by Jenna M
Saving up for your first home can feel impossible, especially if it’s your first time. While a house will likely be one of the biggest purchases you’ll ever make, saving for a house is actually simpler than you would think. You need to remain open-minded and yet have some strategy to begin effectively saving. With these 5 tips I’ll go over, you’ll have enough money before you know it!
1. Open a Savings Account
It is important to have a place to set money aside actively when saving up for a home. This money could go towards the down payment. Having a savings account would be ideal to do this
Your savings account should be separate from your other accounts and it should be dedicated to your expenses for your home. Try to steer away from withdrawing money from this account and rather focus on depositing as much possible. By doing this alone, you’ll see the account grow immensely!
Keep in mind that all of your money should be sourced when depositing it into your savings. Accordingly, put any floundering cash into the account as soon as possible and prepare to make large deposits at least two month prior to putting an offer on a house.
2. Create a Monthly Budget and Stick to it
When saving up for a home, it would be smart to stick to a realistic monthly budget. In order to do this, you will have to calculate how much rent, utilities, groceries, and other routine expenses cost and try to plan accordingly how much you will spend each month.
Having this monthly budget will help you avoid any extraneous expenses, therefore, you will have more money saved towards your house in the long run.
3. Eliminate Large Expenses
By eliminating any large expenses, you will naturally accumulate more in your savings. Instead of spending money on subscriptions, vacations, electronics, or any grand items, set aside that cash to go towards your house. By doing this alone, you’ll see your savings increase at a faster rate.
4. Seek Out New Sources of Income
Increasing your income is another effective way to save up for your first home. This could possibly mean picking up a shift or two at work, getting a part time job, or working overtime. By supplementing your income, you will have more money to contribute to your home savings account.
5. Take Advantage of Opportunities to Reduce Your Expenses
If you have the opportunity to live at home, rent out the space you were currently living in! Even carpooling rather than driving your own car can simply allow you to accumulate so much more money into your house savings account.
I’m sure these options wouldn’t be everybody’s first choice, but they are super effective in the long run. Just keep your eyes on the prize!
Works Cited
“How to Save For Your First Home: 7 Tips From Top Mortgage Brokers.” Maple Tree Funding, 26 July 2019
“What Experts Say About Saving for a House Before You Plan to Buy.” Google, 13 May 2018.
The 4th reason is very important to do regardless if you are saving or not. Its very important because of times like these where something like covid hits and you lose your job. If you had multiple sources of income you would be better off rather than depending on one source. As a adult what are good examples of "New sources of income," is that another job or a side hustle or what? Overall this article was very neat and organized and provided good information.
ReplyDeleteI love how organized your article is. It's super easy to follow and comprehend. It can be terrifying to think about buying a house and moving forward in life. Buying a house is a very large stepping stone. It is also important to remember these things listed in your article to save money so you don't have to take out a huge bank loan. One thing I would suggest is to list things that you have to pay for in regards to buying a house like a mortgage or loans. Overall, your article is very informative and I hope I remember these strategies for the future!
ReplyDeleteI like how concise and easy to read this was! I feel like a lot of guides to saving for a house can be too complex and discourage people from properly saving money. I liked #2 the most, as creating a budget is very useful for daily life as well as attaining added up cash. What tip do you think you'll use the most, or which factor do you think is the most important to saving for a house now that you've done research?
ReplyDeleteThis was really helpful as I can use this for my future! Buying your first house can be hard and scary, this is why it is important to do even any little thing you can to help save for you first house. Like taking advantage of opportunities to reduce expenses actually would help drastically in saving for a house. Like I said any little way to help save up, won't hurt. You need to also be careful and reasonable, like staying on your budget and avoiding large expenses. If you are responsible enough and taking advantage of any little opportunities to save up money for a house, you should be able to succeed. And you explained just how to do that in your blog, good job!
ReplyDeleteThis was a well organized thought out blog piece. It's good when purchasing a house comes onto everyone's mind as a house is probably going to be the biggest purchases we all make. I felt that every suggestion you made would be really effective in assisting those looking for a guide on what to do when saving for their first home. It's important to keep track of what you buy, and know how to limit them. However, temptations are hard to resist as we constantly buy things we want and love everyday, or occasionally. This was a really informative piece and could potentially help those that are confused on what to do when saving for their first home. Great Job!
ReplyDeleteYour article is extremely interesting and very well organized. I haven't yet really considered buying a house or how much money it will actually coast to have a house, but your article was very informative at giving great advice on how to better save money for a house! Even though I'm not currently saving for a house, I think one of my biggest problems is that I spend too much money on useless things, now from your article I know when saving for a house I should cut down on spending. Also you stated in your article that it was beneficial to have a monthly budget, roughly how much money do you think the average person should budget each month? Even if someone doesn't have a budget, just contributing to a savings account is really beneficial to the goal of getting a house eventually. Finally, I thought that you provided really good information and I thought you did a really nice job on your article, great job!
ReplyDeleteGreat post! I found this to be incredibly helpful by improving my knowledge of how to budget my spending's. Number 2 and 3 where by far the most helpful to me. Creating a monthly budget for the essentials sounds like a great plan, as well as how elimination large expenses can save me tones of money. My only question is, how old should you be before buying your own house?
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ReplyDeletei like your blog and it helped me improve my knowledge of how to buget and spend.i also like the monthly budget
ReplyDeleteI really liked this post. I think that this was very helpful on how to budget my spending and how to utilize all the different tips that you gave, and combine them all into one solid plan that can help me save my money effectively in my future.
ReplyDeleteI liked the information on this post. I liked how it was setup like in steps. Great Job!
ReplyDeletesaving money for my very first house has always been a thing I have always been excited about and this blog helped me understand the steps a lot better. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteThe way people talk about buying houses made it seem very difficult to do especially as a young adult. By breaking it down into steps helped me realize that it is much simpler than we may think. I enjoy that it was very organized and easy to read. This is information almost everyone will need to know at some point and you made it enjoyable to read.
ReplyDeleteI think a lot of us out there have spoken about wanting to have a home and are super determined on how to do it but the majority of us really have no idea where to start. Saving money is easier said than done for some people and having these tips that you included are extremely beneficial for those that need them. I know that having a savings account, a good budget, and eliminating big expenses is the first step but I want to keep in mind that I should always take advantage of things that can reduce my expenses. I saw this Tweet where this girl was talking about once you get into the real world, bills just come at you and all of a sudden you have so many things to pay off. It’s important that we know to take advantage of every opportunity we can to reduce our expenses by looking for sales or even buying second hand things. Overall, your blog post gave me great tips and even more ideas to save for my future home, nice job!
ReplyDeleteEveryone has their perfect dream house. Personally, I would like to live in a house that has modern amenities, but is castle/medieval themed. However, unless you are very wealthy, I think people should focus on what is actually realistically attainable. The methods you described in your blog are very good ways to save up, though we just have to make sure people are saving up for the right thing. Your first house probably won’t be some grand mansion… So try to stick to something a bit more affordable. This concludes our regularly scheduled program of “interesting thoughts with Riley!”
ReplyDeleteObviously a house is going to be one of the greatest purchases a person is going to make so it is going to be a stressful and difficult task to save up the money to be able to purchase a house, but the five tips you gave made it seem a lot easier than I thought. I never really thought about carpooling to save some money, but that actually is a great idea especially right now as gas prices have been going up immensely. I wonder if there is any other account besides a savings account that I should use to save more money for a house?
ReplyDeleteI totally agree that buying your first home may seem impossible, but your tips made it seem achievable. I really liked the layout of your blog, it may each tip easy to understand and read! One of the tips that stuck out the most to me was tip #2. Creating a budget can be super beneficial to cut down on unnecessary expenses. Making a budget allows you to know exactly how much money you are spending and on what. Tip #2 also goes along well with tip #3: eliminating large expenses. Realizing that maybe you don’t need the newest phone or computer can help you save for a bigger purchase like a house. I definitely think these tips will help in the future or even when saving up for any other large purchase. Great work!(Ally Longden )
ReplyDeleteI loved this blog, Jenna! My best friend is 21 and looking for a house right now & isn’t 100% sure how to afford it other than just taking a large mortgage loan out. I never would of thought that opening a separate savings account just for buying a house. But, I think that’s a great idea! This was well written and beyond useful. Even though I won’t have to use this information until quite a few years from now, reading this blog really helped me prepare for the future. Thank you and great job Jenna!
ReplyDeleteI really liked your blog post. I think that it was really well thought out and easy to follow. I appreciate how easy these steps seem to be. I always thought that saving up for a house would be very difficult, but you made it seem like it wont be terrible. I think that these steps will be very helpful for me when the time comes in the future to buy my own house. I also liked how you chose a topic that is going to be helpful to most of us in the future.
ReplyDeleteThis post was super helpful! Lately, I've been looking a lot into real estate and how you can build your finances through real estate so this was extremely helpful in giving me another view point on how to save up. Although buying a house seems like it's very far in the future, it's a lot closer than we think. Awesome Job!
ReplyDeleteI didn't think that saving for a house would be this complex. I knew that saving money is a must, but I thought the rest would be paid over time though a mortgage. I didn't think that trying to find more than one source of income would be an option.
ReplyDeleteMy dream is to have a beautiful house of my own one day! I agree with you on the almost "side-hustle" like approach to make extra income and in many ways even create a secondary source of income. With the current market I think people are not seeing the potential in side hustles.
ReplyDeleteYour tips on how to save up for buying a first home were quite helpful! I think that these ideas will be useful even long after I buy a home so thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteThis is a very helpful post, as my brother is currently saving up for his first house right now, and is actively partaking in some of the tips that you've listed. He's planning to have a roommate, has been taking more hours at his job, and has been working on other things outside of his job to make a little more extra money. However, he recently bought a truck, and is going to have to pay it off going forward. This being said, how would you determine what expensive purchases, like a vehicle, to prioritize purchasing over a house?
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