<prompt> Human: My fiancee and I are being booted out of our rental this coming spring because our landlord wants to sell. We have moved 4 times in 3 years and really want to settle down and buy a house. We have 5500 saved for a down payment and will have almost doubled it by tax return season. How should we go about this?His credit is 620 and climbing. Monthly salary is 2200comission auto mechanic. Mine is hovering around 600. Monthly salary is about 750untaxed tips part time position as i stay home with the baby a lot to cut cost on childcare.I have 12k in student loans rehabilitating deferment and about 1500 in collections. He has 1, 70 bill in collections we are fixing. Should he buy the house alone on his name because my student loans will go against our future home loan? Im not against fixing my credit, Im actually working on it and considering hiring a credit repair firm as I am totally uneducated in credit. Should I buckle down and fix my credit asap, hopefully by the beginning of the year and buy together?We would really like a rural property, and to get an FHA and Im not sure thats even possible.  <response>: I dont see why youd buy at all right now.Id pay off all that debt, give it a 12-24 months and your credit will improve. You want a 20 downpayment to avoid PMI...I dont know where you live but even a cheap house 100k is going to take you quadruple what you have saved now, not double. And youll want a significant savings account coming into a house, maintenance can be expensive and hit you in the face furnace fails, AC fails, water heater, water leaks, blah blah blah.I think its great that youre saving and looking at buying, but I dont see you in a position to do that until youre student loans and collections are gone and you have a 20 down another 5k in savings.Also remember that if youre not declaring income your untaxed tips, thats between you and the government, but that income doesnt exist as far as your mortgage is concerned and wont help you. 