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Property

Tips on Saving for a Deposit on a Home

If you are buying your first home then you will need to have a deposit ready. A deposit is a lump sum of money that you can put towards the cost of the home. This serves a selection of functions for the mortgage company. They will want to see that you are capable of saving money up as that will show that you are capable of making regular monthly mortgage repayments. They will also want to only lend you a percentage of the value of the home. This is because if they have to sell the home, due to you defaulting on mortgage payments, they will be able to make more money back than if they had lent the full value of it. There is also a risk that the value of the property would drop in the short term and so it could be difficult to make back the money that was borrowed.

Having a deposit is also very good for the borrower as well. The more money that you can save up the less you may have to borrow. If you can have a big deposit, then it may mean that you will be able to borrow less, to afford the home that you want and this will mean that it will be cheaper as you will not have to pay so many loan costs. Some people would rather borrow more so that they can get a higher value home. They would then need a bigger deposit in order to borrow this larger amount of money. Either way, having a bigger deposit is certainly an advantage.

Saving for a deposit though, can be hard work. If you already save each month, then it should be easy to continue doing so, but there are people who want to save more and those that save nothing or in fact spend more than they earn. In these situations it is more difficult to find a way to build up enough savings for a deposit. An additional problem is that as time passes, house prices go up and so you will need a larger deposit to buy the home that you want. Therefore the quicker you can save up, the better.

It can be best approaching it from two angles. It is good to see whether you can earn more money and therefore you will have more to put away. Also it is good looking at whether you can spend less money, then you will have even ore to save. It will not be easy, it will take time and you may have to cut back on things that you like. However, if you are really set on your goal of having your own home, then you should feel motivated to make some changes.

To earn more money you could either look at your main job or consider another job. With your main job you may be able to get a pay rise, work more hours, look for a promotion opportunity or even apply for a new main job that pays more. You could also look for addition weekend or evening work, perhaps outside of the home, you could look for freelance work, online work or even sell things that you make. There are a lot of opportunities out there to make money as long as you have the time to try them.

Saving money also has different options. You could compare prices of everything you buy and look for cheaper options. This can be anything from insurance to food. You could also buy less items as well. It is worth taking a look at everything that you normally buy and seeing whether you can cope without buying so much. Every time you buy something it is good to think about whether you really need it or whether it would be better for the money to go into your deposit fund. You could even think about asking friends and family to contribute rather than giving you gifts when it is your birthday or Christmas. If you put in a lot of effort towards saving then it will be really worth it because you will either be able to get a larger home or be able to get it more quickly or be able to get a lower mortgage.

Insurance

How to save Money on your Insurance

Insurance is something that most people have in one form or another. You may have life insurance and buildings insurance because you have a mortgage or car insurance for your vehicle, which you have to have. You may choose to have health insurance, contents insurance, dental insurance, pet insurance or any other type which is available.

Insurance is something that, unless we have to take it out, many of us choose to have to give us peace of mind. We will know that if anything happens to our property, vehicle, pet or ourselves we will be able to get some money that will help cover the costs involved with that. Some people choose to take the risk and only have the insurance that they have to get and do not pay for any other. Obviously this is a way that you can save money, but you may not be prepared to take that risk and may rather pay out the money so that you feel that you are safe. If this is the case, then you may be looking for ways to reduce the amount of money that you are having to pay so that you are not paying too much.

To start with it is worth looking at the different insurers and comparing their prices. You can do this online using comparison websites, but they do not include every possible insurer. You could also use a broker although they may not look at every insurer either. It could be worth doing some additional looking yourself. The risk of using the very cheapest insurer is that they may not be providing you with everything that you want. Make sure that you think about what sort of insurance cover you need and want and check that the insurer that you choose will have that for you. You may not be completely sure, so you could look at your current policy and consider whether that covers you for everything you need or if you need more. For example, for contents insurance consider what value of contents you have and also what value they are and whether you could afford to replace any yourself. If you can then you could have a larger excess on the insurance which means that you will pay out a certain amount first and this will keep your premium lower because you will not make claims for lower value items. Having a larger excess on all insurances can be useful to keep your premiums down on those, but you do need to be sure that you are happy with doing that. It will mean that you will not be able to make lower value claims and therefore will need to find the money for those yourself.

It can sometimes be cheaper if you get insurance for a selection of things all from the same company. Perhaps all family members having car insurance with the same company or having buildings and contents insurance with the same company may save money and it is worth looking into whether this could be a way of saving money.

It is also worth thinking about the items that you are insuring and how you could possibly make them cheaper to insure. This may sound odd but if you get a smaller, cheaper car, for example, then it will be cheaper to insure. It is worth thinking about everything that you have insurance for and what you might be able to do to lower the cost. It could be worth talking to your insurance company before doing anything though as it may not be as obvious as it seems. For example, you may think that getting a burglar alarm will make the home cheaper to insure as there is a deterrent for burglars but an insurance company ill see it as a sign that you think the property is vulnerable and may charge you more. Also, if you forget to use it and there is a burglary then the insurance company will not pay out. Therefore it is really important to make sure that you know exactly what you can do to lower the insurance and not make any changes until you have checked.