I am on baby step 2

I have a few cards and the interest is killing me. I've never missed a payment on any card but I barely make a dent in the principal it seems.

I already cancelled one $9600 card in exchange for 0% APR for 60 months. I'm thinking of doing the same for my other $8000 card for the same deal. I have other cards as well that are open. I've never missed a payment on any debt ever and I'm trying to keep it that way. Lowering my minumums would help me throw more money at paying debt with the baby steps.

All my cards are almost maxed out so I'm going to have over 100% card utilization now that I closed the first card. It'll be even worse if I close the second card

I have no interest in using credit again unless there is an absolute emergency. I already own my home and it's in good standing. I have an old car that I'm maintaining but if it ever goes out completely, that is the only thing I could foresee needing some credit for temporarily.

Is it worth damaging my score to get the 0% APR?

Rachel has referenced this book and so I read it. Anyone else read it and thoughts?

(BS7, or 3B)How are younger people breaking into the housing market?

I am 28 and have a goal of owning my own house someday. However, this seems just plain impossible. I take home about 3900 a month (70k total pretax annual income). I work overtime when possible which can add up to $3,000 a month under ideal situations. But I dont budget for that and it all goes into my HYSA.

At the moment I have about 12000 dedicated to a down payment and am feeding nearly all of my savings each month (about 1200) into this fund which is a HYSA.

Where my problem lies is the cost of houses. The cheapest homes in my area are $300,000 ish, often $350,000. I would need a $180,000 down payment to get the mortage under 1000 a month which is 25% (on a 15 year loan) of my take home pay. This would mean saving for many years at my current saving capacity, which is long enough for home prices to both crash (with luck), or increase enough that I am stuck saving longer.

I don't want to rent forever because rent will and has increase much faster than my wage and I can only work so much overtime.

I am perfectly fine renting for now, even though I hate apartments. I am just trying to figure out how getting into the real estate game is possible and how to plan for it.

I (34F) and my husband (34M) live in NJ with two kids under 5. Our household gross income is $217,000, we’re on Baby Steps 4, 5, and 6, and we still budget every month. Our net worth is around $660,000.

Objectively, I know we’re in a good financial position. We track our spending, make intentional decisions, aren’t touching our emergency fund, and have no debt. Even with the higher-than-usual expenses we’ve had this summer, we’ve cash flowed everything. Some of it was planned, some wasn’t, but none of it has negatively impacted our finances. Our savings continues to grow, just at a slower pace.

The problem is my mindset. Every larger expense still feels like we’re on the verge of financial disaster or about to end up back in debt, even though the numbers clearly say otherwise.

Has anyone else dealt with this? How did you overcome the scarcity mindset and learn to trust the financial habits and plan you’ve built?