Reply to If you took out six figure student loans for a professional degree, what was your strategy

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[quote=Anonymous]I graduated in 2008 with $160K in student loan debt.  My loans were repaid by the end of 2012.  My first job was slightly under $50K (fed).  I saved enough for retirement to get the max employer match.  Beyond that I went on one nice trip a step above hosteling and prioritized repaying my loans.  Debt terrified me as I grew up very financially insecure.  I paid extra each month starting with the highest interest loans (bar study loans), then I think the federal loans had the next highest interest rate (which I thought was weird, but whatever), then private.  When DH and I married he had $10K saved for no particular purpose and suggested putting that towards my loans.  We basically lived on one income.  Then he was sent overseas for a few months and with the extra pay we made more progress (and took a couple nice trips and he bought a gadget less than $500).

Would I have been better off paying the minimum? Maybe?  My recollection is my interest rates were like 3.5% + LIBOR which put them around 6-8% for the most part.  I was a fed for over 11 years so would have qualified for PSLF.  When I originally ran the numbers I would have paid more over 10 years making minimum payments than paying them off as quickly as I did.  I did NOT factor in the time value of money (i.e. what I could have earned investing in the market - CD rates were super low), or appreciation if we'd bought a house sooner.  Both would have been very speculative.

I don't regret being debt free as soon as I was.  When I had my first child I had the freedom to choose whether to return to work and not feel chained to my job to get the PSLF.  (I went back to work).  But, I am curious if/how much more $ we would have now if we had bought a house sooner.  Oh well.[/quote]

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