Hey all, just recently discovered this website and am so thankful I did. As someone who made very poor financial decisions up until the last year or so, it has been a godsend. Here is my current situation (I apologize in advance for length)
32 years old and single. Just finishing a chief resident year in internal medicine and have accepted a job as a hospitalist at the current hospital I work at. Starting guaranteed salary for year 1 is $256,000 but with the ability to pick up extra shifts, I anticipate my gross will be close to $330,000 - $350,000 as I plan to be aggressive my first few years. I contribute $18000 to my employee sponsored 401K with fidelity this last year and have a balance of $45000 right now after the 4 years of my residency. I only just learned about Roth IRAs so 2016 was the first year that I contributed $5500.
Stupidly, I took out several private loans in undergrad and medical school which were incredibly high interest and only just recently refinanced $74,000 with SoFi for 2.4% over 5 years. I already have this down to $64,000 and anticipate paying it off in the next 6-7 month as I am able to pick up a lot of extra shifts moonlighting these next few months and just want to be done with it.
Recently consolidated my federal student loans into REPAYE, and these amount to $294,000 at an average of 6.6% interest. I have made ~36 qualifying payments (of 120) to qualify for PSLF. I am questioning if I want to go through with this though. With various calculations if the program is still around I figure over the next 7 years of payments, I will likely pay ~$200,000 or so towards this, with the remainder being forgiven. The alternative to that is refinancing with SoFi at either a variable or fixed interest rate (2.5 - 3.5%) and put as much money as possible (7k-10k) monthly to pay these off in 3-4 years and then just be done with it all.
I know decided whether or not to pursue PSLF is a crapshoot. If I do, with an average payment of $2300 a month, I will essentially have in excess of $5000-7000 of money each month that I wouldn't be putting towards my loan. Clearly I understand that I need to decide whether or not to do PSLF and if I do, accept that it may not be there in 7 years when I'd apply (or be capped) and I'd have a very sizeable amount of interest that accumulated during that time. However, I was hoping the get the advice of those on these message boards who are much more financially savvy than myself. If I choose not do PSLF what should I be doing with that excess 5k-7k/month?
Thanks all!
32 years old and single. Just finishing a chief resident year in internal medicine and have accepted a job as a hospitalist at the current hospital I work at. Starting guaranteed salary for year 1 is $256,000 but with the ability to pick up extra shifts, I anticipate my gross will be close to $330,000 - $350,000 as I plan to be aggressive my first few years. I contribute $18000 to my employee sponsored 401K with fidelity this last year and have a balance of $45000 right now after the 4 years of my residency. I only just learned about Roth IRAs so 2016 was the first year that I contributed $5500.
Stupidly, I took out several private loans in undergrad and medical school which were incredibly high interest and only just recently refinanced $74,000 with SoFi for 2.4% over 5 years. I already have this down to $64,000 and anticipate paying it off in the next 6-7 month as I am able to pick up a lot of extra shifts moonlighting these next few months and just want to be done with it.
Recently consolidated my federal student loans into REPAYE, and these amount to $294,000 at an average of 6.6% interest. I have made ~36 qualifying payments (of 120) to qualify for PSLF. I am questioning if I want to go through with this though. With various calculations if the program is still around I figure over the next 7 years of payments, I will likely pay ~$200,000 or so towards this, with the remainder being forgiven. The alternative to that is refinancing with SoFi at either a variable or fixed interest rate (2.5 - 3.5%) and put as much money as possible (7k-10k) monthly to pay these off in 3-4 years and then just be done with it all.
I know decided whether or not to pursue PSLF is a crapshoot. If I do, with an average payment of $2300 a month, I will essentially have in excess of $5000-7000 of money each month that I wouldn't be putting towards my loan. Clearly I understand that I need to decide whether or not to do PSLF and if I do, accept that it may not be there in 7 years when I'd apply (or be capped) and I'd have a very sizeable amount of interest that accumulated during that time. However, I was hoping the get the advice of those on these message boards who are much more financially savvy than myself. If I choose not do PSLF what should I be doing with that excess 5k-7k/month?
Thanks all!
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