Automated Homefinder, Colorado's best Making a Down Payment Takes Careful Planning
For many potential home buyers, one of the toughest hurdles to buying a home is saving up for the down payment. With most home sales, you must have as much as 20 percent before you can get the mortgage. That overwhelms many home buyers and it might deter them from even attempting to get into a home. Fortunately, though, there are many simple and small actions that you can take to save thousands of dollars a year towards a down payment. In this article we outline some of those things along with a general estimate of how much you can save with each one.
Cut Down on the Soda
For some people, eating in restaurants is a real necessity. With busy schedules and incessant obligations, many people really don't have time or opportunity to prepare meals. Still, though, you can save when you eat out. Sodas cost up to $3 at most places. And if you're dining with your spouse, that makes an additional 6 dollars added on the total. If you eat in a restaurant three times a week, that can add up to almost $20 spent on glasses of soda! Multiply that by 52 weeks and you can see you'll be spending more than $1,000 over a year's time for fizzy beverages! Instead, drink water at restaurants when you're dining out and save the habit of drinking soda for when you're home, where you can get a whole two-liter bottle of it from the corner store for a buck. Better yet, you can fulfill your needs for almost nothing if your tap water is safe and tastes acceptable. That includes just about anywhere in the United States, and in most other places as well.
You Can Rent Things Instead of Buying
No, we're not talking about staying in your rented apartment -- there are lots of things, though, that are available for rent where it is a good choice not to buy. Are you in the habit of buying DVDs and CDs? If you want to save a big amount for the down payment on a home, you'll need to forego this. But that doesn't mean giving up your movies or music. It's easy to rent DVDs through one of the online rental companies or at your local rental shop. It's just as easy to get DVDs and CDs at your library. Most people only watch a movie one time anyway, so it makes good sense to reduce this kind of cost using one of these ways to reduce the cost.
Do You Really Need Paper Towels?
Paper towels are a great convenience, but they can cost you around a dollar a roll. That's not much, but it can add up really quickly if you go through them as a habit. Use rags or towels that you can rinse out and reuse. If you really must use paper towels, use them conservatively. Hang them over your sink to dry and use them a second or third time. This could save you perhaps $100 a year.
Do Your Reading Online
Just making that purchase at the checkout counter can cost you as much as $100 in a year's time. Those magazines and newspapers might seem like nothing, but like a steady drip in a pipe costs you a huge amount of money on your water bill, they add up over the course of a year. Nowadays, much of the same information can be found online without having to pay anything extra for it. In addition to that, finding your information online doesn't use up as much in terms of resources and is a better environmental choice.
Think About Your Driving Habits
With gas prices these days, we can't talk about saving money without a gas-saving tip. Even during the lowest points of the oil price cycles in recent years, gasoline is a large item in most household expenditure patterns. Plan your errands so that you're not driving from one side of town to the other and back. Also, don't drive faster than necessary. If you drive the same amount in a year as the national average, you can expect to save around each month by driving more carefully. That's $120 or more each year that you can your home owning goal.
These are just some ways that you can use to save for a down payment. After you get started with a few new habits, you will naturally think of others. The best thing to do is evaluate each purchase and determine if it is really necessary. If there are less costly alternatives, don't be afraid to use them until you have your down payment.
Article furnished courtesy of the Boulder Colorado professionals, Automated Homefinder.
