<prompt> Human: After attending graduate school Im now 108,000 dollars in debt with Direct consolidated loans at 6.85, and student loans are the ONLY debt I have.I currently make 45,000 pounds year which is approx. 72,000 dollars year. My take home per month is approx. 3000 and I have 1000 rent to manage as well, which is on the cheap end for London. I looked at the unbury.me app and it said if I was to pay 1200 for 10 years I would pay off my loan completely. The only problem is, is I wouldnt have much left over to invest into retirement or much else for that matter. Im early into my career, so Im assuming Ill be making more over and time not a significant amount more and will hopefully move into a cheaper flat, but thats hypothetical. 3000 base- Rent 1000- Student Loans 1200 800 left over for living expenses, pleasure, investing etc.If I basically put EVERYTHING I can into student loans for 10 years, I can repay them, but at the detriment to investing into a retirement plan or essentially any other type of investments. Id consider loan forgivenss but I dont think I qualify as Im not in a public service job it seems - i work in computer animationFeeling hopeless and frustrated. Will be 30 soon as was hoping to have a family one day, but not sure if thats a realistic option with this amount of debt.Assistant: Start putting 1200month towards it. Over time your income will increase and that will mean that the total journey wont be ten years long... Put half of any salary increases towards the student loans speeding up the process and half towards lifestyle increases to reward yourself for hard work. If you get a bonus, I would do 80 to the student loans and 20 for fun. If you manage to save money on the rent: half of the difference to the student loans, half to you. As you live and work in the UK, you are currently contributing to the UK state pension edit to clarify: you contribute to this through deductions from your salary, and you will be able to take some money with you to the US actually what I read is that the money remains in the UK, but when you reach the right age, they will transfer an amount of money to you in the US, every month. So at least you are doing something for retirement! I believe that you will need to get those student loans out of the way first; their interest rate is so high that it wont do you much good to save for retirement as well: what you grow there, you lose on the student loans interest....PS. Good luck!!Human: Thank you for the help! I was just told at work recently that there is too much red tape around giving a US citizen a pension that the pension program at work will not sponsor an american citizen. Im trying to find an alternative option still though!  <response>: I was talking about the state pension a small part of your work income will be deducted to contribute to it, probably called UK National Insurance contributions not a work-provided plan; here could be a start to explore that. 