Brides Helping Brides ™ - saving for a wedding and a place to live??

eddies girl Posted: Sep 04, 2006 09:49 PM

saving for a wedding and a place to live??

okay for those of you paying for ur wedding and not yet living with ur fh...how are u doing it? how much do u save a month? we have two years and im scared..im graduating this year and he is waiting to get called for training for his job which is an air traffic controller

ant n tilde Posted: Sep 04, 2006 09:54 PM

Re: saving for a wedding and a place to live??

well we are not going to buy a house until a year or two after the wedding

but as for saving - i save about $1000 each month and put that into my ING account which is SO HELPFUL bc the interest is GREAT and since its not in my regular bank account i won't take it out - i havent touched it once

FH is paying for all the deposits and everything that we have to pay NOW before the wedding - once the final payments come we are going to use our ING account for that

then we are living with my parents in an apt. upstairs rent free for a year or two until we can save a down payment for a house ( we are staying in Queens so we need a ridiculous amount of $$$$ for this) plus some gifts from the wedding will help to!

HTH! this is working out really well for us!

Dee606 Posted: Sep 04, 2006 10:00 PM

Re: saving for a wedding and a place to live??

If you can do this... It's the best thing i ever did regarding saving money (i am living at home until FH & I find a place so my living expenses aren't crazy).... I split my paycheck where maybe 30%-40% of it goes into one account(my spending account) and the rest goes into a savings account which i DO NOT touch or try not to touch. Also if you have a pretty decent ammount of savings you could open a short term CD of about 6 or 7 months.

eddies girl Posted: Sep 04, 2006 11:21 PM

Re: saving for a wedding and a place to live??

my fh and i are each going to put away 500 a month for the next two years but im thinking thats not that much if we are paying for our wedding...but once we both get our real jobs within the next two yrs then we prob can save more...but im thinking what are we going to get because we would both like to not rent and buy a condo but i dont know if that will happen

karen6474 Posted: Sep 04, 2006 11:26 PM

Re: saving for a wedding and a place to live??

we're not buying a house until after we get married- we are moving out of state

rojerono Posted: Sep 05, 2006 06:38 AM

Re: saving for a wedding and a place to live??

Okay... well FH and I live together and have for the past 5 years... BUT we knew we were going to get married and we also knew that we wanted a house - so we WERE doing some heavy duty savings for both for a while. Here is how we did it.

I asked my boss to do a split direct deposit about 3 years ago. Basically he puts a set amount into my savings account each week. He puts the balance into my checking account. I never see the savings money and it almost tricks me into thinking it 'isn't' there, so I can't spend it.

FH would deposit his checks and move the same amount of money into savings each week. Around the 15th of every month - after we had paid all of our bills - if there was ANY money left in checking - we moved it right into savings. This meant that our checking account always had a relatively low balance. Which was fine. We basically wanted to just be certain that the bills were getting paid. It helped teach us exactly how much we needed to survive without the 'extras' that a house would bring. The first month we only had $200 dollars left after bills!!!! This was a big red flag that we were spending WAAYYY too much.

So we started evaluating our lifestyle and our purchases. And kept refining and tweaking. Eventually we found a way to live a decent life, but still afford a home. And we used the money we had dumped into savings to buy a house.

So here is the advantage of buying a home first... when you buy a house... people THROW money at you. It is almost sickening. We knew that with the money we put down we would be able to get a Home Equity Line of Credit without any problem, right away. It will bump up our monthly payments a bit when we start using it - but we only pay interest on what we use AND the interest is tax deductible for the most part. Which is a LOT better than maxing out MC/Visa. Plus, since the payments are spread out over 20-30 years, they are fairly nominal.

Anyway... that's how we saved for the wedding and the house.

Now we got the house and we are working on the wedding!

GOOD LUCK!!!!!!!

*wheeeeeeeeeeee*

dbleplay17 Posted: Sep 05, 2006 06:42 AM

Re: saving for a wedding and a place to live??

we saved for a yr & 1/2 and about 3 months b4 the wedding we moved into an apt. A house was out of th question for us right n...we are in the process of huse hunting now....

we each put away 1K a month. It was really tough...but u make it work. We also put our tax return in and any other end we get money on ( i tutor sometimes)

it works out just keep on saving

hth

Glamorousbride Posted: Sep 05, 2006 11:51 AM

Re: saving for a wedding and a place to live??

My fh and I just try not to spend anything but at the end of the month after we pay off our cars (hyundai accents- nothing fancy), insurance, phone, and other small bills we only get to save about $400 a month. We put away our tax returns and we're just going with the flow. Our wedding is a little over a year away and we have 1/2 the money we need saved.

We're not buying a house for a few years. Once I'm done with school and begin my career (late 2008), things will be so much easier. We're living in a small apartment that my parents are partners on for a reduced amount of rent.

kris01 Posted: Sep 05, 2006 12:32 PM

Re: saving for a wedding and a place to live??

I currently still live @ home which is good b/c my only bills are my cell phone, car insurance and any cc bills I have for the month. FH lives in a 2 family house he owns so he has rent coming in to pay for the mortgage and the house bills.
But it is really hard. I was thinking about it this weekend about how much money I should put away each month and it is ALOT!!. It is kind of scary but I know FH & I will be able to save and pay for the wedding over a year away.One thing I will not be able to do this football season is go shopping!!!

-Kris

irishsweetheart Posted: Sep 05, 2006 12:34 PM

Re: saving for a wedding and a place to live??

I think the main key is not buying a house right away like the other girls have said. Me and FH are on a steady saving schedule and he just got off of review at his job so he can now start working OT and any of that extra money goes straight into the savings no matter how little it may be. My OT $$$ doesn't go in to the saving cause I'm also trying to save $$ to give my sister a bridal shower and bachelorette party and stuff since she's getting married 5 months before me and I'm her MOH

It's really hard but definitely do-able. Though I know at least for me and my FH paying for a wedding AND buying a house would be impossible. We plan on moving into the smallest apartment we can find so it will be easier after the wedding to save for the house!

waterspout4 Posted: Sep 05, 2006 12:40 PM

Re: saving for a wedding and a place to live??

I took a second job and DH started volunteering for any overtime that he could. The money from any of this was put aside into savings.

betani Posted: Sep 05, 2006 12:46 PM

Re: saving for a wedding and a place to live??

we're not saving for a house just yet. we're renting right now and all of my salary is going towards my student loans b/c i have a LOT and want to get those out of the way before investing in anything else. we're gonna be moving back home next year w/ my parents for a while so that'll save us a bit, but i don't think i'm gonna be doing much savings until my loans are paid off. whatever's left of fh's check goes into savings, but it's not much.

eddies girl Posted: Sep 05, 2006 12:56 PM

Re: saving for a wedding and a place to live??

im sorry i didnt mean a house, i meant a condo or co-op..but still lots of $$$$ lol

salee11wedding Posted: Sep 05, 2006 01:41 PM

Re: saving for a wedding and a place to live??

Just purchased a coop and I am saving for my wedding. Was very difficult but I'm saving 1k a month.

MnM52607 Posted: Sep 05, 2006 02:06 PM

Re: saving for a wedding and a place to live??

Fh and I have been saving since January and are getting married May of next year. We got a lot of money from our engagement party so that helped. Also, the company I was working for got sold so I was given a transition bonus to help them get situated. That was a HUGE help. And now I found a job making more money.

I am saving a lot more than FH but he has a lot more bills than I do. I am still living at home so it's easier for me to save. I know my parents are giving us a really nice gift so that is going to be used towards a down payment on a house. I still have some money in my savings that I can use also.

Little by little, things will get done. We want to have a house before we get married but if not, then we will just rent an apartment.

Meaghan729 Posted: Sep 05, 2006 02:10 PM

Re: saving for a wedding and a place to live??

we save almost $3K a month

we both have good jobs, and we never go out. we both still live at home, so we dont pay rent.

the only debt we have is student loans and one car loan.

ETAB Posted: Sep 05, 2006 02:31 PM

Re: saving for a wedding and a place to live??

I rent now and am trying to put away 1.5K a month my FH has nto been able to save, he just graduated school and owns a house that he is paying the mortgage on.. so hopefully we will be able to save enough by the wedding! when we get married I wil move into his house...

angnick Posted: Sep 05, 2006 02:51 PM

Re: saving for a wedding and a place to live??

we tried to buy a house before we got married, and it just didnt happen. it is ok. we are just getting used to married life now, we have never ived togetehr before. it is nice to not have to worry about a mortgage, we can just relax and enjoy each other, and enjoy our first year of married life.

we also paid for our own wedding, so almost every penny we saved went to the wedding.. WE had a little left over, but not much. our gifts helped out a lot so we will use that and a little more toward a down payment!!!

snydl40 Posted: Sep 05, 2006 03:11 PM

Re: saving for a wedding and a place to live??

Between the two of us we are putting away $3000 a month for house and the wedding-it's hard-but it'll be worth it.

EastEndBride Posted: Sep 05, 2006 03:31 PM

Re: saving for a wedding and a place to live??

I can't say enough good things about using ING automatic savings! Check it out online- its the highest yielding savings you'll find. Right now my paycheck goes into my checking, and at the same time a set amount goes to ING with every paycheck. I don't even have to think about it & I never touch it, since I can't get it by ATM. I also live by an incredibly strict budget, just to get the wedding paid for. (we're doing it 100% on our own) We also don't plan to house hunt until 1-2 years after the wedding, there's no rush.
Good luck- you can do it!