*Official student loan pay off thread*

[Atlas Axis]

Worked my way through undergrad and paid it myself. I took out a total of 160k in loans for medical school.

I just made a large payment and completely paid the med school loans off, a little over 3.5 years after residency graduation, 9.5 years since med school graduation. (And I was still able to max out retirement accounts and made backdoor Roth payments as an attending)

Man it feels great!

I am so thankful for this site. I have learned so much.

[The White Coat Investor]

homanga wrote:

Not meant to be a look at me post but definitely feels that way.

 

Graduated residency 6 months with approximately 30k in loans (low cost of living area plus med school and working wife certainly didn’t hurt) all at 6.8%.

 

Made my final payment today, so officially student loan free. Obviously in a much more blessed situation than others and I have plenty of colleagues working on their 3-400k numbers but it feels good nonetheless.

 

 

 

Click to expand...

Well done. Good job on all counts (keeping costs down, minimizing loans, and paying them off early.) It's not a sin to be blessed, it's only a sin if you don't do anything good with those blessings!

[Travis @ Student Loan Planner]

PNWskindoc wrote:

Loan interest: 3.5%, 7 year variable with CommonBond (started at 3.1%)

Yearly income: $450-500k (I’m purely on productions)

Serious question for the OP sorry if it was covered already. Have you looked into refinancing again and checked a bunch of different spots like Credible and Sofi to see if you could shave off another 1% on the loan by going to a 5 year term? You've got better income history and a lower debt to income ratio.

[HandFellow]

6 months out of fellowship.

income 425kish

Started with 110k at 4.4 variable at DRB (refinanced in fellowship).  down to 86k now.

Contract gives me 30k towards loans over 24 months but if loan is paid off before then, the payments get turned off.

Plan to complete payments exactly 24 months after contract started.

[EDDOCMOM]

Residency Graduation: 2013

Total Med School Loans: $313,000

Refinanced in 2016 about $200,000 from 6.8% down to 2.75%

Remaining: $88,000

Estimated pay off by October 2017, hopefully sooner (average $12,000 per month)

Income: $429,000 gross last year.  By paying off ~$150,000 per year on total debt (cars, 2nd mortgage, loans, etc) we live on about $60,000 and that sucks.  Ready to relax a little bit.  I second the childcare cost concerns noted above - we ended up going to having a stay-at-home parent which helps out a ton. My husband wasn't too keen on it at first but now enjoys his job, is getting a Master's degree and will rejoin the workforce in about 4 years.

[babydoc]

2.5 years out of fellowship. 150k of loans paid off last week.

Additionally maxed out 401k, hsa, and two backdoor roths each year!

It feels so great to have that weight gone! Thank you WCI for your message and teachings!!!

Live like a resident.

[janettebournes]

PNWskindoc wrote:

I was planning on paying off my students loans in 5 years after graduating residency but after reading two stories on SDN (thanks to WCI’s newsletter) of a psychiatrist paying off $340k in 7 months after graduating and another paying off $200k in 2 years, I’m now motivated to crush my loans in 4 years or less. What I found so inspiring about the first story in particular was that the OP would periodically post screen shots of his loans amounts, all the way until it was zero. So I thought it would be a great idea if we could do something similar to encourage one another. In addition, I think it would be helpful for some of us if you could include your total loan amount, loan interest, yearly income, expected pay off duration, and what your living expenses are. I’ll go first:

Total loan amount: ~$370,000

Loan interest: 3.5%, 7 year variable with CommonBond (started at 3.1%)

Yearly income: $450-500k (I’m purely on productions)

Goal pay off date: 3/1/2020 (which would be 3.25 years and ~$10-11k/mos)

Personal information: wife stays at home with the baby, we live in a relatively HCOL area

Living expenses: ~$6500/mos

Misc: Maxing out my 401k and backdoor Roth x 2

Click to expand...

Wow, very impressive thread, mine isn't quite as spectacular a story

Total loan amount: $100000

Loan interest: 6.8%

Paid off: 2.5 years out from training

 

[The White Coat Investor]

EDDOCMOM wrote:

Residency Graduation: 2013

Total Med School Loans: $313,000

Refinanced in 2016 about $200,000 from 6.8% down to 2.75%

Remaining: $88,000

Estimated pay off by October 2017, hopefully sooner (average $12,000 per month)

Income: $429,000 gross last year.  By paying off ~$150,000 per year on total debt (cars, 2nd mortgage, loans, etc) we live on about $60,000 and that sucks.  Ready to relax a little bit.  I second the childcare cost concerns noted above – we ended up going to having a stay-at-home parent which helps out a ton. My husband wasn’t too keen on it at first but now enjoys his job, is getting a Master’s degree and will rejoin the workforce in about 4 years.

Click to expand...

You're doing great. I'm so proud of you. $225K in 3 1/2 years is pretty awesome. You may still beat my record (47 months to pay off the military.)

[CordMcNally]

Long time lurker but first time poster. Besides my wife, I don't really talk about financial milestones with anyone else so I wanted to share with other like-minded individuals. I work in EM and I'm not on the coasts so my pay is above average. We stayed in the city I did residency in. We rented throughout residency but bought a house as we plan on staying here long term and there are several (what I feel like) good positions in the area. Our house is less than a year of my salary and PITI is about 10% of our monthly take home. I did IBR throughout residency which wasn't enough to cover the interest so the total loan amount grew. I did choose to max out my Roth IRA and my HSA throughout residency instead of putting that extra money towards loans.

Residency Graduation: 2015

Total Loan Amount: ~$220,000

Loan Interest: ~4.0%, 20 year variable (refinanced around residency graduation)

Living Expenses: ~$5000/month (averaged over the course of the year) including all bills/spending as well as 3 week-long trips per year and several long weekend trips. We are living beneath our means but at the same time we feel like we're still able to live what we feel like is a cushy lifestyle.

Debt: Mortgage only

Misc: Maxed out all available retirement accounts and backdoor Roths while paying down loans. We do not have children.

Total Loan Payment Time: 19 months (9/2015-3/2017). I used my first month's pay to give ourselves a bigger emergency fund cushion from residency and then started going after the loans in September 2015.

Additional Info: Feels great!

 

[RPW25]

So I know that this thread is kinda over but I wanted to post because today is a big day for me.

 

Age: 33

Speciality: FM (but I do rural/government ER exclusively)

Residency Graduation: 2014

Loans at residency graduation: $240K @ 6.8%

Average Income: $315kish

Made my last loan payment today!!! So I got them paid off in like 2.75 years.

I was able to fund a Roth/Backdoor Roth every years since medschool graduation, maxed out a solo401k during my second year of residency(moonlit my a$$ off), and I've maxed out my 401k each year at my current job (which Ive had since residency graduation).

I live in a very low cost of living state, not married, have no kids, and I found this website in 2011. All that helped a lot.

 

 

[ENT Doc]

RPW25 wrote:

So I know that this thread is kinda over but I wanted to post because today is a big day for me.

 

Age: 33

Speciality: FM (but I do rural/government ER exclusively)

Residency Graduation: 2014

Loans at residency graduation: $240K @ 6.8%

Average Income: $315kish

Made my last loan payment today!!! So I got them paid off in like 2.75 years.

I was able to fund a Roth/Backdoor Roth every years since medschool graduation, maxed out a solo401k during my second year of residency, and I’ve maxed out my 401k each year at my current job (which Ive had since residency graduation).

I live in a very low cost of living state, not married, have no kids, and I found this website in 2011. All that helped a lot.

 

 

Click to expand...

F.  Yes.  Congratulations!

[PNWskindoc]

Sorry, I know this is a few months old. But yes, I did refi recently again at 2.59% with a 5 year variable with the same loan company (commonbond). PSA: when commonbond found out I was going to move my loans to sofi because they were giving me 2.9% 5-year variable, commonbond said they'd beat it and hence the 2.59%.

[EDDOCMOM]

Congrats!  You just gave me some much needed extra motivation to push through my last $32,000

[CordMcNally]

Only $32,000 to go...keep it up! It's a great feeling to finish paying off student loans plus the additional cash flow is nice, too!

[oceanmaster]

Officially paid off all our student loans last week!

 

Exactly 3 years out (to the day) from fellowship.

Wife and I are both MDs and work in an academic setting.  Age 33 and 34.  Combined gross income in the 350k range.

Paid off a combined 290k in loans in 36 months.

 

Thanks to Dr. Dahle and the WCI community!  We came across WCI just as we were leaving fellowship and can't thank everyone enough!

How we did it?  Like WCI says: We tried to get the big things right:

Both went to a public medical school.  "Attending house" is 0.8x annual salary.  No car loans.  Have contributed fully to 403b and 457b for both wife and I since leaving fellowship.  Refinanced our loans with SoFi.  Track everything with personalcapital.  Net worth from a large negative (~-200k) to +300k.

 

Next up, start filling a 529 and create a taxable account!  First, let's open a moderately priced bottle of bubbly!

 

Thanks guys and gals!