Joe Mihalic is a changed man. In 2011, he led the typical the Harvard-MBA lifestyle, with a lucrative job at a big tech company, a house in the suburbs, two cars and a motorcycle, and frequent travel—but he felt trapped. “I wasn’t working at a company I loved or in a job I loved. I wasn’t living a life I loved,” Joe says. So he changed his life drastically, becoming a minimalist. And that decision led him to pay off $90,000 in student loan debt in just seven months.

Joe, who lives in Austin, Texas, chronicled his journey to payoff success in his blog No More Harvard Debt. His posts resonated with many young grads, and his blog went viral in 2012. Now debt-free and an operations manager at a company he loves, Joe says he’s found inner peace. But he hasn’t let go of his frugal lifestyle— his work shoes attest to that. While paying down his loans, he wore the same shoes, even as holes appeared in them. Today, he won’t buy a new pair of shoes until the soles wear out.

Joe didn’t take every possible road to pay off his student loans—for example, he didn’t refinance, or take advantage of a student loan forgiveness program. But his “all in” approach offers many takeaways for MBA grads facing mortgage-sized loan debt.

Up until a few years ago, there wasn’t a lot of variation between what different mortgage lenders were offering. It was kind of a nightmare, to put it mildly. Since there wasn’t a lot to consider when looking for a lender, borrowers typically compared them on interest rate alone. And because lenders had no differentiation in services, borrowers were always in for a frustrating, paperwork-heavy application process ahead (often with poor customer service from the bank providing the loan).

Buying your first home is a huge investment, but that doesn’t mean it’s a purely financial decision. You may be seeking more space for your growing family, or craving the community aspect of living in a suburb. Or maybe you’re just feeling ready to achieve that major milestone of being a homeowner.

That said, it helps to start with an objective framework that will help you answer the question, “Am I financially ready to buy?” before factoring in the emotional reasons. (Because, for example, you already know you’re ready for your own backyard, or any of those other dreamy aspects of owning.) Taking a look at the financial commitment involved is a great place to start as you make the decision to either continue renting or officially take the leap to buy your own home.

So, are you financially prepared to buy a home? Here are five signs the answer may be yes:

If you’re an aspiring pharmacist, you probably have a long list of wants and needs in a pharmacy school. You’d like a top pharmacy program with stellar faculty members and, because you want to put your four years of training to good use, you need a school that boasts a high rate of graduate employment and commands a great salary. After all, top pharmacy programs don’t come cheap.

In its study of first-year tuition and fees for Pharm.D. degree programs for 2016-2017, the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP) reports that Pacific University, a private school in Oregon, is among the priciest pharmacy schools at $70,947 for both out-of-state and in-state students. On the other side of the tuition scale, the University of Toledo, a state school in Ohio, costs $17,390 for out-of-state students and $8,052 for in-state students.

Your tuition bills and mandatory student fees will certainly add up over four years. So, along with a degree, your future likely holds a fair amount of student debt. The AACP also reports that Pharm.D. graduates carry an average of $157,425 in student loan debt. For grads of private pharmacy schools, that figure shoots to $182,417; for students of Pharm.D. programs at public colleges and universities the loan debt average is slightly less, at $131,153. But the good news is that graduates also earn solid salaries. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the median salary of pharmacists was $121,500 in 2015.

To help you decide which program is best for your career and financial goals, we’ve crunched the numbers from more than 19,000 student loan refinance applications from January 2014 to February 2017 to bring you the SoFi Return on Education (ROED) Pharmacy School Rankings.

Student loan refinancing is most likely the first major financial decision you’ve made as a young professional—and it was a smart one. For starters, you’ve achieved an immediate psychological win, and you can breathe easier knowing you’ve taken a strong step toward eliminating your student loan burden. Plus, by scoring a lower interest rate and more manageable monthly payments, you now have wiggle room to chalk up some other financial gains.

Here’s how to get cracking on achieving major money milestones now that you’ve refinanced your student loans: