<prompt> Human: Im about to enter student loan repayment and will be facing 40k in debt. Say I have exactly that much money in savings. Should I just go ahead and pay it all off knowing theyre gone and then rebuild my savings? Or should I do traditional payments? Im 29 with a family for reference.  <response>: Since you have a family, it would be too risky to have zero emergency savings. You could take 30k and pay on the loans then be aggressive paying off the rest on a monthly basis. I would try to get rid of them as soon as possible. 