How much money did you have left after buying a house?

[Knan10]

How much of your savings did you have to spend on your house deposit, legal fees etc. And how much savings did you have left at completion?

We were left with £1k in the bank! 15 years later and we’ve now got the grand total of £2k saved however, our mortgage is down to £30k as we’ve over paid. Once it’s clear we’ll start putting everything into the savings account but we wanted to prioritise the mortgage. (We do save for our DC, he’s got £10k)

We sank the everything we actually had ie every penny but the credit cards and overdraft into it.

We then had to wait for wages before we could much other than clean, de flea and clean again.

Oh, we did but new sofas and beds... but got them on 0% credit offers.

We had intended to have a comfortable amount left in the bank, but ended up using that to get a much nicer house than we expected.

We are in our 50s, it was a long term plan, if that makes a difference. We now save the equivalent of what was the rent and monthly savings into pensions.

Just enough for the essentials: guttering, central heating, rewiring, plus a few cans of paint and offcuts of carpets. The place was a total wreck and we lived in the middle of a building site for years.

Nothing! We were broke for about 4 years afterwards.

House is nice now though 12 years later.

Nothing at all. Had to buy a cheap bed on credit and it took me 12 months to pay off.
It was worth it though. 20 years later and I've paid off the mortgage and built up some savings. Not a lot but I have no mortgage or rent to pay and it's a great feeling.

Not a lot.
We ended up doing one thing a month when we got paid.
Put a small amount away each month to buy big stuff like couch, cooker washing machine.
First 5 years were tough.

Literally nothing, we used the overdraft to get the bathroom useable, and had no carpet and camping furniture for the first 6 months.

We moved about a year before we were really ready, and sighed off on the mortgage the week before 'responsible lending' rules came in. If we hadn't moved then we probably wouldn't ever have got on to the housing ladder.

About £70,000 But then we spent it all on an extension that we started 6 weeks after moving in!

Thanks everyone so far. Those who used most of their savings on the deposit and left with next to nothing savings when moving into their first home, do you regret the decision (as in prefer to rent with tons of savings in the bank) or are you now looking back, very glad you got onto the housing ladder?

We got an offset mortgage, and then used our savings to offset. That way we had access to money if jobs fell through but weren’t paying extra interest.

We bought just after the last recession hit. Didn’t want to be without 6 months savings As backup with a new baby. I’d be of the same opinion now.

I'm glad I did it, but recognise it was a risk. If I'd lost my job or there'd been an unexpected problem with the house we would have been in trouble.

At the time it was only me and DH, so we were able to take the risk, which did pay off. Two kids later I wouldn't take the same risk again.

Definitely worth it. Our mortgage will be finished in 3 years time, I’ll be 43. That’ll leave me with 20+ working years with no mortgage. All that can go into savings. Our DS will hopefully have a £200k house to inherit at the end of it all.

It feels really scary at the start but I’d chose to buy over renting every time.

Have you thought of buying a new build? I know lots of people hate them but ours was new and it gave us reassurance that we wouldn’t have to spend anything on the property for 10 years, all faults covered. Brand new kitchen and bathrooms etc.

At our age it was always going to happen. We rented a lifestyle we couldn't afford to buy, saved like stink and bought the best house we could.

As soon as that was done we went back to a financial advisor to get updated figures and a new financial target.

We save as.much as we can. We are aware of the need for a good, slightly conservative saving strategy.

We feel more secure than we have done previously. And that's saying something as I am self employed, used to be a teacher!

I'm hoping to buy in a few years. I'm thinking I'd surely need a contingency of a few grand in case anything goes kaput like the boiler or something?

I bought post-divorce and had zero in the bank at completion. (Mortgage payments less than rent but borrowed absolutely the most I could). Bought a sofa on credit and scrimped and saved for everything else. Have gradually been able to save up for DIY and home improvements. Wasn't a hardship as I'd been so ridiculously skint both during my marriage (financial abuse) and during the divorce (court fees, solicitor & barrister costs etc due to abusive exh). Then I got a slightly better position at work, so things got slowly easier. 7 years on and my house has increased in value by at least 20%, doubling my equity, and I have built my savings back up to 'could manage for 3 months if my income disappeared. My kids have everything they need, and fortunately lots of things they want, but recognise that our home is our castle, and an investment.

Nothing left so had to rely on furniture kindly donated from friends and family. Already had a few things from renting. Eventually bought a nice sofa on HP and slowly improved as money allowed. Second house had about 20k left kept aside to do boiler new bathroom etc but it was still a very slow process had to live with mank curtains and old carpets.
I feel this paid off in the end as we have a good chunk of cash in the property by doing a lot ourselves and not borrowing and having a huge mortgage.

I spent every penny. Had sheets on strings for curtains For the first couple of months! Got stuff on credit that took ages to pay off but I was happy and it wasn’t a high APR.

Are you glad you did it though @Elieza ?

Glad things worked out well for you @Muppetry76

Thanks for the responses so far everyone :)

About £300 to pay day after paying removals guy. An empty credit card though so we survived

My first house left as with absolutely nothing in the pot, we managed to decorate and do up the house after work and sold it 2 years later for 77k more than we paid house had nearly doubled where I lived, I have managed to just use equity to move, hopefully my next move will be shortly happening.
My new partner and I are buying our first house together we are selling both our homes and putting it into a huge 6 bedroom house, with a very small mortgage that we will use to do up the house the way we want.
I would always use every penny to get on the housing market and suffer for a couple of years, as usually house prices increase.

I kept £25k in premium bonds, £16k in cash isa and about £15k in stocks & shares isa. DH kept about £5k in his premium bonds then we each had about £3/4K left in the bank savings accounts. I thought that was cutting it pretty fine and was glad of the cushion in the non-bank accounts! We moved 5 months ago (our second purchase, stayed in last one 9 years) and upsized considerably so have had to buy a lot of stuff! We bought a newbuild so know lots is under guarantee for several years, but meant we had to buy every single curtain/pole/blind

I’m glad with the choice I made to spend every penny on the best house I could afford. If us spent less I’d always have wondered ‘what it would be like to have one of those houses I could have had’

Now you can get zero % Apr deals on credit cards and all sorts id defo do it again.

About £10k I think, earmarked for for some repairs.

Another who spent every penny.
No, I don't regret it.

In fact, when we bought our current house, we actually 'borrowed' from our dc who were too small to know

No, I don't regret it.