Starting to really save for a downpayment on a house

Well DH and I had a talk this weekend about getting serious about saving money for a house.

We have about $4000 left in debt to pay off...maybe a little less if I can talk down the biggest collector into settling for a bit more. And I got 2 settlement offers on 2 old phone bills for 1/2 what is owed today in the mail and so I need to figure that in my spreadsheet so I am thinking that we may be able to settle for about 1/2 on this last little chunk.

We already have our economic stimulus check earmarked for paying off the largest of the debts but if we can settle them all then we will do that. We are expecting 3000 back but it could be less because DH did the calculator not me and he is just not on top of things sometimes but he got bent out of shape about it when I said "just let me do it" LOL

Anyways...

We have a 6 month emergency fund built and that feels GREAT! I would really feel more comfortable if we had a years EF saved so am going to continue to build that up but at a slower rate now that we have 6 months built up.

So I have read that before buying a house we should "play house" to help us acclimate us to paying a mortgage. Which is a great idea since we pay only $700 a month in rent we can not expect to have a mortgage that low. So we are going to try and save what would be a mortgage payment for a house for our family every month so that we can see what that will feel like plus the money saved will go towards a down payment and costs.

That feels really scary but I know if we pay attention to where our money is going and stop spending it on wants (new BBQ, new drapes, etc) and be thankfull with what we have, we CAN DO IT!