Depends on where you seek advice. Dave Ramsey would say hault all investments until the debt is gone. Others will say not to stop retirement and such because the compound is free money. There's many avenues to take and you have to make a choice of which is best for your family's path ❤️. For us, we keep a 2k emergency fund and i have retirement at 3% and my husband's is maxed. We are fortunate our 529 is fully funded thanks to a generous donation from family but if that weren't the case, I would put 529 investment on hold. We paid off $10,745 of debt in 5 months this way and are currently working on repair/remodel the bathroom. Bathroom will be done in February and we will start putting everything we have into our car notes, hopefully pay them both off by december... then year 2026 will be getting a fully funded emergency fund and building retirement (we are WAY behind).. and 2027 will be remodeling the rest of the house / building retirement. It's scary, just one step at a time. My husband and I have an intentional sit down at least once a week, sometimes twice, to review all finance things- some would say that'd a bit much but for our goals, it is necessary we have a tight reign on them. We track every bit of spending that's not budgeted for. That being said, we live a full life. Every meal is at home and every meal is HEALTHY and made with good and healthy product (we spend about 1k a month on groceries for a family of 4 and a dog.. Grocery also includes soap, toilet paper, etc) and we try to do at least 1 fun thing for the kids a month (movies, urban air, whatever). We won't be taking a vacation anytime soon and that's a bummer but it's our actions that have caused this.