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BiggerPockets Money Podcast

188: Finance Friday: Is A Master's Degree Worth The Pay Raise?

BiggerPockets Money Podcast

BiggerPockets

Investing, Education, Business

4.5 • 3K Ratings

🗓️ 16 April 2021

⏱️ 58 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Being strapped with student debt isn’t easy. It creates a whole new obstacle to hitting financial freedom, but it can be mitigated. So does it make sense to invest on the side and pay the regular monthly payments on student debt, or go all-in and pay off huge chunks of student debt at once? Today’s guest, Robyn, has this exact question (which many of you may have as well).  Robyn lives in the Bay Area, one of the most notoriously expensive housing markets on the planet. That being said, she is paying very low rent, under $700 a month, split with her partner. Robyn has student loans and a small car loan, but wants to go back to school to get her master’s degree so she can hit her career goals. There would be a pay raise after she got her master’s and she loves her job, so she’s keen on staying in her sector for awhile. Scott and Mindy go through a few examples where it may be best for Robyn to go more heavy on investing, instead of paying off the student loan aggressively. This is especially true now that the government has given the option of 0% interest payments on student loans for many students (including Robyn) until at least the last quarter of 2021. So what makes more sense, get rid of debt or go in on investing? In This Episode We Cover Keeping a large savings rate every month for unexpected expenses  Finishing school faster so you walk away with less debt Knowing your student loan and other debt interest rates  Weighing investing against paying off student loans quicker  Having a side-income so you can maximize saving whenever possible And So Much More! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

Welcome to the Bigger Puckets Money Podcast,

0:02.1

show number 188, Finance Friday edition,

0:05.5

where we interview Robin and talk about grad school,

0:08.1

student loans, and saving for retirement.

0:10.8

Do I want to be a aggressive investor?

0:14.7

Do I want to be more cautious?

0:17.5

I personally don't know about things like Roth IRAs

0:21.5

and index funds and whatever other funds are out there.

0:25.8

So I think a lot of it's just trying to figure out

0:29.2

what the differences are and what is most beneficial to me,

0:36.0

like now and in the future.

0:37.8

So I think that's the homework part of this for me, I think.

0:42.4

Hello, hello, hello.

0:43.2

My name is Mindy Jensen.

0:44.2

And with me, as always, is my visionary co-host, Scott Trunch.

0:48.1

No, thank you, Mindy, but I think I'm more of a pupil

0:51.8

of finance than the visionary.

0:55.0

Oh, you went the wrong way with the opposite way of vision

0:59.4

than I was thinking of.

1:01.5

Scott and I are here to make financial independence less scary,

1:04.6

less just for somebody else, to introduce you

1:06.8

to every money story because we truly believe financial freedom

...

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