<prompt> Human: I recently ratified a contract to buy my first house at 475k. Because I am using a VA loan, the down payment is optional. Ie a 22k down payment my interest rate will reduce from 4.5 to 4.25. With closing costs, warranty and inspection this nets to a 34k upfront costs. The down payment saves us about 40k in interest over the 30 year lifetime of the mortgage and reduces our payments from 2400 to 2200. However, Were worried this is too heavy of a hit upfront. My wife and I are 30. Our total liquid assets are 45k: 10k in savings and 35k in a brokerage account. This will leave us with 12k in investments.My wife also has 180k in student debts and about 10k in credit card debt. My wife makes 78k per year. I am currently a full time student using the GI bill. I make about 20k per year from my benefits. When Im out of school I expect my income to at least match hers. So, with our current spending power limited and our expectation that our future income will possibly double, is making the down payment a good idea? Im not feeling terribly comfortable with only having 12k in the bank- even though it creates long-term benefit.What would you do?  <response>: You should not put money into a house if you have credit card debt that is rolling over month to month.First, take out enough cash to pay off the credit card debt, and do it, and dont run up the credit card bill again. Then decide about downpayments.Im trying hard to understand why or how you agreed to buy a 475,000 house with low savings, credit card debt, massive student loan debt, and a family income of 80K Im discounting GI Bill as much of that money presumably goes toward tuition.Have you even looked at how much the student loan payments will be? Something like 2Kmonth by themselves, I think. So were looking at something close to 5Kmonth in debt service credit card, student loan, mortgage vs a gross income of 7kmonth... ouch. 