Here's a little post for inspiration. I personally don't understand when people take 10+ years to pay off their student loans. Financial independence is key so you don't HAVE to work, but you work because you WANT to work.
In total I had acquired about 175-180k of debt, after interest in total I paid $195K roughly.15-20k of this was college, the rest med school. I was a completely traditional student - no career prior to college or med school. In fact, I had moved from the other side of the world for college as a freshmen and that itself came with it's culture shock, social and financial challenges.
Things that helped me pay off student debt this quickly.
1) Less debt than most people mostly because of scholarships/need based aid in college. In state tuition in a cheap texas med school ~ 17-18k annual tuition.
2) Lived very cheaply in college and med school. I did max out on loans in med school, but I basically had an excess 8-10K every year, most of that was invested in the market. I did not know the boglehead principles at that time, I was not a believer of buy and hold strategy, but I still made some small amounts of money. I owned Tesla at $80, FB at $26, Amazon at $230. But as a broke med student, when I made 10% or so on my investments, I happily took the profits. If I had done buy and hold, the 30k that I had invested at some point in the market would have been 200K today. My two investment accounts were both margin accounts, I did swing trading (scraped small profits anytime that I got them). Only made a few thousand dollars - but learned a lot about investing over the years and now I'm a full supporter of a boring 3 fund portfolio and believer of the boglehead philosophy.
Investing mistakes I made: Did not do buy and hold otherwise I could have paid my debt even before residency ended. Did not fully understand IRAs or retirement accounts as everything went into post tax accounts. Lets face it, I was still new to the country.
Investing recommendations: If you haven't yet, then read the following and you can start your journey of firing a financial adviser and managing your own investments:
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3) I made $300/month payments in residency, every now and then made bigger payments that I could.
4) PGY 3 I moonlighted and made an extra 40-45kK - Almost all of that after paying taxes was used to pay off debt. More or less, I always carried 30-40k in my emergency fund account for a rainy day (acquired from extra loans/investments as talked about in point 2). I had done calculations in med school how much interest that extra loan money would cost me, the security of having money in the bank was worth the extra interest - I mobilized a lot of those funds to pay off more debt when I started moonlighting. Felt comfortable doing that once moonlighting money started coming in. So in essence emergency funds didn't need to be at 40K when I could just moonlight and make 2-3k a shift and be paid within a month.
5) Residency was in a LCOL city - Rent was $850/month for a 2b/1bath apt. Spouse started residency when I was PGY3, so that added another income. Our living expenses were easily paid with 1 resident salary. Was able to make bigger payments.
6) Negotiated like crazy my attending job. Made companies beat each other's offer. Eventually signed for roughly $450k IC annually for 12 12s a month. I went for the highest bidder. I don't love my job, It is stressful, but ER is stressful.
7) I only had $147K of debt left when I finished residency and started being an attending - effectively I had paid about 40-45K while a resident. Large chunks from moonlighting and large chunks from mobilizing extra funds that I didn't really need anymore due to increasing income.
6)First attending paycheck arrived 8/15/19 for half a month of work. Paid 10k from that Once the attending paycheck was coming, I pretty much mobilized even more savings/investments the moment I got my first attending paycheck, who needs an emergency fund when every paycheck is an emergency fund. Every subsequent month, I paid 20k essentially from my salary. So between 8/15/19 and 2/9/20 I essentially paid the remaining 147K and whatever interest that accumulated.
Other side notes, never bought a home, always rented, bought two cars in residency (used 2015 GMC terrain, and new 2017 sonata), owe 11k combined on the both of them at this time.
And yes, if you're wondering, I did pay my IC taxes. I've been financially independent since Sophomore year of college. Received 5K from my father and a ticket from Pakistan to the USA as a freshmen in college. They also paid for half of my wedding, I paid the other half. Otherwise I've been on my own.
Future plans: Networth right now at 80K. 200-250k in annual savings goal. Will max 56k into solo 401k, then 12k backdoor roths, then max wife's retirement account, then whatever is left into personal investing accounts.
I can retire with 1 million in savings in 5 years at age 35 if I wanted to, but that will require moving back to Pakistan. I believe I need 4 million in the US to retire comfortably.
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