Is there something I'm just not getting about how traditional retirement accounts compound interest vs loans compounding interest, or is there absolutely zero reason to invest more than what your company matches until you've gotten out of debt?
Originally Posted by: Porforis
My opinion is that you are two steps ahead of many others to be thinking about these issues in your mid 20s. As others have said, first is, at a minimum, invest to maximize your job's price matching policy. As for what is left over, I would focus on paying the loan off early and accumulating some cash in savings or a fairly liquid investment for emergencies. I think the rule of thumb is to have 1/2 year salary available in cash for when one might hit a rough patch.
Interestingly, I wonder if eating out is more expensive now. In the past few months, my grocery bill has been really absurd. It would be of interest to run the numbers on avg. groceries versus eating out to see if it really still saves alot of money. Of course it also depends on eating at mcdonalds versus more quality restaurants.
The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool - R. Feynman