I don’t know about you, but im getting a bit tired of seeing these ‘I bought a house at 20!’ or ‘I saved enough money for a mortgage at 18!’ articles and then when I click on them, they did it by living with their parents, paying no bills, no going out for 2 years etc.
Or my favourite was their dad had paid for the house and he was paying his dad back.

Its not realistic for us all, and sometimes it gets me down, as someone who is looking to buy a house hopefully in the next few years. Its getting harder and harder to get onto the property ladder and sometimes it doesn’t matter how much you save, you never seem to get there.

But I wanted to share a realistic goal to saving, something that I started at the start of the year and its working for me.

Savings are hard. In the UK my savings account was just an account, nothing really went in. When you open a bank account they almost always open you a savings account too. Using it as the banks intend it to be is the hard part.

I always have savings, it’s like a safety net. I always transfer an amount every payday and usually its fine and it’ll build up. However sometimes your struggling till next pay and you’ll put what you transferred earlier straight back into your cheque account.
I know some people who transfer it all into savings in hopes they wont spend it but they still find a way to my till point and transfer it back.

However a small thing I’ve been doing recently is I have a joint savings account that came with our joint bank account. We don’t use it and I thought, heck why not randomly transfer money in their and see what happens? So every pay I transfer 5dollars into that account. Getting paid fortnightly means 10dollars a month goes into this joint savings. As silly and little as it sounds, it’s a small step. Those 5dollars dont mean anything to me and if I keep doing it what’s the harm? I see it as emergency money. Who knows one day I might have enough in their to take my man on a super cool date with it. All from 5 dollars. That’s a small thing you can do.

The other thing ive learnt for me, personally, the best way to save is a different bank account.
We opened a joint savings account with a completely separate bank to any either of us had. And it helps, money comes out automatically each pay day and we can change the amount to suit us. I check it just to make sure the money has gone in/track out progress. But other than that I kind of forget it exists. I forget that money is ours, our money that we are saving, because we don’t touch the account. Its built way faster than I thought it would and it feels good to remind ourselves that we’re okay. This is our big safety net for if our little one breaks.

For someone who has bills, rent, no parents to buy a house/deposit for me. This is the best thing that is working with us and our future. Forgetting its there resists the temptation to touch it, you don’t use it because its not on your banking screen when youre checking if you can afford to go out. Being able to adjust it freely and have it come out automatically means the money was never in my account to start with.