Tips For Saving a House Deposit

So Nath and I have been struggling a little as of late in terms of saving up a house deposit. Purely because i made the genious decision to buy my first car BEFORE we buy a house AND because my sister is having her wedding in the USA, which is AWESOME in some cases because it means we are able to going on a really cool holiday, but also we are broke now because of it and pretty much all our house savings are going towards this.

So i thought i would put together a little handy tip list for how to save up a house deposit:

#1 OPEN A SAVINGS ACCOUNT

Purely taking the step to open up a seperate account WITHOUT CARD ACCESS can be a really good step to start. You can even give them nicknames like "Dream Home" to help you get motivated if you like! If you talk to your bank and explain you will be using the account to deposit money and hope to have some measures to make sure you get the best bang for your buck and also some more measures to make it a bit more difficult to withdraw, they will surely help you out!

#2 CREATE A BUDGET / Don't buy crap!!!

Go through your expenditures for the month/week and set out all your essential costs. Rent/Car etc and see what you have left over. Leave a little money for cosmetics/clothing etc as we know you're not going to go all barefaced op shop beauty just because you're saving money LET'S BE REAL. But make sure there is enough substantial money left over to go into savings. Generally i would suggest anywhere of saving $100+ a week is a good start. Then if you get good at it, up the amount you are putting in there. If you and your partner are depositing $150 a week each for 12 months you can save around $16,000! That's a %5 house deposit on a $300,000 home. Great work. 

#3 SELL STUFF ON EBAY

If you have anything you don't need/want, try selling it on ebay. Old phones, iPads, Bikes, Navmans all fetch a reasonable price and it adds up fast, trust me!

#4 HAVE A GARAGE SALE

Ultimately you will get more money selling things on ebay seperately, but when the rest just wont fetch a pretty penny, have a garage sale and get rid of all your unwanted clothes and junk. That extra money will really go down well in your house deposit account.

#5 DOWNSIZE YOUR CAR

If you can, look into downsizing your car. For example i currently have a Jeep worth around $25,000. If i really wanted some fast cash i could sell it and downsize to a Mazda 3 (my second preferred car choice) this would free up about $15,000! But just remember you need to have some genuine savings for your deposit or the bank wont like it. So you can even be a bit sneaky and ask for the money in cash for the car and slowly desposit the money into your account. ;) You're welcome. 

#6 SELL SHARES

No brainer! If you have any shares that are doing well, sell them for fast cash.