DH and I had 200k in loans. Needless to say I hated them with a passion. We followed the investment order spreadsheet and paid off all loans above 5%. We then refinanced the remaining loans to lower rates over time (I check every few months but I don't think they're going lower now). So once we paid off the >5% loans, we started to max our retirement accounts. We sent what excess was left to VTSAX in a new brokerage account. After ten years of paying every last penny to the loans on a weekly basis I was excited to have money "on-hand" but still available to pay off the loans if need be. I considered it an opportunity fund, especially with the rising housing market. Although now I don't ever want to touch it! Thanks to my handy spreadsheet I have detailed monthly numbers to show it worked, at least on my short timeline 2014-current.
For some numbers.... *Brokerage contributions are the amount I would have sent as an extra payment to loans. Not the total brokerage amount.
Weigted avg of loans is
YE2014 - $10,000 in brokerage contributions. Net Benefit $447
YE2015 - $36,250 brokerage. Net Benefit (-$343)
YE2016 - $48,500 brokerage (near exact student loan balance). Net Benefit $5,194
YE2017 - $43,250 Contributions. Net Benefit - $12,573 (Contributions effect down because of loan paydown)
YE2018 - $38,270 contributions. Net benefit - $7,000 (with last weeks losses, calculation underestimates benefit currently)
The first year (2014) we bounced back and forth with a net benefit/loss which was scary. It slowly rose in 15-17, but mainly hovered around 12k for the last year. The weighted average of my loans is around 3.75%. I would recommend this approach to anyone who has the cash flow to do so. It gave me extreme peace of mind to have money available to me in dire emergency, especially after years of keeping only $1k e-fund while paying down loans. Now, I still have the option to pay off the loans completely or pull a few payments from the brokerage if I need to.
The only thing that sucks is there is no big payoff celebration. I found it very disheartening when the brokerage was > loans and then kept flip-flopping. Since this was a long journey for DH and I, I just wanted to scream from the rooftops about being done! Instead it just slowly passed over and it took a few month to feel "safe" that we were really done.