<prompt> Human: Hello everyone, Ive been married for 15 years, and my wife has always been a homemaker due to having a severely autistic son that needed 247 care. Ive always been the breadwinner of the household, and weve barely made ends meet, living paycheck to paycheck for the entire time. Recently, I got a promotion that gave us a little more breathing room, and she got a job as well. Our income went from 60k a year in the household, to 98k a year earlier this month. Now, we currently own a trailer outright, which isnt worth much I bought it new for 40k 12 years ago so I cant imagine its worth much now. Its damn near falling apart, and I dont want to dump more money into it than I have to. Now that we can afford to, we want to buy a home that we can safely afford with her income since mine is sufficient enough to pay the bills, hers will go straight to the mortgage. The problem with this is, after years of beating up my credit, Im only at around 600. I have about 6,000 worth of credit card debt spread across 11 cards. I need your help in cleaning up this mess, and I dont know where to begin that will start getting us into a house the fastest possible way Im not joking when I say the trailer is falling apart. The way I see it is, I have 2 options: A. Use her checks to start paying these credit cards down she gets paid weekly, and after 6-8 months, well have them paid down enough to hopefully have my credit fixed to the point we can start house shopping. B. Get a debt consolidation loan for the 6,000 and pay that down. Im already approved for a signature loan for 5,500 but at 33 interest. Im leaning more against that route. Do you have any other suggestions? From what I understand, you need at least a 650 credit score for banks to even start to talk to you about mortgages. Im also banking on USDA or FHA loans to minimize down payments, and then use grants from my state to pay for the leftovers. Help? Thanks!  <response>: You just got an extra 30k takehome a year at least. Thats 2,500 a month. Dont change your spending at all, and kill that credit card debt entirely in 3 months. 