<prompt> Human: OriginalI always love updates, so I figured I would share mine. So, after I was torn apart in my original thread, my boyfriend and I sat down and discussed feasibility. We decided to put buying a house on hold for awhile. We didnt wait as long as we had originally determined because we got back our interest rate and it wasnt as bad as some people had predicted. Additionally, my dad pointed out that we could always refinance. I ran the numbers 15 different ways and looked at our budget from all angles and decided that while it financially may be better to wait, we could afford it if it was our priority. After sorting everything out, we started shopping, and we bought a house in July when I was 5 months pregnant.So, here are our current stats:House Cost: 275k with 5k in closing costs creditOriginal Interest Rate: 4.75Refinanced September 2015 Interest Rate: 4.025PMI: 150Down Payment: 25k Just under 10Current Equity: 16Current Credit Scores: Me- 780 Him- 670Income: Me- 63k plus 10 bonus as of December 2015. Prior to that, I had one raise in May 2014 so 45k to 50k Him- 90k contingent on work-- hes a welderSavings: 15k Retirement: Ill be honest-- Im not sure about this one because his pension complicates things. Mine has 28k and I plan start putting into a Roth IRA this year. His has much much more between his 401k and pension. A note on the credit scores-- they pretty much immediately recovered when we started to pay a mortgage. My husbands is low still because when we transferred him to my cell phone family plan right around when we bought the house, there was a residual bill that he was not notified of it went to our old apartment, and it went to collections. That was a very nasty surprise when we went to refinance, and cost us our 3.75 interest rate that we thought we were going to get. I now am our CFO and manage all the bills, so we shouldnt have anything slipping through the cracks anytime soon. His score should make a full recovery soon enough. Key Takeaways:I think if I could do it all again, I would still buy our house. We got a great deal and honestly I havent seen a house cheaper than 300k in our area since we bought it, outside of ones that needed to be gutted. We are 6 blocks from my parents, have a huge yard, and my walk to the train is 7 minutes. In the span of just over a year, we bought a house, had a baby, and got married. Im excited to have some of the most expensive things in my life finished, and we are saving a ton of money each month now. Personal finance has been a great help to me over the years but I will say that in that scenario, knowing what I know now, I didnt think that the answers were necessarily helpful nor entirely accurate. Id say people got caught up in their opinions of my stress and relationship rather than the financial aspects. The decision to buy a house was easily feasible with our finances, but not necessarily a perfect financial decision. Id happily pay the price all over again to end up in this house. What would have been more helpful towards making a decision: understanding that PMI increases with lower down payment and credit scores info on closing costs I had NO idea how much they were info on how long it takes for credit scores to recover-- if I knew that I could make improvements in a year, I may have been more likely to waitOverall, Im thankful that people pushed me to think the decision through more and to really do an in depth financial analysis. Ironically, that analysis led me to increase our budget, because I realized that we were way below 30 of our gross with our initial budget. We didnt like the first batch of houses we saw, and increasing our budget allowed us to see houses that were exactly what we wanted and that wed actually be willing to stay in for long term. Current Questions College fund-- it seems like the 529b is the right way to go. Are there any major downsides that Im missing? Grocery bills-- we are averaging 1k per month. We eat organic and buy fancy coffee, but thats it. Anyone have tips for planning mealsshopping successfully without any extreme couponinggoing to 5 stores would be appreciated. For instance-- buying meat on sale and vacuum sealing for deep freezing-- is that financially efficient? For equivalent cash value, are points better on CCs, or miles? I would make use of either, so Im just trying to get the best bang for my buck. Also for CCs-- are their any cards that reward more or are better for someone who spends say 30k-50k per year? We put everything on CC and pay it off each month so Im just trying to make sure that is optimized. For taxes-- our income last year put us in the bracket where we no longer got the child tax credit. I would have to put 9k into my traditional IRA to be eligible again-- is that worth it? The credit is 4k...Thanks PF... I read posts pretty much daily and Ive learned a lot. Again, I dont think that purchasing my house was a financially smart decision, but it was easily feasible and it made sense for our priorities. We will soon have our PMI gone paying extra each month and at that point Ill be satisfied with our mortgage. Edit: FormattingAssistant: First off, congrats on getting your financial house in order, and finding a house youll all be happy in for years to come. Now, onto some of your questions:Grocery bills-- we are averaging 1k per month. We eat organic and buy fancy coffee, but thats it. Anyone have tips for planning mealsshopping successfully without any extreme couponinggoing to 5 stores would be appreciated. For instance-- buying meat on sale and vacuum sealing for deep freezing-- is that financially efficient?Lets start by looking into this in depth a bit. Does this include alcohol, or just groceries? Assuming just groceries, that is quite high. My wife and I eat lavishly at home for 500month, which includes some beer purchases at the grocery store and throwing at least one good sized party a month why have a smoker if you dont use it?. If we were to cut back on spending for entertaining, we could pretty easily get down to 400 without any other significant changes. We separate our grocery, alcohol, and restaurant bills, as the first two are more consistent, and the latter two are our low hanging fruit if we decide we wantneed to cut costs. We do not go extreme on couponing, but we do take advantage of sales to stock up. We typically hit 2-3 stores at most in a month, with the majority of our shopping done at one store. Costco runs happen, but usually only when I have to visit a client near one anyway- no sense in making an extra trip if we dont have to. The third store is basically only when they have a good sale on something we want- they mail us the fliers anyway, so five minutes going through it probably saves us 30 per three months.So, on your grocery bill, how does it break down in a bit more detail? Are you spending a lot on prepackaged meals even if it was prepped that day by the grocery store themselves or are you cooking at home? Cooking at home will almost always win the price war though some specialized items, such as premade sauces, can sometimes be worth going for instead of making them from scratch. If you are cooking at home, are you buying individual packages of food or family packs? Family packs usually save you quite a bit, even without a sale. We have a stand alone freezer two, really, but only one is plugged in right now in addition to lots of pantry space, so we stock up when sales are good. Even when sales arent amazing, buying in larger quantities and prepping portions ahead of time lets you benefit from a lower price overall and makes it far more convenient when it comes time to cook, which is a big win if youre both working and taking care of a kid.Eating seasonally helps reduce the price as well. If something has to come out of a greenhouse or be shipped 2,000 miles, itll probably cost more than if it came from a farm 100 miles away. This isnt always possible, but it helps, and you can vary your diet a bit by following the seasons.Also, evaluate where you buy. Whole Foods is called Whole Paycheck for a reason...TL;DR on Groceries: Buy in bulk, buy on sale, buy seasonally, buy raw ingredients that you can cook instead of premadepreprepped food, and shop at reasonably priced locations, not just fancy ones. Freezing makes sense if it lets you take advantage of any of the previous three, but make sure you actually eat everything before it goes bad.For equivalent cash value, are points better on CCs, or miles? I would make use of either, so Im just trying to get the best bang for my buck.Also for CCs-- are their any cards that reward more or are better for someone who spends say 30k-50k per year? We put everything on CC and pay it off each month so Im just trying to make sure that is optimized.I personally prefer cash back over pointsmiles for most credit card spending. The best mix is probably American Express Blue Cash good rewards when you spend on groceries, but you have to break a threshold each year to get the good rates- but thats fairly easy, and using DiscoverChase Freedom based on what their 5 categories are for each quarter. If youre looking for milespoints for vacations, picking a specific airlinehotel and getting their specific cards can yield more value than getting a card that transfer over to a bunch- at the cost of flexibility. Check out rchurning for some good tips here.For taxes-- our income last year put us in the bracket where we no longer got the child tax credit. I would have to put 9k into my traditional IRA to be eligible again-- is that worth it? The credit is 4k...The limit is 5500personyear, so you cant put in 9k. However, if you and your husband both put in 4500, that could get you there. Since its money you can use in the future for retirement, and there are ways to touch it earlier, Id say its probably worth the money to make it happen. Just make sure there isnt a phase out for it or that you put in the 5500 each to max out the amount you get.Human: Wanting to hear OPs response to this. We used to lump booze and groceries into one bucket but that was a mistake. I really have a hard imagining you are spending 1k on just groceries for the house. We also buy nice groceries and there are three of us and we spend about half that.Yes, freezing meat is a great idea. I buy what is on sale and throw it in the freezer. All meats really this works fine with. Crock pots are your friend. Also, making baby food is probably the easiest thing in the world to do. We got this little kit that lets you make your own pouches. Just throw some cooked off fruits and veggies into your blender and BAM, you got baby food puree.Assistant: So do most people not count booze in their grocery budget? That would be a game changer, because I definitely do...  <response>: Well, I think its up to you to decide. For us, I was looking over our budget every month in disbelief over how much we were spending on groceries. As soon as I started splitting booze from it, it gave us better insight into where our money was actually going. We were then able to create a budget specific for booze for tracking and its helped us stay on top of things. Groceries are something we dont like to skimp on, but booze is not so necessary. 