You said I bet I can save money. So I responded
I'm a few outside London, but even still a two bed is like £280k
I'm saving about £200 atm, don't think I can do more unless I literally want to be a hermit and love off rice and peas.
Wife has an income but it's just about covering her bills tbh
It doesn't sound like you are able to save enough to really ramp up the deposit like you'd probably need to. £200 isn't all that much in the scheme of things unfortunately. Very quickly eaten by various fees you incur when buying as well.
Most lenders will do max of about 5 x income, as a couple this should include both of your incomes.
In most respects a mortgage payment should be roughly equivalent to your rental payments, but the deposit is the kicker. The better the deposit the less you pay in general.
I've not really looked at it too much, but if you don't have much of a deposit and you want to buy, you'd probably need to seriously look at the HTB scheme where the government put in 20% deposit, and you put in 5%.
The scheme seems reasonable but you need to actually plan to pay off the 20% before it starts costing you money on top of the mortgage.
For a beginning I would see if you can cut anything out of your budget that you don't need. What is your rough monthly costs like for various things?
If you are savvy then you might be able to save extra money by just negotiating better deals, or switching to different providers for things when contracts are up for renewal.
I agree that living like a hermit isn't a good idea, but I guess some sacrifices must be made if you want to own your own house.