Guide me! I am currently in a residency program, with another 1.5 years of training left, likely fellowship for 1 year after that. My after tax paycheck is ~ $1700 twice a month. I have around $12k in a checking account for vacations/emergency fund. My fixed costs are ~$2300/month. I am not married, no kids.
I currently have 180k medical school loans separated into two.
I reconsolidated the majority of my school loans ($130k in Stafford loans) through a servicer with interest fixed at 4.25% (4% when I actually begin my payments). My payments are fixed to 100 dollars a month until 6 months after I finish my training, including fellowship, but the interest is still running (forbearance). Since I am paranoid about loans, I have managed to keep accrued interest to zero through payments a couple of times a year.
The rest (~$45k) are in a school loan with my medical school (LDS) with interest fixed at 5%, although all interest payments are paid off until I finish residency, and I make no payments until that time (deferment).
Additionally I am putting 600 dollars a month through Betterment for an Roth IRA. (The 403b at my hospital does not match), and I've managed to put away ~$5k in retirements so far. I expect that to rise dramatically after I finish my training and get a real retirement plan.
After the recent PSLF boondogle, where the government said they may not honor prior Approval letters, my fellow residents have been asking for advice everywhere, and I felt uncomfortable about giving advice without certainty in my own financial situation.
Given residency is the most financially taxing time, I did not feel comfortable relying on PSLF, making $600/month payments at 7.5% interest (the original Stafford loans) hoping that PSLF forgives $160k years down the future, not to mention I may not work in a nonprofit public setting after I graduate. I didn't consider REPAYE, as I didn't want to think about making loan payments for the next 25 years.
Did I make a sensible choice? Am I making sensible choices? Did I make a really expensive financial by reconsolidating?
Submitted April 02, 2017 at 11:12AM by t0aster http://ift.tt/2oxpJS0
