Did you put every last penny into your deposit?

[user3274826]

If you saved the deposit yourself, not had a gift from family. How much money did you leave as emergency after deposit? Or did you not have any back up savings left?

I kept £30k back for legal fees, reno works and furniture etc (I had none). If I was purchasing a place I could simply move straight into, I'd have kept less back obviously.

For our first flat, we used every penny for the deposit and saved for the legal fees while the conveyancing was going through. We hired a van for £70 and moved ourselves - we would have been broke but DHs mum unexpectedly gave us some money towards the legal fees at the last minute, so we had a few hundred spare which we used for a garden shed and a few other bits.
When we sold the flat and bought a house, we didn't use all of the equity from the sale as a deposit, so we could hold back some funds to replace the roof as it urgently needed doing.

Yep and had to lend 2k off PIL for legal fees 🙈 It is our dream house and we're glad we did it now.

Kept 5k back for legal fees and some work we needed to do straight away

First home, yes, we sat on milk crates not even joking and bought a 2nd hand sofa with my child benefit 🙈

After seeing how some people are struggling I would be making sure I have 12 months of expenses to cover the mortgage and bills which would be kept ringfenced for any emergency such as losing my job.

It would quite reckless to put every last penny down, what happens if the boiler breaks or your lose your job, your be facing repossession immediately

Nope, which was good as despite being regularly serviced the boiler broke down 3 months after we moved in and needed replacing. That did take up all the rest of our money though!

Yep and have to borrow £2.5k for legal and moving fees! We found the house sooner than we expected so everything was quite rushed and as we used a specialist broker due to my fiancée’s credit history (nothing major, but have to be squeaky clean when going for a 95% mortgage), which cost a lot more.

*had to borrow

I am saving for a deposit now but will keep some separate for other expenses .
I am not lucky enough to have an partner or family to lend me any money so it’s all on me !

No, kept back 30K as we knew the house needed work. But we would have left ourselves a cushion (probably about 10K) anyway just in case I lost my job or we suddenly discovered something on the house that needed fixing.

First house, spent everything. Had a £2k budget for furniture which we mainly bought from eBay and local selling sites.

Second house, had 10k and ended up borrowing 5 more. Expensive move, plus new sofa, built in furniture etc. We had a small baby though and wanted to be comfortable fast. Still about half the furniture came from eBay...

Buying a house isn’t just a deposit, there’s legal fees, stamp duty (if applicable), moving costs, furniture, fixing stuff that’s broken in new house, diy bits and bobs.

It’s a massive cash flow drain, you absolutely need a buffer.

We put as much as we felt we could into the mortgage, but kept back 3k for decorating and furniture. (We'd already factored in legal fees into our costs.) We had everything we needed as we'd rented for years, but wanted to buy a dining table and upgrade a few things.

Lucky we did as when we had the boiler checked after moving in, we found it was on its last legs and needed to be replaced. We also had the electrics checked and found they needed a bit of work too as some were unsafe. That swallowed up most of the 3k, so we had to wait and save up again to do the cosmetic changes. The dining room was empty except for the hoover and various junk for at least a year!

No, I kept back some for renovation, more than I thought I would need. Then when the work was done I paid off a bit more of the mortgage with what was left.

I bought when interest rates were high so it was important to get as much as possible paid off ASAP. So every time I had some spare cash / got a bonus at work etc I paid off more, Rather than go holiday / buy a new car / sofa / new kitchen etc like most people seem to do.

Yes basically. We had planned to keep about £20k back after all costs (so factoring in stamp duty, fees and so on) so we still had a decent savings buffer but then ended up spending everything to get a house slightly over our agreed maximum budget.

We then had a hairy six months where DS was still at nursery and we were spending almost everything we had coming in. Once DS started school it was fine as we could start building savings up again. We did have access to masses of credit so if the boiler died or we had to replace the car we’d have been ok.

We put money back for expensive emergencies like a new boiler.

No help here, years of saving. We only put down 10% (FTB) and after all legal fees etc we were left with 60k. Old bungalow so bringing it up to date. We are doing a lot of the work ourselves to keep costs down. I have a figure I won't spend below so we have a back up pot

Should have said, we also had to pay stamp duty as I bought my first house really young

We have always make
Sure we have money kept aside. So when we bought our house we put £30k
Down + the sale of our old
House but we have £40k in savings. We need new bathrooms but my husband would
Rather get a loan
Than use our savings! I disagree with him fwiw, we could spend 10-15k
And it not concern me.

Yep, first flat we emptied our bank accounts to pay deposit and legal fees. We had 1 week until payday the day we completed and about £70 between us. All our furniture was old bits gifted by parents (we have 3 sets of parents due to a divorce and remarriage) between the 3 of them we cobbled together an old tv, old fridge/freezer, old sofa, old Hoover even their spare pots and pans for camping. We got a bed, kettle and microwave off free cycle. We were then unexpectedly given some money by my mum who unbeknown to us had spent the last 6 months I was living at hers putting the rent I paid her into a savings account for a moving in gift. It was such an amazing surprise. As we hadn't expected it we had sorted our freebie furniture and we spent the money on much needed diy supplies as the flat was really grim. In 2 weeks it looked fantastic decorated and over the next few months we bought more furniture/replaced others.

No, we always kept some back for decorating / furnishing and emergencies. You'll probably want to make the house 'yours' when you move in.

We actually bought an under budget house the second time so we could maintain a decent contingency fund, which we still have most of. I love my house though and don't regret this at all.

After fees, stamp duty and moving costs we had about £5k left. Our house doesn't need any big jobs straight away so only needed some cosmetic things done. Also needed a sofa and curtains (don't forget curtains/blinds!) But good to have some set aside for things you didn't expect. I.e. we have a few taps that leaks constantly so need a plumber once lockdown lifted to replace taps.

Keeping a good chunk back
Is ideal if possible.

Once you move in repairs/renovations/decorating jump out and If you don’t need to do that you can always pay a chunk off the mortgage.

Old hand advice: stretching your finances to the maximum risks giving you more daily pain for a longer time and may outweigh the joy of the dream home!