✦Property · 11 recordsSave a house deposit

Deposit saving fails on a number pulled from the air. This works out what you actually need in the place you actually want to buy, including the costs nobody mentions, then builds the monthly transfer that reaches it.

Install this templateSee the others

Free on any plan. You will see this list again in the app, and nothing is created until you press install.

✦ Everything it creates

The whole plan, before you install it

Goal

Reach the deposit for a real place Month 12

A number worked out from where I am actually buying, not an average.

Work out the real number Week 4

Including the costs nobody mentions.

  • Look at what places actually cost where I want to liveDo firstDay 7
  • Add legal fees, survey, tax and moving to the targetDo firstWeek 2
  • Divide by the months and see if the figure is honestDo firstWeek 3

Save toward it Month 12

Automatic, into an account it cannot leak out of.

  • Open the right kind of savings accountWeek 4
  • Set the transfer for the day after paydayWeek 5
  • Review the target against prices at six monthsMonth 6

Routines

  • Check the savings balanceweekly
✦ It comes with a note

The costs nobody mentions

Legal fees, a survey, moving, transaction tax and furniture for rooms you did not have before. Together they are often a meaningful fraction of the deposit itself.\n\nLeaving them out is how completion becomes stressful, so they are in the target from the start rather than discovered at the end.

✦ Questions

Save a house deposit, answered.

It depends entirely on where you are buying, which is why working that out is the first task rather than an assumption. A percentage of a national average is the number most people save toward and almost nobody actually needs.
Legal fees, surveys, moving, any transaction tax, and the furniture for the rooms you did not have before. Together they are often a meaningful fraction of the deposit itself, and leaving them out is how completion becomes stressful.
However long the arithmetic says, which is the point of doing it first. The plan is built around a monthly transfer sized to a real target, so the date comes out of the numbers rather than being wished for.
✦ More templates

Other systems you can install

Property

Buy a house

Everything between an agreed offer and the keys, in the order it actually happens.

Property

Sell a house

Get it ready, get it listed, and keep the chain moving once an offer lands.

Property

Remortgage

Start six months before the fixed rate ends, so the standard variable rate never applies.

Home

Run the household

The admin that has no deadline until suddenly it does, given somewhere to live.

Install it and start this evening

It takes one press. Everything it creates is tagged, so if it turns out not to suit you, it is easy to find and remove together.

Install this template