Balancing Career and Life after Post Doc

[LSpsyD]

Hi everyone,

I am nearing the end of my informal Post Doc and am trying to decide whether to stay on in the position I am currently in in or seek alternative employment in order to find more work/life balance and pay off student loans faster. I could see myself ending up in a group practice, teaching, providing training or consulting work, or providing supervision yet have limited experience with supervision and have noticed that many job postings I am seeing require at least three years of clinical practice after becoming licensed. I am currently in the Denver Metropolitan area and have not seen any postings for jobs in group practice. I currently have my Psy D. and am working in a community mental health center as an in home therapist using Trauma Systems Therapy. I enjoy working with families and am passionate about helping people heal from trauma, yet am concerned about burning out if I continue full time with this work. I am currently making only approximately $42,000 and am concerned about debt as I have about $300,000 in loans. My current employment site qualifies for public service loan forgiveness but that requires income based repayment for 10 years and I am not sure what the cost/benefit would be if I dropped down to part time or worked for another company that does not qualify for public service loan forgiveness. Has anyone else encountered this dilemma post doc? If so, what would you recommend?

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[PsyDr]

1) financial

Tough truth:

You’re over a quarter million in debt at a rate that doubles every 7 years. Google rules of 7s. You do not have the luxury of being concerned about burn out or working part time. A truly starving person doesn’t get to refuse food because of their preference.

Think that the debt isn’t a thing to worry about because it will be wiped clean in 10 years? Even if you successfully use the public service loan forgiveness program, you will owe the IRS a lump sum of around $70k in 10 years when you complete it. Google “tax bomb”. And there is significant data that most do not actually complete this program. The IRS will absolutely take your house, your car, garnish your pay, etc and their interest rates and fees are much worse than anything else.

Move back home, live rent free for a decade, find a job that pays somewhere close to the median, save every cent you make, and do not buy anything. Unfortunately, home ownership is not in the cards for you. And retirement is iffy. If you find a PSLF job, save up at least $70k which would be hard.

Alternatively, find a job that pays on productivity, do not limit yourself to any geographic location, work like a dog with a minimum of 12 hrs days/7 days a week, live like a college student, refinance using something like sofi.

2) clinical

There’s a bunch wrong here.

 

[Pragma]

PSLF actually is immune from the tax bomb. But I still agree to save up and you’d have to be committed to working only public service positions for that long.

 

[SLB-CO]

It sounds like it would be wise to meet with a financial planner. I plugged in your info into an online calculator ($300k, assuming 6% interest) and it took a monthly payment of $1,600 before you were actually making any dent in your loan (and at that payment level, it would take 46 years!). Any less than that and your interest would be more than your monthly payment, and so you'd never pay it off. PSLF seems to me like your best bet, unless you can somehow secure yourself a position that would allow you to put more than $3,000 into loan payments monthly (> $36,000/year) and get a lower interest rate for your loans...and then you're still paying off the loan for more than a decade. I have a hard time imagining you making that much more outside of a PSLF-eligible organization, but you know your circumstances better than me. I think it also bears to keep in mind that PSLF is not a guarantee.

The Denver metro area is saturated, and the median salaries for psychologists in the Rocky Mountain region are less than $65k (2015 Salaries in Psychology). Even if you were an exception to rule and did make > $100k per year, can you imagine yourself spending over 1/3 of it on student loans? Could you still afford the cost of living in Denver after taxes? Could you set aside any money for retirement? It's going to take a lot of time and work to build up to that level of income and your best bet is via clinical practice and tons of hard work, as PsyD mentioned. If you're thinking of group/private practice, it would be wise to talk with mentors and do lots of reading. You have to be business savvy and have start-up capital, and be financially prepared for the time in which practice waxes and wanes...which is going to be hard to do with the amount of loan payments you have every month.

You can always meet with a mortgage broker regarding buying a home, but they will take into account how much you are paying in student loans when determining what you qualify for. Unless you have a very wealthy significant other with no debt who will co-sign for a loan, it will likely be challenging to qualify for any property you would want to live in, especially given the rising home prices in Denver.

I don't mean for this to sounds so very dreary, but unfortunately it's the reality of it. I do strongly advise you seek out a financial advisor.

 

[WisNeuro]

Can we just make an anthology thread filled with these tales of woe from taking 6 figures+ out in loans for a job with a salary that makes that decision untenable?

 

[deleted106747]

Can we just make an anthology thread filled with these tales of woe from taking 6 figures+ out in loans for a job with a salary that makes that decision untenable?

Actually, this isn't a bad idea. Couldn't there be a pinned thread at the top that talks about debt and what it really means? The topic comes up a lot.
As for the OP, I think the financial adviser is good advice.

 

[PsychedUp313]

You went to DU right? Tuition is outrageous and why I decided against continuing on there. You will be in debt for most of your life with that income - possibly your entire life. You should consider looking for jobs elsewhere, outside of the Denver area. It's way too over saturated and cost of living is going up fast.