How we saved up for our mortgage

Amidst the current mortgage crunch I'm thankful we saved up the standard 20% down payment for the purchase of our current home. We did it by saving, saving, saving AND by cashing out our old home just as the real estate wave was cresting in our area. One way we were able to save money is by taking out an equity line on our old house to pay off our big ticket debts, like car loans and credit cards. Thanks to our home's appreciation, we were pretty confident we'd be able to pay back the equity line through the sale of our home, PLUS the equity line payments were something like $500 less than what our combined debt payments were before. So we saved all of that money. Then when we sold our house – Ka-CHING! No more car payment, no more credit card debt, and best of all – a 20% mortgage savings to put down on our new home. Hurray us.