<prompt> Human: so I have roughly 1500 in xmas bonuses and some odd money I saved up over the year, that id like to put towards my student loans. but im trying to figure out how much of a difference it will make for me to put that much towards my loans all at once, or to kind of use it to build up my emergency fund, and pay it out as an extra 125 each month over the year. for reference, my main loan is for roughly another 11 years, and 9 interest. TL;DR 1500 towards student loans right now, or over 12 months as extra payments, whats the difference?  <response>: If it takes you 11 years to pay off the loan the 1500 lump sum payment will have been worth 3870 due to savings from interestA one time lump sum is always better than distributing the sum across multiple months 