<prompt> Human: So I kind of dont have a trusty person who knows finance well to help me out so I figured I would post here and see simply, if you were in my shoes what would you do?So I am a general dentist. Im 28 years old, Ive been practicing for almost 3 years. Ill break down my total debts here: 500k student loans interest rates varying from 3.4-7.9 rates are fixed though 300k mortgage winterest rate 4.2 20k car loan interest rate 5.9 No credit card debt.This next section is pretty dry and it details my student loan situation so skip through if you are bored already:I have about 120k in private loans that have a relatively low interest rate around 3.4. Not much flexability there. I have about 370k in federal student loans. All of which I am paying under the Income Based Repayment program. Basically I submit my gross income every year and they calculate how much I pay. Last year I was paying about 800 a month, this year it will be about 1200 a month. After 20 years under this program the remainder of the balance will be forgiven and that remainder I will have to pay taxes on which could be 50k in taxes? who knows. There is an alternative where I could enter the Pay As You Earn Plan which lowers the monthly payment and drops the forgiveness date to 15 years, but stay with me, I have to pay off about 20k in one certain loan before I could apply for that program if I want to.Ok you can start reading againMy income is very tough to gauge, I get paid completely on production almost like sales, last year was around 120k gross, I should be around 160-180k this year. In theory my income should continue to increase, but again tough to really tell.I do rent out a room in my condo for around 1100 a month, so I get an extra 13200 a year from that. Right now I am paying about 5k a month for all of my student loans and mortgage and miscellaneous bills.I have about 20k in the bank some of which inevitably will be paid towards taxes. I have no other investments.So... if youre in my shoes, how would you handle this situation? Should I continue to take advantage of the income driven options for the majority of my student loans and take my chances on a big tax bill in 15-20 years? Or should I try to attempt to pay them off and have the next 5-10 years of my life suck?  <response>: The difference between being low-income with student loans triple your salary and high-income with student loans triple your salary is your surplus. 50k a year when completely debt-free makes for a fine single living situation in most places, so since youre earning well over that theres really no need to make cuts: just pay off your loans with your surplus when you can, prioritizing the higher interest ones refinancing some of them might save you money and is worth looking into, though Id keep some cash in reserve for emergencies. Oh, and always pay off your credit card in full. I probably dont need to tell you this since you arent already in CC debt, but be sure to keep it that way.Of course, you may want to be more aggressive about your repayments and be thrifty with your money. Thats good too, maybe you can learn some new recipes to cook by yourself not going out for meals saves LOADS of money and isnt really a lifestyle cutback at all. The more you save, the less you have to pay total, but you are earning enough that you can get away with a comfortable middle-class lifestyle even with loans on the order of a million dollars. By the end of all this, you can enjoy a credit rating thats higher than most people can only dream of.So, in conclusion, live a little but not too much, and on behalf of teeth everywhere, thank you for being the hero we need. 