I have 20,000 dollars in the bank. I havet 9k student load debt

>>1676065
you should probably try r9k

What's the interest rate on both?
What's your monthly income?
what is infact 1.5x the monthly payment?
What does your company match in the 401k?

Jesus OP you're giving no god damn info here.

>>1676070
I'm pretty new at this. I'll be more explicit.

I make 58k per year as a low-level programmer.
I pay about 200 dollars per month on car and student loans.

Highest student loan interest is 4.5%
Car interest is 3.1%

I'm not sure how much my company matches. I need to check.

For the loans, should I pay them off immediately to avoid interests or keep paying them to build up credit? Any kind of loan forgiveness opportunities I should watch for?

>>1676073
This is my advice, Take it with a grain of salt. I'm no financial expert, but just personal advice; How I would do things.

Pay off the car completely. if something goes absolutely wrong, that way you're not paying off 2 cars. Whatever you put towards the car normally, now put towards your student loans as well. The rest of your savings you got? put it into a normal run-of-the-mill TFSA until you get more info on your companies 401k. If it's fairly good, put ~8k in. if it's absolute trash, just put ~4k. Either way will leave you with enough money that you have an emergency backup fund.

Alternatively, pay off the student loan completely because it's the higher interest rate. Then pay into the car with all the money you paid into both.

>>1676087
That all seems sensible to me. I will pay off the Car because the student loan program I am on lets me defer payment if I'm unemployed. Plus, Only 2.5k of the loan is at 4.5%, the rest is lower.

What makes a 401k good versus bad? The matching rate? What's a "good" matching rate?

Pay off both loans. At minimum pay off the student loan. That interest cost doesn't even account for inflation depending on how long you're amortizing those loans.

Unless you're managing your portfolio and earning ~8% with the 16k that could be used to pay off your debts then it would make sense to keep to loans.

As for your 401k, employers typically match 100% up to certain amount. At minimum everyone should contribute that amount to fully capitalize.

File: 1481991992315.jpg (2MB, 1665x3441px) Image search: [Google]

2MB, 1665x3441px

Pic's pretty relevant here.

If I were you I would do the following:
Pay off both of the loans pronto.

You would have about 5k remaining in the bank and this should be transferred into something safe that you can use as an emergency fund and start working towards at a minimum of 3 months of expenses (Living, etc...)

Set up a 50/20/30 Budget at the minimum and I'm assuming you're pulling in about 3600/mo after taxes.

Once Emergency Fund is established then you should start putting money in 401k / IRA. Look at the flowchart pic I've attached. This is pretty relevant and helpful.

>>1676184
This is a pretty good flowchart. Thank you, Anon.

>>1676200
You're welcome.

>>1676200
>>>1676184
>This is a pretty good flowchart. Thank you, Anon.

x2 Appreciate it.