enough for the house we need in our area, Brighton. So we're keeping an eye out for shared ownerships and if nothing turns up we wont move until im back at work in 4 yrs! So slow and steady for us over here!

Dizzy_Ditzy · 9 April 2018 at 8:54PM

Any room for a little one?

Little bit of background on me - I'm just over 40 and have been renting for the mast fifteen years or so, the last ten in the same place. We've been very lucky with our LL so far but he's just out our rent up and I decided to work out how much rent we've paid in those ten years - enough to buy half a house :eek:

This seemed to trigger something in me and I've decided to take the plunge and start saving to buy. I'm starting absolutely from scratch and have set myself the tough task of getting a deposit together in 4 years. This is going to be hard work but I'm determined to do it.

I've opened a HTB ISA and made a small deposit in there to start with. I'm a week too old to open a LISA which is very annoying :rotfl: It's a good chance to have a good clear out of the house and get rid of anything I don't need or use.

Another slow and steady here but I'm determined to win that race

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The 'We're saving for a deposit' thread

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