Saving for a house (deposit)

Smiley87 · 16 May 2016 at 7:14AM

Decided to quit smoking because the house deposit is a huge incentive. It's not going to be easy but it'll boost the funds so it's going to happen. Going to keep myself occupied with sorting out my resources to sell and clearing out my old text books.

Thinking about starting a bit of a stockpile and buying in bulk to save some money too. I keep on lurking through various boards to try and find ways of saving money here and there but I think I'll focus on these few bits for the next few weeks.

[Deleted User] · 16 May 2016 at 3:49PM

Gosh this takes me back a few years ,when we first started saving up back in 1969 it took 18 months of living on virtually egg and chips and the bare minimum to get our first house.It cost us £6.850 and our mortgage was £60.00 per month.sounds absurd by todays standards but it was just as hard as I had a 2 year old and a new born baby and we lived in a tiny rented flat that cost us 4 guineas a week (£4.20p) My OHs basic was £21.00 then plus overtime and we were so broke when we first moved in January 1972 that we had lino on the floor, no stair carpet at all just wooden floors.No central heating and the house was a falling down victorian bay-fronted money pit.In the dining room there were still working gas mantles

:):). Black and white old tv that worked when it felt like it and all our furniture was second-hand and pretty tatty.But it really was worth the effort and I never regretted it. I can remember having 20p left over at the end of one week once everything was budgeted and paid and my oldest friend who lived down the road said 'I'll look after the kids while you get a job.I worked as a temp locally and I'm still good friends with her today .good luck to all of you who are saving and keep it up as you will never regret it
JackieO x

Cisco001 · 16 May 2016 at 4:19PM

I moved to house share than getting 1 bed flat when i was saving...

MallyGirl · 16 May 2016 at 5:32PM

JackieO wrote: »

Gosh this takes me back a few years ,when we first started sving up back in 1969 it took 18 months of living on virtually egg and chips and the bare minimum to get our first house.It cost us £6.850 and our mortgage was £60.00 per month.sounds absurd by todays standards but it was just as hard as I had a 2 year old and a new born baby and we lived in a tiny rented flat that cost us 4 guineas a week (£4.20p) My OHs basic was £21.00 then plus overtime and we were so broke when we first moved in January 1972 that we had lino on the floor, no stair carpet at all just wooden floors.No central heating and the house was a falling down victorian bay-fronted money pit.In the dining room there were still working gas mantles :):). Black and white old tv that worked when it felt like it and all our furniture was second-hand and pretty tatty.But it really was worth the effort and I never regretted it. I can remember having 20p left over at the end of one week once everything was budgetted and paid and my oldest friend who lived down the road said 'I'll look after the kids while you get a job.I worked as a temp locally and I'm still good friends with her today .good luck to al of you who are saving and keep it up as you will never regret it
JackieO x

I can't go back quite as far but I do remember my first flat being £44,00 so I borrowed £41,800 which was almost the max of 3 times my 14k salary. You couldn't get more than 3 times anywhere but then the interest rate was 14% then and my interest only mortgage payment was £420 pcm on that £42k mortgage.
The endowment on that property matured last week after 25 years - somewhat short of its target!

DWhite · 16 May 2016 at 8:31PM

Great to have others on board, and to hear about how others have been where we are now. For me to get my own place is so important to me. I've never been great at budgeting but I'm determined to make this work, it simply has to! I'm starting out small and just taking it from there. At some point I'll sort out all of the stuff at my parents house that can be sold.
I'm going to Aldi tomorrow for the food shop, I'm not great at knowing what is good in there compared to known brands but I'll work on it, must be cheaper than Sainsbobs, especially as I'll probably buy less non essential stuff.
Start my new job on Wednesday, looking forward to a new salary compared to an hourly rate that wasn't very good, a new start, all very exciting!

DWhite · 16 May 2016 at 8:32PM

Smiley87 wrote: »

Decided to quit smoking because the house deposit is a huge incentive. It's not going to be easy but it'll boost the funds so it's going to happen. Going to keep myself occupied with sorting out my resources to sell and clearing out my old text books.

Thinking about starting a bit of a stockpile and buying in bulk to save some money too. I keep on lurking through various boards to try and find ways of saving money here and there but I think I'll focus on these few bits for the next few weeks.

Best of luck with the quitting, I quit 9 years ago now, one of the best things I've ever done! :j

Smiley87 · 17 May 2016 at 7:44AM

Thanks! I'm going to start putting 40p aside every time I don't have one (rough price of one ciggie if I bought a packet in the shops). So far this morning I've saved 80p and that money is going straight into a tub that my other half will keep and save for me.

He asked me what my dream item for the house would be and I said a dressing table with a huge mirror and all this really girly stuff, so he's said that the money I save should go towards that and nothing else. He knows how to get me focused on something...just don't like handing him my money so he's promised to exchange the money for a cup of tea and some biscuits, which makes it a bit more bearable.

spongemoon · 17 May 2016 at 11:07AM

Hey,

We have just started saving for a deposit too! We had a big look at where all of our money is going a few weeks ago and it's mad how much we seem to waste... did our first shop at Aldi on Saturday and got a weeks worth for £25 - great considering we're usually on the £45/50 mark!

I'm going to do what the rest of you are doing - have a good tidy up and see what we can sell!

Biggest problem for me is that there is always something else I seem to want to buy... bought a new fridge freezer at the weekend, need to buy a new phone at some point... Eeeek!

FairyPrincessk · 17 May 2016 at 12:32PM

Hi,

We've been sort of vaguely saving for 'something' since autumn of 2013, although we had a couple of large expenses that slowed us down. In addition to the deposit amount, we also want to save enough for any surveys and fees, moving costs and three month's pay emergency fund. We don't currently keep a car, but we'll need to buy one either concurrently with buying a house or a year or so before because of where we'd like to live (public transit will be fine for work, but we'll need the car for other things then). Amount wise, we've got the fees, moving costs and savings already.

Since we'd started saving before H2B ISAs were introduced we have the bulk of our savings in an account that pays about 4%. We max out our ISAs each month and try to add some to the other pot as well. As of last year we've started diverting a bit each month for an annual holiday fund. We could do without the holiday fund, but in the long run it would only savings and we'd need to keep saving that long with the H2B anyway. It makes the other sacrifices a bit easier for us. We have another two-two and a half years or so to go for our target, although this could be sped up as I get more permanent employment. We live and meet our savings goals entirely off my OH's pay and anything I earn on my temporary contracts gets lobbed straight into savings.

We haven't sacrificed everything, but our test is often 'how much would this add to the savings' in terms of months. Given we'll have been on this journey for around five years before we start looking, we try to keep it sustainable.

We shop at Aldi and carry the shopping home in rucksacks rain or shine
We meal plan and only eat meat/fish 1-2 times/week.
We don't get takeaways and only eat in restaurants rarely for special treats (say less than once/month).
We don't have a television (although we may reassess with licence changes)
We don't have fancy phones
We plan ahead when we go places to ensure we don't have to get a taxi home and make the last train/bus
We don't buy too many 'treats' in the SM. Unless I have a busy time at work, I bake, we cook all meals from scratch and we have soups frequently.
We live in an area where my OH's commute is free (he uses it as a workout) and mine is minimal when necessary.
We put up with a very unpleasant neighbour because it keeps our rent costs low as well as keeping commute costs down.

At the moment we're saving about 25% of my OH's take home pay and I save about 95% of mine.

Glad to see a thread about this on OS!

paulinedavies · 17 May 2016 at 4:19PM

I've been saving and because I knew the mortgage company would be looking at my out goings I've kept them to the minimum and it really helps when tempted to think, no, the mortgage company may not like that.

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Saving for a house (deposit)

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