The 'We're saving for a deposit' thread

Hi, everyone! Hope you don't mind me popping my head in here.

Mr baciamiancora and I are currently saving for a house. We have:
£15.2k in a savings account. At the moment this isn't topped up, as all spare money is going towards cards.
£4.8k in a Help To Buy ISA
£400 in the account that feeds the ISA just to make sure the £200/month always goes in

I send £200 to the ISA automatically on pay day, and then we're paying off a couple of 0% credit cards leftover from our wedding in May. Mine pays for itself as I get DLA, so that just comes in and goes straight to the card. It will be cleared during the promotional period, so not too worried about that. I also give Mr ~£150/month towards his card. Has anyone had any experience of applying for a mortgage with 0% credit card balances or car finance? Are we best to pay them off now, or pay them off more slowly (still within the interest-free period) and funnel more into our deposit? We have ~£400/month that could be going straight into the deposit. My instinct has always been NO DEBT!, but not sure if we would benefit more by growing the deposit and paying more slowly.

We have also recently opened cash LISAs with £1 in each, so will almost certainly transfer my HtB ISA once we have held them for more than 12 months. We live in the south-east, so houses can easily be over the £250k purchase price rule of the HtB ISA.

I will definitely be updating my progress. We want to save a minimum of £40k, ideally.

We are getting close to having saved what would be 15% deposit for the kind of properties we are looking at.
I've taken the bold step of booking an appointment with a broker to discuss getting a MIP, she has asked me to bring evidence of my entire life story! I'm gonna need 2 weeks to prepare for the appointment!
Luckily we are in no hurry but might start to make contact with estate agents and start viewings soon. Exciting times!

juniordoc wrote: »

We are getting close to having saved what would be 15% deposit for the kind of properties we are looking at.
I've taken the bold step of booking an appointment with a broker to discuss getting a MIP, she has asked me to bring evidence of my entire life story! I'm gonna need 2 weeks to prepare for the appointment!
Luckily we are in no hurry but might start to make contact with estate agents and start viewings soon. Exciting times!

Exciting times indeed!! Well done!!

List_Maker wrote: »

Just stumbled upon this thred, please can I join?!
After sorting my life out last year both financially and on a personal level, me and the boyfriend are now in future mode. We have loosely planned life events (although nothing ever goes to plan )
After one years renting and being stung with a £250 a year increase as well as ridiculous fees we decided saving for a house would be a priority. Unfortunately we had already booked a fair few adventures prior to this realisation. So we are going to try our hardest to save at the same time as making memories.

This happened to us last year (before we decided to save for a house) where we'd booked 3 holidays and regretted it afterwards - financially anyway! We didn't manage to save barely any money last year and I think that's definitely why. In contrast, minimal holidays this year and we're hopefully staying for free in a friend's caravan in Scotland (very MSE so I'm very proud :A )

Hoping I can join! My boyfriend and I are opening our individual HTB this month, as well as putting extra into the current ISAs we each have. Hoping to have £30,000 between us eventually! I'm 21 so not in a massive rush, but can't wait to not be renting anymore!