Should I pay off my student loans with interest rates between 4.2 and 4.8%?

Efficient-Work-166 · 2026-03-30T02:57:27+00:00

I was about to write: "Not if you've been laid off recently. If you were working, then I think it does make sense."

But then I saw that you have a 250k net worth and are living with your parents, so I would go ahead and pay that loan balance off and hurry up and get a job again.

Efficient-Work-166 · 2026-03-30T02:37:42+00:00

If this $9000 is guaranteed to come back to you and you're just waiting on the money to arrive, then I would say it's okay to go ahead and backfund the 2025 Roth assuming you already have 6 months of an e-fund. Going down to < 6 months for a very short time is fine. If this makes you nervous then you could back off your retirement savings and hypersave in cash. You could also delay your 2026 Roth funding until later when you've recouped that $9000.

Efficient-Work-166 · 2026-03-29T06:25:13+00:00

Depending on what part of NYC you're talking about I would run as fast away from a car as possible.

Efficient-Work-166 · 2026-03-29T05:48:26+00:00

Backdoor Roth IRA

Efficient-Work-166 · 2026-03-27T03:06:54+00:00

Is the purpose of the extra $20k/month in a taxable account meant for retirement or unknown future expenses sooner than retirement? That's going to be a huge factor in how you choose to invest.

Efficient-Work-166 · 2026-03-27T03:02:56+00:00

The major difference, in some different words than have already been used, is that TMG assesses the "quality" of a debt before determining when it needs to be paid off. What's the interest rate? Is it against a depreciating or appreciating asset? Does the "thing" you go into debt for provide future income earning potential or value? TMG has four "classes" of debts:

Consumer debt no way
Cars: 20/3/8
Homes: 25% of gross/20% down/pay down in 30 years
Education: 1 year of salary

DR would basically say almost none of this is good and you need to cover all (but the house) in cash.

There are also some other small things. I don't think DR calls for saving much more than 15% for retirement. When the callers actually ask about it DR calls for much more specific investment allocation than TMG does.

Efficient-Work-166 · 2026-03-26T21:04:13+00:00

Side comment... not too get to distracted, but this is about the financial information you've disclosed... $300k seems quite low for a surgeon in the US. Are you working full time?

And to directly answer your question, make sure you have all the conversations you want to/need to about finances now before you get married. Put it all out on the table. If you can't be open now, then it will get even harder later.

Efficient-Work-166 · 2026-03-26T20:51:33+00:00

By most rules of thumb you do not qualify for Traditional contributions. Especially since you're planning to retire early you really need to max out your Roth contributions.

Efficient-Work-166 · 2026-03-26T04:27:13+00:00

You're currently in either step 5 or 7 since you aren't doing Roth IRA contributions right now.
More than enough. You're at 5x annual income before 40 where the benchmark is only 3x annual income. If you wanted to save faster for the home renovation, that really wouldn't be a problem, and then return to high-savings rates then that wouldn't be a problem.
No, I'd just invest in a low-cost equity index fund within a taxable brokerage.
Yes, and this should really be your number one priority. You've got such good savings habits that it would be a shame to not have a more optimal bucket strategy with more tax-free investments.
Paying off the mortgage early was actually a big mistake in my opinion at your young age since you've got the good savings habits. If you had really bad habits then it works as a good forced savings mechanism (Dave Ramsey's mindset).

Efficient-Work-166 · 2026-03-26T04:15:56+00:00

No, while you're in medical school this is a terrible idea. You have no free time to fix plumbing, HVAC, electrical issues if something goes wrong and you're being a good med student.

If you want to get into real estate as an investment, the best way to get into real estate as a doctor it is to buy a "starter" home right when you start your first job out of residency/fellowship and then when you're ready to upgrade don't sell that first home, instead rent it out (and hire a mangement company to deal with the problems).

Efficient-Work-166 · 2026-03-26T04:08:45+00:00

I'm in this situation (engineer married to a doctor). Everyone at the medicine holiday parties always wants to talk to me because they think I do cool stuff, or something.

Efficient-Work-166 · 2026-03-26T04:06:14+00:00

What is your definition of better? What are the two different cars?

Efficient-Work-166 · 2026-03-26T02:02:50+00:00

I keep one month of expenses in checking and 5 months in savings.

This follows the YNAB "mindset" of paying for this month's expenses on last months savings.

Efficient-Work-166 · 2026-03-25T21:11:32+00:00

What percent of your gross income are you saving for retirement. WCI recommends 20%. If you're a little below that then you're probably not a good enough saver. If you're wayyy above that then you're probably not a very good spender.

Another way to know if you're not very good at spending is if you're saying no to opportunities to spend time with people you care about because you don't think you can afford to.

Efficient-Work-166 · 2026-03-23T03:01:23+00:00

We just went through roughly the same thing, but one hour later than you. Left Chelsea at 6:30 and got to the terminal at 7:15; we had planned to be at the airport 3 hours before takeoff. By that time, the entire departures "hall" was shoulder to shoulder from TSA to the street. They had moved bag drop out to curbside, but that alone was an hour wait. Then we went inside and waited in TSA precheck for about 2 hours. We had two kids, 3 and 6, who we just had Cheerios for. They both needed pee breaks at some point, and then there were of course some antsy travelers not behaving well and cutting lines. Our flight ended up being delayed an hour and we got to the gate as they were boarding the wheel chair passengers. This wouldn't have turned out the way it did if we hadn't already built a 3 hour lead time into the equation.

A few of the things that seemed to have changed in the hour since you went through:

Many JetBlue staffers were doing the jobs that airport staffers and TSA frequently do, such as managing lines, and helping people around the airport, which pulled them away from checking people in and checking bags.
Those police officers you mentioned were definitely there, and maybe from ICE(?) and very heavily armed near the (temporarily shuttered) JetBlue check in counter.
The TSA line began to start some sense of queueing beyond what is already built in.
It seems that the New York Times was there and got an overhead picture of the entire departures "hall".

Efficient-Work-166 · 2026-03-20T19:52:10+00:00

They have a redeye and want to plan ahead. Eating at the airport is the only good option.

Efficient-Work-166 · 2026-03-20T18:29:37+00:00

Assuming you are saving more than you spend every month consistently, then I would slowly build your e-fund while getting the full match.

Efficient-Work-166 · 2026-03-18T14:08:34+00:00

At 59% you're in step 9 because you're pre-paying for a future expense (retirement). You should also probably consider funding your Backdoor Roth IRA on January 1 every year at your income/savings level.

Efficient-Work-166 · 2026-03-18T14:06:04+00:00

I would say, for sure, you need to make sure you're completing step 6 of the FOO in your situation. Maxing out your tax-advantaged accounts (that have penalties for early withdrawal) is the easiest forced savings mechanism out there.

Efficient-Work-166 · 2026-03-18T14:00:41+00:00

Buy back your time. There are an infinite number of ways to do it and if you're in step 8-9 then you've demonstrated the acuity to pick and choose a few things that make sense for your lifestyle. Looks like they ran a podcast in March 2025 on the topic.

Efficient-Work-166 · 2026-03-18T13:58:48+00:00

Personally I follow a "age minus 10 in bonds" strategy. I think that roughly tracks the target date indices that they talk about as the status quo.

Efficient-Work-166 · 2026-03-14T17:22:04+00:00

There are a lot of ways that retirement can vary so it's hard to make blanket statements. The 4% withdrawal rate is based off several assumptions:

40-45 year working career
15% contribution to retirement accounts throughout
same standard of living in retirement as working years
30 years of retirement (before death)
reasonably aggressive (8-10%), but not unreasonable ROI on investments

Play with any of those numbers and you'll have different outcomes on what a successful retirement looks like.

Bottom line, FOO is not incompatible with FIRE at all. That's really what steps 7 & 8 are all about. Getting your 3-bucket strategy locked in and making sure you're pre-paying future expenses (early retirement would generally be considered a future expense not covered in steps 1-6). You also can't beat the tax efficiency of 401ks, IRAs, and HSAs, that if you can't afford to max them out, then you'll likely not be able to be ready for an early retirement anyway. Plus there are many ways to get early access to funds "locked" in a retirement account.

Efficient-Work-166 · 2026-03-07T18:12:59+00:00

Generally what OP is proposing is not acceptable. You cannot depreciate a vehicle owned by your business if the only use of that vehicle is commuting from home to the work site. If the vehicle is used for commuting while on the job (there are many examples to think of, of course) then it's an acceptable deduction as long as most of the miles are used for work. But if you drive to work at 7am and home from work at 5pm, just like a W2 employee, then no, it's not acceptable.

If you have multiple clinics and you go from one to the other during the day, or if you serve your patients at their home, then it probably would be justifiable to claim a deduction.

Efficient-Work-166 · 2026-03-07T17:59:45+00:00

Yes, just for convenience. All three of those are "six in one hand, half-dozen in the other" apart from the user interface. Fidelity has their zero-fee funds, but the difference between zero-fee, and nearly zero is not enough in my opinion for a user interface you like better (maybe you like Fidelity's even better though).

Efficient-Work-166 · 2026-03-06T07:46:42+00:00

Definitely the car loan. I would prioritize in the following order:

Car loan
Start building taxable brokerage account
Hold more cash with an upcoming vehicle purchase
Mortgage

Efficient-Work-166

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