<prompt> Human: Hello everyone, so basically over the past year ive graduated college at the age of 25 and gotten my first job and thus finally started to save some serious money. Im not very good with financials but ive slowly began to teach myself more and more over the past few months and have learned a lot. Now i am hear asking for the advice of rpersonalfinance. Ive worked near full time all throughout my studies and have paid off my tuition in full. Ive been fortunate enough to be able to live in my parents house for most of my life minus a couple of years of having my own apartment. Currently have about 14k in savings in pure cash as well as 3k in investments stocks, bonds, crypto etc, a roth IRA that i have just recently opened up with about 1500 in it and a near new car that is paid off aswell. My yearly income at my new job is around 40-42k per year before taxes and my expenses at this point in my life are 50mo for phone, 100mo gas, 60month car insurance, 350mo food, 200mo misc weed, booze, gf, friends. My question for the much more experienced than me people of this subreddit is about my first home. I plan on being ready to buy it by quarter 1 2019 and i want to know how much money i should have saved up to be able to put a decent down payment and have a small cushion of savings incase anything were to happen. Im lucky and the area I live in has a low cost of living and id be able to find a decent small starter home in the ballpark of 100-120k. How much more would i have to save in a years time to be able to afford a good down payment? I live in NYS, and have heard about various programs for first time home buyers, what is the best way to go about that to maximize my investment? My long term goal is to get this house bought and paid off within the next 5-7 years and move on to another property and set myself up with multiple sources of income in the future. Any and all advice is appreciated, i am open to criticism.  <response>: NYS has some of the highest property taxes in the country, so be prepared for possibly including a years worth of taxes in your closing costs 