<prompt> Human: I am a 26 yo male that lives with my 25 yo spouse, 4 yo daughter and 4 month old son in central Kentucky. currently i bring home 40000 before taxes each year take home about 2100 month and my partner stays home with the kids. This is our first year completely supporting ourselves on our own. this past holiday season practically destroyed the meager savings i had. We are both poor planners and impulsive spenders. i need help creating a sustainable budget and planning for the future house, college, Christmas, birthdaysmy current spending pattern below:600 rent300 car payment 18 months left160-200 gas i work 25 miles away160 verizon 18 months left on contract100-150 electric 80 student loan payment minimum, on the 5000 balance80 car insurance40-50 water46 storage 42 internet30 alcohol for mommy and daddys sanity25 misc internet entertainment subs10 credit card payment minimum, but sometimes pay more on the 400 balancei also spend between 300-400 a month on household needs, fast food, diapers, wipes, and clothes plus a bunch of other stuff i shouldnt be wasting money onnot deducted from the take home amount above i also put 100matched by employer into a simple IRAi am covered in health by work, pay pretax for dental and vision. the other three members of the household are covered by the state, and my spouse gets EBT and wic to cover our food costs.i have about 1500 in savings currently.our lease is up in 6 months and i want to move out of the 2 bedroom apartment into at least a 3 bedroom house. i am fairly certain i am not prepared for the cost or rigors of owning a home as much as i would like to, so i will need to rent someplace that will probably cost about 700-750 a month.any help would be appreciated and sorry for my lack f capitalization and poor grammar.EDIT: wow! thank you all so much for all of the advice. you have all been so helpful.Assistant: What everyone else said with this added - either stay in the apt, or when you rent a home, have your wife babysit at least one other child in the home to bring in extra income. If that is not feasible, stay in the apt. You cant beat 600 per month.Human: there are some 3 bedroom paces in this city at 600-650 i can find if i am patient and look everywhere for a few months, albeit not much more in square footage  <response>: Yeah, but remember that moving sucks. It costs: time so much time, some of which might have been used making money or developing a career that could make relatively more money later the money to move renting a truck, gas for the car, buying boxes or whatever indirect moving costs storage unit, eating out more often for a while, buying paper cups and plates when you cant find your dishes, etc. money lost in transferring utilities, services, insurance, money lost in inefficiently getting things going in various domains in your new place money lost in deposits, pet or child fees, etc. for us, there were also some fees related to moving to a new state, like drivers licenses and whatnotMany of the above can be quibbled with, but Ive moved a lot seriously, and it seems that, now that I have a small family of my own, our last move across the US cost us somewhere between 5,000 and maybe 8,000, all told. Actually, with lost time from work it might be closer to 10,000 or even higher hard to estimate--we both lost literally weeks, possibly months, of time from our lives that should have gone to activities other than moving. We spent very little of that about 3k on direct moving costs--mostly just the ABF rental. The rest was just the ongoing cascade of fees, unavoidable inefficiencies, etc.Not to say its not worth it, but its so much more expensive than anyone realizes before they do it. A move across town will be much less expensive, but Id bet money ha! that, in the end, it will be more expensive than you realize until its all over and done. 