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We're working on it now. I work PT but in a field I would like to stay in long term, and dh is setttled into a career and has been at his job for 6 years. We have two kids and we aren't sure if we are done. Neither of us paid for our own college education (state school in a cheaper school, my parents were determined for me to not take out loans and I am so thankful for that having graduated in the recession!) and we didn't have any other big debt. So hopefully it works out, fingers crossed.

We got married and ran out of space for wedding gifts. At that point we were done with school, had no consumer debt (just forgivable student loans) , and 25% down-payment which was needed not to have PMI for a condo.

DH and I didn't get married until we were 30 and we both had law school loans. And we needed to get settled into our jobs and build DH's business. So we lived ultra cheap trying to pay off as much of our student loans as possible, paid off any small credit cards, and took on no other debt. I couponed, drove a 12 year old car, lived in a tore up duplex, the works.

We had DS1 in our dumpy rental and we were starting to outgrow it. Then the landlord wanted to renovate the townhouse, displace us for several weeks, and then jack up our rent, which had gone up every year. At that point DS1 was becoming mobile so we knew we had to move but we thought we would rent again. But when we looked at the market we realized that we hit the tipping point where owning was going to be the same or cheaper renting. And luckily we ended up finding exactly what we wanted in a starter home very quickly. We started looking casually in Feb, made an offer mid-March, and we had keys in April.

We bought when we were both 34 and DS1 was 9 months old. While we would have preferred to pay off all our student loans first, the total amount was almost the cost of our house so I didn't feel that bad about it. We were six months shy of paying off my loans and we had paid down half of DH's loans in about 4 years time so we felt good buying the house.

We bought a fairly modest house that we could afford on DH's income alone so that also helped.

There's nothing wrong with renting. If it's helping your family move your goals forward, who cares? Since we bought our home 2 years ago (which was in very very good shape when we bought it), we've spent thousands of dollars on interior paint and updates, suddenly had to reinsulate our attic for $5000, and we've spent like $1000 in tree trimming. We also spend money regularly on landscapers, pest control, garbage and water, and appliance repair. All things our landlord would have handled.

Engagement. We had been living together for awhile and about to get engaged. My husband wanted to look for a condo together without an engagement ring. It was a dealbreaker for me. I would only start looking at condos when we were engaged and planning a life together.

Literally days after getting engaged, we picked out a venue and started meeting with a realtor. It took 6 months to find our condo even though it was one of the first ones we looked at. We gave our earnest money to our realtor a couple of days after the wedding. We lived there for 6 years on a 15 year mortgage and sold it about 6 months after the birth of our second kiddo. We ran out of room and desire to live in the city and moved to the burbs about 1.5 years ago.

Don't feel bad!! We are done having kids, done with school, settled into a career/ I am comfortable as a SAHM, paid off most of our debt except a bit of car loan and student loan, saved about 3% for a down payment so far... and we still haven't started looking. I like our apartment- it is pretty spacious yet rent is cheap, schools are good, neighbors are nice. We wanna save more money and figure out where we want to live exactly since we wouldn't be able to afford a single family home in this school district.

DH owned a townhouse when we met and I was renting. I moved in with him and after getting married, we sold the townhouse and bought a house. We bought with the intention of starting a family. Right now, we're renting in another country, but we still own the house in the US.

We haven't bought yet. We have no debt (never had any school debt, have two kids, have a decent amount in savings, and I am settled into my career. However, I will probably retire before we buy a house. I am active duty military and we will probably rent unless I get stationed where we want to settle down.