Pay off or save?

Hello,

I'm just curious what kind of financial advice would be advised for my situation. I'm almost 28 yrs old with $12k in student loans left to pay off which are consolidated at 2.88%. I'm currently making payments of $125 which is slightly above the minimum. I make roughly $2k net bi-weekly. I'm also very close to having my car paid off, am currently renting and considering buying within the next year or two once I have more of a down payment. I currently just have $5k in a low-interest savings account and about $4k currently in checking, with no credit card debt.

Should I pay my student loan off more aggressively or save money for a potential down payment in the near future? Thanks!

I think you should continue to pay off your student loan. That way you'll build up a good credit history with more benefits down the line. Trust me, shaking of a bad credit history is not easy. I learnt several tips from this great site and now I've learnt never to let go of a steady payment plan. You can find many more answers for your queries on this site. Try it!

Should I stick with my slightly above minimum payments of $125 or put a few hundred a month towards it?

If I had a student loan, I would pay it off as soon as possible, but I just hate being in debt.

At a very nice 2.88%, I personally would pay nothing above the minumum required, but only if I thought I could do something better with the rest of my money (example - fund my Roth IRA, pay off higher-interest loans, earn a much higher APR on something else, etc.). If you are just going to blow what you don't use toward the loan, I would then pay higher each and every payment.

I would be saving.

Make sure you are saving 20% of gross. Put 15% into retirement accounts (401k and Roth IRAs) and 5% into a savings account for the house.

Let the money decide when to move, don't choose a date without seeing if you will have enough saved by that date.

Thanks for the advice!

I would like to erase debt ASAP, but with the low interest rate I guess I will go with near-minimum payments and look for ways to invest the extra money and not spend it. I just opened a high(er)-interest savings account online and am waiting for my 401k to kick-in at work so I'll try to take advantage of both of those and maybe look into a Roth IRA as well.

In the UK the advice is almost always to invest the money elsewhere as opposed to paying off any student loans. Interest rates on student loans are the baseline here (I assume it's the same there) which makes it wiser to save the money in a high-interest savings account instead.

by paying off your loan money will make your good credit history. that would be very helpful for you to take more loan further