Newly minted consultant here looking for financial advice.

So I just moved to consulting after B school, and It's more money than I've made my entire life. After paying for rent and living expenses, I have 6000$ left over every month. My student loan payments are about 1200/month at 7% interest. I still owe another 95K on my loan. I have the option to pay more every month and reduce my overall interest paid.
Currently I put about 3000 towards my loan and 3000 towards my savings. Cont'd...

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Congratulations! 🎉 Few things I would consider:
1. Can you refinance the loan to a lower interest rate? Check if your company has any partnerships, I was able to do it through Mckinsey-SoFi connection. If yes then I would keep paying the loan at the minimum amount required and save up rest of the money for investments.
2. Maximize your 401k and do invest in stocks/index funds. One thing to ask yourself is that if you will have peace of mind through saving/investing while continuing to pay the loan for years. If yes then invest. The compounding effect will be worthwhile in the long run.

Agree with D1 on building the emergency fund.

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Thank you!
1) unfortunately no, I'm in the Middle East and my bank is willing to refinance at a rate only 10 basis points lower, the savings of which which would probably get eaten up by the processing fees :(
2) We don't have a 401Ks in the region - but I've been putting 5% in a long term retirement account. I probably should have mentioned, this 6000 left over is after that :) you're right though it was a little stressful seeing an empty bank account for the forts time since I started working 8 years ago haha.
Thank you for the advice, I really do appreciate you guys taking the time!

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First of all, big congrats on the new job! Also, I love how you’re approaching this (thinking about building savings / aggressive debt repayment instead of increases spending).

I’d personally start by building a 3-6 month emergency fund while making minimum payments on the loans. 3 months if single, closer to 6 months if partner / kids depend on your income.

Once you have that covered, I would throw every single dollar that you can at that loan as aggressively as possible and keep doing so until it’s fully paid off.

At the rate you’re going it sounds like you’re on track to pay it off in 1.5-2 years which is fantastic. After that, you’re going to have no debt, a high income, and a great savings rate - all of which set you up to be in a great financial position in the years to come.

Keep it up!!

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Thank you :) apart from a couple of silly toys from my signing bonus, I'm trying really hard to avoid the lifestyle creep, at least for a bit!
I hear you -I'm (un)fortunately recently single, so 3-4 months should work. I guess deep down I knew what to do but it's always nice to validate with people more experienced. Thank you!

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Bearing in my mind I have 0 savings at all coz I spent everything on B school and then 8 months of living costs due to a covid related delay in start date, what do you guys reckon I should do? Be more aggressive with my loan? Or put more in the bank to have a years worth of living costs covered before attacking the loan?

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