I’m a first-time buyer – we bought our £440,000 first home after following the 50/50 method
FIRST-TIME buyers Akhilesh Ravi and his wife challenged themselves to live on just one wage to raise the deposit for their dream home.
Software engineers Akhilesh, 38, and his wife Sri Latha Settipalli, 37, bought their £440,000 first home in the outskirts of Glasgow in July this year.
Like many other first time buyers, the couple needed to cut back on spending to help save up cash for a deposit.
With two young daughters, aged eight and four, they knew it wasn’t going to be easy, but they were keen to settle down as a family.
To save up for a deposit as quickly as possible, they decided to live on just half of their combined income – known as the 50/50 method.
This meant the family paid for all of their household bills and grocery shopping out of just one wage of around £2,000 a month.
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This meant that the second wage – which was between £1,500 and £2,000 – was going straight towards the deposit.
This of course won’t be possible for everyone, and it’s important not to leave yourself short every month.
It took the couple around 18 months to save up the deposit for their first home and it would vary whose wage was saved from month to month.
Akhilesh said that the couple managed to do most of their saving during the coronavirus lockdown, which naturally helped.
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Plus, they reduced their restaurant visits and takeaway orders, cut out holidays and saved money by working from home.
But they still had to pay around £850 in rent every month.
We sat down with Akhilesh to see how he went from being a saver to a homeowner for The Sun’s My First Home series.
Tell me about your house
It’s a new build, four-bedroom detached house in Newton Mearns, just a few miles outside of Glasgow city centre.
It has a large family bathroom upstairs as well as a smaller en suite.
We have a separate living room, an open-plan kitchen and dining area and an integral garage.
The main bedroom has lovely integrated wardrobes.
There is also a garden which is perfect for our children to play in.
How did you decide on the location?
My family and I were previously living in Shawlands in Glasgow.
Although the location was very central, we wanted to move somewhere that was better suited to having a young family.
The most important thing was that we moved to an area that had good schools.
Once we found the newbuild property, part of a new housing development by homebuilder Cala, we knew it was the right fit for us.
There is a school within the development and we have great neighbours.
How much was it?
Our home was £440,000 and we put down a 15% deposit of £66,000.
We took out a mortgage of £374,000 over a 25-year term at a five-year fixed rate of 2.2%.
Our repayments are around £2,000 a month.
How did you save for it?
We started to save really hard from the end of 2019.
We decided to live on just half of our combined income – known as the 50/50 method.
Doing this meant we could put away between £1,500 and £2,000 – the equivalent of one monthly salary.
We then had around the same amount of money left to pay for essentials like households bills and food shopping.
All of this money then went towards the deposit.
The coronavirus lockdowns also helped us to streamline our spending and cut down on things like eating out.
When my wife and I were travelling to work, we would often be too tired to cook so we would eat out or order a takeaway as a family.
We would do this around two or three times a week, and as a family of four, this would add up quickly.
We saved around £500 a month by cutting back on takeaways and eating out.
All of this money would then go towards our deposit.
As a family, we also liked to go on holidays twice a year and each trip would cost around £3,000.
We didn’t do this at all between 2020 and putting our deposit down in October 2021.
This saved us around £12,000.
My wife and I would also commute to work before the pandemic, using public transport.
At the peak of the pandemic when we were working from home full time, we were saving around £60 a month by cutting this cost.
How did you afford to furnish it?
We knew that we needed to save beyond the deposit to afford furniture.
We bought everything in stages to spread out the cost and we still have some furniture to buy.
What advice would you give to other first-time buyers?
My advice would be get on the property ladder as soon as possible.
I wish I had done it sooner, especially with having children.
It may seem daunting, especially during the cost of living crisis, but putting money towards a deposit is always worth it.
Rents are going up too and you may find that monthly mortgage repayments aren’t much different.
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