EPISODE 401: Chiropractic Student Loans Strategy Update with Kristin Lawrenz

Hey, chiropractors. We're ready for another Modern Chiropractic Marketing Show with Dr. Kevin Christie, where we discuss the latest in marketing strategies, contact marketing, direct response marketing, and business development with some of the leading experts in the industry. 

Dr, Kevin Christie: [00:00:00] Hey docs, welcome to another episode of Modern Chiropractic Mastery. This is your host, Dr. Kevin Christie. And today I'm bringing on Dr. Kristen Lorenz from Student Loan Planner. I've had this group on some years ago, it might've been four or five years ago. And so things have changed and we needed to have a kind of update show on your student loans.

I know it's a point of concern, point of contention. And And, uh, you know, it's, it's not easy. There's no doubt about it. It's obviously hopefully worth the investment in putting you in a position to do well for many years, but you need to have a strategy. And we're going to talk about certain new updates and new programs and strategies to really set it and forget it.

Honestly, you know, it, it was a cost of doing business. Just like if you were to, um, You know, buy a business or start a business. Most entrepreneurs take out pretty big loans to do that. And a lot of times millions of dollars of loans to start businesses, uh, or take on debt to do it. And so you ultimately had to take on [00:01:00] debt to, uh, become a chiropractor and hopefully it's paying dividends or will, or if you do the right things, it definitely will.

Um, and so we talk about the, the new updates on that. And Kristen brings a lot of great information, uh, and updates for you today. So without further ado, here's my interview. with Dr. Kristin Lorenz.

Dr. Kevin Christie: All right. Welcome to the show, Kristen. I really appreciate your time. Uh, it's been a while, uh, since we've had you, your, uh, company on our podcast. The podcast is seven and a half years old now. I think, uh, it might've been five or six years ago that, uh, Travis was on and talking about student loans. It's always a front of center topic, especially for our chiropractic audience.

Uh, but before we dive into that, tell us a little bit about yourself personally, professionally, uh, the company, things like that.

Kristin Lawrenz: So the company that I work for is called Student Loan Planner and we do student loan consults for any type of student loan borrower. So we have a lot [00:02:00] of, uh, physicians, we have a lot of dentists, chiropractors, um, you know, all types of complementary health care professionals, lawyers.

Uh, so we generally have those types of professionals that we give consults to. So I started working for Student Loan Planner, um, About a year ago, giving consults. I'm actually a practicing chiropractor. So I've been working as a chiropractor for almost 20 years. I graduated from New York chiropractic college, which is now Northeast.

And, uh, yeah, so I've been practicing in Rochester, New York, and I currently work part time doing that, and I also work as a student loan consultant. I had to take out a lot of student loans when I started. So I, you know, this is kind of a. Something that I love to talk about with, you know, up and coming chiropractors, because it is such a huge impact on our lives.

So, so yeah, I'm happy to be here today. [00:03:00] Thanks for that.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yeah, absolutely. You and I graduated chiropractic school about the same time. And it was a little bit friendlier for us. At least I get to speak for myself, you know, and I know it's not like that anymore, but, uh, you know, for me, uh, I think I was 160, 000 to get through chiropractic school.

Luckily, I didn't have any undergrad loans. And then I was able to, in 2004, lock in at a 2. 8, I think it is, 2. 8 interest rate. And so my full monthly payment from that point on, or actually I did, I was able to, Lock it in prior to graduating. So once I graduated, uh, my full monthly payment has been about 725 a month.

And again, that's the full payment for mine. And so that's obviously pretty digestible. Um, it wasn't necessarily digestible when I first graduated, but it's been digestible for some years now. And obviously having a low interest [00:04:00] rate, uh, has been beneficial. What's the state of. Student loans now for chiropractors that have been kind of that last 10 years, five year, whatever it's been.

What are the amounts you're seeing? Is it 200 to 5, 300 for student for chiropractic is, uh, what's the interest rate ranges you're seeing? What are some of the details of that? .

Kristin Lawrenz: Yeah, we were lucky, lucky, lucky when we got those two, I think mine was 2.87%.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yeah,

Kristin Lawrenz: those are no longer. So, you know, most chiropractors that we see have between 200 to 300, but we've seen more.

Mm-Hmm. . Um, it's great when we see less than that, but I would say yeah, 200 to 300 is pretty much the average for, for debt these days. And the interest rates are running, you know, around 8% currently. They, um. You know, we're down a little bit to maybe 6 percent when some of these Kairos who are graduating now started, but yeah, they're, they're high.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yeah. And that's, [00:05:00] and that's equating to, obviously it's all ballpark. Um, but if someone were to actually pay their full monthly minimum, it 500 to 3, 500, give or take a month. Is that correct?

Kristin Lawrenz: Yeah, absolutely. If you wanted to pay, you know, if you wanted to do a standard 10 year plan, it would absolutely be that much.

If you wanted to do more of an extended or graduated type plan that kind of graduates up a little bit, you know, we can get up to 30 years or so if our borrowers consolidate. Yeah, though that would be a little bit less, so that would be maybe around 1, 500. But It's still that's hard for, you know, beginning chiropractors to make that much, especially if you have an associate job and you're making 50 or 60 in some parts of the country.

So, you know, there's two different ways to pay back your loans. You can either pay that fixed, you know, amount every single month, or you can do more of an income driven repayment [00:06:00] plan, which we'll talk a little bit about. I think those are, um, generally, Much better for this group of folks who are starting out with an income around 50, 000, 60, 000, something like that.

Um, we, you know, when we have professionals that are starting out more at 100, 000, that's a little bit more palatable and they can kind of handle that bigger monthly payment. But the income driven plans are great for people who have that higher debt to income ratio, like chiropractors do usually.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yeah, for sure.

And so let's, let's dive into that income driven, uh, I believe it's called the SAVE plan, right? And that's kind of where people have thrown around the, you know, the tax bomb word at the end and different things like that. Um, is that that income driven plan is the SAVE, which is an acronym, I guess, right?

Kristin Lawrenz: Yep, it's a it's Biden's new plan. That's stands for save for a valuable education. And that's the acronym [00:07:00] save that we refer to it as. So there's a couple different income driven plans. There has been since 2009. Actually, I got in on an income driven plan when we first got out of school because I was one of those people who was like, Oh, my gosh, I cannot make this payment.

I was making a very low amount as an associate. And, um, so there have been, uh, plans called the income based repayment plan. That's also an income driven plan. And there's been other plans called, uh, the pay plan, the income contingent plan. But the big one for the past few years has been the save plan and, uh, the Biden administration made it really favorable for student loan borrowers.

So they had, um, a lower amount. Of discretionary income, like a percentage that you paid that was lower than some of the other income driven plans. They also had a great interest subsidy where if you made a payment that isn't going to cover your interest for the month, which can happen pretty easily for someone who has 200 or 300, [00:08:00] 000.

The rest of that monthly payment would be waived that you didn't make instead of capitalize, which it would be on some of these other income driven plans. So some folks saw these, you know, these older income driven plans, their loans just balloon up because they weren't able to make that monthly payment.

Um, it was basically, they're just paying a little bit of interest on it and then that interest would capitalize each month and their loan would just grow and grow and grow. So the save plan kind of put a stop to that. Um, if you weren't able to make that monthly payment, that minimum monthly payment based on your income, then basically the rest of that amount just got forgiven and not capitalized.

So people's or people's, uh, loan amounts were staying the same, which was a huge. You know, win for student loan borrowers. Um, so yeah, people have been on the save plan, uh, for a few years and have been very happy on it. Um, and then, you know, there's been some changes with [00:09:00] the income driven plans lately, so there's definitely some, uh, changes to the save plan so we can.

Talk about that when you're ready to

Dr. Kevin Christie: okay. And so on the, on the save plan, is it, uh, you know, you make your minimum payment that's based off income. So it's going to be a lot less than what your full minimum payment would be. And then you do that for, is it 25 years? Um,

Kristin Lawrenz: yeah.

Dr. Kevin Christie: And that could

Kristin Lawrenz: borrowers. Yeah.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yeah. So that income minimum could increase if your income goes up. Is there a certain amount, like if we got a chiropractor that's, you know, doing well for themselves and they're making 200, 000 a year, um, are they just not going to qualify for that anymore? Essentially

Kristin Lawrenz: they will qualify, but the one problem with the safe plan is that there's no cap on it.

So they would still qualify, but their payment would go up in proportion to their income or some of the other income. Specifically, the income based repayment plan has a cap. So sometimes when you get, we get folks into it that [00:10:00] are, um, have a lower income to start and then ramp way up, there is a cap on that.

So let's say their cap is around 2, 000. It's based on your standard repayment plan of 10 years. That's your cap. So they may be paying for, um, You know 10 years at a lower amount than that and then they hit that cap and they get to stay at that cap Instead of going above that so that was kind of the one drawback about save is that there wasn't a cap so for people who You know got into these really high income Levels that was tough because then their payment's going to be way more than well,

Dr. Kevin Christie: I guess Yeah, I guess tough on one end but good on the other that they're actually doing very well.

And I true, you know, I I um I'm not sure I've had a lot of, you know, a lot of my, it's fun now to be 20 years out and see a lot of my, uh, classmates I graduated with. And, uh, you know, a handful of us have been fortunate to do pretty well. And I've had some where, you know, they've done real well and they just, paid the thing off, you know, and it was part of what they wanted to do.

Um, [00:11:00] and so if a chiropractor is making, you know, two to 50 a year take home income, um, and maybe their spousal income as well, uh, you know, are you seeing Some of these chiropractors actually decide to just let's, let's pay off what we got to pay off. Let's, let's put 10, 000 a month on it. Or like if maybe they came into a big payday of 40, 000 of something, whatever, uh, maybe they sold something, invested in something and decided to pay off big chunks at a time.

Are you still seeing younger DCs do that?

Kristin Lawrenz: Yeah, absolutely. And that's kind of where a company comes in because we kind of weigh the benefits of. Should we put that extra money towards retirement or some other kind of financial goal that we have, or should we pay off the student loans. So there's always kind of that, you know, waiting those two, um, those two options.

But yeah, some people just feel really emotionally strong about, you I just want to pay it off. I want to pay off all my debt, you know, [00:12:00] whichever kind of debt it is. Um, and some people kind of take the long road with it, where they pay the minimum amount they can and put the rest towards their other life goals.

Yeah.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yeah. I mean, I, I've, I've been. Transparent about it. Uh, I haven't paid mine off completely. There's been a handful of times where I probably could have just done that, but there's a different decision making process when you're at a 2. 8%. It was like, I'd rather just invest money, um, and, and just pay off.

And there's been times where I put extra on it. And so it's, it's down to a pretty nice number that I'm, I'm comfortable with psychologically. So I do think there is the psychological component. And speaking of that psychological component of it, I think the one thing I want to make sure chiropractors.

Don't fall into the trap of is if they are in one of these safe plans is, is don't hinder your, uh, financial growth in pay because you're worried of what you'd have to pay. You know, like, Oh, I don't want to pay. I don't want to make 200, 000 a year. Cause I don't have to pay my student loans more. Don't, don't [00:13:00] fall into that, that trap there.

As you said, you could work with them to figure out. Good balances. And depending on what they think of psychologically of paying down debt or investing and things like that. There's a lot of options. It sounds like.

Kristin Lawrenz: Yeah, absolutely. We always, we always want you to make more money. We'll figure it out on the other end.

Yeah. That's like paying taxes,

Dr. Kevin Christie: right? It's like it sucks when you have a big tax bill, but it means you paid, you made some good money. So that's, that's positive. Right? Definitely. Okay, uh, I guess one of the questions I, I, I also had was I heard that the SAVE plan is on hold. What's, what's the reasoning for that?

What's the, what's the plan on that?

Kristin Lawrenz: So there have been a few lawsuits over the years against the SAVE plan. Um, mostly coming from different states that are part of the servicers being a big part of the state. Um, Ohio is one of them. They are located in Missouri. Their state is not [00:14:00] happy that there's some kind of plan that's really helping borrowers and, you know, limiting the amount that people pay.

So, This current lawsuit against SAVE is, um, through the, the federal courts and, um, it's put everything on hold. So this is, this is the one that kind of took really well and, um, the servicers are all kind of scrambling, like, we don't know what to do. We kind of have to put everything on hold in terms of letting people apply for these income driven plans, consolidating their loans, that kind of thing.

So everything as far as through the servicers. Um, processing is all on hold for all that. Um, so yeah, we're waiting until we've heard some, um, talk about October 24th. There's supposed to be a hearing, um, in the eighth circuit. That's supposed to give us a little bit more information about where the safe plan's going.

And hopefully, you know, we'll get a little bit [00:15:00] of clarity to help folks figure this whole thing out. Um, it may end up getting kicked to the Supreme Court. Um, in that case, the, this may get pushed back until June. So for right now, borrowers who are on save are not paying anything. They're on, they're in forbearance, but this.

time is not also counting towards their forgiveness timeline. So let's say you have to pay for, you know, 25 years. This is, everything is on hold. You're not getting credit for the, these, this time at all. And this is really affecting people who are more on public service loan forgiveness, which is a 10 year forgiveness plan.

So these folks are having everything on hold and they're not getting, um, credit for these 10 years. I currently have A client that's a teacher who has parent plus loans. So she's taking them out for her kids

Dr. Kevin Christie: and

Kristin Lawrenz: she wants to retire. Like, today, but unfortunately, she can't none of the none of these months [00:16:00] are counting toward her public service.

So she's waiting. I think she needs 3 more months. So she's unfortunately having to wait until this is all decided to kind of go on with her life. So, yeah, it's holding up quite a bit. Right now.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yeah, I think like I try to, I try to see both sides, but I think I'm, you know, I'm in that gen X, 44 years old and, and I've tried to look at it a lot of different angles.

I do know that, um, not that 160, 000 is anything to laugh at that. I had to pay for chiropractic school, but I do know I have a low interest rate. I do know I have a digestible amount. So I, I, I do appreciate that. I'm in a, a different scenario, um, but I, I do get where some people are like, well, I don't know.

It on the same plan. If you're not even making them the minimum of the income based and you're not getting interest accrued, who, who obviously is footing that bill, right? Like who, who's paying that, uh, are the, uh, I can, I'm not an economics expert either, but [00:17:00] these loan companies in Missouri or whatever, uh, are, are they getting impacted financially because now they have, you know, no money, not enough money coming in because people are just deciding not to pay Uh, even the minimum of what they are supposed to be paying.

I, I see where those dominoes typically in banking can, can fall, uh, or obviously you got a lot of people that are in trades and didn't go to college and then, you know, their tax dollars are doing it. So I, I see that, but I know that there's a huge problem when chiropractic school is 300, 000, 250, 000, interest rates are 8%.

Like that's just. Unimaginable in a, in a very tough, um, situation, obviously. And so hopefully they, they can get that figured out and maybe we'll have to do an update once we do, uh, get some, some details on that. But I'm sure I'm assuming you're able to talk these chiropractors through some of the different options, whether, you know, if there is not the safe plan currently, uh, there are the, uh, there is the other [00:18:00] income based one, but that's where the interest does accumulate.

Is that correct?

Kristin Lawrenz: Correct. Yeah, right now we're down to people can apply for the income based repayment plan or the save plan technically. Um, but the servicers have all shut down their online applications. So you'd have to send in a paper application, um, and then basically we've heard it's, they're just sitting on the servicer's desks there, that nothing's getting processed at all.

So people are really in a limbo. There's not much that's happening right now. So they can't really switch their plans right now. But yeah, after this, after this October 24th date, hopefully we'll know a little bit more about which plans are available to folks and, um, you know, what, what they can do with that.

Dr. Kevin Christie: That'll be good. Obviously. Um, and then the fresh start program, you mentioned pre recording. What are the details of that?

Kristin Lawrenz: So the [00:19:00] Biden administration had also, they're trying to kind of rectify some of these wrongs that have been made over the past 20 years or longer with some of these income driven plans.

And, um, One of these things was the Fresh Start program. And basically, this was a program to allow borrowers who were in default. And you go into default when you haven't made a loan payment in nine months. So after nine months, they put you into default. And it's, um, obviously ruined your, your credit score, your credit history.

And you have a lot of fees that accumulate with default and trying to get out of default. It's not easy to do. So, um, part of this, whole thing to try to get, you know, everyone on equal footing here is this fresh start program. It expires September 30th. And basically what it is is just a way to get out of default, um, easily.

So you can go online. I can give you the, it's at studentaid. gov is where you do all [00:20:00] of your student loan. Processing. Um, but you go on to StudentAid. gov, you go to the Fresh Start page, and you basically easily can get out of your default and onto a repayment plan. And without all of these hindrances and fees and Um, consequences that there were before.

So it's just allowing folks to kind of, you know, step it up, you know, take responsibility for their loans and start, start fresh again. So that is one thing that does end September 30th. So if you're in that situation, Um, it would be very prudent to, to try to get out of I'll have

Dr. Kevin Christie: to, uh, I'll have to post in the Facebook group when we hang up, because this won't come out before the end of that.

Oh,

Kristin Lawrenz: gotcha. Okay.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yeah. Yeah. Um, yeah, but we'll do that. And then I'll get that post out there. Uh, and then, you know, I just want to like, let's say someone, um, Let's say everything goes back to normal with the save plan and that's opened and everything's going there or the income based one. And, you know, obviously the, at the end of the period, [00:21:00] you're forgiven the amount, let's say it's just 25 years from now.

Um, but you have the tax liability on that. Is that correct?

Kristin Lawrenz: Yeah. So that's what we call the tax bomb. So when people hear about the tax bomb, that's what that is. So you get your loan canceled, but then you may have to pay taxes on that. Um, so for now, um, there is a, a law that's gone into effect that expires at the end of 2025 that says there is no tax bomb.

So right now, the federal government is not taxing people on their loan forgiveness. So again, that's going to expire at the end of next year. So that may be something that is pushed back. So maybe, you know, for the five years after that, we won't have to pay taxes on our forgiven loans. Um, there's no way to know right now.

But yeah, that's where that tax bomb comes in. Some states are still Taxing people on their forgiven loan amount. Um, so some people will have [00:22:00] state taxes and you know, if the federal one comes back, that could be, that's obviously based on your income. So it's an income tax, um, that canceled loan is, let's say it's a hundred thousand, basically that a hundred thousand is added to your income.

So that tax could be. Depending on what tax bracket you're in, anywhere from, you know, 15 percent to 35 percent of your, your income. So it could be significant for people, especially folks who are getting 200, 000 per given, you know, something like that. That's a, it's a

Dr. Kevin Christie: big number. I guess paying that amount on the tax bomb is a lot better than paying your student loans.

Kristin Lawrenz: Yeah. So we always encourage people to, to save for that. We have, you know, a whole conversation about let's put this money into a certain account to save for that tax bomb in case it happens. And if it doesn't, then you have a bonus 40, 000 that,

Dr. Kevin Christie: yeah. Graduated five years ago and have been on this maybe in 20 [00:23:00] years, they, they would have to hope that there's a forgiveness without the tax bomb.

And so even though if there's a tax, no tax bomb now, or in two years from now, that could change in 20 years for them.

Kristin Lawrenz: Yeah, everything will change in 20 years. It's unbelievable how much has changed in the one year that I've worked for this company.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Or, I mean, think about what's changed in the 20 years since you and I graduated, right?

So.

Kristin Lawrenz: Absolutely. Yeah. We have no idea where student loans are going, so we'll see. But the truth is that both Republicans and Democrats want an income driven plan. They both agree that this is needed. You know, our debt is just, you know, The student debt in this country is out of control. So they both agree on that.

It's just coming to a plan that they agree on that seems fair for all parties involved.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yeah, I think that's the hard part, but at least they agree on something. That's, that's a good start. Um, let's say a chiropractor has got 250, 000 in student loan debt. They're on this safe program or one of these income based, does this impact their ability to get a home [00:24:00] loan or, A business loan.

Uh, I mean, I guess if you have debt on the books, your debt to income ratio is always going to impact your ability to afford a home and then get a certain level of, uh, of a loan. I'm, I'm, I'm aware of that. Is there any other things that's a problem?

Kristin Lawrenz: So in this case, actually doing an income driven repayment plan is better than doing, um, a fixed plan because what they look at at the mortgage lenders, they look at your monthly payment.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yep.

Kristin Lawrenz: So if your monthly payment is lower, you have more of an ability to get a higher mortgage, um, or you have a better ability to get a, you know, a business loan. So yeah, in this case, you know, we tell folks who are in that situation who are either buying a practice or wanting to start their own, um, generally the income driven plans are better for them because the monthly payment is going to be less.

Dr. Kevin Christie: That's good. That makes sense. And, and then, um, [00:25:00] let's, let's say someone's been saving money appropriately for, for, uh, eight years. Uh, because do you guys have taught them how to put money in and uh, I don't know, money market count, whatever it is, but it's got some kind of yield to it. And you're, uh. Saving up money for that quote unquote tax bomb, um, you could actually use that money.

Like, let's say there's 40, 000 in there when you go to buy a house and show that you obviously wouldn't use that for your down payment, but you say, look, I got 40, 000 of liquidity. That's the other thing a bank looks at is do you have money to back you up? Because they want to make sure that if something happens, you have money to pay your mortgage.

So I guess that you could use that tax bomb savings money as a liquidity to back yourself up when you try to go get a loan for a home or again, a business to buy a practice or start a business. Is that correct?

Kristin Lawrenz: Yep. You're, you're exactly right. Yep. Absolutely. It always looks good to have a chunk of money sitting there to show the mortgage lenders.

Yep. They love that.

Dr. Kevin Christie: It's like [00:26:00] they want, it's always funny, right? They always say it's like they only want to loan money to people that already have money. Yeah.

Kristin Lawrenz: Correct. Yeah.

Dr. Kevin Christie: All right. Well, that's good news on that front because that's something I know a lot of people are concerned about is that if you get on an income based, you've got your, you know, you've got a certain income level, you and your spouse potentially, and your monthly payment is 500 a month, give or take whatever it is, you got money saved up for this tax bomb.

You might actually be in a pretty good position to get a loan, uh, obviously given that your credit score and all the other variables are, are, uh, Yeah. Yeah.

Kristin Lawrenz: And it helps your credit to actually when you have a monthly payment that you can afford, um, and you're making that monthly payment that also helps your credit and your credit score.

So, you know, being on an income driven plan is good that way too. And the other thing is, you know, You know, people are nervous sometimes to get on these income driven plans, and, uh, you can always switch back. You can always switch back to some [00:27:00] kind of standard repayment plan. You can always pay off your loan early if you want to.

So it helps you in times when you're making less money as new grads, but you can always switch out of it.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yeah. And I think one of the things I, I get a lot of chiropractors to ask me about it. And, uh, you know, first thing I usually say is I'm not an expert in it, but what I do talk to them about is the fact that, you know, getting the student loans to be a chiropractor was the cost of doing businesses.

Most entrepreneurs, most people that own a business had to take out some level of debt to do so, uh, sometimes substantial. Right. Like if, you know, most businesses are taking out hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions of dollars to start a business and they have that debt to pay down, um, to be a professional, like a chiropractor and other types of doctors and attorneys and stuff.

Uh, part of that, uh, cost of doing business was getting your education and there, there is a cost to that. And so I try to tell them, it's like, look, you know, uh, it's [00:28:00] just forget about it, like do what you gotta do, get organized with someone like yourself. Get a plan and then just get it out of your mind.

You know, like don't worry about it's there, but it's just like I, I might, you know, run into 10 different successful business people in my practice and they all have, I shouldn't say all. A lot of them have debt. They have business debt. It's, it's leveraged to, to, to grow. There's good debt and there's bad debt.

Student loans is a good debt. As long as you do your, your work and you become a, you know, a intrinsically motivated chiropractor, that's good and builds a practice. Um, it's just considerate, uh, part of the business loan. It's not, it's personal debt. It's definitely different, but psychologically just say, you know, I had to do this.

I wouldn't be where I'm at, not a big deal. I'm going to make my monthly payment and I'm going to deal with it in 25 years. Not no sweat.

Kristin Lawrenz: Yeah, that's exactly what we try to do at our company too, is minimize this because it's a small part of your financial future, you know, and don't make it everything.

Don't put every cent you have [00:29:00] towards paying down this debt, you know, unless you can, but most people can. You know, the more we can kind of minimize it and it is, you're right, a justifiable debt, um, that will hopefully pay off for you if you share with, with a doctorate degree, you know.

Dr. Kevin Christie: No, exactly. You know, like I, if someone said like, knowing what I know now, 20 years in, would I pay 250, 000 back then for what I did?

It's like, yeah, I would, you know, I've, I've had a great career now I've worked hard and I know not every chiropractor feels the same and I get that. Um, but you know, sometimes, Uh, you have to look at why that is and maybe seek some help to get your practice a little bit more, uh, profitable and be able to, um, feel good about where you're at and, and it's never too late.

It's never too late. That's for sure. So any other, any other words of wisdom for our student loan borrowers?

Kristin Lawrenz: You know what? I think the only thing that will help you [00:30:00] keep on top of this is just keeping on top of this and try, you know, figuring out what's happening with your student loans, because of course, we want you to set it and forget it and pay the loan and. Don't, you know, think twice about that part of it, but there's so many changes.

So you can sign up, um, at our company student loan planner. We do a free newsletter every week that tells you kind of all the new happenings, or you can go to studentaid. gov, which is the government site too. Um, that can keep you updated on, on the new changes and, um, yeah, just be educated about it because it is a big amount of debt and you just want to make sure you're on top of it.

Dr. Kevin Christie: No, absolutely. So, um, well, this has been a pleasure. This has been informative. Good to get some new updates on things and things will obviously be changing as, as the weeks and months go by. But how can someone reach out to you all and find out more and set up a call?

Kristin Lawrenz: So to reach our company, it's [00:31:00] studentloanplanner.

com. And, um, you can book a consult with us and we have hour long consults and basically we go through your whole student loan situation. We have you download all your information from the studentaid. gov website and we go through each piece of it and tailor it specifically to you. Um, yeah, so there's a lot of free resources on our website to you.

There's a lot of different calculators that you can. Plug in your numbers and see if it's a better idea for you to do an income driven plan or a fixed plan. Um, we have some mortgage lenders that we work with on there that are specific to, um, physicians and chiropractors and that kind of thing. So you can kind of get some, uh, quotes through that too, if you want to.

And we also have some. refinance calculators. If you're in a position of private loans where you need to, or you want to refinance to a lower interest rate, we have some preferred lenders that we work with too. So yeah, lots of good information there.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Perfect. Well, this has been very [00:32:00] informative. I appreciate your time, Kristen, and then, uh, it won't be the last time we'll chat.

Kristin Lawrenz: Good. Thanks, Kevin.