<prompt> Human: Im 24 and got my bachelors last may. Currently working part time and a physical therapy clinic and taking a couple summer courses in order to apply to physical therapy grad schools. I make about 600 a month and have 27,000 left in student loans thus far. Im paying 300 a month on loans. My wife has her BSN and makes about 3,000 a month. When I start grad school she will be our sole income. We are tired of renting and ready to plant ourselves for a couple years to establish some equity and consistency in our lives so to speak. I am hoping to start an online program for school so location due to my school is negligible. We are thinking of a small house 800-1000square feet that is 60-80K. I am somewhat savvy with house work and would like to do home improvements and flip this house to some degree until we sell 3-5 years from now Im guessing. Any general advice or guidance is appreciated as me and my wife have little finance experience as we are both educated in health professions. We have a general idea of where our money is going but are bad at really budgeting... I know starting a stricter budget is a great way to start but I guess Im looking for more advice specifically to first home buyers. We would like to start having children in a few years too. Assistant: I agree w the above post. What u can do in the meantime is open an IRA w your wife can contribute up to 11k together, let it grow tax deferred, and when you both are in a better financial position draw out out of it for a down payment on your house wo paying a penalty. Together, you can put up to 20k down so being youre looking in the range of 60k-80k this would be more than sufficientHuman: Thank you. This makes sense but I feel like our rent right now in our situation being 900 plus utilities is silly compared to home ownership and that if we paid less for a mortgage now than we would be saving in the long run? I can only see continued renting to be beneficial if we decide to lower or rent to 600-700 or so but sacrifice our quality of life. We dont really like the idea of moving to a more ghetto area and pay less for rent. Idk just rambling  <response>: You realize that owning a house will cost more than that 200-300 monthly difference, right? Ive lived in my house for exactly 12 months, and so far were had to: buy lawn and snow care equipment, paint, buy furniture, bought a microwave, replaced a furnace for 3000, repaired water leaks for 200, repaired the AC unit for 200, cleaned up a couple inches of water in the basement twice, upgraded to LED light bulbs for 300, broke a sliding door screen and replaced for 50, had the bolt in the sliding door snap off, and had to get a new dryer. The fridge sometimes leaks and needs to be replaced soon. Optional expenses that are unique to us are to get rid of a tree for 500, and open our pool for 1800. tl;dr all that shit would have been paid for by a landlord, but as homeowners we paid for all of it. Buying a house to save 200 on rent is penny wise, pound foolish 