[Investment showdown -- beyond the Roth, SDP, & TSP]

I'd check out Lending Club. It's an awesome way to get a much better return on your money. I wrote about my experiences with it here here: Lending Club Review.

After a year and half with LC, I've had only 2 loans defaulted and received over an 8% return. I've mostly stuck with A and B rated loans and I'm starting to think that maybe getting riskier will provide more ROI. Check it out.

[Career Starter Loans?]

Just in case anyone is looking for some more information about the USAA Career Starter loan, I put up a blog post about:

Is the USAA Career Starter Loan a Good Deal?

Also, here's how I used my USAA cadet loan. Basically, I took $15k, invested in 50% large cap, 25% small cap, and 25% international mutual funds. The other $10k I put into 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 year CDs at $2000 to create a CD ladder.

After letting the $15k grow for 1.5 years, I sold it, and paid off another student loan I had at 6.8% (my USAA loan is at 2.99%). I've got about $10,000 left to pay off on on the USAA loan. The CD ladder I've just let mature and become my emergency fund.