How to Save Up Money for a Flat

Saving money can be hard for some people and I entirely understand this. In my old job I used to struggle to save money because my monthly wage was so low. Now that I have a much better job I have become much more responsible. I am able to easily save £500 a month at least and not need to dip into my savings at the end of the month.

I work hard so that I can afford the life I want to live without needing to give anything up. Currently I’m saving up so that I can move out of my family home. I want to be able to move out and have enough money to fully furnish a flat by the time I move in. In less than a year at my current job I have so far saved about £5000 which is a great start. Obviously I have much more that I need to save up but so far I’m on the right track.

Along with furniture for a new house you will need to save up for a deposit, rent, council tax and a variety of other things. I am absolutely no expert on the matter but I just want to have as much money saved as possible, for any rainy day reasons.

I also need to think about all the things that can go wrong. My car could break down and I need to fork out a mass amount of money to fix it. My rabbit could suffer from sickness and I need to pay the vets a tonne of my hard earned money to get them back to top health.

Plus I don’t want to move out and no longer be able to afford living a good life. I really don’t mind cancelling my gym membership, for example, in exchange for a netflix subscription or better wifi.

A couple of ways that I would recommend for saving money would be to create a weekly or monthly budget. This could mean that you take your monthly wage and figure out how much money you need to set aside for each month for things such as bills, entertainment, travel expenses, food shopping and anything else. Then you add up all the necessities and figure how much money you have left. Then out of that you figure out how much you want to put into savings and you STICK TO IT!

Do not dip into your savings at all because you won’t see it growing, make sure that you aren’t choosing an amount that is too hard to keep to!

I think that for me choosing £500 is a very good amount and at the end of the month I stick any extra into my savings account as well. Not to mention that I also like to take money out of my bank and pay in cash, then all the change I have left gets out into a money jar and is saved up as well (this is a much slower way to save up but every penny counts).

If you can go through your monthly subscriptions and get rid of some or find cheaper alternatives for them then I recommend having a look. An example of this is I used to pay £23.99 for a box that comes to my door full of bunny treats and toys so I had a quick look online and found a similar box for £9.99. That’s £14 of savings and my bunnies still get a treat in the mail every month.

I’m sure that after I move out and get my own flat that I’ll be saving less money each month but even still I will be saving every month. You never know what you might need to fork out for whether this be an accident that happens or you’re wanting to treat yourself or go on holiday. I do recommend that everyone has a savings account or a way of saving money.

Setting goals is a really good way to convince you to save money, this could be like I want to save £300 in three months so that I can afford to get myself a new phone. This will give you a deadline to reach for and a realistic goal to try and hit in that time.

For saving up for a flat the goal I’ve set myself is to save up as much as possible before I find a place that I like and want to move in. I have however long it takes for me to find a flat and an unlimited money goal to reach. I want to be able to fully furnish a flat so I have a little notebook that I write in. This contains things such as £400 for a couch, £300 for a bed, £200 for a washing machine. These are my actual goals they are just examples. Another thing that I like to do is buy things beforehand. I started this in 2020 when I bought some kitchen appliances like a microwave, kettle, toaster so that when I get a flat I immediately have some stuff to put it in. By the time I get the flat I won’t even remember the one time purchase that these items were.

So I do recommend this as well and it can be small things such as what I have collected, I also plan on buying a vacuum cleaner before I move out but the thing right now is I’ve actually ran out of places to store things that I’ve bought. My mother and I eventually want to clear out one of the cupboards so that I can have additional storage space, plus when I leave she will have the storage left for her when I move all of the stuff out.

A list of stuff I have collected so far is;

-Mugs

-Plates

-Cutlery

-Mop

-Kitchen appliances (toaster, kettle, microwave)

-Bedside table lights

-Decorations

-Laundry basket

-Fruit bowl

-Salt and pepper shakers

-Knife set

-Chopping boards

-Coasters

-Bookcase

I think that's everything and I’m aware that’s a very random list but everything I have helps when the time comes for me to move out.

A summary for this article would be to set goals for short term and long term goals, make sure that you set budgets, don’t touch any of the money that you put into a savings account, try to cut back on your subscriptions or monthly costs and try to save extra money whenever you can.