I received a ~$15k bonus this year (after tax) and need to decide whether to:

-Save for a house (currently have $85k saved in an HYSA at over 5% rate for downpayment/closing/furnishing, aiming for $460k-$550k home as our area is expensive now)

-Pay off some student loans ($77k left, would pay off highest interest loan at 6.35%), or

-Put some into Roth IRA for 2023 contribution.

Anyone have advice?

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How old are you?

What portion of income is going to student loan?

When do you want to buy a home?

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I would renegotiate my student loan amount payment so that maybe you can afford to get into a house!

Your age matters here but 77k debt is too much to not put some towards the highest interest bearing loan. A Roth contribution is obviously always a good idea. If it were me I wouldn’t be able to feel enthusiastic about buying a home with that much student loan debt but everyone’s different. Depending on your age you have a good amount in savings so I would do a little Roth contribution and then really focus on clearing that 77k over the next couple years.

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I mean, I've felt absolutely terrified to buy a home since the market blew up. So I'm not exactly enthusiastic...

My partner and I both make 6-figures, which would have been plenty to buy a home pre-pandemic, but no longer is. Gave a breakdown in comment to an earlier post if it's helpful to see those numbers.

Unfortunately, due to my age, I'd like to start a family ASAP and can't afford to wait much longer.

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How much is left on the highest interest portion at 6.35%? I would pay that off, and if there is any left over perform the same exercise. If the next highest interest rate is still more than 4% on your HYSA, I'd pay the rest of it to that loan as well.

~19k. I was considering pulling from the HYSA to just knock that loan out in full.

One thing a commenter mentioned on another post is that there are federal protections on student loans that don't exist for other debt (like a mortgage). So, if I lost my job or had to take time off, I could reduce or pause student loan payments but can't pause mortgage payments the same way.

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IMO, it makes zero cents to sit money in savings earning 5% return when you have other debt costing you interest above 5%. All debt that you have over 5% needs to be paid off as you're net losing money. It would hurt my heart a little to pay off the debt after saving so much, but the math ain't mathin.

If you have any debt your focus should be on paying that off before taking on more. I highly recommend reading Dave Ramsey's advice on financial management. Buying a home makes very little sense in this market and if you have any other debt it makes zero sense. You can actually make more money long term by focusing on first aggressively attacking your debt then moving to invest rather than buying a home. Also, if you do look to buy a home, putting down 5% is a huge mistake. If you can't put down a MINIMUM of 20% including closing costs you don't have enough to buy a home.

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