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Under: Budgeting & Saving
Balancing Act
  • ar0se58
    Hi There,

    I'm a recent graduate living at home with 45k in student loans. I have a wonderful job with great benefits and decent salary. So far my financial focus has been paying off my loans and starting an emergency fund. I would also like to start investing. I just don't know what the right balance should be. My interest rates on my loans are 6.8% and my interest in my money market account is 1.15%. Any advice?
  • ella
    I have a similar situation as ar0se58 - $50K in student loans, starting emergency/future planning fund (should they be separate?), but also making near minimum wage. I am fully in control of my finances, as long as my student loan payments are in forbearance (otherwise they want $500 a month of money I don't have...). I would like to be able to start paying what I can on my student loans but don't want to throw off the rest of my budget. I also don't know if I am allowed to pay on my loans if I am able to while they are in forbearance.

    Overall, I think a few articles about student loans would be very helpful to a large portion of your audience. After all, it isn't just 22, 23, 24 year-olds that are currently graduating college with student loan debt--many of my female classmates (and graduate students) were in their 30s, 40s, and even 50s. Help us!
  • cyoung22
    I have been asking my "older/wiser" friends similar questions. I am 26 and had about $10k in my 401(k) but I've seen it plummet by $3k this year! I know you're supposed to "ride it out" but I'm curious about what I should be doing with my current income. The conventional wisdom is that it's ALWAYS best to invest in your 401(k), but my company doesn't provide a match and with the state of the market I wonder if it's not smarter to pay down my student loan debt. I have about $30k at 2-6% interest. I already pay on my loans, but I'd like to be paying above the minimums. I could work towards both goals, but I feel like if I split my money into 401k/emg fund/big future expenses/mandatory debt/snowball debt payments etc then I'm just putting a tiny effort into each one instead of really powering through one in particular. I've love to seem some LV content that is in-depth analysis of 401k/IRA/investing in our current reality, for women at different age levels. I feel like the investing advice that's worked for the past 50 years has gone wildly out of date and we need some new stuff!

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