<prompt> Human: I have 80k Education Debt, No 401k or anything more then 2,000 in my bank as a buffer. I just accepted a job that is increasing my current pay of 40k to 60k. I plan on keeping my living situation the same and try to earmark that extra 20k for either paying down my school loans or being aggressive towards investing. What should be more of a focus for me?  <response>: Usually its better to pay your debts first, as that is a guaranteed return vs some unknown investment. However, you have to look at the rate and apply some reasoning. For example, I have a car loan that is less than 1. Some people can get zero interest loans which makes even more sense. Paying it off early basically saves me some of that 1, but I can probably get a better return than that by investing the extra payment somewhere else.On the other hand, if I have a 20 APR credit card - yeah thats getting paid off every month. 