<prompt> Human: Age: 30 US Citizen Occupation: Teacher Location: Saga, Japan Education: BS in Global Studies, BA in Japanese Language Married, 1 child 1 year old Paid in yen, numbers below in USD Yearly Income: 36,000 - contract ends September 2019 Monthly take-home: 2230 Extra income: 150mo from Japanese gov for baby Debt: Student loans totaling 24,000 with avg. interest 5.3 From 4.3 to 6.8 Investmentsproperty: None Rent: 300mo Water bill: 40mo Winter Electric bill: 100mo Gas: 60mo Food: 400mo Entertainment: 20mo Netflix, VPN, Spotify Credit card: pays for entertainment, always paid in full Diapers: Cloth when possible, 20 a month for paper in-laws have treated so far Baby Wipes: Exactly 1 per wipe, 100000 wipes used per day estimate Public Transportation costs: Reimbursed Vehicle maintenance: 5mo S.Loan Payments: 700 - 1000mo 277 mandatory 40 fees to remit Hospitalbaby startup costs: 0 - Yay socialism, friends and family! Total saved across all accounts: 5000 Credit rating: 745 Wifes Income: 0 for the next year or so.Money automatically deducted for Japanese pension will be cashed out upon return to America, should be around 4000.Upcoming expenses: Moving back to America in exactly 20 months. Wife and child might stay with family in Japan until I get a job.Prospects: Close friend offering a job with benefits, some 401k matching, around 45,000yr, plus 1 free higher-education class per semester. Short Term Goal: Survive the move back to America Long Term Goals: 1 Set aside a bit for my childs undergrad costs 2 retire as soon as realistic.Life story: I was born a poor black child. My family is lower-middle class, no history of saving or investing. I worked full time to put myself through college, but that meant I could only afford 1 or 2 classes per semester I was offered very little in federal aid for the first 3 years. Finally, I bit the bullet, took big loans, and as many classes as possible while working part-time. In my 6th year I left with 2 silly degrees and 44K in debt. That was 2.5 years ago. I immediately accepted a job offer in Japan. Ive been paying down my student loans aggressively for 2 years and have just about cut them in half, avalanche style. My biggesthighest interest loan is already paid up until October 2021.Ive spent downtime at work lazily researching investing especially EFTsindex funds for the past 2 years and I very much want to get started, but am constantly reminding myself that extra student loan payments earn me 6.8. Should I switch to minimum loan payments and save up for the move next year? Is it just plain dumb to invest in SCHD at this point? even though I really want to Other than robbing a bank andor abandoning my family, how would you go from my position to retiring in your 50s? General friendly ideas?Thanks to anyone who took the time to read that mess. Cheers!  <response>: Keep paying on those student loans until you get them paid off. Since that appears to be your only debt, once you get those paid off, you can start aggressively saving toward retirement. Thats how I would retire early in your situation. 