Saving to buy a house - tips/advice

Hi all Not a problem so much as advice needed... In our house there is me, hubz, and our four children aged 9, 6, 4 and 2. Hubz works full-time Mon-Fri and I am a stay-at-home-mum. 9 and 6 year old are at school, younger two attend nursery and preschool on a number of mornings. Hubz is on a low wage, and money is fairly tight. We agreed I would stay at home until they are all in full-time school then go back to work. At this point it is not financially viable for me to get another job - we have worked it all out and we simply have to wait until I can earn over a certain amount which would be in full-time work. We can manage, we live a fairly simple lifestyle, we have a vehicle needed to get the kids to school. We are saving for a deposit on a house. After I looked at things and rearranged how we organise our money, we realised we have a little more left over each month than before. So we can put away a small chunk every month and have a rough timescale of when we can do this by depending on how much we want to save. We are desperate to buy! Our current house is fine, in a nice area, but we are REALLY cramped for space. The younger two share a box room (which is tiny), which we can JUST about fit a single and a junior bed into with literally NO room for anything else, but soon enough that's not going to be feasible and they'll still be too young for bunk beds. What we'd really like to do is buy a doer upper. Buy a cheap 3-bed in our preferred area (in which luckily houses are reasonably priced anyway) then when I'm back at work, look at extending or converting the loft space to add an extra bedroom. Buying a 4-bed would be out of our price range for a long time yet. So from those who've been there, what extra ways did you manage to save the pennies? I'm talking about areas in which you cut back, small ways you earned extra income (I currently do online surveys), how you cut your food bills, utility bills, any lifestyle changes you made to save up? I've read loads on my favourite websites but hearing from actual people who have actually done this (especially with a brood of children!) would be so insightful and inspiring :D

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