Things you've done to save up for a house

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We have recently been told that the home we rent will be being sold and so we will need to move ... Again! We are stuck in that horrible loop where we spend out on rent so we can't afford to save for a house and have been stuck in that loop for about six years now.

There may be an option for DH, DS and myself to move in with our parents in law however it will mean the the three of us sharing one room but within a year we would save up enough to buy a home.

Just wondering if I am mad to consider this proposal and what other compromises and sacrifices people have had to make to be able to save and buy a home?

Do you get on with your Pil? Will you be able to set out boundaries etc.

I'd be tempted to go for it if you think you could all live together.

No, I don't think you're mad at all, although it depends on how old DS is. If he is 6 months it's a great idea; if he's 16, maybe not

That would be really tough but you have to do what you have to do.

For my first home I work weekend night's alongside my professional job for 12 months.

At the moment myself and dh do alternate shift patterns. It can be hard with two very young dc (great contraceptive though.. ha ha)

I'd do it. With a 6 month break clause! Don't forget it'll put a strain on them as well. They may not be able to live with the arrangement.

We do get on with his PIL, they can sometimes be a bit overbearing by they are very well intentioned and my DS adores them.

DS is 3, the sharing of the room is more a concern to me! The way the house is we would have our own room, bathroom and front door so we could set boundaries. Their home is also in the village that we would definitely want to buy in and is two mins walk from the school we would love our DS to attend. Just the sharing of the room, would DS be OK mostly!

I think go for it. If you focus hard enough you might even make it a shorter time.
We still rent, but to save for a different thing we gave up going out for food/coffee etc, no paid for entertainment with exception of clubs dd was already involved in ( at £40-60 a year each, was worth it!)
I also tried cooking everything from scratch but was a step to far for me as I already hate cooking.
Also took on extra work ( in regular job plus babysitting, cleaning, clothing repairs etc), sold a load of things, did spend-free months ( except basic groceries and toiletries, basic travel and regular bills)

Staying with your PILs might focus your mind really well!

If it's a year, and you get on well enough to cope, I'd do it. But I wouldn't if you're going to spend the year seething at one another. Also I'd want to be sure they really didn't mind, weren't just saying it.

A years nothing if it means you can stop this happening again.

A year will go fast, and I know someone who had to have their ds in their room until nearly 5 (one bed flat) it was fine for them.
I know it's obvious but don't make the mistake of spending money getting out of their house for a break.

Good idea if you all get on.
Make some rules to know who's doing what in the kitchen, bills washing etc. Someone I know fell out big time when they did this as they took the piss of the hosts hospitality. They forgot it was someone else's home too.

Short term pain long term gain.

I split up with a boyfriend and moved back to my parents from about April to Feb. Did my head in but it was worth it.

From the other side . We invited DSS and fiance back to live with us so they could save up ( they had lived with us before) We set a limit of a year and just charged them a nominal rent. We had the odd moan but nothing much. They were lucky enough to get on help to buy and it's great they now have their own home . Good Luck

DH and I found ourselves in the same position as you. Our landlord was selling the flat. We, however, didnt move out. We worked out that the flat was overpriced, and the fact that they decided to sell it with us still occupying it, we knew this would put a lot of people off. Our landlord was planning to give us the S21 once she had accepted an offer so that would have given us 2 months to find somewhere else.
We took the gamble and decided to stay and save hard in the meantime.

We stopped going out. I mean we literally stopped the work drinks, meet friends at the pub, etc...

We limited our takeaways to once every 6 weeks instead of every Friday.

We also played the downshift challenge where with our groceries, we bought a brand cheaper than we usually did and we saved the difference. We found some great products that we still buy up to now since then. Who knew that we would have preferred Tesco's own teabags to PG tips.

We saved all the £2 coins we were given as change.It was amazing how fast this builds up. 1 year later we had £750. A little annoying though when it came to banking the coins.

We also rounded up to the nearest £10 in our current accounts every evening. So if I had £56 left my account, I would transfer £6 to savings. I dont know if we could have been able to do this if we didnt have mobile banking. We hope to start doing this again but it will be transferred to overpaying the mortgage (we bought with a fixed high interest rate for our mortgage due to tiny deposit - interest rates have since fallen though).

We didnt buy any new clothes for 1 year.

I found that if transfer the savings money on payday, it is not there in your account tempting you. I obsessed over our household budgeting spreadsheet.

Packed lunches for work. Still do this now.

We eventually bought 1 year later; house was at the top of our budget but it was worth it purely for the fact that we knew we would only ever move on our own terms and not on the whim of our landlord. She was a lovely lady though and she responded to problems promptly. We enjoyed living in the flat but the constant worry of the S21 made us buy sooner than we'd hoped as we wanted to save a much bigger deposit. We are in SE if it means anything. I found that the rate at which house prices were going up was a lot faster than the rate at which we were saving.

Good luck with your savings journey and hope that your stay with the ILs goes ok. I know that I couldn't do it.

Would def do this.

We've been saving for years, now got around £10,000 and it is not enough.

At 43 I need to buy soon.

If we could move in with someone for a year I would not hesitate.

Do it.