<prompt> Human: EDIT: Update at bottomMy wife and I are desperately wanting to move and get a house in the next few years. We hate where we are, too hot, too many allergens. My wife has chronic asthma triggered by allergies and is currently pregnant with our first child. We originally wanted to move to Colorado but the recent migration trend and subsequent rising cost of living there seems like thats just not feasible. Were now considering areas in western North Carolina. We have many things to consider though. Heres a bit about our situation:Me: 35 male, employed as an RN and making 45,000. This is my second career and I have roughly 12,000 in student debt from my first round of school through Navient and 37,000 in current school debt from Nelnet. I have 1.5 semesters left in my bachelors and want to eventually continue to ARNP school. I have 15k in a savings account.Wife: 33 and in school for Masters of Social Work. She is 3 months pregnant with burrito number 1. She has 65,000 in student debt. She will graduate in August and then ideally give birth shortly afterwards. She wants to stay home with baby for 3 months.Retirement wise I have a previous employer 401k that was rolled into my bank with 4K each in Roth and traditional. I have 10k in my current 403B, contribute 10, and roughly 3500 of that is pending vesting in October.Debt wise, we have one car that is reliable and paid off and a lease that is due for turn in in one month. The lease was hit twice and repaired but is well under mileage allotment. We have 1k in repairs to lease on one credit card for me and have a second card her with zero balance weve been using to build her credit.Were worried about debt to income ratio, funds verification a chunk of the savings was part of a final student loan payment, and the fact that we also want to get a nice safe Subaru for baby transport and all wheel drive mountainsnow driving. My wife is really sick from pregnancy currently and has an idea that shell somehow be able to not work after getting her masters to stay with the baby. I dont see how this will be possible on my income alone. Please advise!Edit: The Subaru is postponed. Home-owning is postponed.We may have access to an old but free second vehicle from my parents.I should have mentioned the were paying off the CC every month.With the roughly 425 in lease and insurance from the wifes car and the extra 4 of my 403b contributions we will initiate the snowball method with our smallest student loans first.Ive had a talk with the wife and expressed the concerns I have and explained our position as you all have illuminated it. Meaningful dialogues have begun.Thank you all for the wisdom!Assistant: Youre going to have to get serious, like Im on a mission from god serious, to be in a position to buy a house in a few years. Right now you have Three big issues to address in the next few years: First, and biggest, is your debt: You two have 114,000 in debt, or close to 3x your current income. Thats a lot.Second is your expenses. You have a baby coming in 5-6 months, and a wife isnt working. Babies arent cheap, though you can take steps to keep costs in check.Third: You run the risk that your wife wont be able to work and generate significant income. Either you find out that day care would cost so much, it wipes out the benefit of her working, or she has a change of heart and decides she has to become a stay at home mom, or she cant find any job that makes use of her degree, or pays better than food service.If I were in your shoes, I would concentrate on getting through the next 1-2 years without sinking further behind.Doing the math, unless your wife quickly winds up making a whole lot more than you do , its going to take a good while to get that debt paid off. So, given how much it sucks and impacts her health living where you are at right now, I would look at finding a new job for you in another state and moving there, expecting to stay renters for a while. I had a co-worker years ago who did move to Colorado just to get his wife above 5000 ft where her respiratory issues were far less of a problem. The impact on quality of life was huge. However, it sounds like you are stuck where you are until your wife graduates, and then you have the baby. So make plans to move as soon as possible after that. Open yourself up to the whole country if possible, look at places with low costs of living, even if it means Iowa, New Mexico, or Michigan.Once you do that, find a cheap but safe place to live, even if it means a longer commute, so you can devote more of your income to debt reductions. The debt really has to go before you make the leap into home ownership.Human: Thanks for the reply. So out dti ratio is our biggest problem? We have a couple of mechanisms to address the student loan specifically but they are both long games. I can reduce mine by 4K annual the nursing loans at least and hers I think can be reduced through a combination of timely payments and working at the appropriate agency.Im firmly in the camp that she needs to work but Im not sure how we will secure child care. If we stay where we are her health is still iffy but we have the luxury of grandparent childcare. That would allow us to work and use her salary against student loans, cars, and saving for down payment.Would it be advantageous in the short term to use some of our current savings to squelch my smaller 12k loan? I dont have to pay on my current for a while I believe.  <response>: The DTI ratio isnt your biggest problem IMHO, though it is a big obstacle limiting how much you can borrow for a mortgage. The bigger problem is just getting in over you head financially. You will need a down payment. You need emergency savings. You will need money to maintain the house and handle repairs. You need to pay for mandated medical insurance for your child. You need reliable transportation. Youre will to need baby supplies. Im not sure theres enough income pie to go around.Youve got too many unknowns that you wont have a handle on until after the baby gets here. And as you identified, you need your wife working and contributing. But will she? and when? and get paid how much? And how much will it cost to have her working? You need data to make decisions with.As for using your savings to squelch the loan? I would absolutely not touch it. You have no ideas what kind of emergency needs you may have in the next year with the pregnancy and baby and other unknowns.You have Zero idea what your income and expenses are going to look like a year from now. If you buy a house, in FL or elsewhere, youre taking on a usually 30-year commitment to have stable income or enough reserves just to service the obligation. You need to feel really comfortable with that. But youve got the student loan obligations also which cant be discharged even in bankruptcy. And soon, an unknown amount of child needs. 