Hey Anna — yeah, this comes up a lot, especially for folks trying to rack up points or ease short-term cash flow.Plastiq is probably the most common route, but like you said, that 3% fee adds up fast, so it really only makes sense if your credit card rewards outweigh the fee (which is rare) or if you're in a pinch and need the float.

However, I'm running into a major hiccup - I don't have enough saved for a typical down payment (in fact, I'd say I only have around 5%), but I am eager to jump in without spending the next few years pinching pennies to save up for the traditional 20% down payment.

I had a real estate discussion with a family member (at a funeral, from all possible occasions) who is well into his retirement age and is still pinching pennies and living very frugally because they use every dollar they can spare to pay off his rental properties and he is almost there.

I have experience with not doing this well and being in a pinch. 

Don’t penny pinch.  

No budgets, no penny pinching, just beautiful freedom to live and spend and go and come and live life on your own terms and your own way.It's all an illusion, Enoch.

People over last few years are consistently getting themselves in troubled waters by simply jumping straight into the deep end, assuming and hoping it will all work out, then finding self in a pinch when it doesn't. 

Doing this long enough you will realize you make most of the money from finding deals, collaborating with savvy trust worthy investors, not from pinch pennies and under cut others (obviously I don't mean being wasteful). 

We Penny pinched ourselves to death. 

@Ryan York totally concur with what luka said. once we got pinched for not pulling permits. and we just cut a space into the drywall so we could retroactively get a permit and have inspector inspect the work we had done.