Re: Hypothetically: Debt or Emergency Fund?
I'm with sweeps. Ideally, I think I'd do some debt reduction and some emergency fund. Are your (hypothetical) expenses really 20K for 3-6 months? I imagine these student loan payments are not huge, so you could relatively easily cover them for a few months with an modest emergency fund. Then it just depends on what other obligations/debts/expenses you have. I assume you have rent, etc to pay and your food, at a minimum.
If forced to choose one or the other, I'd go with the emergency fund. The reason being, if you get into trouble (say, lose your job), you'd want to be able to make those payments and meet any other obligations rather than going further into debt (possibly 'bad' debt like Credit Cards) and possibly doing very bad things to your credit.
-TinyFish
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