Top priority: Pay off $77,610 debt

— -- Your Portfolio: Each month a financial planner reviews a reader's portfolio and suggests improvements.

Impressively, Matt Hughey already has an eye toward retirement, notes June Walbert, a certified financial planner with USAA Financial Planning Services.

"That's very cool," she says. "When I was in my 20s, I was not thinking along those lines."

With his debt totaling $77,610, Hughey also decided that paying off his loans should be a top priority. So Walbert has come up with an aggressive plan that would help him erase his debt by about age 30. "But it's going to require a huge chunk of his income," she says.

Among her advice:

•Use $15,000 of his five-year, low-interest $25,000 USAA loan to pay down his higher-interest student loans.

•About $5,000 of the loan already has been used to buy an engagement ring for his fiancée, so he should use the remaining $5,000 from the USAA loan to set up an emergency fund in a high-yield money market account.

"Then he'll have some money to catch a curve ball," Walbert says.

•Wait about five years to buy a home. By then his debt-to-income ratio will drop, he'll have a better credit score and he'll qualify for a good mortgage rate.

"You don't want to take on something else when you're trying to attack your student loans," she says.

Also, Hughey should keep in mind that when he's in the military, he'll likely move every few years. Real estate markets, of course, tend to fluctuate. So when it came time to move, he'd run the risk of having to sell a home before it has appreciated in price.

•Don't buy a motorcycle. He already has a car and doesn't need it. He'd not only have to pay thousands to buy it; he'd also have to pay ongoing motorcycle insurance, which is typically much more expensive than car insurance.

•Keep funding his Roth IRA at $100 a month.

Hughey made a good choice with his Vanguard Target Retirement 2045 fund, Walbert says. It's a no-load fund of funds — a collection of Vanguard funds — whose holdings will change over time but is now 90% stocks and 10% bonds. She suggests that he keep feeding this one and not open another mutual fund in the IRA.