MtoM #4 - Military Pediatrician Pays off $150K in 15 Months

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 the Milestones to Millionaire podcast. Episode number four, Military Pediatrician pays off $150,000 in 15 months. You know, if you want to be a guest on this show, we'd love to have you. If you have accomplished a milestone, something you're proud of financially, that would inspire somebody else, come and help us celebrate with you. Apply to be a guest@whitecoatinvestor.com Milestones and hopefully we can get you on the podcast and share your story. 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, we've got a great guest today that I've been really looking forward to introducing to you. This is Juliana, a pediatrician with the U.S. air Force. Let's get her on the line. Okay. We have Juliana on the podcast here with us. She is a pediatrician with the United States Air Force. Thank you for your service, Juliana, and welcome to the podcast.

Hi. It's great to be here.

Awesome. Tell us how much debt you paid off.

So I was looking back at our net worth, and I believe when I stopped med school, when I finally graduated, my husband and I, we were 150,000 in debt. So negative. 150,000.

And how long did it take you to pay that off?

So I paid it off through residency, and then it took me an additional about 15 months after I graduated residency to get out. Out of debt.

Wow, that's really impressive. $150,000 in 15 months after residency graduation?

That's correct.

Yeah. That's pretty awesome on a military salary. Congratulations on doing that. And what was your average household income over that time period?

So my husband made about 70, and I make about 130, 140.

Awesome. So how did you do it? I mean, this was a big chunk of your income for 15 months that was going at these loans?

Yes. So essentially we lived off of one of our salaries and kind of like how you suggested we continued our residency lifestyle. We also have three kids. I just had my third child. So through the time we were paying this off, we had two kids that we were paying for daycare, paying for extra, you know, nanny coverage. And so we really just had a very limited amount that we spent on a home. And so we kept our mortgage payment very low, and we took everything that we were not using to live off of, and we just put chunks down on our loans every month.

You're very intentional about this. I mean, you had a plan from the beginning.

Absolutely.

Now take us back to that moment, you know, 15 months ago or a couple of years ago or whatever, when you decided you were going to execute this plan. Did it turn out to be easier or harder than you thought it was going to be?

You know, actually, I think it was a little easier than I thought it was going to be, honestly, because when you are looking at, you know, you have to pay off $150,000, you know, with the salary that we were making at the time, it seemed insurmountable. But once both my husband and I were on the same page, and once we, you know, we get together every six months and do basically a net worth calculation for our family, and once we started seeing the steamroll, it became very easy and we felt like we were living a very comfortable life. Both my husband and I are from middle class families, so we were not used to living any other way than having to really watch our pennies.

So how does it feel now to have your student loans gone?

It feels really good. It feels really good. It's interesting now because we've decided that we really, we've increased our standard of living a little bit, but mostly the huge chunk of money that we were putting towards loans is now just being put towards our retirement savings. And so we really haven't increased our standard of living all that much.

No regrets about paying it off then instead of investing the money or something like that.

For instance, you know, we both felt very weighed down by debt and we. It made us second guess taking vacations. It made us second guess how much we should spend on things. And now that the debt has been lifted, we have a lot more freedom to feel like we deserve what we're getting. You know, if we need to buy a car, you know, we, we feel like we have the freedom to just go and buy that without that extra debt holding us back.

So what advice do you have for somebody that's where you were 15 months ago, a couple of years ago. What would you tell them that you know now and maybe didn't know then?

I think it is incredibly important to work as a team if you're lucky enough to have a partner that you're living life with, to work as a team and be on the same page with your finances.

It's a team sport, isn't it?

Absolutely. And I think our biggest hurdle was I'm more of the spender. My husband is more of the conservative spender. And once we got on the same page that this is what we needed to do for our family, it became very easy.

Sounds like it was maybe easier for him than it was for you.

Most definitely.

Was it his idea or your idea initially before you got on the same page?

It was his idea.

It was his idea.

Yes.

And what was like the hardest thing for you to not have or the biggest sacrifice for you?

I love to travel. So the biggest sacrifice was really scaling back on what my expectations were for vacation.

Well, you know, the military sometimes has a way of sending you for free travel from time to time.

Yes. Speaking of that, I did take a three month stint in a little place in New Mexico called Cannon Air Force Base, which is a little gym out in the middle of nowhere. So I had a nice little vacation there.

Not quite what you had in mind when you were thinking about travel, though, huh?

A lot of cows. A lot of cows.

Well, thank you for your service. Congratulations on your success. What do you see as coming next for you in your financial goals? You mentioned you were saving more, you're spending a little bit more. What are you working on?

Our next big goal is to have a net worth of a million dollars.

Congratulations. Well, given the discipline you developed attacking this goal so ferociously, I'm sure it won't take you that long to get there.

Well, thank you so much. Your podcasts have been really instrumental for us. You know, we started out as Dave Ramsey fans. We, you know, we really listened a lot to what he got us started with. But having a little bit more of a. An impression on high income professionals and how we can kind of utilize that to attack our goals has been really helpful.

Well, it's my pleasure. And thank you for being willing to come on and share your story with others.

Absolutely.

Bye. Bye. All right. So that was pretty awesome what they did, right? I mean, this income is only about $200,000, and they paid off $150,000 in debt in just 15 months. That's a lot of focus. Now you get a few tax advantages being in the military, but they're not that big. This is still a really impressive accomplishment. So I think some lessons learned from that would be, you know, the benefit of living on only one income. Obviously, if you have a second income that's entirely going to debt, you're going to pay off your debt a little bit faster than you otherwise would. But really, these guys kind of demonstrated how live like a resident works. If you will just keep living like a resident when you come out of training, that debt goes away very quickly if you're throwing an attending income at it. And so I think that's pretty awesome. The other thing that happens when you pay this off so quickly is it doesn't delay your other goals very much. Now they can invest. Now they can save up down payments. Now they can go spend money that maybe they felt a little bit guilty spending money on before. And they don't have this debt holding them back anymore. They're free. And so I think that's pretty awesome. Another big takeaway, of course, is you can't do this by yourself. If you have a partner, you've got to work together on it. You've got to be maybe not on the same page, but certainly reading the same book in order to be successful. So congratulations to both of them for their hard work with this loan. 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. 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. Head up. Shoulders back. You've got this and we can help. We'll see you next week on the Milestones to Millionaire podcast or in a few days for the regular White Coat Investor podcast.

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.