Wow, thanks for the awesome tip, Chris! I didn’t know about the 10-year Public Service Loan Forgiveness program for government hospital employees — it’s certainly relevant to us because my wife also works for a government hospital. Thanks for sharing the repayment projection for a single professional – I agree marriage complicates things, though… Hope you’re doing well!

Thank you!

This was a great entry – agree with how easy it is to save as a bachelor and how meticulous manually tracking is totally worth it for finances.

Regarding student loan repayments for healthcare professionals like Kelly or Tama above – a great option that is available for Federal loans is the combination of an Income Based Repayment plan with Public Service Loan Forgiveness while working at a state or VA hospital post training. An income based repayment plan limits the drain on cash flow during residency/fellowship years and Public Service Loan Forgiveness forgives the balance on qualifying loans after 10 years of continuous payments so you’re not paying down that deferred compounded interest.

My girlfriend is also in healthcare and since she’s planning on 6 years of training at a lower income (3 years residency, 3 years fellowship), this makes a lot of sense.

Some rough and dirty numbers for a single healthcare professional:

Residency: 50k income per year, 35k discretionary income, 3.5k in payments x 3
Fellowship: 100k income per year, 85k discretionary income, 8.5k in payments x 3
Attending: 200k income per year, 185k discretionary income, 18.5k in payments x 4
After which the balance is forgiven

Total repaid: less than 100k (on a typical 200k loan) not including the time value of deferring those payments. Of course this assumes no marriage (ha) which complicates things so this is extremely simplified.

Best,
Chris K

Hi Tama, thanks for your nice comment – and glad you’re finding HYW helpful! Yes, coordinating finances with another person, especially if you’re looking toward the long-term, is an important skill to develop, and I agree it’s very worthwhile to convince your partner to pay down (especially) credit card debt and invest in retirement. Since you’re both doctors, you have a very stable and bright career / earnings outlook. 🙂 But setting good personal finance habits when you’re younger will pay big dividends when you get older, so keep that up. 🙂 Good luck and stay tuned for more great posts on HYW!

Just wanted to let you know that I appreciate this website, especially this post. I’ve been trying to figure out ways to get my girlfriend (we’re both residents in pediatrics) to understand why she needs to be saving for retirement (at all), paying down her credit card debt, and refinancing her loans. Your articles will come in handy. Thanks for doing good work!

Cheers