<prompt> Human: I have extra money I wish to put away. I can pay my loans off faster, but should I just invest if their interest is tax deductible?  <response>: Remember that tax deductions are not a one for one reduction of your tax liability. Its a reduction of your taxible income because those dollars are used for a government approved purpose.So if you paid 2,000 in student loan interest, and had 40,000 of otherwise taxable income, your taxable income would go down by 2,000. So if you fell into a 25 absolute tax bracket just for the sake of math, your total tax liability would be decreased 500. But you already spend 2,000 paying the interest. Sorry for the words if you already knew that, I just wanted to make sure. 