I have 3 years left of my doctorate (May 2024 expected graduation) and it just hit me that I really need to build savings. I have been tackling my 90k student&car debt HARD and have got it down to 80k in just a 2 years. But I know when I graduate I will need a MINIMUM of $5k to cover initial relocation costs, security deposit on a new place etc. I decided I want to have $10k saved up in case it takes me up to 6 months to begin a job.
My dilemma is: for every $50/month I add onto my debt repayment, I save almost $1000 in interest at the end of my 10-year loan. This makes it extremely hard to watch money just sit in my savings account. I know investing is an option but 3 years feels too short to weather any large dips. I only have $1000 invested at the moment and it's only worth $840 right now! That doesn't make me feel eager to invest when the only investment I have has lost me money and probably will take that entire 3 years just to build back to $1000 IF the market only goes up. Ugh.
TLDR: I want to build savings to start me off right after graduation, but investing is scary and any money I have, I'm tempted to dump into my debt. How do I strike the right balance?
Submitted June 26, 2021 at 08:33AM by fergalexis https://ift.tt/3AbLjjQ
