<prompt> Human: I am 22 and a 5th year senior and I am about a year out from finishing my Business degree. When I finish, I am expecting to have roughly 15k-18k in student loan debt. For the last few years, I have been a server at decent restaurants, making decent money, but I very recently starting working at a well-performing private restaurant where, while going to school, I can count on making about 600-700 a week. Going into this semester, I have 2000 dollars saved and am projecting that I should be able to save about 600-700 a month depending on random variable costs. So if all goes well, I would like to be graduated one year from now with around 10k saved up.My question is, while I am saving this money, is there anything I should be doing with it? I figure there are better options than just letting it sit in a basic checking account. Also, once I do graduate and I save money through my 6 month grace period At this point I would like to have 15k, would it be better to pay off the student loan almost immediately so that I avoid paying any interest, or should I do smaller payments, pay some interest, and invest the saved money elsewhere.  <response>: After an emergency fund of 3-6 months start paying back your student loans because they likely have a higher interest rate than you could get from investing.Read the top link in the FAQ 