MtoM #105 - Public Health Dentist Pays Off Student Loans

This is the White Coat Investor Podcast. Milestones to Millionaire. Celebrating stories of success along the journey to financial freedom.

This is Milestones to millionaire podcast number 105. Public health dentist pays off student loans.

Still not sure what to do with your student loans? Overwhelmed with how to tackle that giant debt in an ever changing political climate, the experts@studentloanadvice.com are here to help guide you through the best options to manage your loans. Our experienced staff have consulted on over $250 million in student loan debt, and the averagestudentloanadvice.com client has saved over $190,000. You will receive a customized student loan plan using the principles of the White Coat Investor. Get answers to all of your student loan questions, gain clarity about your financial future, and start down the right path toward financial freedom. Book a consult today@studentloanadvice.com you can do this and the White Coat Investor can help.

All right, welcome to the Milestones to Millionaire podcast. We've been doing this now for a little over two years, just highlighting the accomplishments of the WCI community. Whatever accomplishment you may have, I don't care if it's paying off your $5,000 beater loan or whether it is becoming a multi deca millionaire, we'll celebrate it with you on this podcast and use your experience to inspire others to do the same. If you'd be willing to come on, you can apply@whitecoatinvestor.com Milestones. All right, we've got a great guest on today. Let's get her on. Our guest today on the Milestones to Millionaire podcast is Elena. Welcome to the podcast.

Hi.

All right, I understand that you have accomplished a recent milestone. We want to congratulate you on that. Before we get into it, tell us what you do for a living, how far you are out of school, and what part of the country you live in.

I am a general dentist. I work in public health. I graduated dental school in 2017, and then I did a one year general practice residency that I finished in June of 2018, and I am in Southern Oregon.

All right, so you live on the best coast. You were telling me just before we started recording.

I like to think so, yeah.

All right. Okay. Well, you have accomplished a milestone that I think many dentists would love to accomplish and. And have not yet accomplished. You have paid off your student loans.

I have, yeah.

Congratulations. That's awesome. And it sounds like your grand total, including $10,000 in undergraduate loans, was $283,000.

That sounds right.

And you did that in just four and a half years after finishing residency?

Yeah.

That's pretty awesome. How'd you do it?

I did it a few different ways or used a couple different tools. First of all, I work in a federally qualified health center here in Oregon. And so that allowed me to be eligible for the National Health Service Corps loan repayment program. So I didn't get the scholarship in dental school, but I did apply for a program called Students to service in my fourth year of dental school. And that was initially a three year commitment that earned me $120,000 in loan repayment. And then I committed for one additional year for, for another $20,000. So it was an initial or it was a total four year commitment for $140,000 of loan repayment. I paid most of the rest off just in monthly payments. I tried to maximize my payments. At the beginning of COVID when the loan or the interest freeze was announced, I really had to make a decision if I wanted to go for PSLF or if I wanted to just pay down my loans and be done with them. And I chose the latter. I really wanted the flexibility of having my loans gone. I wanted the flexibility of not necessarily having the 10 year PSLF commitment. And so at the beginning of COVID I just committed to all extra money that I had went towards my loans. I also had some help from family. My grandfather passed away a couple years ago and was very generous in what he left me and my cousins. So I had about $50,000 him to finish off the payment.

So all kinds of sources, your own earnings, this money from the National Health Service Corps, a little bit of money from Grandpa. You threw it all at the loans. You knocked them out in four and a half years. Well done.

Thanks.

So can you tell us a little bit? I mean, this is obviously a PSLF qualifying job. This is a job that qualified for some additional loan repayment. Often that means you get paid less than what you could make out in a typical private practice job. Can you tell us a little bit about your income over the last four and a half years?

Yeah, it, it ranged as. As a resident, I made what residents make, so that I was in Washington D.C. i was about $60,000. And then in my current role, I am a salaried provider. So that my salary ranged from about 140,000 to about 175,000 during my payoff period.

Okay. So, you know, I mean, people have to decide how much my money is going to go toward, you know, saving up down payments, building up an emergency Fund maxing out retirement accounts versus paying off student loans. How did you come to that decision of. Of how much of your money went.

To where, to your advice? I really wanted to live like a resident as after I finished my residency. And so I think I was able to continue to pay down my loans and also save towards some other financial goals while enjoying a nice life here in Oregon. And so I rent my home, I own my car, I don't have a car payment, my rent here is quite minimal. I don't have kids, I'm not married. And so I can live a pretty low cost lifestyle. And that allowed me the flexibility to prioritize paying off my loans. And then I was able to also maximize my 403 and Roth IRA during the time. So I think minimizing my lifestyle outside of my other financial goals really allowed me to prioritize those things.

You know what I really like about your story is that it is, it's kind of a little bit of everything, right? It's not that you did it all yourself, right? You took advantage of programs that the government had, you took advantage of a little bit of help, but you also, you know, did your part. You lived like a resident. You put money toward investments, but also paid off on the loans. You knocked them out in less than five years. And this is all on an income of about half of what your loans were. I mean, you had to 2x student loans to income ratio just about and you still knocked it out, which I think is pretty awesome to do that in less than five years and really represents pretty significant commitment and dedication to the goal. So I think that's pretty cool.

Well, thank you.

Looking back, was it easier or harder than you thought it was going to be?

I think most of the time it was easier. There were times when I sat down with my spreadsheet and looked at that total number at the bottom and it wasn't going down as fast enough as I wanted it to be going down or as fast enough as it felt like I had been contributing to my loans. And on a day to day basis I was not thinking much about my loans. I had set up my budget in a way that loan payment and my retirement contributions and my other savings goals came out of my paycheck first. And so I never even saw that money to miss it in the first place. And so I think that really helped it to feel like it was an automated or integrated part of my life instead of this extra burden on top of everything else.

Speaking of feeling, how does it feel to have Them gone to know that this debt that's been hanging over your head, what for for 9ish plus years is now gone. How does that feel?

Yeah, over nine years. I graduated college in 2011, so if we count undergrad loans in there over that, it feels great. The moment that I paid them off was very non monumental. I just clicked the submit button on my aidvantage account. But now that they've been gone for a couple of months, I've been starting to see see the benefits of that added flexibility, that I have additional cash flow every month that I can start saving for a down payment and saving for other financial goals in the future. So that's been fun and has felt like a little bit of an encouragement with each paycheck that I get. Having that extra flexibility.

How much influence do you think having that student loan burden had on the job you chose when you came out of your residency?

I was pretty sold on public health before any loan considerations. I really like the population that I get to work with. I really like being able to collaborate with other dentists in my clinic. I really like the mission of the organization that I work for. And I had done some other work in health equity and education equity before dental school. So my mind was pretty set on public health before I even learned of the. The loan benefits. So it was more of a cherry on top or a sugar coating to make. Make that career path more appealing. But I would not say that my choice was 100% influenced by the financial benefits.

Not planning on, not planning on leaving the job then?

Not anytime soon, no.

Do they give you a raise when they stop making those loan payments for you?

No. That's something that we talk about at our clinic, is that it's quite funny that our compensation drops drastically when complete our NHSC commitments or finish loan repayment terms. And that's okay. It kind of goes with the territory. We know the timeline of it. But no, no raise when that finished.

You know, I find that interesting because in the military you qualify for an additional bonus once your commitment is up. So.

Interesting. Interesting.

I think it's a little odd that NHSC folks are kind of getting hosed there. So I wouldn't be surprised to see that change in the future. All right, let's go back five years. Okay. To somebody that's coming out of dental school, someone's coming out of residency, they're listening to this, they're like, that's awesome. I want to do that. What advice do you have for that person?

First of all, ask for help. I Went to Oregon Health and Science University. And at the time, they had a really awesome loan advisor that was able to sit down with me and look at each of my loans and actually give me advice to say, you need to pay off these two loans to be eligible for repay that loan repayment program. And having those little tangible pieces of information was great. So wherever you can get help, seek it out. Whether that's talking to someone that graduated a year before you, listening to these podcasts, reading Dr. Dali's book, those are all awesome opportunities for help. And then sit down and make a budget. My budget, I didn't follow daily. I didn't track my expenses daily, but sitting down, I just did it in Excel. And seeing where my money would go after my financial goals was really helpful. And having I called it a big rocks approach. I paid my big rocks first and then let the small rocks like the lattes or the date night or the nice dinner come in. After my retirement had been funded, my loans had been paid and my savings accounts had been contributed to, and that really helped me. So I think those would be my two pieces of advice. Seek help, ask questions, and make a budget that reflects your priorities.

Yeah, that's great advice. You know, the ability to use a spreadsheet, and I'm not talking about any complicated functions with a spreadsheet, just the ability to, you know, add and subtract with the spreadsheet is an amazingly underrated skill. And I think the vast majority of people who are do it yourself, investors that become financially successful have that skill. So for all you listeners out there, if you've never messed around with a spreadsheet, if you find it intimidating to open Microsoft Excel, I would encourage you to get over that fear. I think it really is a very important skill.

Yeah, you don't even need Excel. You can do it in Google Sheets.

Yeah, for sure. I mean, you can. You can just use Google Sheets. I mean, you could do it on a piece of paper. It's really the same thing. But congratulations to you. You've done something pretty awesome. $283,000 in student loans, gone on an income of around $150,000 a year in just four and a half years. It's inspiring. I know others who are in similar situations will take inspiration from it. So thank you for coming on the podcast to share your story.

Thanks for having me.

All right. I thought that was a great episode. A fantastic example of somebody that doesn't make all that much money, who actually qualified by virtue of the job for pslf. But decided to pay off her student loans anyway, using a variety of different sources of money, some from the employer, some from an inheritance, some from her own earnings. I think it really demonstrates a lot. A lot of times we get criticism on this podcast.

That person's not exactly like me.

They didn't have as much student loans as me. Their parents helped them more than me. They make a gazillion dollars. They have a PSLF qualifying job, whatever it might be, that people take the fact that the guest is not exactly like them and use it as an excuse to not be financially successful, whatever that means for you, whether that means paying off loans or building net worth, whatever. What I would encourage you to do instead is look for the parts that are like you and use those to inspire yourself to accomplish your own goals. Okay, this is somebody that, who had a 2x ratio, right, owed twice as much money in student loans as she was earning and despite that, still managed to be out of student loan debt in less than five years without apparently depriving herself. Right? Yes. She doesn't spend all that much money. She lived like a resident for a few years, but she no longer has to do that anymore. She can use her entire income to do whatever she wants. She now has that flexibility that we all want. And that's really the whole point here, is being able to live the life we want because we put our financial ducks in a row. She's done it.

You can too. Keep tuning in to this podcast and.

We'Ll keep showing you how others have done it. And hopefully you will find that you can also do it.

Still not sure what to do with your student loans? Overwhelmed with how to tackle that giant debt in an ever changing political climate, the experts@studentloanadvice.com are here to help guide you through the best options to manage your loans. Our experienced staff have consulted on over $250 million in student loan debt, and the average studentloanadvice.com client has saved over $190,000. You will receive a customized student loan plan using the principles of the White Coat Investor. Get answers to all of your student loan questions, gain clarity about your financial future, and start down the right path toward financial freedom. Book a consult today@studentloanadvice.com you can do this, and the White Coat Investor can help.

All right, that's it for today. We'll see you on Thursday with the regular White Coat Investor podcast and next.

Monday with the Milestones to Millionaire podcast. In the meantime, keep your head up, shoulders back, you've got this and we can help. We'll see you next time.

The hosts of the White Coat Investor podcasts are not licensed accountants, attorneys or financial advisors. This podcast is free entertainment and information only. It should not be considered professional or personalized financial advice. You should consult the appropriate professional for specific advice relating to your situation.