The moment you decide to buy a house for the first time will at first seem like a very exciting and positive one. Buying a home means you’ll no longer be wasting money on rent, and means that you’ll finally be moving toward owning your own space which you can decorate however you want and which you can do much more in than you would probably be able to have done in rented accommodation.
However what you will quickly learn is that this decision can also become a stressful one. Once you start saving for a home you will have set yourself a huge goal and suddenly this puts pressure on you to save as much as you can. If you’re in a relationship then you’ll find that it can even put a strain on that as you end up comparing how much you’re saving with your partner, and asking each other why you haven’t put away more – and can you really afford that new Playstation 4?
Suddenly every decision will have to get run through the same filter – can you justify it when you’re saving for a new home? And when you think that you’re not going to raise the money in time, you’ll find that this can lead to many sleepless nights.
How to Stay Focussed
The solution though is to apply some structure, and to focus yourself such that you take some of the pressure away. If you approach saving for a mortgage in the right way then you can greatly reduce the stress, you just need to know what you’re doing and prepare in advance…
Budget: One way you can make the stress of saving for a property less stressful is to set yourself a budget. Look at the money you have coming in and going out of your account, and then work out how much of that you would need to put away regularly in order to save the amount you need. This way you won’t have to constantly keep questioning whether or not you can afford to spend money – you’ll know based on whether you are able to put away the target amount or not. If you have money spare after saving then go ahead!
Be Realistic: One of the most important things to ensure when budgeting for your future home, is to make sure that the budget leaves you with at least a fair amount of money left over for yourself. If you are too ambitious with your saving, then all that will happen is that you’ll keep needing to dip into it and you’ll get disheartened. As with a good training program, you should keep it realistic to make sure you can stick to your target and to avoid getting bogged down with too much stress.
Be Flexible: If you want to avoid major stress, then it’s important not to have your heart set too much on a particular home or a particular value for your deposit. While you might have ideas for what you want, life may well have other designs and having too specific a goal can just place too much strain on you to save at that specific rate.
