<prompt> Human: Im a 23-year-old college grad with a decent job and an overwhelming amount of student loan debt. Given my current living situation Ive been able to save up a decent amount of money, but have not done any investing other than the 401k with my company currently contributing 8 before tax. edit: company matches 6. Im thinking about maxing out a Roth IRA for 2014 before the April 15th deadline, but am wondering if that is the smartest move given my situation. Details below:SalaryGross salary: 65,000 Monthly take home: 3,160 Monthly expenses: 1,950 Monthly remaining: 1,200Obviously these are all assumptions in a vacuum. Ive never been able to put 1,200 into savings in a given month.Savings Currently in savings: 18,000 Savings per month: 500-1000Debt Federal loans: 8 loans with fairly low interest rates between 3.5 and 6.7. Total balance currently 31,327. Making interest payments some principle monthly. I also am responsible for paying private most were ParentPlus loans taken out in my dads name. Current balance on these is upwards of 75,000. Interest rates are much higher Id have to get exact rates from him. Currently in forbearance.Plan Max out Roth IRA for 2014 5,500 to gain some ground for not doing this sooner. Put 10,000 into a Money Market share or another account with better interest rates than a traditional savings account. Use this to build and maintain my emergency fund. Keep the remaining 2,500 in savings and continue to add to this monthly. Plan to build this for down payment on a home. Contribute 450month to Roth IRA and plan on maxing it out for 2015. Get a list of private loans and interest rates from my father. Start paying the ones with the highest interest rates. Whatever is left if any... god I hope so put into savings to build home fund.Im brand new when in comes to investing, so I hope my assumptions are correct. The one thing I know for sure is I dont want to wait too much longer to get this rolling. If any additional info is needed Id be glad to provide it. Im feeling 100 overwhelmed trying to find the balance between investing, paying off debt, and still trying to save money. Please help, PF!Edit: formattingAssistant: I applaud you wanting to get this going soon. However, if youve got high interest debt, it doesnt make much sense to contribute to the IRA yet. Even the 6.7 is a fairly high interest rate, and youd be hard pressed to get that rate of return on investments, certainly not risk free. If your private loans are at 10-15 or so, thats credit card debt levels of interest, and on 75,000, thats a huge amount of money. Pay it off ASAP! Youre investment returns would probably be overwhelmed by the debt, so at the end of the day, youll have less money than if youd held off on the investments and paid off the debt.Human: Im going to get downvoted for this again, but I dont care. I made a recent post that my biggest critique of rpersonalfinance is that so many people on here hate student loan debt and thus simply advise paying it off ASAP, regardless of the circumstances. They may recommend IBR or something if the OP really cant afford the payments, but almost always, the advice is whats going on in this thread. I wouldnt even touch the Roth IRA till youve cleaned up your student loans. Id focus on the student loans first and once those are paid off start adding those payments in retirement. Stop your 401k contributions unless there is a company match. This money could be better spent on high interest loans youve got. Same with the Roth IRA, dont contribute until your loans parent plus and 6.7 loans are gone. Sadly, this type of advice is the norm on this subreddit. Pay off all your debt, dont invest until youre debt free, etc. Its a hive-mind that permeates this subreddit. As for me, I applaud your desire to achieve investmentdebt balance. Id be a little more aggressive in paying down your debt as Ill get to later, but I certainly wouldnt be a slave to it as some people here are going to suggest.To illustrate, lets say you max out your Roth IRA starting now until you retire. At 65 and assuming a 7 return over time, which is what the stock market has proven over 140 years, your Roth is worth 1,384,000.Conversely, lets say you become a slave to your debt and dont start investing until youve paid off your debt. Lets call that five years. So you open your Roth at 28 and max it until you retire. By the time youre 65, your Roth is worth 970,000.In other words, by waiting just five years, youve lost five years of your investments compounding over time, or roughly 400,000. Thats a huge loss. But of course, in the short term, you can effectively gain money on your loans by paying in advance. More specifically, if you aggressively pay down a 7.8 loan, youre getting a 7.8 return. As Ive illustrated above, however, that short-term savings pales in comparison to what compound interest can achieve over the long haul. Thus, its up to you to find that sweet spot. Theres a balance between paying off debt and beginning to invest, and that balance is different for each individual. With all that said, youre likely not even going to be able to purchase a home due to your debt-to-income ratio. In short, when you apply for a mortgage, your lender will look at your monthly income and what percentage of that income goes towards debt. If your monthly debt payments exceed 43 of your monthly income, you likely wont get approved for that loan.In your case, your federal loans plus your private loans are likely going to be a large percentage of your income. Add to that a car loan or any other debt and you would likely be over the threshold. Thus, you likely want to be VERY AGGRESSIVE in paying down the private loans. Id add everything up and see what you need to pay to get the debt gone within five years. But outside of that, I stick to my main point: theres a balance here. Start investing, yes, but understand that you need to get rid of the private loans to achieve your goal of saving up for a down payment on a house. If I were you, I would:1 Continue contributing to your 401k if theres a company match;2 Max out your Roth IRA for 2015 forgo 2014;3 Reduce your emergency fund to 3 months expenses. Throw all the extra money 12k at your highest rate private loan;4 Pay your loans on time, and pay a pre-determined extra amount 500 per month maybe? toward the highest interest rate loan; 5 Reduce your fixed costs. 1950 is a lot for monthly expenses without even factoring in your loans. Really think about your living situation, buying things on sale check out rfrugal, etc. 6 In your case, and to keep you motivated, Id simultaneously use your emergency fund account as your down payment savings account so you can keep your eyes on the prize. Id recommend something like sending 33 of anything extra to your savings account and 66 to pay off your private loans. Note: never ever deplete your emergency fund below 3 months expenses. Thus, when you are ready to make a down payment on a house, make sure there is 3 months living expenses down payment closing costs.7 Once youre done paying your private loans, youll be able to save for a down payment VERY quickly. Cheers. Assistant: A lot of good discussion in this thread, so thank you everybody for their input. I really appreciate your comments, ReadySetMillionaire. I believe that if I dont find that sweet spot of investing while Im young and paying off my debts, Im shooting myself in the foot either way. I plan to cut my 401k contributions to 6, which is the max that my company matches. I will put the extra towards the highest interest loans. I also have been taking steps to cut back on my monthly expenses. Note: This figure does include the loan payments I am currently making. I can provide breakdown of expenses if you think that is something that would be helpful.The only question I had for you is: and max out your Roth IRA for 2015 forgo 2014;I have the money on hand to max for 2014. Do you believe that money would be better spent towards paying off the highest interest loans?Again thanks for all of your remarks. A really helpful comment.  <response>: Id forgo 2014 because you are looking to save for a house. That 5,500 can put a huge dent in your private loans. Add on top of that the 12,000 I recommended and youve already cut that debt to below 60,000.Then think about it: you can cut 15,000 a year off of those each year, easy, while investing. Within four years, your private loans are gone.Back to my original point, though, you need to get rid of this debt to even qualify for a mortgage. So yes, Id forego contributing to your Roth for 2014 and instead focus on paying down your debt. 