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MAY 2023

ARE STUDENT LOANS STRESSING YOU OUT?

With 2 in 5 families borrowing more than $50,000 for college, student debt can affect not only financial wellbeing, but short and long-term mental health. For many people, saving for retirement is delayed due to prioritizing paying down student loans.

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Does this sound like you

Our experience, through thousands of one-on-one fiduciary planning sessions each year, has been that the average retirement saver is often conditioned to prioritize their student loan payoff ahead of retirement savings. On the surface, it seems like the right path. However, that is not always an ideal solution.








"The reality is that it’s a give-and-take situation. If I focus on student loan payoff, it means sacrificing retirement savings, or sacrificing vacations, or sacrificing…fill in the blank. With more employers aligning their 401k and HSA offerings with technology we believe there is a path forward that allows for each of these goals to be addressed sooner than later."

-MJ Gross, Vice President


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What about my needs

Laying it all out on the table and crafting a path forward is crucial to our future financial success. The below steps are critical:


  • Understand the financial details of your day-to-day. A budget is a must to understand how your income can best impact your debts.
  • Learn how your company's 401k plan works. Does it have an Auto Increase feature? If so, set your contributions to what you can afford today and have them automatically increase by 1% each year while you pay down your student loans. You won't even feel the increases, and before you know it, you will save more than you ever thought possible.
  • Use any "variable income" as a lever to move that debt down more rapidly. Tax refunds, bonuses, etc., should go straight to paying off debt.








Investment advice offered through OneDigital Investment Advisors, an SEC-registered investment adviser and wholly owned subsidiary of OneDigital. Some information has been obtained from sources we believe to be reliable. OneDigital Investment Advisors makes no representation as to the accuracy or validity of this information.