Four Helpful Tips to Save for Your First Home Faster

Getting the keys to your first home can feel worlds away. If you’re one of the many people struggling to save funds for a house deposit, this article offers six tips to help you reach your goal, sooner.

Let’s go.

Get into the habit of budgeting

If you aren’t already, budgeting should be the foundation of your efforts to save for your new home. It gives you a clear oversight of your income, outgoings and anything that’s left to put into your savings pot.

You can budget anywhere, anytime, and on anything. A notes app on your phone, a dedicated budget planner online or a physical notebook. Start with your income, list your monthly bills and outgoings and see what’s left over when you subtract them.

Look where you can cut unnecessary outgoings

With a clear idea of where your money is going each month, you’ll be much better placed to see where you can trim your expenses.

Spending habits are hard to break, particularly if it’s something as trivial as buying a quick lunch or shopping for new clothes. But they all add up. Use the dream of your first house and better organisation to help you be more disciplined.

Could you eat at home more and spend less on takeaways? Are there subscriptions you have and barely use? Are you paying over the top for certain bills? These are the sorts of questions you should be asking yourself.

Take full advantage of home buying and saving schemes

There are schemes and services out there to help you in your quest to own a home. Do your research and make full use of them.

Building your savings in a Lifetime ISA (LISA) gives you a 25% bonus on what you save every year (up to a limit). It means if you save £4,000 in the financial year, you’ll get a free £1,000 bonus from the government to put towards your home.

Schemes like First Homes bring the goalposts closer to you. You can benefit from a discount of up to 30% on the market price of a new home. Check the T&Cs of any schemes you’re interested in to ensure you understand them fully.

Pay off your high-interest debts

Spending money on paying off other things doesn’t sound like very good savings advice, but it is. High-interest debts, and most debts in general, eat away at your monthly income and reduce your saving power.

If you have any, pay these off before putting any more money away. You might not see your savings rise as you’d like, but you will once you can commit more of your income to it. Play the long game, not the short.