First Time Buyers Saving Advice
For most first time buyers reaching the goal of owning your own home can seem like an impossible feat. However, this is the most important purchase of your life, so making a few cutbacks will benefit you immensely in the long run. Here is some first time buyers saving advice to help get your mindset together.
Remind Yourself
Throughout the tightening of belts and the economising keep reminding yourself why you’re doing it. This won’t last forever and once you do have your foot on the property ladder you’ll be making money, each month as you pay the mortgage you’ll be paying a little bit off the outstanding balance. This should be incentive enough as paying rent for years and seeing no return on your outlay can be soul destroying.
Of course, if you have been renting for a while, owning your own home will seem like a dream. You can paint, garden and make it your own, adding extensions or adapting to your family’s needs without seeking the permission of the home owner.
Nothing beats the feeling of knowing that it is yours and yours alone, and if you keep up your repayments you’ll enjoy the security being a property owner gives you.
An Extra Income
Work from Home
There are many work from home opportunities you could take advantage of in your spare time. Writing, organising, filing, are all profitable ways to make a few extra pounds from the comfort of your own study. If you do take on an extra job, make sure all of the money earned is put towards a new house. Even if after all this you fancy a long summer holiday!
Work in the Evenings
A couple of evenings a week you could work from a pub, as a delivery driver, or even as a care worker. Remember this is only temporary and as soon as you have enough money for the deposit and removals, you will have all of your free time back where it belongs so you can enjoy your new home.
Food Cutbacks
Ironically if you cut back on your food bills, you’ll probably become healthier. Cooking from scratch and omitting takeaways can see some couples save hundreds on their weekly shopping bill. As long as you have the basics of eggs, potatoes and vegetables, you can add different meats making a full meal every single night.
Taking a packed lunch to work can save sixty pounds a week. Instead of nipping to the deli and spending ten pounds a day on lunch, make your own. If you’re part of a couple this could amount to massive savings.
Taking your own coffee to work, or taking advantage of the free coffee instead of nipping to Starbucks three times a day will save you up to forty pounds a week. It may seem like a small amount, three pounds per cup of coffee, but with all cutbacks try to see the long term rather than the short term and this will give you the incentive you need.
Nights Out
Of course sacrificing nights out will save oodles of cash. A meal for two can easily cost a hundred pounds, whereas a night out on a pub crawl can cost even more. Use the time to plan, pack and if you are really missing the nightlife, think of the huge housewarming party you’ll be able to throw as soon as that house is yours.
Make your Own
If your landlord is amiable use this time to practice being a house owner. Using pots or a patch grow your own salad vegetables or fruit saving money on your weekly shop.
This can extend to home brew, wines, even jams or chutneys. Who knows you may develop a taste for it and soon be looking for a home with a larger garden.
Make Things Last
In this disposable age we’re used to throwing items away as soon as they develop a hole or begin to run out. For just a few months as you save you can make items last a little longer, saving money on your clothes, shopping bills and cosmetics. Mascaras will come back to life if a little oil is added before putting in the fridge for a night, whereas lipsticks can last four times longer by using a lip brush to extract the ends of the product.
Holes can be mended in jumpers, socks or underwear with a little sewing skill, and if you really are useless with a needle and thread ask a parent or grandparent, they’ll be glad to help.
Have a Fresh Start
Moving house can be a fresh start, so out with the old and in with the new. Be absolutely ruthless, empty the loft and sell anything you haven’t used for a year.
There are many ways to sell items such as car boots, online, or in dress shops, you could be surprised by how much your unwanted items are worth to others!
Above all remember this is temporary; you will not have to save forever, and once you receive the keys to your first home you’ll realise it was all worth it. Who knows, it may reveal talents you never knew you had, and it could also be fun. A new you begins life in a new area, and all is well!
