<prompt> Human: The backstory I hope you guys dont mind. Im about to graduate professional school in two months and will begin making 125,000 a year. I am 27 and will have 245,000 dollars in debt, however, I have been accepted into a loan forgiveness program sponsored by the government which will pay off 120,000 over three years tax-free It isnt counted as income for me. I own my own car and dont plan on buying another. Ive only ever lived off very little I grew up well under the poverty line and spent about five years homeless as a teenager. I want to start doing the right thing with this and investing but I dont even know where to start. Theres this guy from North Western who is trying to get me to do personal financing with him. Should I just go along? Ill be moving to a smallish city when I graduate and have estimated my rent for a decent place to be 1000-1400 a month. Ill be going from living on less than 15,000 a year to six figures and I want to avoid any pitfalls if I can. Im not interested in toys or new cars or things like that.  <response>: The Northwestern person isnt an advisor they are a salesman trying to sell you financial products which give them big kickbacks. Those kickbacks are paid for by fees embedded in the products you buy invest in. Because of the importance of compounding to the growth of your investment, after 20-30 years those fees will have wiped out a substantial portion of your potential investment value. This subreddit has a lot of great advice in the sidebar. The important thing is to minimize fees and not try to beat the market or speculate. 