In what ways did you manage to save for a deposit on a fairly low income

[DepositSaverUpper]

Joint income 54k.
Private rent £1150 this is the cheapest around and moving is not an option due to school work and childcare ( family ) belive me we've looked.

We don't eat out /drink/ smoke.
Rare take away
Kids do some activities not loads
Only subscription is Amazon music and netflix. We have no digital ariel to the house so we use netflix. And music is used for dcs dance rehearsals for school so can't get rid of that
Mobiles already cheap nothing fancy.

I'm thinking along the lines of cheap evening meals. Or other little things
We don't have anything to sell or have high value items. We live quite simply.

I suppose the first question is - how much do you need to save for the deposit / how much will the property cost?

I took on a second job, although was child free at the time.
Lived frugally/very low spend.
Batch cooked and always took packed lunches.

Saved £10k in approx 1 year which was my 10% deposit on an old 2 up 2 down in the midlands. I also got in about a week before the 2014 mortgage market review which was a stroke of luck.

How much are trying to save?

Well houses in the area we need are around 300k for a basic / doer upper. But livable.
Mortgage calculator on our income says 40k needed.
Its likely out of our reach but it's worth a try surely.
2nd job is kind of possible if term time but I still need enough hours in the day to do my work and have the dcs in the holidays obviously dh does too

Dh and children take packed lunches. I don't tend to , other than a cereal bar and crisps . I don't buy food though while I work.

Get a LISA if you are under 40, so you get a top up of up to £1000 for every £4k you pay in each year. But other than that, no advice, it's shard to save up so much money.

Unfortunately not under 40

When you have kids it is hard to save. Anyway you could look for a promotion or a new job with more pay. Easier said than done i know. I've had to go FT and will be looking for a promotion in the next few years to allow a move to a bigger property.

Not helpful to you, but we postponed having a child till after we’d bought a tiny flat. We both did side gigs in our own fields.

You need to go through at least the last 3 months worth of your bank statements and credit cards to see what you're spending money on and what you're willing to cut back on. You need to budget. Save as soon as you get paid.

We saved 30k earning 34k each and paying £1250 in rent. We had a set amount for socialising and the odd cheap city break and every single other thing we tried to keep as cost effective as possible as a deposit was our priority.

How many dc do you have , and are they same sex? If not how old are they? And how many bedroom?

Can you move to a cheaper area??

How much can you save currently each month? To save a deposit of £40,000 in 5 years you need to save over £600 a month. That’s not going to be doable just saving on little bits here and there. Can you make more money by upping your or DPs hours or one of you getting an second job, or going for promotions?

I was extremely lucky in that I bought my first home in the days of 5% deposit which was paid back to me - I took out a bank loan for the deposit which I didn’t pay back with the cashback instead used it to furnish house and pay solicitors etc

We moved 100 miles away to a cheaper area and chose not to have kids.

Speak to a FA, there are some that wont charge if you just want an initial chat
There are some lenders who will do 5% deposit
With what you are paying in rent you will be able to service the mortgage. Now banks dont really take that into account. But your income is decent.

I take the kids to free activities, pay a yearly membership to places, therefore we don't pay for any entrances, make packed lunches, choose cheapest method of travel, sell old clothes, don't buy new phones, phone contract is about £10 a month. We save about 500 a month for a deposit

Maybe speak to a mortgage broker? E.g. https://www.landc.co.uk/ who don't charge fees. Maybe you don't need a deposit, depending on what products are out there now. I'd advise checking your credit rating and no point if you are carrying debt and/or CCJs.
Look at Money Saving Expert for their big incoming/outgoings matrix - you'll have to do same thing if you go to a broker, so be on top of your numbers.

I've signed up to a market research agency to get some extra cash. There are some listed here:

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/team-blog/2020/02/how-to-earn-cash-from-market-research/

I started saving for a deposit years ago. I put a set amount into my savings account after rent and all bills were paid (my target was £500 per month from January to October).

There were months where I'd only buy what I need (no impulse buys).

Are there any services/subscriptions you could cull? e.g. gym membership

You really really don't want to be mortgaged up to the top of your "affordability". Doesn't sound like there's any slack in the system so that would be a huge amount to try and borrow. Can you move areas? Otherwise I (depressingly) don't see what you can cut.

I lived at home with my parents, so not paying commercial rent, just housekeeping, then I worked a second job, and lived frugally.
But I did all that in my 20s, and before having dc. So what other people did doesn't translate to your situation.

I'm not sure what you could cut from your spending, so the only option seems to be for one of you to do some evening or weekend work regularly. However, that would still take a lot of years to save that much.