It is the great Australian dream and the best way to save for a deposit is to set your financial goals. Set your financial goals according to the following:
1. Working out which suburbs you would like to live in.
2. What kind of home do you think you can afford? If this is your first home, don’t set your goals too high and consider that you will probably need to compromise on where you end up purchasing.
3. How many bedrooms do you require? How many bathrooms?
4. Consider getting your loan pre-approved so that you can find out how much you can spend on a home. My Money House can assist you in finding the best home loan to meet your needs.
5. Find out how much deposit you need for the home that you would like to purchase.
6. Find out the additional costs of purchasing a home like stamp duty.
7. Find out what government grants like the FHOG are available to you. Example being $15,000 if you purchase a brand new home instead of an established home.
My Money House can assist with finding the best loan that can meet your needs. With as little as $3,000 deposit, you can purchase your own home or maybe with no deposit you can consider your parents going as guarantor.
So how do you save for that deposit?
1. Work out how much money you receive monthly
2. Check your credit card and debit card statements – How much money do you spend? What do you spend this money on?
3. It would be worthwhile to review your expenditure on an Excel spreadsheet to work this out. Here is a template that can assist, or use our online budget planner.
| Date | Expense Description | Category | Discretionary Spend Y/N | Amount |
|---|---|---|---|---|
4. Review your expenses for the month. Are there any categories that you can cut back on? Was there any discretionary spending that you could do without? Remember, the best way to save for your home is to cut back on the expenses that you can do without. This is called reducing your discretionary spending.
5. You could reduce your monthly discretionary spending by taking your lunch to work (approximately $200); cutting back on takeaways (approximately $200); taking a bus to work (approximately $80); not going out to dinner weekly (approximately $200). Already you have $680 for a deposit and it only took one month to save this.
6. Find out other ways to increase your income by recycling bottles and cans (in SA this could be $30 per month); selling your unwanted items on Ebay; or doing jobs for cash, for example gardening, dog walking, baby sitting or house sitting.
If you set realistic goals, reduce your discretionary spending and increase your income, it could take 3 to 6 months to save up for a home deposit.
Complete this quick online questionnaire to see if you qualify to buy your first home.
