To think this just isn’t possible?!

[Scoobydoobydoo123]

To save enough money to buy when renting?
We work all that we can, don’t buy luxuries etc. We are both at breaking point in terms of tyre amount we work. We rent the smallest place possible with two DC.
In the absence of a lottery win that we don’t enter! How else can we save for a deposit for a house?

The not tyre!

YABU. Of course it’s possible; plenty of people do it.

You just have to reduce your expectations (ie. one bed instead of two, compromise on a garden, move location etc.) or make active moves to up your earning potential.

We are in the same position

I think most people get savings by living at home with parents or getting an inheritance

We have no way to save for a deposit, but we are clearly paying £800 a month for rent

I wish banks would look at it like that.

@emilyfrost

YABU. Of course it’s possible; plenty of people do it.

You just have to reduce your expectations (ie. one bed instead of two, compromise on a garden, move location etc.) or make active moves to up your earning potential.

A one bed house...with two children?

Be realistic

We did it but before children. No family help/living at home etc I worked three jobs full time retail, weekend retail and evening bar. Husband worked two jobs full time manager mom- Friday and then 2 x nighttime shelf stacking shifts. We didn’t socialise or go out for meals, I never bought a takeaway coffee and we entered it all on a spreadsheet.after two years we had £20k (we saved £850 a month) and bought a property. Cannot see how you can do it with kids though.

We did it Pre kids as well, but we don't live in a particularly expensive area.

I moved in with DP, he continued to pay all the bills while I matched it pound for pound by putting it in a save to buy ISA. It was between £7-800 per month in all and we saved £15000 in just under two years.

It depends. If you have absolutely no luxuries and are living between each pay check with nothing spare or adding to debt each month, plus can not possibly move to a cheaper rental, then no.

But if you rent (assuming private rental), surely you must have access to some small savings already as you could be given notice at any time and would have to pay deposit on a new rental before getting your deposit back.

I know of plenty of people who say they can't possibly afford to save anything towards a house deposit but still have Amazon Prime/ Netflix subscriptions, are often posting orders in cosmetics Facebook groups, go on semi-expensive holidays each year, eat out and have takeaways, have expensive mobile bills monthly (I have a £5 a month contract and bought a second hand phone, I can't understand people paying £50+ per month), could cut down their alcohol bills each month, cut some off their weekly shopping if they don't buy expensive brands, have their heating on and wear a t-shirt in winter, constantly buy bits of furnishings for their house, buy new clothes.

Now I'm not judging anyone for any of that, if they want Netflix and a takeaway every week to enjoy life, then that's great - but it's not true that they can't save anything, just that they don't want to change their lifestyle in order to do so.

On top of that there's looking at shared ownership, moving to a cheaper area, buying a cheap small house/ flat to rent out to get you on the property ladder while you still rent.

I just think it's quite easy for many to say they can't possibly, when a good percentage of them actual could if they wanted to.

Yabu

Of course it's possible, many people do it every day.

Just because you can't afford to save doesn't mean it's impossible for everyone

I’m honestly not sure how people do. We were able to due to inheritance. Of the people I know who have bought houses they’ve either been gifted money from parents or inheritance and the ones who did save enough did that while living with their parents in their every twenties which isn’t an option for everyone

Well it depends how much spare money you have. If your rent is so expensive compared to your income that it barely covers the absolute basics, then it will be difficult or impossible.

However, if there's any way you can increase your income, rent somewhere cheaper, cut all your spending to the bone (people have huge differences in what is essential vs discretionary so look very hard at this if relevant) it might be doable.

Moneysavingexpert is always useful in sorting your budget and help for first time buyers (eg LISAs, shared ownership etc).

It is super tough if you are trying to do it after you’ve had DC.

But it’s not impossible. It will just take longer and you’ll need to compromise, perhaps on something significant like area you buy in.

It basically has to be the first thing on your mind with your first pay check. The money you save at 18, 21, 25 is the money that becomes your deposit.
If you can live at home for a while, have no holidays, no big nights out etc, that's when you can make a difference. Starting to save at the point in your life when you are thinking about getting a house is too late.

It is possible, it's not easy, but you can do it. You just have to be really strict with yourselves.

DH and I had no help, we rented while we saved, but we didn't have children.
We worked out our total bills.
Set up 4 accounts savings, bills, allowance x2 (1 each)
Gave ourselves a weekly food budget and had this as cash.
Moved the money on pay day, so wages went into the bill account, we moved x to savings and gave ourselves £100 a month "allowance" each for things like clothes birthday cards/presents, monthly takeout, our gym memberships etc came out of this.
We cut out all luxuries, the only thing we kept that we didn't need was our gym membership as noted above.
The allowance was topped to £100, so if we only spent £50 one month, we'd only put £50 in the rest went into the savings account
We got rid of the freesat box so we didn't need to pay a TV licence, we only used Netflix and Amazon (I guess you could count them as luxuries too)
Cut down takeout to a once a month treat
We used cash for food shops (all change went in a money box) it really helped control needless spending.
We put our utilities on dd and every quarter we squared them off if in debt (usually in winter we had to)

You just have to make every single penny count

We wouldn't have been able to. We've never had a lot of cash and could have saved a little here and there but it would have taken years. Like probably 10/20 years so we would have had a baby first which would have then made it impossible. As it is I won the money for my deposit.

It's a lot easier to do before kids as you can be flexible with overtime etc, move more easily and live on beans in a bedsit if you want to. Once you have kids, you have a responsibility to provide them with at minimum standard of living that might be higher than that you would accept yourself, so it limits your options.

It's not impossible, but you might have to be creative or make the kind of sacrifices that you don't want to consider (moving areas etc) to make it happen.

It depends on your salary and committments, but it's bloody hard. Ignore all the idiots who will sanctimoniously say they coped find and you need to stop buying coffee, leaving out that they bought a house for £22 in 1971.

@Soubriquet

We are in the same position

I think most people get savings by living at home with parents or getting an inheritance

We have no way to save for a deposit, but we are clearly paying £800 a month for rent

I wish banks would look at it like that.

I wish they would too. I also wish they’d bring back 100% mortgages for people in super secure occupations like the one I got 30 years ago.

A one bed house...with two children?

Be realistic

Soubriquet I’m not being specific to OP’s situation there, I’m talking in general about compromises that have to be made.

You can’t always have everything you want in the place you want, but that doesn’t mean you can’t afford to buy. Just that you’re not willing to sacrifice on location, garden, room numbers etc.

Sorry you're stuck in position op. Like others have said there is not a lot more you can do apart from cancelling the odd subscription. Netflix,prime,tv etc. Downgrading a phone or whatever.

This really wont help a lot but when my partner stopped eating meat I noticed a big drop in our food bill! We saved on food,had no tv,didn't go anywhere that cost money and didn't even have a allowance every week/month.

We just did free things or stayed home and ate what we had for that week. You get very inventive.
It's a shite place to be in op I wish you the best of luck.

It is possible in most cases. It is easier to do pre-kids but obviously that's not the case for you. All the usual tips apply - budget carefully, cut bills down, earn more etc.

What really made a difference for us was adjusting expectations. We ended up buying through help to buy, meaning we needed a much smaller deposit than a standard mortgage. There are downsides to this scheme so do research it but it has meant we have got on the ladder years earlier than we otherwise would have.

We did it but life was very dull for 2 years. First off all we saved money every pay day. Then, every purchase was questioned. Its amazing how much rubbish you buy even when you think your not wasting money. We set, and stuck to, a food budget too. This definitely helped, its amazing how popping to the shops adds up.

say they coped find and you need to stop buying coffee, leaving out that they bought a house for £22 in 1971

Have you thought about shared ownership? I feel for you it is so tough. I don’t think it is unreasonable to think 2 people working should be able to afford a mortgage. I don’t understand this obsession we have with keeping houses prices high no matter what (stamp duty freeze?) when all it does is mean people can’t get on the ladder without being given some type of windfall.

• I know there will be someone along in a minute to state they did it all on their own by giving up takeaway coffees but that will be an exception not the norm!

We did it pre-kids. Pretty much paid off our first mortgage before the kids came along. I can't imagine we would have been able to rent and save whilst paying for 2 lots of nursery fees.

We did not live with parents or inherit. We rented, lived poor , worked hard and saved hard , and we purposely didn't have children UNTIL we'd bought a house.