<prompt> Human: Hi personal finance,I have recently started working and am starting to deal with my student loans. I dont really understand them very well, but I have been paying the 300 a month or so for my student loans and have been putting it out of my mind. In a way I like this because the payments arent that expensive relatively and I am able to save for other things.Currently I have about 20k in personal savings. Talking with a friend, he suggest that I try to put that 20k into my student loan amount. I am hesitant to do so because my total debt amount is around 80k and I feel like this would be a drop in a bucket. I dont mind the 300 dollars monthly and my ultimate goal is to have enough money to afford a house. The situation with my parents further complicate things because they are in a large sum of debt and some of my money is going to help with their debts. I feel as if I pay this money to my student loans than I will have nothing, and that I will have to start all over to save up this amount of money.Any advice is appreciated.  <response>: If you invest that money into your student loans, you pretty much realize a return equal to your interest rateIm curious as to what your annual income is and the interest rates of the loans. 80K total debt should not be 300mo unless the term is super extended.You could always split the difference. Throw 10K at the loans, hold 10K in reserve for emergencies. If your repayment term is really long, which it would have to be with the numbers youve given, 10K thrown at them now will save you a lot of interest. 