And no Kirsty, it’s not giving up avocados (I’m not really a fan of them) or stopping our Netflix account! I guess before I go fully into how we intend to buy a house I should give a little back story. We moved into our first rental aged 20 and 22. We made a grand total of £1,500 – £1,700 on a good month and we had 0 savings, we just scraped by. We then started saving any extra we had for our wedding, while wedding planning I got pregnant with Edith and started saving for baby things too. Pushchairs are expensive! So the thought of saving for a house was nowhere in our minds. I sold loads of my clothes and bags to make enough money to buy our £300 travel system pushchair.
Fast forward through me not going back after maternity and then becoming a freelancer, moving into a bigger but more expensive house, getting pregnant with Norah, and moving house yet again money was tight, to say the least. Money was very tight, money was £6k worth of debt tight. Once again saving for a house was not even a thought we had. We were just surviving. So fast forward yet again to 2021. We paid off all of our debts and now finally saving to buy a house is on our minds. You see we don’t have rich parents or grandparents to loan or give us the deposit we need. So every single penny we save has and will be been worked for.
So I thought I would share the ways we have been saving and hopefully by the end of 2022 and more realistically mid 2023 we will have enough money to buy a house.
Sell, Sell, Sell.
I’m a natural hoarder. Always have been. I’ve got sooooo much better over the years. But now is the time to let it all go. I’ve been selling things on Vinted (browse my Vinted here), eBay, and FB Marketplace. Sometimes just a few pounds, sometimes more. I’ve very much learned along the way that every little helps. My goal is to make £100 a month from selling. Ambitious but hopefully doable (fingers crossed). After a year I should have £1,200 saved.
Set Up A Standing Order.
I’ve seen so many things about saving little bits each day. Like the 1p, then 2p, etc throughout the year. While I think it’s a great way of saving. It doesn’t work for me. I’ll forget and then save nothing. So I set up a standing order to leave my bank account every Friday. It’s £20 each week and it goes into an account that I can withdraw from as and when I need. This means if I need money that week I can withdraw back into my main account but it’s a great way to save money without even thinking about it. By the end of the year, I will have over £1k saved without really putting in any effort.
Takeaway Ban.
Hahah just kidding. But we have cut down, this is because of healthy eating and for saving. Instead, we take turns in cooking something special on a Friday night which saves around £10 a week. Of course, that doesn’t happen every week but it’s still a saving we can make easily. After a year we should have saved around £300.
Canceling Direct Debits
We’ve sat down and worked out what we really need, what we can cut down on, and canceled things we should have canceled before. A very small saving but a saving nonetheless. After a year we should have saved around £200.
I think with all of this we could go mega strict, no extras or days out, etc but we want to still live and have fun at the same time. I also put a % of my wage each month away into savings too. I really hope that by this time next year we will at the very least be in a position to look at houses, if not better (fingers crossed!)
I would love to hear of your house-saving stories, how did you manage to do it without any financial support from family?
Photos from our lovely rented house. I absolutely adore our house!
