<prompt> Human: I will be graduating from medical school in June with total debt of essentially 200,000 with the majority of it at 6.8 and a small portion of it at 5 6,000 and a small portion at 7.9 9,324. Our school gives us a free consultation with a physician financial planner, but I would also like to have some ideas beforehand. This will be my first salaried full-time job have had many hourly jobs in the past, and will be working approximately 80 hours a week during residency.Income BackgroundHere is a breakdown of my projected income. The income for the next three years during residency is estimated but at least that amount. The income for the 4th year is dependent on whether or not after I graduate I pursue a year of additional training or start working: Year 1: 44,000 Year 2: 49,000 Year 3: 54,000 Year 4: either 250,000 if no fellowship or 60,000 if fellowship Year 5: 250,000 recurringMy partner will be making slightly more than I will during residency she is also graduating medical school and will be starting residency, but will be in training longer six years and make less money after those six years of training approximately 180,000 a year. Her loans are approximately 80,000 and we plan to pay those off as soon as is feasible. My loans are more difficult, because since the amount is higher there are more options due to the possible advantage of income-based repayment.Question 1: Loan repayment options.My planned career path will leave me eligible for the public service loan forgiveness, where if I make 120 consecutive payments with income-based repayment, any outstanding debt will be forgiven. All of my loans are eligible for forgiveness under this plan. If I assume 3 years of training before the income jump, and make 120 consecutive payments 10 years starting the first month of residency, I will be making 36 payments of about 400 and the rest of the payments after training will be about 2,500 a month. At the end of the 120 payments, I will have paid about 180,000 for my loans and the rest will be completely forgiven. Pros to IBR: able to live more comfortably in residency and have the opportunity to start investing early Roth IRA in low income bracket due to smaller monthly loan payments and allows me to pay overall less money than I took out in loans if I do forgiveness Cons to IBR: will need to ensure that my employment is eligible for the public service loan program so cannot work in the private setting, no security from the government that the program will not be canceled if it is canceled after I made my 119th payment, Id have no recourseThe other option is income-based repayment during residency so I can at least keep the interest at bay and then just hammer down the loan as fast as I can after I graduate. The downside to this is I actually have to pay more money than if I did income-based repayment because I dont get any loans forgiven. The upside is that its guaranteed to happen and I can work wherever I want.Question 2: Investments during residency.We have made a budget and found that we will take in about 7,700 pre-tax together monthly. We estimate that this will probably be about edit: 6,500 post-tax. What is the best way to estimate what our post-tax income might be for budgeting purposes? Interest payments are tax-deductible, we should qualify for educational credits, and hopefully we can maximize our deductions to minimize our taxable income. We will likely be filing separately, as I believe the income-based repayment uses tax filings to determine how much I am required to pay, and filing jointly would decrease my loan payments and therefore increase my loan forgiveness at the end of 120 payments.Our location has a high cost of living and we are both commuting but both our cars are paid in full. The numbers below also represent the total joint expenditures for the both of us. Fixed expenses: rent 1700. loan repayment 1000. utilities 100. phone 100. insurance car, renter, disability 250. gas from commuting 280. Variable expenses groceries, restaurants, shopping, entertainment, health: 1000This leaves us with just under 2,250 jointly every month extra if the post-tax estimation is accurate. Although the fixed expenses seem high, the rent for the area is actually below average and the data plans on the smartphones are a requirement of our work to access medical database information. In general, we are pretty frugal people, cook almost 100 of our meals, do a lot of bargain hunting craigslistslickdealsfatwallet and do not typically spend frivolously. Disability insurance is a must because there are plans that lock you into a rate based on health and current income and do not change rates -- therefore, getting a rate locked in at age 25 with no medical problems and an income of sub-50,000 is very advantageous.Now what to do with it is the difficult question. If I decide to do income-based repayment, it would not be helpful at all to apply any of that money to the rest of the loans it would never be beneficial to pay anything other than the minimum required. Therefore, savings and investment would make sense, and I would be at an income level where a Roth IRA would make sense and be beneficial, especially given the anticipated income jump. However, if I do not do income-based repayment, should I even bother putting a single cent in investment, or just put it toward my loans, since at least the first ten thousand I put towards them would be knocking down loans running at 7.9.Also, although I do read this forum regularly and also have read various books and such on the subject of investing, any other resources that may be of benefit to someone in my situation would be beneficial. Thank you for your advice!  <response>: I created a Google spreadsheet that helps you plan out income based repayments for couples, including how pre-tax retirement deductions would affect your IBR payments. 