MtoM #34 - PSLF Forgiveness and Millionaires!

This is the White Coat Investor Podcast Milestones to celebrating stories of success along the journey to financial freedom. Here is your host, Dr. Jim Dali. This is Milestones to Millionaire podcast number 34, PSLF forgiveness and millionaires. The White Coat Investor is proud to introduce our no Hype Real Estate investing course, which will provide the framework for developing further knowledge and experience as you progress in your real estate investing. We call it an introductory course because there's always more to learn. But this is no short, superficial course. There are over 200 lectures and videos adding up to more than 27 hours of content by over 15 different instructors. We think it just might be the best real estate course on the planet. Continue your wealth building journey today with the no Hype Real Estate Investing course@whitecoatinvestor.com courses. You can do this and the White Coat Investor can help. All right, we've got a great interview today. You know, a lot of times we just talk about one milestone people have hit, but it seems like last week and this week we've got people that are hitting multiple milestones at about the same time. So we're going to talk about both of them today. Let's get Drs. Glaseier on the phone. All right. Today on the podcast we have Dr. Glaser. Thank you so much for coming on.

Thanks for having me, Jim. This is pretty cool. I appreciate it.

Yeah. So you are an emergency physician, is that right? And your wife is a plastic surgeon?

Yeah, she did general surgery for seven years in residency and then realized she wanted to change careers. So did fellowship for three years and now is an attending.

Wow. Okay, so we're talking about multiple accomplishments you guys have done today. Let's start with the student loans. Tell us about your student loan journey. You know, what you guys owed and how you paid for school and what you've done to get rid of them.

So fortunately for me, I didn't have any student loans, but my wife did. She had about 190,000 in federal loans and then 50,000 in BU private loans. And so fortunately, while she was in residency, they were interest free. So it was the same amount of money the whole time. And so since she was going to be a lifelong resident, we decided to do pslf. And then by the time she finished, that was during the pandemic when they were holding payments, so she never really had to make any payments as attending.

Wow.

And so once she got the 120 payments, then she was able to apply for it and we got it pretty quickly.

Well, this is pretty similar to Somebody we had on a couple of weeks ago who spent eight or nine years in residency and fellowship and then came out during the pandemic and ended up, I think, paying 60,000, ended up getting $240,000 forgiven. Do you recall how much you guys paid total toward her federal loans and how much was forgiven?

So she came out with about 178,000 of federal loans and had to make small payments, about 180 in the beginning. And then fellowship, it was 300 per month. So I think she paid about 20 or 30,000 towards the loans, and then I think the rest was forgiven, which.

Was probably at that point, what, 210,000, 220, 230, something like that?

Yeah. Yep, you got it. And then the 50,000, what we did was we just saved up a little bit each month in a couple years, and then once she was attending, we had the cash, so we just paid it off pretty quickly.

Yeah. So did you guys run into any problems getting public service loan forgiveness? A lot of people have had some hassle getting it. What kind of issues did you guys have, if any?

Getting the loans forgiven once we had the payments was no problem whatsoever. The paperwork was very quick and easy, and then she submitted, and then two weeks later, we got them forgiven. I actually didn't believe her at first because it happened so quickly, but the counts were off pretty often during the whole process. When she switched from one provider to another and then to fed loans, you know, the accounts didn't go through, or her programs had to keep resubmitting paperwork because they were getting lost. And so pretty much every year something came up. But because she was diligent and kept having them submit the paperwork and doing everything over and over again, by the time we were ready to submit, our accounts were good and we were ready to go. But I do have a couple friends whose counts are still off, and I think that was the biggest issue that we had.

Any tips to help the process go smoothly for others?

Just as you're going through it, just being diligent, making sure that the counts are there, just so that when you're ready to get the forgiveness, you don't have to go back and try to figure out where the counts were lost, you have to resubmit paperwork from one program to another. You know, she did residency, but she also did research in a different facility, so that facility had to submit paperwork. And then fellowship was different, so she had multiple coordinators that she had to be communicating with. And just by making sure the process was going smoothly during the time she didn't have to really have any issues when we were ready to submit the paperwork.

All right, well, let's turn the page a little bit. Getting those loans forgiven gave you a significant boost to your net worth, and you've hit a net worth milestone. What. What's your approximate net worth at this point?

Yeah, so we are now $1.1 million as of today.

Awesome. And how far are you out of training, and how far is she out of training?

I'm seven years out of training, and she is 11 months out of training.

Okay, and what's your net worth divided up into at this point?

So most of it is retirement accounts. We have about 500,000 in Roth, 250,000, your traditional 401k, and then we have about another 200,000 in taxable versus the sole 140k that I had from a side gig, some cash, and a little bit into an hsa.

Okay. Any house or practice or anything like that?

Yeah, yeah. So we do have a house, and we own about 180,000 of that house. We just bought it last year when we moved. The bank owns the rest, but we do own about 180,000 of the principal.

So what's been your range of income throughout your career? It sounds like hers dramatically went up in the last year, but it sounds like for. For most of the last seven years, it's been a resident or fellow income for her, and then whatever you were earning. So where have you guys been at total throughout the last seven years or so?

So my first attending salary was about $250,000. That was my lowest. And then I did fellowship in ultrasound, and slowly, over years, used that as a way to have a side business where I would review ultrasounds from different hospitals. So as years have gone on, we increased our salary, and the highest we made was $600,000. We're down, actually, believe or not, only because I've cut back a little bit. Even though she's gone from a fellow to an attending, I cut back a lot now that she has attending salary as well, just to have more free time.

Were you guys married or together when you came out of training seven years ago?

Yes, we were. Yeah. We got married during residency, so we graduated medical school, and then the next year we were married.

Okay, so do you remember what your net worth was when you came out of training?

Yeah, I looked this up. It was actually negative $60,000 when it came out of training.

Negative 60. Okay.

Negative $60,000. And now we're millionaires with no student Loan debt, which is pretty cool.

So you paid for school with family help or how did you end up paying for your school?

Yeah, I was very lucky. My parents helped me with the payment for both undergrad and graduate school. And all the loans come from my wife.

Yeah, it looks like that's probably the case for about a quarter of medical students. When you look at the exiting student surveys, about 27% of medical students graduate without debt. Now I don't know how many of them are counting their HPSP scholarship or an MD, PhD or that sort of a contract thing, but I think the majority of those are people whose family was just able to help with the tuition. So it's not that uncommon, but it's definitely a minority. Did your family teach you much about money when you were growing up?

Yeah, so my parents were really good about teaching me to save to make sure that we have enough money towards retirement. It's funny, when I was in high school and into college, having a little job, my dad would try to encourage me to put some of that towards a Roth ira. So even at a young age I was taught to contribute as little bit as possible. Even if it was something it would still grow over time. And in residency, even though it was a very small percentage, just putting a little bit into a Roth account just to get the habit of saving and contributing towards retirement so it would grow over time.

Any children in your family?

Yeah, we have two kids. We have a seven and a four year old, both girls.

So how have you balanced being parents with becoming so financially successful?

I think that's really hard and I've listened to a couple people on your show and other tips and tricks and it's hard. My youngest is doing a pretty good job I think, in terms of learning about saving. We bought the book how the Moon Jar Was Made and I think that's been helpful to her. The oldest is still a little bit of a challenge just because we're trying to teach her about saving. But in her eyes, saving is a way so that she can spend it on a lot of stuff later. So trying to get her on the habit on how to be a good saver and not want to buy everything that she sees. But we're trying still don't have the best solution possible. I wish I knew the exact recipe for that.

It's nice to have a little more income with her becoming an attending. Allowing you to cut back a bit. Has that facilitated some more balance in your lives this year as the kids go back to school?

Yeah, we found that with Our family. It works well when I am involved with taking care of the kids as much as possible. So when we were during her fellowship, I was working a lot and we did have nannies and other ways for child care. And it worked, but it wasn't ideal. So now that she is making more money, I'm trying to work as many shifts, as little shifts as possible, but still get benefits with my group and to stay up to date in emergency medicine. But I do like being the house manager, taking care of the kids and being more the homebody. Our relationship, our house works well when that's the case. And so now that my wife's an attending and that we did save a fair amount of money while she was in residency, it makes it more easier and it allows us to do that.

So what advice do you have for those who are seven or ten years behind you? They're coming out of school, getting into training, and they want to be where you're at. They want to be able to knock out their student loans. They want to be able to get public service loan forgiveness. They want to be millionaires. A few years out of training. What advice do you have for them?

Well, from the public servant loan forgiveness point of view, again, just being diligent on accounts and it's a long road, but, you know, it worked for us and it is a huge relief. We feel so lucky that it happened in terms of getting to the millionaire milestone with us. Paying towards retirement accounts first was always very helpful. Some people don't like the budget. That works well for us. And really just being diligent to make sure that you put the money there and then you, believe it or not, some money is left over to spend on vacations if you desire. Can't buy everything. Can't send everyone to private school, can't, you know, buy the nicest car in the world, but you can have some enjoyment and spend some money as long as you save towards retirement and towards your future goals down the line. And I thought your course was super helpful. File. Your financial advisor helped me get a good financial plan. Then when we do have extra money, we know what to do with it because it's already outlined and ready for us to go.

Awesome. Well, congratulations to both of you and your financial success. I know she's actually at work right now while we're recording this. One of the benefits of being an emergency doc. Right. We're here at random weekday hours, recording stuff.

Right.

Thank you so much for coming on and for sharing your story. I know a lot of people will find it inspiring and want to do the same thing you've done.

Yeah. Thank you, Jim. And thank you for everything you're doing. I really appreciate it.

All right, a lot of lessons to be learned there. First of all, when you're a dual physician couple, you've got a lot of possibilities. In your financial life, you've got a huge shovel. Just the fact that one of you comes out at a different time than the other one and can paper expenses and start building wealth while you're still in training or even pay for part of your schooling, those sorts of things just gives you all kinds of possibilities when you're married to another high earner or eventual high earner. I found it really interesting that basically as soon as she got out of training, he cut back and basically functioned as a stay at home dad. And so you just have a lot more flexibility and possibility there. I don't know if it's run by the time you hear this, but we addressed this a little bit on the White Coat Investor podcast and somebody actually wrote in and asked for tips on what to do with a single doc household. It's apparently feeling that uncommon to people that they want me to talk about it, which was easy for me since that's what I was for a long time. First decade of my career, essentially that was our only income, was my clinical income from practicing. But there's a lot of lessons to learn there, you know, combining things like public service loan forgiveness with good savings rate and living your best life. Everybody's definition of what financial success looks like is going to be a little bit different, but it's fun to see the success that you guys as White Coat Investors have had. The White Coat Investor is proud to introduce our no Hype Real Estate Investing course, which will provide the framework for developing further knowledge and experience as you progress in your real estate investing career. We call it an introductory course because there's always more to learn, but this is no short, superficial course. There are over 200 lectures and videos adding up to more than 27 hours of content by over 15 different instructors. We think it just might be the best real estate course on the planet. Continue your wealth building journey today with the no Hype Real Estate Investing course@whitecoatinvestor.com courses. You can do this and the White Coat Investor can help. Thanks for joining us again on the Milestones to Millionaire podcast. We'd love to have you on the podcast as well, but until next week, we'll have to see you around the White Coat Investor community on our blog, on our Facebook group, on our forum, and in our subreddit. Keep your head up, shoulders back. You can do this and we can help. You too can be as financially successful as those who are featured on this podcast. See you next time. My dad, your host, Dr. Dahl, is a practicing emergency physician, blogger, author and podcaster. He is not a licensed accountant, attorney or financial advisor. So this podcast is for your entertainment and information only and should not be considered official personalized financial advice.