<prompt> Human: Hello, Im wondering if I could get some thoughts on my budget and financial plans for the near future, mainly with regard to buying my house, as well as just a general sanity check of where Im at. The facts:Yearly Income: 55,000Monthly Expenses:1240 - Mortgage275 - Utilities200 - Maxxed out credit card, 8k balance105 - Internet business account, used for work50 - Car insurance30 - Cell phonesroughly 1500 a month leftover after all bills are paidAssetssavingsrainy day fund: --Debts:700 - Student loan for me20,000ish - Wife student loan she just graduated, not making paymentsAs you can see, our situation is not great but probably somewhat average. Ive bounced between jobs a few times in the last year and its drained us to zero essentially. Additionally Im just finally starting to recover my credit after destroying it with defaulted student loans etc. I have 700 or so left and Ill be totally debt free, leaving my wifes credit card and student loan. My short-term plan is to get all our bills paid a month in advance and then start saving 500 a month into savings to rebuild a buffer.Now to the main reason Im posting; my house. We live in a house that I pay the mortgage on but its not in my name. Im free to refi it into my name at any time I want but would prefer to get it done within the next five years. Its a FC bailout thats worth about 250k, with zero equity on a 40 year ARM that has fixed adjustments up to a max of like 8 in a decade. I have no qualms that its a good mortgage, however with the aim to refi in the future it actually complements our situation well I think. I bailed the house out of foreclosure from a family member as it did us both a favor--our creditDTI was way screwed to buy a house anytime soon. Additionally the 40 year term helped us basically get a house outside of our snack bracket, with the good and the bad that comes with that. The house is kind of exceptional because it has a detached outbuilding as big as the house itself that I work from home in and use to work on cars. To me there are enough factors to make an effort to keep the house even though to me its a little bit more than we should probably have gotten into. Its in a extremely nice part of town and houses regularly sell within days, and I know enough about real estate to know that were unlikely to ever find anything that ticks all the boxes for us like this again.So the question I have is, when do I refipurchase the house? I plan to get my wifes credit card added to my name if theyll go for it and I just got approved for a credit card for the first time ever as my credit is starting to recover. I plan to funnel bills through it for credit building but I will not use it for anything else. Im currently hovering around 600 right now but I think with all my delinquencies finally falling off my credit report and two credit cards I should be closer to 700 within a year. Additionally I can provide canceled checks showing that I pay the mortgage in the house currently.So my impression is that within a year or so Ill probably be ABLE to qualify for a mortgage, but Im not sure if I want to do it sooner or later. Basically, right now I could walk away from the house but once its in my name Im a lost job away from being homeless. I can mitigate that somewhat by building a 6-month buffer, but to me theres still a real risk. On the other hand, Id really like to get the house in our names, we want to start doing a lot of reno work we already have really and I want to formalize our ownership of the property, and additionally having the mortgage in our names would help with credit building. Im additionally worried about what would happen if my relative died or vanished and wasnt around to sign the necessary paperwork.So anyway, I think even though there are some bad things in our situation it seems like were starting to get pointed in the right direction and I just want to make sure Im not doing anything colossally stupid with this financial plan. Thanks!  <response>: Having 1500 left over a month and yet you only make a minimum payment on your maxed creditcard?If your goal is to pay as little interest as possible and become debt-free, use this tool and pay your highest-interest debt first. 