Published:
May 16, 2025

Guide to saving for a down payment

Starting your down payment nest egg

Set a down payment goal 🎯

  • Yes, you need to set a goal, but luckily it’s fairly easy. Assuming you are a first-time home buyer with a credit score over 620, round up from a 3.5% down payment to 5% (so you can cover closing costs).
  • Example: 
    • 5% of a $500,000 home = $25,000
    • I have $10,000 saved already, so $25,000 - $10,000 = $15,000
    • I need to save $15,000 more to have a sufficient down payment.
    • If I want to buy a home in 2 years (24 months) I will need to save $625 a month.

Find and stop unwanted monthly payments 🙈

  • It feels like everything is a subscription nowadays, which means you might be paying for something you had no clue are getting charged for every month. Even a $12/month recurring payment adds up, so let’s cancel it!
  • RocketMoney - Finds and unsubscribes you from monthly subscriptions for you.
  • Trim - Can find bills you might be paying too much for and automatically negotiate bills down for you as well as late payments. They claim to save users $600 / year on average.

Manually review your spending every week 🤓

  • You got this! Once you get in the habit of checking it a few weeks in a row you will actually look forward to doing this. As scary as this is to start, it becomes empowering.
  • Once a week or at least twice a month, log into your banking app and go through purchases. 
  • Not only will this let you identify recurring payments you might not know you were paying, it will help you identify what you spend money on and possibly budget better.

Grow your savings 🤑

  • Automate a specific amount of your paycheck to get transferred to a high yield savings account.
  • Acorns - Automatically save and invest your money on anything you buy. Works by rounding up purchases to the nearest dollar and using that money to invest for you.
  • Robinhood savings account - Earn 4% on your cash with no minimums and no restrictions. Setup automatic transfers on your pay day to add regular funds and watch it grow.
  • There are a bunch of high-yield savings accounts available now that return +3% as well. Robinhood is not the only one.

Trade-in your rent 💰

  • House sit instead of rent! This might sound wild, but it is very real and growing in popularity. One Nestment buyer used TrustedHouseSitters.com for 2 years and saved almost $100K for her down payment. She also didn’t need to pay for utilities, parking, garbage, water, etc. 
  • Live with a relative. We get it, having independence and freedom is amazing, but saving for a down payment can sometimes mean making sacrifices. If you have a relative with a spare room that is open to renting it to you at a discount, this could be a great temporary saving hack. Even if you can do this for 6 months, you can give yourself a nice nest egg towards your future home.
  • Work remote from a less expensive city. If you are fortunate enough to work remotely, take advantage of it! Move to a less expensive city or country for a period of time to save money on rent, groceries, utilities, and more. 

Downgrade your car 🚗

  • If you are making payments on an expensive car or lease, it might be time to think about downgrading to something more economical and reasonable, or something with better gas mileage. Not only will your monthly payments go down, it is likely your car insurance will go down as well.

Save on groceries and shopping 🛒

  • Flipp - THE grocery and convenience store coupon app for all of your shopping needs. Easy to use coupons for the most popular stores. Claims to save shoppers $49/week on average. 
  • Fetch - Earn points when you shop and redeem them for gift cards.
  • DoorDash happy hour deals.
  • Buying bulk at Costco. For singles and couples things like toilet paper, paper towels, cleaning supplies, trash bags, etc can really make a dent.
  • Swap late nights for happy hours.

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Need a little help getting started?

Schedule a call with one of our house hacking coordinators. We're friendly... promise.

Nestment, Inc. does not guarantee and is in no way responsible for the accuracy of information provided in this blog post. All information is provided “AS IS” and with all faults. Data presented here may not reflect all real estate activity in the market.  While the information on this site is about legal and tax issues, it is not intended as legal or tax advice or as a substitute for the particularized advice of your own attorney and tax professional.

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