Photo by RDNE Stock project: https://www.pexels.com/photo/person-holding-silver-key-8293778/
Buying a property is an exciting prospect that is very rewarding when you do. It can take years of hard work and dedication to save the deposit to buy your first property, so when you get there, you should be proud. It’s a significant milestone – one that reflects your perseverance, financial discipline, and long-term planning.
In order to save for a property,, there are various things that you can do in your life to speed up the process. You can turn on the round-up feature on your banking app (every little helps), you can take on extra work in the evening and save that money specifically towards buying, and you can put together a financial spreadsheet to help you budget, amongst many other things.
To help get you started and point you in the right direction, we have put together a guide on four tips for saving to buy a property. Hopefully, some of our suggestions are useful to you and you can start applying from today, in order for you to achieve your goal of buying. Then you can get in touch with a company like: https://www.estateagencyedinburgh.co.uk/buying-a-property to help you find somewhere
Round-up feature on your bank
The round-up feature, which a lot of banks offer, is a smart tool which helps you save. What it does is round up every purchase you make to the nearest pound and then move that money into a savings pot. You may not think this will generate much savings, but over a year, you’ll be surprised at how much it adds up to. Plus, you’ll be making interest on the money, so if you have it in a high-interest rate account, you’ll save even more.
Work extra hours in the evening
A simple solution (although it may be tiring) is to pick up more hours at work. Working extra hours in the evening will often pay more, and that extra money you can put into your savings. Over time, your savings will grow a lot, and you’ll earn interest on your savings as well, helping you get close to your goal. If you aren’t able to work extra hours at work, you could look to pick up some freelance work or find a second job. More often than not, a freelance job will pay more than your day-to-day job, as you can charge more being a freelancer than your hourly rate.
Put together a budgeting spreadsheet
Spreadsheets will become your best friend when it comes to saving money and budgeting. We would always recommend that you put together a spreadsheet for your finances (even if you won’t be saving for a property). Spreadsheets will help you keep track of your monthly spend, keep track of your monthly subscriptions, as well as decide a reasonable figure which you can save each month. If you use Google Spreadsheets, they have plenty of budgeting templates which you can use to get you started and on your way to buying your first property.
Reduce your monthly subscription
When it comes to monthly subscriptions, we all fall into the trap. We sign up for something thinking we are going to use it, use it a couple of times and then a few months later stop using it, only to forget to cancel the subscription and end up paying for it, many months later. A good little tip to save more is to review all your monthly subscriptions and see if you can cut any of them down. Maybe you don’t need your Netflix account anymore as you are using Prime, or maybe you don’t edit photos as much as you used to, so you no longer need Adobe. When you start cutting down on your subscriptions, create a pot on your banking app and each month, send that money over to it. You were paying for it anyway, so instead you will be saving that each month towards a property.
As you can imagine, there are so many different ways you can save money. What works for one person may not work for you. For example, you may not have the time to work in the evenings, due to having a family. What this means is that you should try various methods to see what works best, and if you can, do a couple at the same time.
What recommendations would you put forward to someone trying to buy a property? Which of the above suggestions did you find most useful? Is there anything missing in our guide that you think we should be adding? Let us know in the comment box below, we look forward to hearing from you.
Speak Your Mind