<prompt> Human: So little about me and my wife. I am a veterinarian who graduated with nearly 160k in student loan debt. My wife is finishing up a PhD in clinical psychology and has about one year left with about 90k in student debt. I have been very fortunate as my grandparents gave me 90,000 as an inheritance 4 years ago which I put immediately towards debt. I was able to land a good job out of veterinary school and have been aggressively paying down debt since working extra jobs and living as frugally as possible. We are down to about 69,500 in total student loan debt with about 10k left on an auto loan. Right as I graduated school I became obsessed with Dave Ramseys philosophy on paying off loans and have been using his snowball method ever since. I have not been saving at all for retirement but do have a months emergency fund. My question is this, Im 29 years old now with a 1 year old son. My single income household should be going to a two income household in the next 2 years. I have about 80k total left in debt. Should I start investing now? The average interest rate on my loans is around 6. If I should, what is the initial goal as far as percent of take home pay to invest when you have outstanding debt? Thanks!!  <response>: I look at it this way. Every bit of debt you pay off IS an investment with a return of the loan percentage. If you can put a few thousand per year into an IRA without seeing much of a difference in debt payoff, youre setting yourself up for success. 