I slashed my £1,000 a month spending in half to help buy £215,000 first home in just two years – here’s how I did it

FIRST-TIME buyer Simi Jolaoso drastically overhauled her finances, cutting her monthly spending in half to help save up for a deposit for her first home.

The 29-year-old journalist, originally from Edmonton, London, admitted she used to splurge nearly £1,000 a month on dinners out, clothes and pricey groceries.

But in 2018, after realising she radically needed to change her lifestyle to build up her savings, Simi budgeted “every single aspect” of her life, right down to whether she would be buying fresh or frozen food, every month.

Paying her car insurance off in one chunk instead of monthly installments and using cashback websites helped Simi stash £300 to £500 away into her savings account each month.

She managed to raise enough cash to make an offer on a house in just two years - with no financial help from friends or family and paying up to £600 a month in rent over this time.

She used the government’s Help to Buy scheme, taking out an equity loan of £43,000 and putting down just under £11,000 for a deposit for a two-bed flat in Kent she fell in love with in August last year.

Despite facing a number of delays to her Help to Buy application and other setbacks to the house buying process, Simi exchanged and moved into her new flat in February this year.

She’s also a live-in landlord and rents out her spare room for £650 per month.

This means that she can build back her savings and focus on paying off her Help to Buy equity loan within five years - otherwise she’ll be paying back thousands of pounds in interest on her repayments after this point.

We chatted to Simi about exactly how she managed to turn her finances around and bag the flat of her dreams for The Sun’s My First Home series.