We are a dual MD couple, anesthesia/ cardiology in our mid 30s, with 3 kids and a fourth due this winter. I finished residency 3 years ago and have been working since then with most of my income going towards bills and student loans. My husband just finished fellowship so we finally got to see a big increase in our income and just wanted some other opinions from people as to how you would approach the debt we have left.
Income: our total base salaries (both employed) =600k. Some bonus money, defined benefit plan, profit sharing, pay for extra call.... but nothing we are putting into our budget at this point. We will just use the extra as it comes to pay down debt.
Debt:
-student loans: combined total of 390k (down from almost 600k when I finished residency 3 years ago!!) variable, now ~3.3% but will refinance again once my husband has a few more paychecks to show SoFi. Right now we pay 6k per month split between them with about 5 years left.
-mortgage: 360k at 3.5% 15 year mortgage
Savings/ Retirement:
-250k in 403b/ 401k/ Roths
-18k in HSA (no option for putting in anything but cash unfortunately)
-20k E-fund
We have life insurance, our own occupation disability, and umbrella insurance.
We have a couple of short term goals which the next few paychecks (paying off the zero interest credit card and home improvement loan that we took out when we bought the house a few months ago and were cash-poor) but those will be gone very quickly. After that, our plan is to keep maxing our retirement accounts (with the profit sharing etc, we can put about 100k in per year) and continue paying our student loans down quickly....
At this point we aren't sure if we should start 529s for the kids (oldest is 7 year old) and/or open a taxable account. Part of me thinks we should but I also want to just get rid of the student loans so that we have some flexibility in the future if one of the kids needs me to stay home for awhile or one of us gets sick and can't work. We could very easily live on one salary if the student loans are gone. We don't necessarily want to retire super early but would love to have the ability to both go part time in our 40s (which I think is doable). I also want to be able to say F-you to my job if the contract changes which is unfortunately something that I think will happen in the next 5-10 years. (Right now I don't have to take call but there is a lot of talk of that changing....)
thanks for any input!
Income: our total base salaries (both employed) =600k. Some bonus money, defined benefit plan, profit sharing, pay for extra call.... but nothing we are putting into our budget at this point. We will just use the extra as it comes to pay down debt.
Debt:
-student loans: combined total of 390k (down from almost 600k when I finished residency 3 years ago!!) variable, now ~3.3% but will refinance again once my husband has a few more paychecks to show SoFi. Right now we pay 6k per month split between them with about 5 years left.
-mortgage: 360k at 3.5% 15 year mortgage
Savings/ Retirement:
-250k in 403b/ 401k/ Roths
-18k in HSA (no option for putting in anything but cash unfortunately)
-20k E-fund
We have life insurance, our own occupation disability, and umbrella insurance.
We have a couple of short term goals which the next few paychecks (paying off the zero interest credit card and home improvement loan that we took out when we bought the house a few months ago and were cash-poor) but those will be gone very quickly. After that, our plan is to keep maxing our retirement accounts (with the profit sharing etc, we can put about 100k in per year) and continue paying our student loans down quickly....
At this point we aren't sure if we should start 529s for the kids (oldest is 7 year old) and/or open a taxable account. Part of me thinks we should but I also want to just get rid of the student loans so that we have some flexibility in the future if one of the kids needs me to stay home for awhile or one of us gets sick and can't work. We could very easily live on one salary if the student loans are gone. We don't necessarily want to retire super early but would love to have the ability to both go part time in our 40s (which I think is doable). I also want to be able to say F-you to my job if the contract changes which is unfortunately something that I think will happen in the next 5-10 years. (Right now I don't have to take call but there is a lot of talk of that changing....)
thanks for any input!
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