conversation: User (eatsleepcookbacon): "Hello, r/personalfinance. I'm looking for a little advice (or just reassurance that I'm not being paranoid). \n\nMy wife and I live in NJ and make a combined 90k yearly. We've been renting for the last 5 years and our savings is what I'd call insufficient based on our lifestyle. We have roughly 35k available as a general fund - it's all we have. We have no student loan debt and roughly $900/monthly auto/cc debt (I just cut up my card with the intention of not replacing until the balance was zeroed). We've been pre-approved for 225k, which means nothing based on experience.\n\nWe have very different ideas about home affordability. I'm extremely nervous about going into home ownership without 20% down. Our rent for a small 1 bedroom is $1200 monthly and that even makes me cringe most days. I don't want to mortgage a house that has me paying more than $1400 monthly with taxes and insurance included, which means either building a greater down payment or spending less (both things that don't really bother me - I just want a decent school system). I know we're not ready.\n\nMy wife thinks we're loaded. Our real estate agent is a family friend and showed us a house in the town we live in over the weekend - asking price $225k. Great house and location, don't get me wrong. Under normal circumstances with the proper financial backing it would be a slam dunk. My wife, however, thinks it's perfectly fine to go in with 3.5% down and forego PMI for a .5% increase in the interest rate. Almost $1,800 a month before we turn the lights on, which is 38% of our monthly take-home. She's adamant that we put in an offer this week. \n\nI know our spending habits are not ideal. Our budgeting needs major work. We should have tripled our savings given the length of time we've been together. Am I insane for thinking this house is a bad idea? "
  Self: "How much debt do you have on the credit cards? I don't see a reason why you are only making minimum payments when you have 35k sitting somewhere in your checking or saving account yielding much less than what you pay in Interest on those cards. Pay off the debts first , have an emergency savings and start saving for down payment. "
  