This podcast episode (PelviBiz #100) features Dr. Kelly Alhooie discussing her personal experience with substantial student loan debt after PT school and how becoming an entrepreneur enabled her to accelerate repayment. Key points: Kelly reports roughly $230,000 in student loans at a ~9% interest rate, struggled on a $62,000 salary while juggling multiple side jobs, and after transitioning to self-employment paid off $150,000 of debt within one year. She contrasts slow progress while employed (paid $50,000 over eight years) with rapid repayment and large interest savings achieved by growing her own business; she also urges clinicians to invest in coaching/business education.
Questions this video answers
About $230,000 (she says "over $200,000... like 230, something like that").
About 9%.
$62,000.
About $2,000 per month.
About $50,000 paid in eight years.
Welcome to Pelly biz podcast. I'm Dr. Kelly Alhui. I've grown my pelvic health practice, orthopelvic physical therapy, and now I'm helping pelvic health professionals do the same. Each week I give you the knowledge you need to grow your practice. Let's get into today's episode.
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All right, so I just posted a reel about student loan debt. I really want to talk about this because I know these student loan payments are really coming into play and this is something that was stressing me out pretty much my entire freaking career after getting out of PT school. It just stressed me out. So talking about student loan debt today and what I realized was this. I had over $200,000 student loan debt. I think it was like 230, something like that. Something crazy. I went to a private school, so the loans were crazy. Plus my interest rate was at 9% in student loans. Nine percent, guys, because I went to school during the recession. So to borrow money then it costs you a lot of money. Okay? So that being said, I went to five different states in nine years thinking that I could help solve my student loan problem. I encountered the same exact problem when I got out of school. I was making $62,000. I had over $200,000 student loan debt. I worked two to four jobs each. Pilates instructor, personal trainer, worked on movie sets, and I was also clinical director of every single clinic that I worked at around the us. And all that being said, it only got me this. It only got me to live in a one bedroom apartment that was 550 square feet. And they were all the same, by the way, wherever I lived, okay? They were all the same. And it only allowed me to pay $50,000 in eight years of my student loan debt. That's it. And I never missed a payment. I was paying like $2,000 a month, okay? And come to find out, when I actually started working for myself, something clicked. And I was like, man, I started working for myself. Within one year, I was able to pay $150,000 in student loan debt. $150,000 student loan debt? That's insane. No one ever taught us this, okay? And here's the crazy thing. If I were to continue working for someone else, it would have taken me 21 years, paying $2,000 a month to pay for my student loans, and I would have paid an extra $160,000. $160,000. I would have paid extra on top of the $230,000 if I would continue to work for someone else. How freaking nuts is that? Instead, by paying it off early, I save myself at least over a hundred thousand dollars. Isn't that crazy? But this is what it's like coming out and being a pt, at least in my experience, okay? It's too crazy. Like you can't, you cannot survive unless you have like five jobs, okay? And even then you're going to kill yourself trying to do that. It's just not worth it. It doesn't make sense. So there. I figured out there had to be a smarter way. So this is why I'm an entrepreneur. Because no one ever told me this. No one ever told me, kelly, you work for yourself. You can pay off the student loans. Like you gotta be able to pay the student loans off. And you're not gonna be able to do that if you work for someone else. It's just not the case. I think it's a massive problem that no one's talking about. It's like, how do we solve this? And here's the other thing. Why do we all invest in freaking friggin school? Okay? $200,000. But the second that I'm like, oh my God, I had to spend money on like a business coach, whatever, then I freak out. Why is that? I just spent $200,000 to get so much in debt for so many years and so much pain and so much frigging tiredness from all the friggin jobs I worked, but I don't want to invest in myself. It makes no fricking sense after school because Now I'm in all this debt. Invest in yourself, guys. A, it's a tax write off and be the. That's how you're going to learn how to actually get and make more money so you could pay your student loans. It's the only way that I was able to do that is I invested in a coach and then I was able to understand a different side. They never taught us in school that I was now able to be like, oh my God, why did they teach us this? Why, why don't they teach us this in school so now I can pay off my student loans. That's. It's crazy. It's crazy. They don't teach us. Okay. I'm very passionate about this because this, these student loans was like a weight over my head for years and years and years. Like how much am I going to pay these things? And I never missed a payment ever. I just worked more jobs and that all that got me was freaking so tired and so burnt out. It just wasn't worth it. Now I understand. Switch the role. You got to work for yourself and you can pay that student loans off faster and then you can say, okay, fine, school is an investment. It was a good investment. If you're just coming out and just working for someone else, school is not a good investment. So lesson of the morning today. So I get hype about it because it just painful. Was painful. Okay, so hopefully everyone's having a great day. Bye guys.
I consider myself a business and life coach. Are you ready to live the life of your dreams as an entrepreneur? If so, let's chat. See the episode notes below and go ahead and book a call. See you all next week.
