To ask how you saved for a deposit?

[Newmummy1234]

How on earth do you save for a deposit for a house when you are renting? Pay a small fortune in rent and just not enough money left to save. Don’t spend money on much and have really strict budget for food. No luxuries either :(
How do you do it? X

It's crap isn't it. I was looking at rents near us and it costs far more to rent than s mortgage would.

My work (HA) are starting to offer "rent to buy" which sounds good -might be worth seeing if anything like this is available near you?

How I did it - rented the tiniest cheapest rental place I could find, to keep rent costs as low as possible. Went back to work when DS was a baby even though I would have loved longer with him. Literally spent nothing on myself - no make up, no new clothes, no treats etc. And DS got everything second hand. DH got a small bonus each year and we put every penny of that away.

Bought for the first time in 2013 with no help from parents, we just scraped the money together. There wasn't a penny left for renovations or furniture- everything was 2nd hand /passed on from relatives.

I am glad I gritted my teeth and did a few frugal years - pay rises and house price rises mean we have been able to move to a bigger house now and there is more spare cash. But I have such happy memories of those years. dS was tiny and happy with trips to the park or walks to the beach so we didn't need to spend money to have a good time.

I know that prices have risen further though, and know that we were lucky with our jobs being secure and flexible enough to keep childcare costs down. My job is about finding ways to create affordable housing options (renting and to purchase) and it gives me such satisfaction to be a small part of the solution

The clues in a lot of these answers are words like 'husband' and 'we' and 'ourselves'. It is a lot easier to live cheaply if there are two of you, plus of course two of you to work and save. And possibly you can get a better mortgage deal.
My first home was fairly small and in a very cheap area. I bought it with my husband! His job then offered overtime. I wasn't earning much but supplemented it by doing a couple of shifts a week in a bar, either Friday or Saturday night would be 8 hours, and a shorter one midweek.

Oh and we could be at work all hours because we didn't have kids yet!

We found jobs with accommodation and lived in tied houses unt6wed saved enough. Then we rented our houses out until we had enough for a deposit on a second property.

Living above the job had it's own challenges but it also had enormous benefits and has allowed us to move up the property ladder.

We moved to a shitter area where we paid half of the rent that we did before.

I didn’t eat avocados
Didn’t have a phone
And never went to Starbucks.

Within 3 months I had 25k

Worked multiple jobs for a few years
Rented room in shared houses
Low out goings, few luxuries
Moved around lots before I purchased property

Tiny studio flat, no car, no treats and 2 jobs, working 7 days a week for 2 years. Saved 45k deposit. And paid off student loan at the same time. Shit, I wish I had that level of determination and energy now.

I lived with parents (bought at 22/23) - I did save myself but also had £15k from my Dad too. But houses were cheaper then-my house cost £74k and current value is around £250k. I bought pretty much straight out of uni on a low grad salary and never rented.

For everyone who has answered: How much were your deposits and how much was the mortgage you were getting?

My friend lived in a bedsit for three years to save up to buy a shared ownership flat.

Not saying the op does these things, but for those of us suggesting frugality...

£10 /MTH phone contract instead of £50/MTH - almost £500 in a year
£10/MTH on clothes instead of £50- almost £500 in a year
Cancel a sky package - almost £500 in a year
Cheap car rather than a fancy one - say £150/MTH saved - so £1800 a year
no holiday/cheap holiday - £1000 a year
Basic toiletries and cheap hair cuts only - say £500 a year saved
Bring sandwiches from home twice a week £20 a month saved - £240 a year
V cheap gifts for Christmas and birthdays - say £250 a year saved

That's £5300 in just one year without even making many sacrifices. Add in a few payrises etc..

More brutal steps are also options- like renting somewhere tiny (saving maybe £2400 over the year) ; stopping nights and meals out (could save a fair bit depending on lifestyle...)

I realised that can't be done by everyone but there is a slice of people who this applies to - who say they "can't" when actually it is within reach.

We both worked full time with no childcare costs luckily. Cut down on unnecessary spending, takeaways etc and managed to save 1000 a month. Fell pregnant unexpectedly with DD so had to rush through buying the house, luckily again, it was a private sale and we could get a mortgage on a 5% deposit.

Must add we were private renting our house from a family member about 200-400 less than market i would imagine

The key for me was focusing on earning more (easier said than done I know!) rather than on saving. If you have little left over at the end of the month then even if you're very frugal it would take years to save up for a deposit.

My ex and I had a wake-up call when we realised all our friends who had bought a house had had huge help from family. Up until then we thought we were just bad at saving - we were spending barely anything (got rid of the car, lived in cheap rental accommodation without proper heating and followed every money saving tip you can think of) but seemed to have less than friends who were going on holidays, eating out, etc. And we were only saving a few hundred pounds a month.

So similar to @Lipperfromchipper, we moved abroad for a year and a half, more than doubling our income, and saved the difference. We ended up saving around £60k. When we came back it had completely changed our mindset, and rather than looking for secure, stable but lower paid jobs we looked for higher paid but more temporary ones. That paid off as we were then able to save almost as much back in the UK.

We lived in a small flat, kept our outgoings reasonably low and worked as much as possible. We wanted to be homeowners before we had a family for stability. Not to mention children are a huge financial cost so it obviously makes sense to do it pre children when you can work more and live cheaply.

Many want it all though and aren’t prepared to wait for things or work second jobs etc.

We cut down on spending on everything we could, food, going out, car etc. Part of it also was from OH previous savings which helped to save few months. However, it took us 5 or 6 years to be in the position to actually start saving up which was due to career change and working our ways up to very good joint salary.

We did it pre-kids when we both had full time wages and no childcare costs to worry about. Also because of our circumstances we were able to buy a one bedroom flat and work our way up the ladder.
We saved up the deposit in about 5 months because at the time we had a disposable income of £2000/month.
Deposit was about £5k, 12 years ago.
Not even vaguely comparable to most FTB these days and if you've got kids and childcare costs and are on average wage I don't know how you do it.
I'm not going to pretend it was hard work rather than luck that got me ahead.

Still lots of 'we' . I'm on my own. I'm studying at the moment so save very little but my plan is get job upon graduation (should start somewhere between 27 - 30k). Move somewhere cheaper and then either get a babysitting or bar job. I managed to open a help to buy ISA which I currently add around 60 per month to.

I'm not in the SE I should add. I would completely abandon hope if I was.

Lived in tiny one bed properties in cheapest parts of town. 2 or 3 jobs each, one old car car, no social life, basic mobiles.

£10 a week for years

We did even consider renting a room in shared house for a year to boost deposit

Yeah it’s funny how it’s all WE
I got married, l left with nothing.

So pretty much no hope now.