MtoM #257: Emergency Medicine Doc Reaches Financial Independence, Cuts Back to Half Time and Bike Rides over 2,000 Miles Across Europe and Financial Boot Camp: How Does PSLF Work?

Summary

White Coat Investor Podcast – Milestones to Millionaire #257

Title: Emergency Medicine Doc Reaches Financial Independence, Cuts Back to Half Time and Bike Rides Over 2,000 Miles Across Europe & Financial Boot Camp: How Does PSLF Work?
Date: January 12, 2026
Host: Dr. Jim Dahle
Guest: Dr. Gail (Emergency Physician, long-time WCI community member)

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Episode Overview

This episode features Dr. Gail, an emergency physician who shares her inspiring journey to financial independence, a major work-life balance transition, and an epic 2,500-mile self-supported bike adventure from Italy to Norway. The latter part of the episode is a “Financial Boot Camp” segment where Dr. Dahle gives a clear and practical walkthrough of the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Gail’s Career & Milestone (02:31–05:28)

• Career Path:
  • Emergency physician trained in 2000; 25 years in practice, mostly in New England.
  • Two years living and working in Norway on sabbatical.
• Major Milestone:
  • Completed a 2,500-mile self-supported bike adventure from northern Italy to northern Norway in just 18 days (02:19–04:03).
  • Event: Organized bike event with 5,000 participants.
• Work-Life Decision:
  • Took seven weeks off from work to complete the ride.
  • Initially considered early retirement for the trip but managed to rearrange work to go half time, preserving health insurance for her family.

“At the age of 56, I didn’t think I should wait too much longer because you never know with health issues and injuries, things that could happen. So I figured it was like now or never.”
— Gail (04:34)

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2. Road to Financial Independence (05:28–11:19)

• Money Management Principles:
  • Lived below her means, consistently maxed out retirement accounts.
  • Avoided major mistakes, found balance between “fire and YOLO”.
  • Enjoyed life’s pleasures (travel, family time), didn’t skimp on memorable experiences.
• Real Estate Strategy:
  • Started with a modest home purchase in Detroit during residency (“did what you recommend not doing by getting a house during internship”).
  • Upgraded houses slowly, leveraged refinancing (as student loan payoff strategy).
  • Built a portfolio of rental properties (up to 7 doors), eventually sold most to a trusted colleague via seller financing, providing passive income while simplifying holdings (08:42).
• Asset Allocation:
  • $3.4M in retirement accounts (80/20 stocks/bonds with some REITs).
  • $2.6M in direct real estate (including home, rentals, cabin in Norway).
  • Net worth: Over $5M (“Penta-millionaire”).
• Family & Income:
  • Median emergency physician salary over career, part-time at time of episode.
  • Husband was a stay-at-home dad; chose family time over maximizing dual-income.

“What I like to say is I like to live life on the fire to YOLO continuum, somewhere in the middle. I like to find balance.”
— Gail (05:45)

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3. Mindset & Milestone Motivation (11:19–14:09)

• Defining Moments:
  • Previous major sabbatical to Norway stemmed from a midlife “study abroad” dream.
  • Left the U.S. for two years—earned significantly less but gained invaluable life experience.
  • “Go to hell fund”: Always maintained an emergency fund large enough to allow walkaway options.
  • Recent endurance athlete challenges (SVT) reinforced the need to seize opportunities while physically able.

“No regrets about that then. ... You never know what can happen. So I wanted to do this bike race and figured I can't wait until I'm 70 to do it because... the chance of me being physically capable of doing that at that age was less likely.”
— Gail (13:24)

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4. The Bike Adventure—Details from the Road (14:09–16:58)

• Route and Experience:
  • Started in Italy, crossed the Alps, journeyed through Germany (fruitful stops!), detoured into the Czech Republic and Poland, ferry to Sweden, then up through Scandinavia into Norway.
  • Striking moment: “Going over the Alps wasn’t too difficult. ... The camaraderie was amazing. I actually rode out with one of the fastest groups … as soon as we hit some elevation, I totally got dropped, so dropped back.”
    — Gail (14:39)
  • Various travel and endurance strategies among the 5,000 participants.
  • Notable hardship: Hypothermic, sheltering in Norway’s cold, wet weather before tackling a 7km tunnel.
  • Maintained connection and support with cyclists from all over the world.

“Five days later … I get a WhatsApp phone message from this guy named Gabriel from Spain … to cheer me up and encourage me. So that was really, really amazing.”
— Gail (15:09)

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5. Post-Milestone Life: Working Half-Time (16:58–17:59)

• Transition to Halftime Work:
  • Reduced to seven shifts/month; “It’s really much easier. So I haven’t really noticed any change.”
  • Increased travel—bike ride, conference, Machu Picchu, etc.
  • Burnout now unlikely; frequent travel may need moderating.

“It is hard to burn out. I don’t feel burnt out at all. So if anything, I’m thinking I’m traveling a little bit too much. I may need to slow that down.”
— Gail (17:51)

“Fifteen shifts a month … In your late 50s doing night shifts, you’re feeling a little crispy. Six day shifts a month, it’s hard to get burnt out on that.”
— Jim (18:49)

• Jim’s Reflection:
  • Emphasizes importance of health, timing, and balancing career, family, and personal adventure.
  • Advocates for thinking “outside the box” and prioritizing meaningful experiences mid-to-late career.

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6. Financial Boot Camp: Public Service Loan Forgiveness (20:15–26:09)

• PSLF Program Highlights:
  • Eligibility: Full-time work (30+ hours/week) at 501c3 nonprofit or government employer (includes most academic centers, VA, military).
  • Requirement: 120 qualifying monthly payments (10 years).
  • Unique Value: Completely tax-free forgiveness—both federal and state.
  • Training Years: Residency & fellowship payments usually count as they are typically at nonprofits/universities.
  • Income-driven repayment: Payments often low during training and early attending years.
  • Planning Tactics:
    • File tax returns during med school for $0 income to lock in zero payments that count.
    • Use last tax return’s low-income filings to keep payments low for first 1–3 years post-training.
    • Some intentionally delay tax filing to maximize periods of low qualifying payments.
  • No upper limit on forgiven amount.
  • Legal caveats: Laws can change, but most changes “grandfather in” current participants.
• Strategic Advice:
  • Hedge against future changes or career shifts: Build a “side fund” in a brokerage account equivalent to extra loan payments—flexibility to pay off personally if PSLF path lost/abandoned.

“So the amount that can be forgiven can be substantial. It is not unusual to have six figure amounts forgiven. I don’t know that I’ve yet run into somebody who had a seven figure amount forgiven, but it is theoretically possible.”
— Jim (24:11)

“What I recommend you do is instead of making these huge payments … make them to your brokerage account … if something happens to PSLF, you’ve got some money … you can turn around and send to your lender and not be behind.”
— Jim (25:27)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Financial Independence:
  “I like to live life on the fire to YOLO continuum, somewhere in the middle. I like to find balance.”
  — Gail (05:45)

• On Building Wealth Without Extreme Sacrifice:
  “Never had a 50% plus savings rate is what you’re saying?”
  “No, I’ve never calculated my savings rate. I was going to do it for today, but … I’m not going to start now.”
  — Jim & Gail (06:27–06:37)

• On Real Estate and Student Loans:
  “Each time we bought the investment property, we’d refinance our primary mortgage, take some money out and use that to buy the rental property. So it’s pretty debt averse and didn’t use much leverage.”
  — Gail (08:06)

• On Seizing Opportunities:
  “I can’t wait until I’m 70 to do it because … the chance of me being physically capable … was less likely.”
  — Gail (13:29)

• On Work-Life Balance and Burnout:
  “It is hard to burn out. I don’t feel burnt out at all.”
  — Gail (17:51)

  “Six day shifts a month. It’s hard to get burnt out on that.”
  — Jim (18:49)

• On Thinking Long-Term:
  “Then you live the life you were meant to live. A life you can look back on with no regrets … sometimes all you have to do is think outside the box.”
  — Jim (19:37)

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Important Timestamps

• Gail’s introduction & milestone: 02:31–04:03
• Financial life philosophy: 05:28–06:27
• Real estate & early student loan payoff: 06:52–08:28
• Portfolio & net worth: 09:29–10:09
• Household income/life choices: 10:33–11:19
• Sabbatical and mindset shift: 11:19–14:09
• Europe cycling adventure details: 14:09–16:58
• Transition to half-time work, avoiding burnout: 16:58–17:59
• Host reflections on wellness and timing: 18:37–20:15
• PSLF Boot Camp: Overview & strategies: 20:15–26:09

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Final Reflections

This episode is a master class in holistic wealth—showcasing how prudent, balanced financial planning enables not just a secure retirement, but adventure, flexibility, and meaningful experiences well before “traditional” retirement age. Gail’s story is one of thoughtful risks, steady discipline, and living life with intention, providing actionable inspiration for physicians and other professionals striving toward financial independence and abundant living. The comprehensive PSLF rundown is a must-listen for anyone with medical student loans considering nonprofit or government employment.

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Transcript

[Gail]

This is the White Coat Investor Podcast, Milestones to Millionaire, celebrating stories of success along the journey to financial freedom.

[Jim]

This is Milestones to Millionaire podcast number 257. Emergency physician becomes financially independent, changes work, and spends weeks biking across Europe. As a white coat, you have valuable knowledge. Various companies want this knowledge and they're willing to pay you for it. That's why we put together a list of recommendations for companies that pay you to take surveys. If you're looking for a profitable side gig for not too much effort, getting paid for surveys could be the perfect solution for you. You make extra money, start a solo 401k and use your medical knowledge to impact new products. One of the WCI columnists makes an extra $30,000 a year just doing these surveys. Sign up today and use a fraction of your downtime to make extra cash. Go to whitecoatinvestor.com mdsurveys don't write into us and say, what's up with the MD thing? Do Surveys will also get you to the same place. You can do this. The White Coat Investor can help. All right, we have got a recommended list you may or may not know about. If you go to whitecoatinvestor.com recommended, you'll realize just how much we offer here, right? Whether you need help with insurance, help with a mortgage, help with a contract review, help with a financial advisor, help with your taxes, whatever it might be. You'd be surprised how many different recommended lists we have, and you can see them [e-mail] recommended.

[Financially Empowered Women Host]

The next Financially Empowered Women live webinar.

[Jim]

Is on January 14th at 6pm Mountain Time. Just two days from now, I'm going to be talking about all things Roth, Roth versus Taxable, when to choose Roth, when not to backdoor Roth mega backdoor Roth, Roth conversions, et cetera.

[Financially Empowered Women Host]

And we'll walk you through exactly how.

[Jim]

To do your backdoor Roth and answer your questions afterward.

[Financially Empowered Women Host]

Sign [e-mail] Few that's F E w.

[Jim]

The Financially Empowered Women. All right, we've got a great interview today. We tell you guys all the time. Any milestone, we'll celebrate with you. And today we've got a unique one, so I hope you enjoy it. My guest on the Milestones podcast today is Gail. Gail, welcome to the podcast. I don't know, maybe I should say back to the podcast, but it was really the White Coat Investor podcast that you've been on before.

[Gail]

Thank you so much, Jim. Excited to be back.

[Jim]

For those who don't know, Gail has Spoken at WC Icon before. So it's like we have a star on today sharing her milestone. So give us a sense for those who don't know you. Give us a sense for where you're at in the country and where you're at in your career, what you do for a living, et cetera.

[Gail]

Yes. So I finished my emergency medicine training in 2000 and since that time I have mostly been in New England at the same job, except for two years when I was on a sabbatical in Norway. And yeah, so 25 years in practice.

[Jim]

Okay. Now we always tell people we will celebrate any milestone with you and we'll try to come up with some financial lessons from it to teach.

[Financially Empowered Women Host]

And you have a little bit of.

[Jim]

An unusual milestone this time. So tell us what you've accomplished.

[Gail]

Yes, my milestone is actually 2,500. That's 2,500 miles that I rode on my bicycle this summer in a self supported bike adventure that went from northern Italy to Northern Norway.

[Jim]

Okay, now the 2,500 miles may not be the most impressive part. I want to hear how long this took you.

[Gail]

So it took me just over 18 days. It was an organized bike event with 5,000 participants. Most of us started in northern Italy, but there was also the option of joining in Berlin. And the deadline for doing it was 20 days and I finished it in 18 days. So by about 145 miles per day.

[Jim]

That's a lot of riding. I'm impressed just with the physical nature of this particular feat. But to finish this, you took off three plus weeks as an emergency doc. That is not easy. As a full time emergency doc, it's not easy.

[Gail]

I actually wound up with seven weeks off.

[Jim]

Wow.

[Gail]

During the summer I thought I was going to have to quit my job to do that. And I was seriously considering an early retirement.

[Jim]

To be able to do this, you're going to, you, you're, you're willing to retire early to go on this trip?

[Gail]

I was willing to retire early. This is something I wanted to do. And at the age of 56, I didn't think I should wait too much longer because you never know with health issues and injuries, things that could happen. So I figured it was like now or never. So I thought about just take either taking. I couldn't take a leave of absence off in the summer, but I would have had to resign and then try to get my job back. But because I work for a public university health care system, we were pretty severely hit by cutbacks from the federal government. So I was Basically informed that if I did resign, I probably it would be difficult to get my job back in the near future due to hiring freezes. And I do have three young adults that I support with health insurance. So that was another consideration I had to take into account. So after working things out with some very helpful colleagues, I was able to go down to half time and swap some shifts around in order to get the time off that I needed.

[Jim]

Okay, so give us a sense for how you've lived your financial life since 2000 such that this was an option, that you could retire early, that you could go to halftime at 56. Tell us what you've done with your finances over the years that allowed you to do that.

[Gail]

Basically living below my means, maxing out my retirement accounts. And that was basically it. It's a slow and steady and just not making any major financial mistakes. Made a few minor financial mistakes along the way, but nothing major. Pretty lucky with real estate, just working hard. But what I like to say is I like to live life on the fire to YOLO continuum, somewhere in the middle. I like to find balance. So I'm not all. I've had great experiences along the way. I have never suffered from not being able to travel. My husband is Norwegian. We travel to Norway at least once a year and take other scuba diving vacations and other types of vacations depending on where we were in life.

[Jim]

You Never had a 50% plus savings rate is what you're saying?

[Gail]

No, I've never calculated my savings rate. I was going to do it for today, but I figured I've never done it before and I'm not going to start now.

[Jim]

Okay, but it's worked out okay. You said you got lucky in real estate. Now are you any luckier than the rest of us because our house went up in value like crazy the last five years. Did you do something particularly lucky or just there's been a tailwind the last few years?

[Gail]

No, I think just it's been a tailwind since the beginning. I actually did what you recommend not doing by getting a house during internship, but I had a dog when I was moving out by myself, so I needed a fenced in yard and a doggy door. And then a few months after moving to Detroit for my residency. Well, housing prices in Detroit are extremely cheap. I bought a house for $63,000 back in 1997 after graduating medical school.

[Jim]

That only got you one house in Detroit that didn't get.

[Gail]

That got me one house, two bedrooms. And then I met my future husband and he was Very handy. So we did some repairs around the house and when it came time to move for my attending job, we were able to sell the house without a real estate agent. So with very low costs and made a nice profit on that and then use that as a down payment for the next house. And it definitely was not a doctor house. We kind of stepped our way up over the years and fortunately the interest rates were coming down each time I needed to move each time we found another house. So I would basically just refinance the mortgage, take money out, pay it off my student loans that way. I had less than $100,000 in student loans coming out of medical school. So those were pretty quickly paid off by refinancing the house mortgage. And then we bought some investment properties along the way. And each time we bought the investment property, we'd refinance our primary mortgage, take some money out and use that to buy the rental property. So it's pretty debt averse and didn't use much leverage. I probably could have used more or should have used more, but I didn't.

[Jim]

Yeah, in retrospect now, you know, your income was steady along the way and that the values of the houses went up. Right. That's not necessarily a given when you're first buying them though. Okay, so a few rental properties. How many doors under management do you have?

[Gail]

Well, we had, let's see, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 6, 7 doors under management. I also started a financial literacy interest group with my hospital and we talk about real estate a lot. And my husband and I were looking to kind of wind down our real estate so we could possibly move back overseas if and when we wanted to. And one of my colleagues who's in the financial interest literacy group was interested in purchasing some housing, getting into real estate. So we basically sold him our real estate little mini empire and did seller financing. So we cut out all the middle people, so to speak. We did it without real estate agents or banks. And so we still hold the note on the mortgage for the two rental houses. So it's kind of steady income from that.

[Jim]

And what's the rest of your portfolio look like?

[Gail]

So my total portfolio, I guess I've also can celebrate hitting financial independence as well. We have 3.4 million in retirement accounts, and that's broken down into about 80, 20 stocks, bonds with some REITs in there as well. And then we have about 2.6 million in direct real estate. And that includes our home, another local rental property that we have in our same town. The two duplexes that we sold to my colleague and a cabin in Norway.

[Jim]

Yeah. So essentially you're a Penta millionaire.

[Gail]

I guess so.

[Jim]

Five million plus, if we added up all that net worth. I mean, that's pretty incredible. I mean, give us a sense what your household income looked like. I mean, I know you're an emergency physician, so I have a sense of what you were making at least while you're in the US but you spent some time in Norway and sounds like your husband did at least a little bit of working along the way. What would you say your household income varied from over the last 25 years?

[Gail]

I've always earned about the median emergency medicine salary. I think in 2001, that was maybe 150 or $180,000. And currently about 360,000 for working full time. Now, half that since I went down to halftime in the end of June of this year. My husband was actually a stay at home dad, so we did not have a dual household income. When our children were young, we decided that we would rather have one of us stay home. We did have an au pair to help when they were really young, when we had three children, because there's only 21 months between the three of our children. So when they were young, it was too much for even my Norwegian husband to take care of on his own. So between myself and an au pair for a few years, we made that work very cool.

[Jim]

So you got to this point, you know, in the last year or two, you're 55, 56, and you're like, I got some stuff I want to do. And you're looking at people coming in that are 55 and they're having mis and they're having strokes and they're in renal failure and they're in nursing homes. And you're like, I got some stuff I want to do. Tell us about the calculations, the mindset changes, et cetera, that went into you going, I want to do these things bad enough that I'd walk away from work to do them if this can't be worked out.

[Gail]

Yep. So the first episode happened back in 2012 when I took the sabbatical to go to Norway. I was just over, you know, midlife crisis in my early 40s. Mid-40s. I had never had a study abroad year and figured I always wanted to do that, felt like I was missing out. So my husband and I actually saved up a year's worth of living expenses. And then I went to my boss to ask if I could potentially, like, work two weeks on, have four Weeks off. And he basically told me no because if he allowed me to do that, everyone else would want to do that would make his job difficult. So he kind of forced me. It wasn't the answer I wanted, but it worked out for the best because it forced me to actually take a full leave of absence at that time. I was able to take a year leave of absence. They held my job, moved to Norway on our savings. We had to cut our kids hair because we were on a budget at that time, trying to make sure that our money didn't run out. And while I was living there, I made some connections along the way with physicians. And word got out that there was an American emergency physician living on a potato farm in rural Norway teaching swimming lessons. So I was recruited to help start up a pilot project in Norway for their first emergency room. They didn't have emergency medicine at the time in Norway, so I said yes to that job. So one year sabbatical became two. My salary at that time, when you were asking about salary, I forgot to mention was about $100,000 for the year. So much less than we would get paid in the US about a third of our salary. But it was one of the most memorable experiences that I've had. It helped shape the rest of my career. And no regrets about that then. I've had some episodes as an endurance athlete with some SVT and some scary episodes there, and you never know what can happen. So I wanted to do this bike race and figured I can't wait until I'm 70 to do it because the chance of me being physically capable of doing that at that age was less likely than being able to do it at my current age of 56. So I was willing to walk away from the job I always have called the Go to hell fund. So I get a savings account, emergency fund, so that if anything happened we would be able to walk away from a job.

[Jim]

Yeah, well, I imagine the hardest part of this was not Denmark or crossing the bridge to Sweden. You started in Italy, you had to cross the Alps. Tell us about that.

[Gail]

Yeah, it was pretty amazing. So again, there's 500 people from all around the world. And the strategies that people used were so different. I went in with my first week planned of where I was going to stay in hotels. Other people had the entire 20 days planned and where they're staying each night. And some people had planned nothing. And I was kind of in the middle there. So started in Northern Italy. First day was over the Alps. It was a little cool and rainy, which I think is probably better than if they'd had a heat wave. And I was fresh, you know, I planned on doing 145 miles that day. And after about 12, 14 hours, I came to Innsbruck. I was with a bunch of other people. The camaraderie was amazing. I actually rode out with one of the fastest groups starting out. So I was on the front peloton for the first few hours, which really made things fly. And as soon as we hit some elevation, I totally got dropped, so dropped back. But the interesting thing about that story is five days later, when I was near Berlin, I was in the rain and a little bit miserable. It was probably one of my lower days on the trip. And I get a WhatsApp phone message from this guy named Gabriel from Spain that I had met front peloton the very first day. And he was just calling to see how things were going and to cheer me up and encourage me. So that was really, really amazing. Going over the Alps wasn't too difficult. And then Germany. We biked along the eastern portion of Germany for days. There were tons of fruit trees. I stopped and picked fruit. There was no real race mentality to it. There were some people who were doing the same distance as I was doing and who did the days using two hours less of biking time. Others who would come in late at night several hours after I'd already gotten into town. That was amazing. We did the little tip of Czech Republic, and then we biked to the western tip of Poland and took the ferry from Poland to Ystad, Sweden. And that was an overnight ferry, so that was the southern part of Europe. And then things got a little bit more spread out as you got into Scandinavia. And I spent over a week biking through Sweden. One of the days when the cyclist tour spread out was getting a little bored. I had some books on tape that I listened to, and one day I actually caught up on all of the WCI podcasts. And then the hardest part, I guess, when we biked up through Finland Pass, you know, through the Arctic Circle in Rovaniemi, Finland. And then the last two days were in Norway. As soon as I hit the border to Norway, hit terrible, terrible weather. Had really, really cold, driving, rain, gotten a bit hypothermic. I had to stop and wait in the SOS telephone box for a little while before I hit a seven kilometer long tunnel.

[Financially Empowered Women Host]

Wow.

[Jim]

Sounds like quite an ordeal. Okay, so you said you had to go half time, basically, to do this. They wouldn't let you stay full time. So tell me about that transition and what that means for the rest of your career.

[Gail]

I mean, I could have stayed full time, but the chance of getting the four weeks off to do this bike race would have not been possible. So I went down to halftime in the end of June, and since then I've been doing a lot of travel. Not only the bike race across Europe, but I was out at ASAP in Salt Lake City in September. We just came back from hiking Machu Picchu in Peru and seems like whenever I'm not traveling, then I'm picking up a few shifts. But halftime is basically only seven shifts per month. So it's like nothing as far as work. It's really much easier. So I haven't really noticed any change.

[Financially Empowered Women Host]

And just it's a lot harder to.

[Jim]

Burn out when you're only working seven days, isn't it?

[Gail]

It is hard to burn out. I don't feel burnt out at all. So if anything, I'm thinking I'm traveling a little bit too much. I may need to slow that down.

[Jim]

Yeah, I'm a big fan of part time medicine. I've found it thoroughly enjoyable for the last five, six years or whatever that I've been doing about the same amount of work in the emergency department. And I agree, at a certain point you go, you know what? That was enough travel for me this year. And so I can relate to that for sure. Well, Gail, congratulations on your success, not only on completing the ride, but on setting up your life financially in a way that allowed you to be able to do that as well as what you're doing now and what you'll do in the future. You've really demonstrated what financial freedom can mean in the lives of a white coat investor.

[Gail]

Thank you for having me, Jim.

[Jim]

All right, that was a fun interview. You know, it's interesting to see what people do with financial freedom. And Gail's done a lot of stuff that I've done with financial freedom. Right. A cutback of work.

[Financially Empowered Women Host]

Right.

[Jim]

Work's really fun. Six or seven shifts a month is great. Fifteen shifts a month. In your late 50s doing night shifts, you're feeling a little crispy. A six day shifts a month. It's hard to get burnt out on that. Meanwhile, you get a chance to travel while you're healthy. You get a chance to adventure while you're healthy because that health is not guaranteed. You meet people all the time who are not healthy. You've got parents. How late could they have gone and traveled the world and biked across Europe and done things like that? Probably not in their 70s, 80s, 90s, right? These are chapters of your life that belong to your 40s and 50s and 60s. So if you want to do them, you've got to figure out a way for them to coexist with your parenting responsibilities, with your career responsibilities. You know, it might not mean retiring completely. In Gail's case, it just meant cutting back to half time. But finding that balance is challenging. And finding a way to do all the things you want to cram into your short life on this sphere can be challenging, but it's worthwhile because then you live the life you were meant to live. A life you can look back on with no regrets and say that, yeah, I did do it all. And all you have to do sometimes is think outside the box. Take care of your financial to do list and you'll be surprised how much freedom you have by mid to late career to do what you want to do with your life.

[Financially Empowered Women Host]

One of the best ways to manage federal student loans for doctors over the last 15 years has been Public Service Loan Forgiveness, or PSLF. And what this is is this is a program available to not just doctors, but to anybody that is employed full time, which is defined as at least 30 hours in a week full time by a nonprofit, aka 501C3 or government employer. So if you're working for the military, if you're working for the va, if you're working for a nonprofit hospital, right, all these sorts of places and most academic centers, you are eligible for public service loan forgiveness. Under the program, you need to make 120 monthly payments. That is you have to pay on your loans for 10 years in an approved program, and then the remainder, whatever else you owe, whether it's $40,000 or $400,000, is forgiven. And that forgiveness, unlike many other forgiveness programs, is totally tax free. You do not pay state income taxes on it. You do not pay federal income taxes on it. It's like if you had $200,000 forgiven, it's like your net worth instantly goes up $200,000. It's pretty awesome. And the cool thing about it is, at least under current law and laws for this are always changing. Payments you make during your training, right? During residency, during an internship, during fellowship, almost always count. And the reason why they count is because those programs are run by nonprofits and by government employers. You're usually a university employee while you're an intern or a resident or a fellow. And so those payments all count. Now, the way you make payments is typically through an income driven repayment program. There are Always changes being made to these programs, so you have to stay as up to date as you can on which one you should be in. But as a general rule, these programs certify your income only periodically. And they typically do it by going back to your last tax return that you filed and looking at what your income was on that tax return. So what a lot of docs do is they file a tax return their last year of medical school, even though they're not required to. But they file a tax return that says their income is zero. And so for the next year or two their payments are zero. But those $0 payments count. They count toward these 120 monthly payments. And even after that you'll certify with a year where you had no income for half the year and an intern income for half the year. So those payments aren't going to be very high. And then you'll certify using some residency payments where your income's not very high, so you're not making very large payments. And even when you come out of residency, you've got a year where you only have half of an attending income and so your payments are a little bit lower. And so it's not unusual for a year or two after you finish training, you're still making low payments like you were making as a resident. So in reality, lots of doctors are only making real payments, you know, large multi thousand dollar payments on their student loans for one to five years after finishing their training, after recertifying their income. In fact, some people even delay their tax returns so they can get another year out of this. They file an extension on their taxes so their taxes aren't filed until October and then they're going back an extra year to look at their lower income when setting these payments. And so the amount that can be forgiven can be substantial. It is not unusual to have six figure amounts forgiven. I don't know that I've yet run into somebody who had a seven figure amount forgiven. But it is theoretically possible, especially if you ended up going to a really expensive dental school and you paid for all that with debt and you went to an orthodontics residency and paid for all that was debt. And we do an expensive undergrad. Seven figures is not impossible to have via public service loan forgiveness. There is no upper limit on it, at least under current law. Pay attention to legal changes. You know, there's always things being talked about in Congress, things being talked about in the executive branch, and it's possible there will be future changes in public service Loan forgiveness. But what typically happens is those that are currently in the program are grandfathered in. Now it's a good idea to hedge a little bit against the possibility of changes. Not only changes that are brought about by Congress or by the executive branch, but changes in your career. Maybe you decide you don't want to work full time, you want to go on the parent track, or maybe you decide you don't want to work for a nonprofit anymore. You realize you could be making twice as much money working in a private practice or a for profit position or something. You decide, no, I don't want to do public service loan forgiveness anymore. I'm going to refinance my student loans using links at the White Coat Ambassador and get some cash back. Then I'm going to pay off my loans quickly, maybe by living like a resident. It's okay to change, but the nice thing about having a public service loan forgiveness side fund is that you've still got the money to pay on those student loans. And so what I recommend you do is instead of making these huge payments like you would make if you're trying to pay off your loans quickly in just like a couple of years, instead of making them to the lender, make them to your brokerage account. And that way if you change your plans or if something happens to pslf, you've got some money in the brokerage account. You might have 50 or 100,000 or $200,000 in that brokerage account you can turn around and send to your lender and not be behind as far as getting your student loans paid off yourself. All right, so that's public service loan forgiveness. Everybody should take a look at it. It doesn't necessarily mean you should take a job that qualifies for public service loan forgiveness, but it's something to consider, especially if you like that job just as much and that job pays just as much. Why not take the one that's also going to qualify for you to have a substantial amount of money passed to you in the form of student loan forgiveness.

[Jim]

As a White Coat investor, you have valuable knowledge. Various companies want that knowledge and they're willing to pay you for it. So we put together a list of recommendations for companies that will pay you for your opinion. Essentially to take surveys if you're looking for a profitable side gig that really does not require that much effort. Getting paid to take these surveys could.

[Financially Empowered Women Host]

Be perfect for you.

[Jim]

You make extra money. This is self employed money. So you can start a solo 401k and you might even be able to change the world and impact some new products, some new drugs, et cetera that are coming out using your medical knowledge. It's possible to make as much as $30,000 or more a year doing these surveys, according to one of our columnists that's written an article about it. Sign up today and use a fraction of your downtime to make extra [e-mail] mdsurveys or do surveys. Either one gets you to the same place. You can do this and the White Coat Investor can help. This has been the Milestones to Millionaire podcast. You can sign up to star on this podcast, whitecodeinvestor.com Milestones and until then, keep your head up, shoulders back. You've got this. We're here to help and let's get you to your next milestone.

[Gail]

The White Coat Investor Podcast is for your entertainment and information only and should not be considered financial, legal, tax or investment advice. Investing involves risk, including the possible loss of principal. You should consult the appropriate professional for specific advice relating to your situation.