I only took the interest-free ones-actually interest doesn't start until june 15th. These are extended period-there is a principal payment. Min payment is $137/month. It's 3 separate subsidized loans. Just mathed it out.
$5500/3.76%
$5500/4.45%
$2,292/5.05%
All are fixed, I can pay on them separately before the interest start date (6/15/19) but after that, they combine
$13,292 will be at 4.27% if I don't pay off any of the separate balances prior
If I make the minimum payment it's 10 years-$137/month=total of $3,061 in interest paid.
Don't worry about the dollar amounts on interest, just worry about the percent return and the volatility/risk of the investment and how it matches up with your life goals and ability to take risk.
A few questions: Do you contribute to an IRA? Traditional or Roth? What's your tax bracket?
each one has different rates-one I mean total is like 4.2 or so If i don't pay either. If i pay the 5.05 one the 11k will be at like 3.9%.
Just got hired out of school 2 months ago. 22 Hourly 40 hours a week/w2 with no 401k or healthcare offered. In 4 months they will review and possibly direct hire me. Prior to this I was self employed. Puts me at like 45k/year although this year more like 38 due to start date.
I have 27k in my roth (vanguard target date 2060) with 3200 remaining cont. for 2019.
So the plus if you don't have a 401k option available from your employer is that you can contribute and deduct Traditional IRA without an income cap:
https://www.irs.gov/retirement-plans/ira-deduction-limits. However, in your case you look like you'll be in the 12% tax bracket, keeping in mind the 12k standard deduction for filing single:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_tax_in_the_United_States#Marginal_tax_rates_for_2018. For the 12% tax bracket, I'm borderline in advising people to invest in Traditional or Roth IRA, since it is likely you'll be making much more money down the road and be in a higher tax bracket. If I was advising myself, I'd probably suggest Traditional rather than Roth, but wouldn't hold it against you if you chose Roth. Traditional is like getting stocks on sale at your combined federal and state income tax rates, so it works out to a pretty big deal.
Since it looks like you're maxing the available tax-advantaged space you have available (which is a very good thing), you can consider whether to put money into paying off the loans or into taxable. If you choose to pay off the loans, definitely pay highest interest rate first. Your highest loan is roughly 5%, which in my opinion is borderline for what I would want to pay off versus investing in a taxable account given the current state of affairs. So again, it's up to you. Keep in mind at your tax bracket dividends won't be taxed and you can still tax loss harvest if the stock market goes south (not to mention you'd establish some liquidity), so perhaps I'd lean toward a taxable account if I were in your shoes.
So to answer your original question: In your situation (low liquidity, relatively low loan interest rates, low tax bracket), I'd recommend paying the minimum payment on all your loans and investing any excess money in taxable (also research tax loss harvesting (TLH)). I would also consider changing from Roth to Traditional for your IRA. Finally, it sounds like you might be in a good position to look around for a higher paying job in the near future. Keep using Vanguard, but pick funds that are different from what you use in your IRA (necessary for TLH), and I'd recommend starting with a fund with a TLH good partner (for example S&P 500 and Total Stock Market make good TLH partners).
