How We Saved For Our Deposit

Today, I am going to sit down and speak to you guys about saving for a deposit. I can remember when we were first trying to get onto the property ladder, we found it daunting. We were only 22 at the time and the thought of saving the best part of £20,000 was terrifying.

As much as we wanted the house, we didn’t know where to start. We knew that changes had to be made to our lifestyle in order to save the cash. However, we didn’t want to sacrifice too much of the things that we enjoyed. Such as, I like to get my hair done and my husband likes to go to the football. These things were non-negotiable for me and we needed to keep some things sacred. So, here is how we saved for our deposit.

 

 

Put away a set amount each month.

I feel like this first point may really go without saying but get regimented with your payments. My payday from work is on the last working day of each month. So, on the first working day of each month, I pay by standing order into my savings account. We built up this figure and it made it easy to save. For the first few months, we were putting £200 away each. Then, we began to increase this figure as we got comfortable paying into this account. We didn’t want to jump in straight away at paying in say £500 per month, but increasing it gradually really helped us. It also made us realise that we could live on a smaller amount of cash.

 

Round up your purchases.

This is something that I still do to this day and the cash goes into my savings pots. One of the everyday bank accounts that I use is Monzo. I have been using it for years and I quite like the interface of the bank. One of the best things that this bank goes is give the ability to round up purchases. For example, I have it set so that purchases are then rounded up to the nearest multiple of £5. So, if for example I got into Tesco. I might buy Vogue and a packet of raspberries and my whole shop comes to £6.20. My bank will then automatically take the £3.80 and add it into my savings pot. That might not seem like much but think how much you use your card. It quickly begins to add up and it really does make a difference.

 

Don’t dip into the pots.

There was one certain point in our savings journey where we wanted to dip into it. I think it was around the £14,000 mark. We wanted a holiday. I had seen a handbag on Luisaviaroma that I was desperate for. My husband wanted to go abroad with the lads to watch cricket. There was all of this money sat there, with no immediate plan to spend it. We thought that by the time it was required, we could top it back up. To people in their early twenties the temptation was just out of this world. However, we stayed disciplined and stuck to our plan. We didn’t once go back into those pots of money and it did us the world of good. Don’t get me wrong, it near on bloody killed me though.

 

Make cutbacks.

Obviously, in order to get to the £20,000 we had to make some cutbacks. Some things were deal breakers that we didn’t want to change, other things we had to alter. For example, the designer handbag buying on my side completely stopped. At that time, I was so excited by all the money I was earning, I was buying an expensive bag every few months. That money that I would spend, I put into the savings pot. For my husband, he stopped been so generous at the football. For months, he didn’t buy anybody else a drink or get into rounds. Small things that really helped and made a difference to us. Because we were so regimented with some of the things we scaled back, it still meant that I had some spare cash to get my lashes and nails done. The small things that make me feel my best.

 

Be more strategic.

This may go without saying but be smart about some of your choices. For example, when my husband and I were heading out, could we get the tram instead of a taxi? Did we need that other drink or is that money better in our pockets? We didn’t want to cut back too much on our lifestyle, but we knew we needed to make better choice. For example, did we need a dominos, or was a frozen pizza good enough for our lazy Sunday. All things where it would probably be a little nicer to spend the cash. But is it always necessary? Absolutely not. I will admit that this even crossed over into our food shopping. Do I need to get my fruit and veg from M&S and pay a fortune for a bloody carrot. Or can I get the same from the Aldi?

 

I hope that you guys liked this blog post and getting to see how we saved. I will say that it is a long and laborious prospect. It is not always easy and there are times that you see the big pot of money and you just want to blow it. So many times, we were just a click away from booking a once in a lifetime trip to the Maldives.

That being said, I am so glad that it went to the house. Honestly, I don’t think that anything compares to the security of having your own home. I would love to hear from you guys and what you did. I know that to some, it was easy. To others, it is quite a feat. We don’t know each other’s personal finances, so I hope this can help somebody.