When I turned 30 and had essentially completed everything on my bucket list, I was left with the crushing weight of my student loans as the last goal to tackle. I was able to walk away from undergrad without any student debt – I was fortunate to have gone to premed before skyrocketing tuition rates, had several scholarships and was lucky to have parents who had saved for higher education since I was born. But, after 4 years of med school and taking out the full amount that was offered, I ended up with $217,000, compounding at 6.55% interest.
When I was a resident (training for doctors after medical school), annual salaries were between $42,000 to $45,000 with average hours worked per week anywhere from 50-70+. There was no way I was going to even make a dent in that loan amount, however my husband and I tried to make it a priority to at least lessen the hemorrhaging. We were a dual income pair living in the Midwest with low cost of living, thus we were able to put $1,500 a month toward our student loans without starving (J had loans from undergrad). Even then, due to the wondrous nature of compounding interest, the loans still ballooned up to $250,000 by the time I completed four years of residency in Internal Medicine/Pediatrics aka primary care.
Ah, primary care. Such a noble calling amongst doctors, to be the first line of defense against illness – at least that’s what they sold us on in med school, and I totally drank the Kool Aid. It’s definitely rewarding if you can look beyond the paperwork, but in terms of compensation, it’s the lowest paying field in medicine. Now don’t get me wrong – doctors get paid more than enough. And in comparison to the rest of my millennial cohort, at least I’m in a position financially to pay off these loans. We are the most student loan indebted generation EVER in U.S. history, and with physicians the tuition bloat was similar. I worked with doctors who were able to pay off a year of med school tuition by working during the summers in the late 80s/early 90s. When I attended med school from 2007-2011, there was no way I was making $50,000+ in a summer to pay that tuition off.
In 2015, I was released into my big girl job with a big girl doctor salary and was now finally able to tackle this monstrous debt. I started researching in earnest – I stared at amortization charts, read too many articles on whether to consolidate or rely on public service student loan forgiveness, and I finally stumbled upon the White Coat Investor blog. The blogger was an ER physician who took an interest in all things money related and geared them specifically to physicians – student loans, disability/umbrella/life insurance, mortgages, investing, retirement – you name it, it was there. If you are in med school, residency or even out in practice and haven’t checked out the blog, it is a must read!
However, as I delved further and further into the blog, more and more of it felt out of reach. The author and people who were posting in the comments were making upwards of 2-3 times MORE than I was. FOMO began to set in as I started to regret not going into sub-specialty training since specialists make more money, but I quickly snapped out of it. There was no way in hell I was going back for 3 more years of training, plus, more money was not going to make me happier. When I came back to my senses and continued reading on, the blogs just felt more and more like the chronicles of how rich people just kept getting richer. Though I was and still am appreciative of the information I learned early on, I just had to stop. Maybe some day I’ll be interested in diversifying my investment portfolio to crowdfund real estate portfolios (that’s a thing!?), but today is not that day.
At the end of all that, I still have those loans. But by the end of this year, they’ll be down to $150,000 and in July 2020, I intend on sending in my last payment, hopefully even sooner. Over the next few posts, I’ll document how exactly I did it but truly, it was all done by NOT buying into the doctor lifestyle creep. I would much rather have financial freedom and independence than to buy the newest tech thing out on the market or a new fancy car. I do have incredible guilt for making so much money that I can bring the debt down so quickly, but I hope sharing this will be of benefit to someone else’s struggle.
***Main photo of The Rotunda, San Francisco, CA