Skipping Loan Payments to Invest Could Cost Her $5,000 — But She’s Betting It’ll Pay Off by 2030
BN
Blake North
student loan repayment policy · Apr 9, 2026
Source: DojiDoji Data Terminal
Her student loans are generating $464 in interest every month. Since she stopped paying them in December 2025, over $5,000 has already accrued. But the 29-year-old physician assistant behind the TikTok account @l.rhiannon isn’t worried — she’s betting that her investments will grow faster than her debt.
She owes $105,245 in federal student loans. One, a Grad PLUS loan of $29,018.91 at 7.4%, has added $523.57 in interest since August 2025. The rest — seven unsubsidized loans totaling $76,290.85, averaging about 6% — have gained $4,540.85 over the past year. Interest didn’t start until two years after her August 2023 graduation, thanks to pandemic-era protections and administrative delays in the SAVE plan.
Between August and December 2025, she paid down $40,000, targeting the highest-rate debt first. Then she paused. Instead of sending money to loans, she moved $7,500 from her emergency fund into a Roth IRA for 2026. Her next goal: invest another $7,500 in a taxable brokerage account before restarting loan payments.
She plans to pay off the Grad PLUS loan in 2026. But right now, her priority is building wealth, not eliminating debt. She’s counting on long-term market returns to outpace 6% to 7.4% annual borrowing costs — a bet that only works if stocks deliver historically average gains over the next decade.
