If you can help more that would be awesome. I made some very poor decisions in my past coming from parents with no financial skills. Wound up at 28 years old unemployed with very limited unfinished CS education and no useful skills outside of tutoring / sub teaching and $25k in credit card debt before filing bankruptcy. This subreddit has been a godsend since then.

I'm 30 years old, work in software, and my net income after 6% company matched 401k is ~$3k a month. (Although I plan on adding another 400 to that by doing some lift driving and/or on the side). My 2011 Honda fit was payed cash. I have $5k in savings, which will likely be cut in half from upcoming moving and travel expenses. $48k total in student loans with minimum payments totaling around $450.

I'm currently living rent free with family right now but within a month or 2 will be looking at ~$1,000- $1,200 in rent/utilities (Los Angeles). Credit: Depending on the site I check I've seen 720s or 650s, impacted with a bankruptcy from a little over 2 years ago. May end up going doing an online MS tho, which would cost another 20-30k over 1.5-2 years. (My BA is in History, and I started on an MS in CS at a state school, finished all pre-reqs, but only completed a couple of grad courses so a MS in CS/SE would be huge for me).

In the immediate future I don't think I'd be making much more of a dent in those loans unless I opt to pass on grad school, jump ship to a company that can pay me more without the CS/Engineering degree (current company couldn't give me a Software Engineer label which cost me $12-15k in salary), or can somehow get lower rates on new student loans than the old ones. But with my credit history I'm guessing that's a no. I'm more curious in the longer scope (2-5 years from now) as I finish my degree and progress in my career to greater income (only been working in software for 1 year so far).