"You've got it right... paying off a debt in lump sum amount is a sound financial strategy because it'd free off a lot of liquid cash for you to plan your next move. However, if you keep making the minimum monthly payments, then you may end up paying more on the loans in the long run. Once you're debt free, you can save a lot of money that were spent to cover the interests or additional charges applied on the loans. Begin with paying off your car loan at once. But make sure you've got the permission to pre-pay loan without inviting any penalty from the lender. Once you've done that, you can trade your guns toward your student loan. It's a no-brainer at this point that you can easily repay it and become debt free. However, you may seek professional help, if all these overwhelms you. Still, you could do well by using a personal budgeting application to chalk out a well-rounded debt repayment plan. Better still, you use a suitable debt calculator to find out how much you'd need to pay and the amount you'd save after making the loan repayments.