Natalie O’Neill started saving aged just 20 for a house. Less than a decade later, she had one
Howard Lloyd Regional content editor
13:30, 07 Apr 2026
How I saved money for £650K house
A single woman bought a £650,000 home in London in her 20s without “the bank of mum and dad” by using the 50 30 20 rule. Natalie O’Neill, now 30, took 10 years to save the £65,000 deposit she needed for her two-bed home in Hackney, East London – and began when she was earning just £26,000 a year aged 20.
The ex-marketing exec used the 50 30 20 rule – a simple budgeting method which divides your after-tax income into 50% for needs, 30% for wants and 20% for savings or debt repayment. Starting by saving £100 to £200 per month she was eventually saving £2,000 a month due to multiple promotions at work.
She also began investing aged 24 and “learned by doing stupid things”, as well as using her credit card every day to pay for her food shopping to improve her credit score. These four principles – a pay day routine, monthly investing, using credit cards responsibly and negotiating higher salaries meant she was able to save £70,000 for her home and stamp duty which she bought in August 2025.
Natalie, an influencer, from Hackney, East London said: “I remember when I was about 22, just after I’d moved to London I remember having a conversation with my boss about personal finances and they were telling me about the 50, 30, 20 rule and how it was a well-known way to put X amount in your savings.
Natalie started her first marketing job when she was 18 on a £16,000 salary(Image: SWNS)
“In 2020, I started investing. I learned by doing, when I started, doing stupid things and investing but losing money. You don’t have to lose money to learn like I did, but just getting started and doing what you can is better than doing nothing when it comes to saving money.
“I opened my stocks and shares ISA in 2020, it’s earned me £15,000 up to now. Every time I would get a pay rise I would make it a non-negotiable when I got paid I would pay my bills, rent, and I didn’t spend a lot on my credit card but that was my time to pay off my credit.
“Eventually, probably at my highest salary I had for six months at £95,000 on that salary, I was able to save £2,000, which is amazing. A lot of the salary came from investing free money, I got £15,000 for free as you don’t have to pay tax on a stocks and shares ISA.”
Natalie started her first marketing job when she was 18 on a £16,000 salary, while she was living with her boyfriend at the time, renting. She started taking budgeting seriously after moving to London at 22.
She began using credit cards to pay for things like her weekly food shop to help improve her credit rating and, by the time she reached her highest salary, she was able to save £2,000 per month. She admits she lost around £3,000 over three years by picking stocks, before using Nutmeg to open a stocks and shares ISA in 2020 which earned her £15,000 alone.
Natalie also managed to negotiate higher salaries – negotiating a pay increase from £28,000 to £33,000 at her first London job on the basis that her performance was good after her first three months, before increasing the salary on a job she was offered from £75,000 to £95,000.
She worked across multiple companies to earn £95,000 in her last role before she moved to become an influencer in 2023, and bought her home in August 2025. Natalie advises against “lifestyle creep” – where discretionary spending increases in line with income, turning former luxuries into perceived necessities.
She also says people are ‘hiding from debt’, saying: “It’s different if you’re tens of thousands of pounds in debt. People who can pay off their debt and are avoiding – it is a bit like procrastinating.
“I think coming up with a plan of how much you can pay now and later re-invest is the best idea when it comes to paying off debt. There’s an emotional side to money and with paying off debt it’s about forward momentum – believing you’re moving in the right direction with repayments”.
Natalie has used credit cards for eight years, and says the goal is to spend only what you would “spend in cash”. She said: “I started by putting what I did daily that was expensive like my food shopping on my credit card and pay it off weekly. The aim is not carrying over the balance and paying it off in full”.
As a naturally “frugal person”, Natalie says she will always go to the supermarket with a plan of what to buy and “got quite strict” with orders to Deliveroo to help save. All these habits enabled her to buy her first home, a two-bed flat for £650,000 – putting down a deposit of £65,000 and paying £5,000 in stamp duty in 2025.
“It does feel good,” she says. “Honestly, giving away £70,000 feels terrible though. Especially in this day and age it’s not a fun economy and giving away that much money feels terrible but I’m reminding myself I do have the money, its just in an asset.
“Online, I’ve had a few comments, one person said about my work that ‘marketing salaries don’t exist on that level’ or ‘I could never hope to earn that much’.
“I do think money is so emotionally tied and the more I think about it it’s tied to self-belief and confidence and feeling you can ask for more. It’s a fine line between being arrogant and delusional but I think people should be a bit more delusional than they are to believe that more is possible in your career and in life”.