*Official student loan pay off thread*

[Zaphod]

Anesthesia84 wrote:

I’m reading through everyone’s numbers and so impressed, but have to ask – do a lot of new residency grads not have kids? We had our first during our 4th year of medical school, second at the end of our PGY-2 year, and third when I was a first year attending. As a dual resident and now fellow/ attending household, the cost of childcare has been astronomical. I guess we would have been able to make a huge dent in the loans if we didn’t have that cost! (Not that we are doing badly but our payoff is much slower than many others.)

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It definitely slows you down, but tradeoffs and theyre pretty adorable as well. If I cut children related expenses out of my budget, it would be a huge increase in disposable income that could go to more savings or loan pay down.

[travis524]

Total debt after residency: $210,000 (all student loans)

Interest rate: Was 6.8% on majority of loans; refinanced down to 2.38% after landing a job

Me: crap academic salary little less than $200,000/yr

Wife: non-physician, very low paying job; does not contribute to living expenses/my debt (and I don't ask her to)

Current debt: $7,600

Elapsed time since end of residency: 1 year, 6 months, 4 days, and this morning

Will be debt free on Jan 31st 2017

Lived like a resident as a resident; currently living like a resident as an attending; will continue to live like a resident for a couple more years

 

 

[Gas_Doc]

Initial Amount: $115k @ 6.75% (agree with @Winkleweizen, thank God for public medical school)

Remaining: $0! (Paid off over 3.5 years of residency)

Household Income: $125k-180k (while I was a resident)

Payment process: married before medical school, lived off my wife's salary during med school (relatively low COLA for med school and intern year), then used 100% of my intern salary to pay down loans. Moved to high COLA for residency but continued to put about 2/3 of my salary toward loans. Paid loans off completely around end of PGY4 year. Spent fellowship year saving for a house.

Maxed out our Roths during our entire marriage, though admittedly didn't fund her 401k or my 403b past our employer match. Don't regret that decision. Now that I'm an attending, maxing out all retirement accounts and building the nest egg.

[PPD]

Loan Amount at end of residency: $172,000

Loan Amount currently 2.5 years out (one year fellowship, 1.5 yrs attending at academic center): $181,000 (consolidated at 6%)

Salary: 280K

Payoff Date: 2025

Plan: Looks like I might be one of the few going for PSLF on this thread. By my calculations and confirmation with DocEden's calculator (http://doceden.com/calculators/pslf-planner/) I should pay a total of around $175-180K and have $77-85K forgiven. I hope PSLF still lives then. Currently doing IBR but now that I have the third kid and a wife who doesn't work, I am going to switch to REPAYE since the 10% vs 15% disposable income number reduces my monthly payment about $600 per month next year and $300/month for the subsequent 3-4 years. It's about $9-14K less for REPAYE vs IBR over the life of the loan. And only when I get to Assoc Prof level (which is probably 5.5 years away) and the requisite income increase will I get to a point where I am paying more per month than the 10 yr standard repayment plan.

[Med0000]

I just paid my last chunk of my original $265,000! It took us 38 months since training. Grossing ~$400,000. Three kids and single income.

It feels amazing to be completely done!

Good luck to everyone here! I am confident we are all doing the right thing by paying off the debt!

[PNWskindoc]

Med0000 wrote:

I just paid my last chunk of my original $265,000! It took us 38 months since training. Grossing ~$400,000. Three kids and single income.

It feels amazing to be completely done!

Good luck to everyone here! I am confident we are all doing the right thing by paying off the debt!

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Bravo! can't wait to be in your position!

[Live Free MD]

Great Thread.

Initial loan amount: $420,000 @6.8%

Refinanced to 1.9% variable

Income: 250K-350K

Paid off in 2.5 years.

What a battle.

Cheers to slaughtering the loans.

 

 

 

[silverpaw54]

Live Free MD wrote:

Great Thread.

Initial loan amount: $420,000 @6.8%

Refinanced to 1.9% variable

Income: 250K-350K

Paid off in 2.5 years.

What a battle.

Cheers to slaughtering the loans.

 

 

 

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Wow! Definitely looks like you lived like a resident to pay off $420,000 in 2.5 years. I fall in your income range with half the loan amount, but do not have the discipline and also have a wife and two kids, and hope to pay off in 2.5 more years. Congrats!

[canadianoutlaw]

Awesome thread.

Resident. 2 years left in training.

Loan Amount: 230k @ 7% (spouse)

Future Salary: ~$500,000 (dual MD)

Payoff Date: 2023

Plan: Also pursuing PSLF  ( @PPD ) via PAYE. (thank you @doceden calculator). http://doceden.com/calculators/pslf-planner/ . 5 years of training under PAYE and Married Filing Separately to minimize monthly payments/maximize forgiveness. Transition to married filing jointly after training when our income spikes.

Total payments made: ~$150,000

Total amount forgiven: ~$250,000

Uncertainties in PSLF program exist, but a ~$100k gamble (crude; not future value). If more attractive jobs exist for after training in non-501c3's, will jump ship, refinance, and pay back ASAP

 

[Zaphod]

Med0000 wrote:

I just paid my last chunk of my original $265,000! It took us 38 months since training. Grossing ~$400,000. Three kids and single income.

It feels amazing to be completely done!

Good luck to everyone here! I am confident we are all doing the right thing by paying off the debt!

Click to expand...

For clarification, we're not all trying to pay them off, well...mostly just me it seems most of the time.

My goal is NOT to pay the loans off asap. My goal is to fill everything else up as fast as possible, retirement accounts, taxable, RE, etc...before thinking about aggressively addressing loans. I think this is a far more prudent approach when you've just got out given time value of money, terminal wealth etc....In a few years hopefully it wont matter. At different time periods different things matter more. When you just get out you should definitely put something to your retirement as you're already delayed.

[wideopenspaces]

Anesthesia84 wrote:

I’m reading through everyone’s numbers and so impressed, but have to ask – do a lot of new residency grads not have kids? We had our first during our 4th year of medical school, second at the end of our PGY-2 year, and third when I was a first year attending. As a dual resident and now fellow/ attending household, the cost of childcare has been astronomical. I guess we would have been able to make a huge dent in the loans if we didn’t have that cost! (Not that we are doing badly but our payoff is much slower than many others.)

Click to expand...

You guys are doing great, honestly, to be able to pay down that kind of debt so quickly! We had a kid in med school and then another one a couple months ago (8 years apart). I've worked 3/4 time since finishing residency 2.5 years ago and we were able to pay off my debt within 6 months of finishing residency. However, the big difference is that I only took out 70k in the first place (thank you, cheap Texas medical school) and 20k of that was to pay off the 20% of an 80/20 loan we used to buy a house in med school, that we immediately paid off when we sold the house upon graduation from med school. So really only 50K in loans. Makes it much easier to pay off.

[SwanSong]

Wow! I am impressed. You people really knocked out those loans. I am going at a very leisurely pace with the NHSC loan repaymentry program and 1k per month from my employer. Currently 2.5 years out of training.

We have 4 kids, single income. 2 kids are teenagers, and we have paid for cars and braces, already. Sadly, my daughter will start college before my med school loans are paid off, but tuition is only 6k for her

Gross: 300k
Starting loans after residency: 140k
Current balance: 72k

Due another 20k from NHSC in July. Currentry at 3.25% from Sofi and will refinance to a 5-year variable with the next NHSC payment this July. Plan us to have them paid off in 2.5 years.

My plan has been to let my employer and the NHSC do all of the lifting. I will have essentially done nothing above that outside of making IBR payments through residency and fellowship

[FutureDoc]

Dual Residents. 5 1/2 (or 2 1/2) years left in training (3 1/2 for wife).

Loan Amount: 510k @ 3.25% (thank you REPAYE)

Future Salary: ~$400k-800k (dual MD)

Payoff Date: 2026 ish  

Plan: Still debating PSLF via REPAYE for me since  fellowship would give 6 years, but odds are refinance and  aggressively pay down wife's loans while I'm in fellowship and then finish all of them off once I start working as well.  The numbers are still numbingly huge and it all feels very far away.

Payments:  Currently zero since we've both been enrolled in REPAYE since August thanks to the consolidation early entry.  That will be increasing after taxes when we renew.

 

We have a kid and if we didn't have any childcare expenses I would be maxing my 457, but that's just not feasible in our current situation.  We also bought a house as interns (which I fought against, but has turned out pretty well) although we kept the loan to barely more than our annual salary as residents, so pretty reasonable.

 

[Eimaise]

PGY-2 here. Paid off student loans on 8/17/16

Med school tuition: $160,000

• No kids during med school and my wife worked and earned $40k/year. We lived off far less than that so we contributed towards my tuition costs during this time.


• We received some generous gifts from family and an inheritance from my grandfather throughout the 4 years totaling 90k which also all went directly to tuition.


• We used our previous savings and leftover earnings to pay for about 30K during the 4 years.


• The remaining 40k we borrowed from the government during the 4 years and lived very frugally and devoted all extra money to it.

Graduated May 2015 with about 40k of debt at 6.8%. We "refinanced" through a generous family member at 3% (they paid off the loan and we paid them back at 3%) and continued to live very frugally and devote the majority of my 50k resident salary towards it and knocked it out for good in 16 months time.

[Med0000]

Zaphod wrote:

Med0000 wrote:

I just paid my last chunk of my original $265,000! It took us 38 months since training. Grossing ~$400,000. Three kids and single income.

It feels amazing to be completely done!

Good luck to everyone here! I am confident we are all doing the right thing by paying off the debt!

Click to expand…

For clarification, we’re not all trying to pay them off, well…mostly just me it seems most of the time.

My goal is NOT to pay the loans off asap. My goal is to fill everything else up as fast as possible, retirement accounts, taxable, RE, etc…before thinking about aggressively addressing loans. I think this is a far more prudent approach when you’ve just got out given time value of money, terminal wealth etc….In a few years hopefully it wont matter. At different time periods different things matter more. When you just get out you should definitely put something to your retirement as you’re already delayed.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the clarification. I must have misinterpreted the thread title.

I think debt affects folks differently. Some are comfortable living in debt and some feel like slaves. Taking into consideration the psychological effects of being debt free, no one will convince me it was the wrong decision to pay off the monstrous, soul-sucking debt that I had.

How do you "fill up" a taxable account anyway?