The media is a party-pooper. They love banging on about how high house have become. How the young people will never be able to afford a roof over their heads. Not unless they move out of the city.

They’ll remind you that our wages simply have not kept up with house prices so you get a situation where you work your butts off but you barely make a debt in that deposit. They say you might as well keep on watching Netflix while eating your Deliveroo takeouts since you don’t stand a chance anyway. Oh, and don’t you dare ditch your fancy coffee, right? That won’t make a difference either. 

All this chat that slowly makes its way into our precious little minds is so dangerous and makes me so mad! If you have that attitude and adopt the media’s misery I swear you’ll be renting all your lives. If you believe the media and fall for their doom and gloom, you’ll be doomed. You gotta be a silly little optimist. Otherwise, you will not stand a chance. 

Do it yourself – don’t rely on anyone else

I’m a big believer in not relying on anyone to do things. Don’t rely on the Bank of Mum & Dad to bail you out. You gotta have the courage to do it on your own and if you do get some £££s from your folks then count yourself lucky but don’t bank on their bank being open for biz! And definitely don’t wait for the gov to introduce measures to help first-time-buyers. 

Because you could be left waiting. For who-knows-how long. Have the mindset of Anything is Possible. Because it is. With enough grit, determination and not giving a care what others think of you you can get on the property ladder. Oh, and btw don’t wait for your boss either! Give yourself a promotion pronto.

But no one said it would be easy. Why should it be?! All the best things in life take work, effort, blood sweat and tears. Trust me, the feeling of working for something on your own (rather than getting a trust fund payout – though that sounds lovely too) is incredible. It’s empowering. 

We look at boomers and boo – but why?

The media is jealous of all those baby boomers. The folk who were able to buy houses at rock-bottom. They’re now lapping it up. Enjoying the long-term compounding effects of one of the best asset classes out there. But hating them for having wealth ain’t gonna give you yours!

Nostalgia is a dangerous thing. It makes us to think the past was a gazillion times better than it actually was. I’m glad I wasn’t growing in the 60s. Going to uni to study finance as a girl would probs have me laughed at! And only 10% of women studied at uni back then!

We have so many more opportunities now. You can be whatever you wanna be. The only thing stopping you is yourself. Back then working mums were the odd ones out. Now, there are so many more options to help parents with newborns. My previous line manager (male btw) just took 6 months off to have his kid. It can be done. 

Oh gosh I’ve totally derailed myself here ha, ha! Back to bricks and mortar! 

You can go down the rabbit hole as I did, trying to figure out whether life was easier/cheaper/simpler whatever back then. That the dads went to work and the mums stayed home looking after the kids. They were able to afford a nice house with nice vacations. On one salary. Try doing that in London! 

My parents, with zero handouts from bank of Mum & Dad, were able to buy a house in just 4 years of working. They literally saved every penny.

They didn’t own a car, didn’t waste money on dining out or travelling abroad. They put everything they could into that deposit. And they had a house a the end of it. Oh and btw, they didn’t have swanky jobs. My dad was just starting out at a software biz and my mum was a dental nurse. 

Now I tell them even if I saved everything I’d be able to afford a tiny studio! Our salaries just aren’t keeping up. The average Gen Z and Millenium could NOT buy a house in 4 years let alone a room. But that doesn’t mean you should stop.

You have 2 choices: a) you can keep on spending all your money on subscriptions, fancy clothes, whatnot or b) be a little frugal now so you can spend when it really matters! 

I was chatting to someone at uni and about personal finance. She told me how her fellow students hit the designer stores as soon as their student loans fill their account. And to tell you the truth, this is the attitude so many people have.

But if you follow the crowd, you’ll end up like the crowd. Dare to do what no one else is doing. 

Buying a house, a home, a piece of land you can call your own is NOT meant to be easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy. Problem is, we’re just so used to having things here and now. We expect things to be easy that when they’re not, we suddenly give up. 

House prices may come down thanks to interest rates

I know house prices have gotten way out of hand. From London to NYC the price of a 1-bed flat in town will break the bank. Try renting one and watch your salary vanish before your eyes. But over the past year and a bit, banks have been bringing rates up. Way up. They’re now 5.25% here in the UK which means the cost of a mortgage has skyrocketed.

This is bad news for people looking to remortgage or for anyone remortgaging right now aka new buyers. It’s become so stupidly expensive to service that debt (it’s not like your house suddenly gets a free makeover) it legit feels like money down the drain that it makes it more expensive to buy something of your own.

Less people looking to buy a property? All else equal, prices will start to come down. Even a 10% correction will take some heat out of the boiling pot. You still need that big chunk of the deposit and waiting for a 20% price drop is not as great as it sounds. It’ll mean the economy is bad shape. Think redundancies on steroids.

But yeah, as a young person I do want prices to come down and believe they will, all I’m saying is be careful of what comes along with it and be prepared – like investing when markets fall and not hugging your cash for dear life.

Speaking of investing…

Get your money running – not walking! 

Saving money for a deposit is like walking to catch the bus. Pretty useless. You gotta run for it. Give your deposit a boost by investing your moola, not hoarding it, keeping your account warm and making those big banks even more profit!

They’re not exactly passing on the full wack of these increased rates to you & I are they, huh. Meanwhile inflation is chewing on our money like it’s bubble gum or something. 

If you have 5-10 years till you think about buying a place of your own then invest in the stock market. Any shorter than that and it’s too risky. Here’s why stocks are the riskiest today but the safest forever. The longer you stick to your stocks the bigger the chance of success.

So when you save for your deposit, don’t really do that – invest for it! The more you’re able to invest, the better. It’s a habit so work at it and eventually it’ll work for you.

If you dunno where to start, here are 3 blogs (sorry, some are a wee bit outdated!) that might help: 

1. Why you have face your finances even if scares you https://kneadyourdough.uk/2023/06/19/why-not-facing-your-finances-will-cost-you-thousands-how-you-can-turn-it-around-in-3-simple-steps/ 
2. Why stocks are the best in the long-run https://kneadyourdough.uk/2023/05/26/%f0%9f%93%88this-one-asset-is-the-riskiest-in-the-short-term-today-but-the-safest-forever-in-the-long-term-and-why-the-younger-you-are-the-more-of-it-youll-want/ 
3. Here’s what you need to know before you start investing https://kneadyourdough.uk/2023/05/21/%f0%9f%8f%81heres-what-you-need-to-know-before-you-start-investing/

Or you can simply head to my homepage where I bet you’ll find loads more info! 

The small sums matter (yes, more than you think)

Ah, the oh-so-controversial stuff.

You’ll probs agree with the media. That ditching your daily coffee (or not-so-daily thanks to WFH) of £3.50 is not gonna move the needle. You’ll tell me you need a pick-me-up and honestly if a £3.50 is gonna transform your day from a 1 to a 10 then go for it. That’s what treats are for.

And we should all have them. But ‘treating’ yourself to a coffee everyday ain’t a treat anymore. That adds up to £1,176 p/yr and that’s without inflation! Over 5 years that’s £5,880 on coffees. Assuming you can borrow 4X your annual salary each £1 is basically £4 toward a mortgage so those coffees start to be worth £23,520!

I know it sounds a bit mental and yeah, no one really thinks like that (apart from me lol) but I’m just showing you how one tiny change can make a gigantic difference. 

Most of us have 10+ subscriptions – madness no? Trim them to save $150+ p/month. Say each one costs £9.99 that’s legit 100 quid a month on STUFF YOU PROBABLY DO NOT NEED.

Instead, have a nice lil’ audit of your subscriptions and see what 1 or 2 you wanna keep. £9.99 for prime is a brill deal since you read to read, watch, listen and buy. But I’ve had amazon prime for a month and I’ve bought so much “stuff”. It boosts your spending impulse and that’s the whole point I guess but it all adds up.

What I’m getting at here is that saving for a deposit is a mindset thing. Think you can’t and you probably won’t. Think you can and you probably will. People who spend willy-nilly thinking 10 bucks here and 20 bucks there won’t really make a difference are fooling themselves.

And it works in the reverse btw. Think small amounts into your investment account is useful? Try having none and then talk about useless!

So get going and build your house brick by brick. Don’t let anyone tell you you can’t.

Disclaimer: This blog is not investment or financial advice. It is my opinion only. This blog is not a personal recommendation to buy/sell any security, or to adopt any such investment strategy. Always do your own research before you commit to any investment.