<prompt> Human: Currently, I have five loans with different interest rates on which I am paying the minimum monthly payments for their extended payback plans 300mo25yr. I am paying 636.76 toward my loans each month, and am able to save an average of 150-200 after living expenses. I have built up a savingsemergency fund of 10,000, which is enough to get through 6 to 8 months if I were to lose my income. I have good credit, and dont carry any credit card debt; I use my credit card as a a debit card, paying off balances before the billing period and making money on the cash back. I dont own a car, and bike to work all year. I track all of my expenses in GnuCash, run reports, look at my spending. I would like to think that I live frugally and am smart with my money, minus this massive student loan debt I am carrying.Up until now, I have been paying the minimum payments to build up my emergency fund. Now that I have a bit of a cushion, I know I should put more money toward my highest interest loans, but wanted to get a little input and thoughts on my plan. I just found out about unbury.me, and have been playing with increasing my payments, as well as playing with amortization in OpenOffice to double-check the dates and numbers.Basically, if I pay the minimum on each loan through the end, Ill be paying back upwards of 190,000. If I up my payments from 636.76 to 700 a month, applied to my 11.5 loan first, then cascading down after each is paid off, Ill be paying back around 155,000. This is the less-complicated plan.Now that brings me to what I am hoping will be a way out, but I wanted to know if anyone else has tried this plan: If I switch my federal loan to the IBR plan I am eligible, only making 33k pre-tax, I will be paying less than 150mo instead of 259.55. I could take that extra 100 not going towards federal loans and put them toward high-interest private loans to pay them off earlier. I could continue paying what Im currently paying monthly or pay more, but be applying much more toward principle. The IBR plan lets you pay at the rate proportional to your income and family size, kids, etc... and if you pay for 25 years, the balance is forgiven at the end. The problem is, if Im paying 150 a month toward my federal loan, Im not even covering the interest, so by the end of the 25 year period, that loan will have grown to around 80,000. When that gets forgiven, the IRS looks at it as income, and Id have to pay income tax on that lump sum; pretty scary. Also, just letting a loan fester for 25 years and grow to twice where it is right now scares me.So what Im looking for is a little guidance and another set of eyes on these plans Ive been working on. Or alternatives if Ive missed something or am not coming at this aggressively enough. I feel like at some point in the future, my federal loans will have to be forgiven banking on that student loan bubble bursting, but private loans most likely wont be part of that; so Id like to pay those off as soon as I can.If I can provide any more information, or if it would be helpful to put my worksheets on GoogleDocs, please let me know. Im putting the specifics of my loans below if that will be helpful for anyone. Thanks for taking the time to read through this wall of text, it would be a huge help for me.Federal Consolidation Loan 40,574.54 6.375 Min. payment of 259.55Sallie Mae Loans 10,546.87 11.5 Min. payment of 107.80 10,743.22 8.25 Min. payment of 86.18 11,082.12 6.75 Min. payment of 78.45 16,926.79 5.25 Min. payment of 104.78Quick edits for formatting, and please excuse my typo in the title!Update: Thanks for all the replies everyone. Ive been really busy the past two days with work so I havent had time to write a response. I spent a few hours working through all these options with my girlfriend last night and think we have come to a good solution.Weve had a budget and have been sticking to it for a few years. So we looked at what wed need for 4 months of unemployment, for the both of us, at our current expenditure rate, and have that amount in savings. So from this point forward, were going to put everything extra that wed normally be saving towards our loans. Weve put all of our loans into unbury.me and have a plan figured out where well be able to pay off everything private and federal for both of us in about 7.5 years. We wont be adding anything to our savings that entire time, but we also wont be pulling from our savings, just holding steady and paying off our debt as aggressively as possible.She makes a decent amount more than me, and since our plan is to buy a house once we have the moneylittle to no debt, its worth it for both of us to put all we can to get out of this debt as soon as possible. Well be able to put 1400 a month combined into our loans, paying them off avalanche-style, and should be debt free by December 2021 or sooner if we make more money in the coming years. Well be paying about 35,000 in interest on 115,000 of debt, which is exponentially better than paying over 100,000 in interest on only my 90,000 of debt.For those who asked, I went to Champlain College for Multimedia Graphic Design. Its a private school, and while the program was great, I would have gone somewhere with more grants and lower tuition had I understood the finances and process while I was in high school. Our system is so broken and were just selling kids into indentured servitude after graduation because you need a degree if you want to be above poverty level, but thats another discussion.Thanks again for all the help, everyone. It was a big wake-up call to see that I really didnt have any options to pay my loans down faster with my current income. It pushed us to re-evaluate our plan for the next few years and team up to work on getting out of our debt together.  <response>: Making 33k in Burlington is not much at all. I see that you dont want to work a second job but this is the difference of staying in debt for the next 25 years or the next 5. walking dogs, dog sitting, cutting grass, or delivering pizza. These things can all bring in more than 10k per year, you just have to work hard at it. Just wondering where did you go to school? What was your majorminor? How much did you make a year while in school? 