The advice that Peanutter and the other girls have given you is really good. The most important thing that you can do is calculate as closely as possible how much it will cost you to have a house/unit.

Don't just go off what the lenders will say that you can afford. The amount they will lend you will probably be more than you will be able to repay comfortably. The key word here is comfortably - I know this is a generalisation and everyone has different living standards and $ amounts they spend each week so what I've just said may not apply to you but in general it is true. When lenders are calculating what you can afford to borrow they do two things - they load the rate that you will pay by a buffer to cover you in the event of rates increasing and they allocate a $ amount for living expenses which they take off your net income to see whether you can afford the loan or not. However the $ amount they allocate for living expenses is basically calculated on the poverty index ie the minimum amount that someone needs to be able to live. It seriously doesn't allow for any extras - for exemple allowing approx $5-6K per year for a child! For everything for a child!

What I would suggest you to do work out what you do really spend is to sit down and go through the last 12 months of credit card and bank statements and write down everything you have spent and then work what if anything you can not spend. Then look at what the "new expenses" will be. You'll then have your true spendable income.

Everyone does tighten their belt when they take on something like a mortgage but you need to make sure that you are able to tighten it.

Owning a house might be the ideal as it is great to be on the property ladder but not when you are unhappy and stressed out doing so. And you do need to have the contingency for the unexpected things that do go wrong when you own a house, you have pay for it and not the landlord.

If you can do some saving its worth while putting it into a high interest savings account - maybe when you've got those debts paid off.

PM me if you want more info. I work in the mortgage industry so might be able to answer some of your questions.