I'm surprised your rate on your loans is that high. You should be able to do better than that. Unless you have no other debt, I'm not sure that's the greatest use of your money.

Let's not even discuss the 8.5% rate my student loan is at. And I can't do a GODDAMN thing about it.

PC, if you are on the fence about the student loan, I'd do one of the following things: do the pay-big-chunks every once in a while, or step up the monthly payment thing. That way you can continue to have some savings, some good debt (which is handy for other bigger loans) and write off the interest on your taxes, which is in fact the bomb diggety.

Personally, I'd love to get my student loans paid off so I could sink that $600/month into savings or my mortgage )or to cancel out an inevitable future car loan payment), but I have other good debt (the mortgage) so it's a little different for me. Also, I have student loan fatigue, having dealt with them for 10 years already.

P-C, a couple thoughts on your finances.

First, you're doing very well. People at your stage of life are more likely to be worrying about how to pay the rent than whether to use savings to pay off debt completely. So feel good about yourself for having that kind of problem.

On whether to pay off, I'm going to take a bit of a contrarian view. It's a very good idea to have some savings as a fallback in case of emergencies. The conventional wisdom is to have at least 3-6 months' expenses socked away (my goal is to have at least 6 paychecks, or 12 weeks' take-home pay, which is more than 3 months' expenses). So I'd suggest that you not pay off the student loan if it takes your savings below that level.

Can't argue with the folks encouraging you to look at consolidation or other options that may reduce the interest rate. But I'll add that you can pay down the principal without paying off completely. Either in a lump sum or by adding a little something extra every month. (We do the latter with our mortgage -- it's surprising how fast the benefits show up on monthly statements!)

Finally, a subject that neither you nor anyone else raised, but it crossed my mind. How well are your savings working for you? I recently moved a fair amount of my liquid reserve (that 3-6 months expenses I was talking about above) from a bank account paying 0.2% to a bank account paying over 4%. Same safety, big difference in return. (A short-term corporate bond mutual fund is a little riskier -- but not a lot -- and can also offer decent return.)

On a similar topic, if you have your liquid reserve in place, you might want to look at investing with a longer timeframe in mind. I'm not giving any advice on specifics, but if you want to look in that direction, find a copy of Investing for Dummies, Kiplinger's Personal Finance magazine, or the like.

P-C, I'd look at consolidating. My student loan was somewhere in the 4% range, but when I took out a Parent Plus loan for my daughter that loan was in the 7% range. I was able to consolidate the second loan with the first loan and get a 4.75% interest rate on the total. You can really save some money that way.

PC, I will second what Fred Pete says, right across the board.

Anne, you rassenfrassen Cardinals fan congratulations! I am incredibly sad this morning, but hey, you can't win if you don't fucking hit the ball.

Thanks, AmyLiz, and my condolences.

offers coffee and cookies as a goodwill gesture

Welcome back FP! I'm glad you had such a great time in Amsterdam. I knew you would!

offers coffee and cookies as a goodwill gesture

Make it tea and we're good. ::winks::

Oh, we did, SA! Plus a one-day excursion into Belgium. (Though the train trip to Alkmaar was interesting, not least because tracks were closed because of an accident, and we couldn't take a direct route.)

And you seriously can't beat crepes with nutella made right in front of you while it's snowing.

I think I just had an orgasm. Mmmm.

Even with the drug induced nap yesterday, I slept last night and feel much more human today. At least so far.

Fiscal responsibility is a good thing. Maybe one day it will be a concept I understand better.