<prompt> Human: I currently have enough money to max out my roth IRA, but it would put my wife and me behind by about 3 months in order to start looking for a house. What should I do? We have been living with my parents for the past two years so we could survive her graduate school without any loans successful. We really want to buy a house responsibly and save up 20 down with some emergency savings on top of that. My heart obviously says, save up for that house and get out so we can live on our own. My brain says if I have the money, put it in the IRA. I just want to hear some opinion, with reasoning behind it on what I should do. Ive just been putting brain over heart for so long, I am leaning towards feeding my appetite for immediate gratification and get the house a few months sooner. When we set up our mortgage with budget in mind, I do plan on investing 10 of our income into retirement as a permanent policy. Help me form my thoughts!  <response>: Youre acting like its buy a house or live in the salt mines for the rest of your life.Look for housing. If you cant find one right away, then put the money into your Roth IRA. If you cant find it one month, put one months cash into the IRA. If you cant find it two months, put another months worth, and do the same for the 3rd.Heck, you can be more choosy in the first 3 months.House hunting sometimes takes time. Because houses are such a huge purchase, its more important, financially, to search for the right house then to say I have to wait 3 months before looking and then let a good house pass you by. 