<prompt> Human: Hello everyone,A little background on myself and my wife. Im 25 and my wife is 24. We live in a not large, but not small city in the midwest. Both of us graduated from college in 2015 and have started new jobs with those degrees. We are currently are living in townhouse apartment that cost 690 a month, plus electric and gas and other expenses of life.As it stands now...Our combined salaries currently come out to 69,000 before taxes. This year we have started paying our student loans and have a car loan that began last year. Our currently monthly debts that we have to pay each month come out to 1194.61. We also have 3 credit cards that have a total of around 3500. Things like new tires last week, wedding anniversary, brothers wedding have contributed to this, we usually arent anywhere near this size of credit card debt and were in the process of whittling this down. Currently there is no money is savings. We have never missed a payment on our bills,loans, etc. and currently according to Credit Karma my credit score is 723, and my wifes is 742.Long story short, we are wanting to get out of this apartment and start a family. I know nothing is savings is a big negative. However, my mother in-law has had conversations with us to gift us a down payment on a house. She is willing to help with 7,000 to 10,000.What can we afford? And what steps do we have to take? We have been browsing houses in Zillow that we like under 100K, but its probably bad to fall in love with a house before you even know if you can afford it or get approved for a loan.Thank you for any help, and if there is any questions Ill be happy to answer them.BREAKDOWN: Income: 69,000 before taxes Monthly Loans: 1,194.61 Credit Debt: 3,500 Credit Scores: 723 and 742My Pug for the reddit dog tax. Bruno  <response>: Were in a similar situation, and we ultimately decided to downsize for a year or two, pay off a couple loans and build up savings, then buy a house. Because were in a cheap city we did find some lovely little houses in pleasant neighborhoods for 75-100k 500-600mo including PMI, but ultimately if the furnace went out wed have been screwed. And thats not a safe position to be in when buying a house, you know?Think of it this way. If you can get the credit cards paid off would MIL help?, thatll free up 200mo or so in monthly payments. Apply that to the car loan on top of your usual payment, and you can knock it out more quickly. Then you can put the money that previously went towards the car and the credit cards into savings, so that you can buy with some security. As a bonus, youll get better interest rates once your debt-to-income ratio goes down. 