It's not necessarily you need to beat your self up whether you can afford a starter home. Based on your own income you can. But when you start looking to buy a house around $250K+ you better be sure you have comfortable margin of safety. You wouldn't want to live pay to paycheck $84K a year income alone.
Buy your starter home that you can pay on your own without anybody's help. Get married, enjoy your marriage for the next several years; do lots of traveling before you have a family. And when your both ready to have a family, then that's when you make a decision whether upgrade into a bigger home or NOT. You don't want to ever count your eggs first before they hatched.
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