230: PSLF, SAVE, and More: Your Guide to Student Loan Relief with Sim Terwilliger
Are you drowning in student loan debt and unsure of your options? With the ever-changing landscape of student loan forgiveness programs, it's easy to feel overwhelmed and confused. In this episode, we dive deep into the complex world of student loans to help you navigate the system and keep more money in your pocket.
I sit down with Sim Terwilliger, a Certified Financial Planner and student loan expert from Student Loan Planner. She breaks down the latest changes to student loan forgiveness programs, including the recent administration change and the ongoing legal battles surrounding the SAVE plan.
Whether you're pursuing Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) or exploring other forgiveness options, this episode is packed with valuable insights and actionable advice. Sim shares her expertise on how to lower your monthly payments, maximize forgiveness, and prepare for potential tax consequences. Don't miss this opportunity to get clarity on your student loan situation and take control of your financial future.
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Ready to transform your life and finances? Join the Happy and Rich Club for Women Physicians — a 6-month, intimate program designed to help you thrive in both life and money. Click here to learn more, enroll, or schedule a quick call to see if it's the right fit for you!
What You'll Learn from this Episode:
- How recent changes to student loan forgiveness programs impact borrowers.
- The current status of the SAVE plan and what it means for your loans.
- Strategies for maximizing PSLF and other forgiveness options.
- How to lower your monthly payments by filing taxes strategically.
- The importance of regularly certifying your employment for PSLF.
- What happens to your student loans if you die.
- How to prepare for potential tax consequences of loan forgiveness.
Listen to the Full Episode:
Featured on the Show:
- Follow me on Instagram
- Financially Free Physicians by Sim Terwilliger
- Travis Hornsby
- Student Loan Planner: Website | Instagram
- Book a call with SLP through my link here, and you'll get $100 off, plus extra email support for 3 months after your consultation.
- Text "LOANS" to 33777 for free student loan calculators.
Welcome to The Wealthy Mom MD Podcast, a podcast for women physicians who want to learn how to live a wealthy life. In this podcast you will learn how to make money work for you, how you can have more of it, and learn the tools to empower you to live a life on purpose. Get ready to up-level your money and your life. I’m your host, Dr. Bonnie Koo.
Hey, everyone. Welcome to another episode. So this episode is all about student loans. So if you don't have any, I guess you could skip this. Although we do have a bit of a non-student loan related discussion towards the end that you might find interesting. But if you do have federal student loans, which is what we're mostly talking about. As you know, the student loan world has been a crazy sort of thing since the pandemic. So many things were changing. There are all these what I call pandemic specials and a lot of things even just recently have changed and also with the new administration, we recorded this just a few days actually after the new administration started. And so a lot of things are still in flux, but I do think this is a topic that if you do have student loans, you need to keep abreast of and we give you some ways to do that without it feeling overwhelming.
So again, this is to inform you because I've definitely had clients who did not think they would be eligible for forgiveness and I've seen a lot of money forgiven. I've had quite a few clients get over $300,000 forgiven. So you know, I just want to make sure that you are keeping all the money that you can or not paying loans that you don't need to.
So this is my interview with Sim Terwilliger. I had her on the show before talking about financial advising. She is a CFP. She's a financial advisor. She's also a certified Student Loan Planner and so that's also her expertise and she works for Student Loan Planner. That is a company that I've been collaborating with for several years now. It was created through, Travis Hornsby created it. He's become a good friend and they do such great work. It's where I refer all my clients to if they really want to make sure that they're doing everything they should be or can regarding student loans. And even if you find out that there's nothing you can do, I do think that peace of mind is worth paying for because the last thing you want to be doing is wondering if you could have gotten loan forgiveness. And again, the laws are changing so rapidly. And so I think it's worth paying attention to. And there are forgiveness options for those not pursuing PSLF. I find that a lot of people don't know that exists. And so make sure you listen to this to find out more.
And so if you want to learn more about Student Loan Planner, it's studentloanplanner.com. And if you do want to book a call, when you use my link, wealthymommd.com/SLP, you will get, I think it's $100 off, maybe $200, but you do get a discount if you use my link and you do get some extra support after the call, because even though the call is about an hour, an hour and a half, I can't remember. You are able to follow up with emails and I believe you get an extra three or six months of email support when you use my link. So you definitely want to use that link if you are looking to have a consultation also at the time of this recording.
And I believe when the recording is coming out, we are taking applications for my Happy and Rich Mastermind. This is a brand new program that I'm starting this year. It is a six-month mastermind, and it's basically what it sounds like, happy and rich. How do we get your money working for you, and how do we work on the other parts of your life that are also important? Because at the end of the day, money is a tool. It is not the end all be all and you have to be intentional about your life, right? It's not going to just unfold the way you want to because that's what you want.
And so I think it's something that's always a good thing to do. And with all these changing times, uncertain times, I just can't think of a better time to really focus on this. And so it is application only. We're capping at 25 female physicians. And so when it's full, it's full. We are at the time of this recording, almost a third full already.
To learn more about it, go to wealthymommd.com and you'll see a link, the top banner that will say, learn more about the Happy and Rich Mastermind. And so you can get more information. And if it sounds like something you want to do and that's a good fit, then you can submit an application and we will get back to you usually within 24 hours and go from there. So I would love for you to apply if you think it's something that you want to work on this year.
Again, wealthymommd.com and you'll see a banner to find out more. All right, so here's my interview with Sim, all about student loans and more.
Welcome to the show, Sim, or welcome back, I should say.
Sim: So glad to be back. We have a lot to unpack today.
Bonnie: I know. So we had scheduled this a while ago, but it's timely because of what the administration changed. So we're recording this just a few days after Trump was inaugurated and even before then, there were some assumptions that had to be made about student loans after a bunch of the pandemic specials ended.
So I think this is very timely. I know we don't have all the "facts", but I think this podcast is great for anyone with federal student loans who just wants to kind of get, like, what is going on? What do I need to know? And what actions do I need to take, if any?
So I will kind of let you spearhead this conversation, since I don't really know what's going on. I don't keep up with it, because that's why I have friends like you and Travis.
Sim: Yes. And this is the thing, too, Bonnie. Even amongst us who work in student loans, we even argue about some of this stuff too, like what's gonna happen next and what this means. So I'll kind of just add a disclaimer that my opinions are my own, blah, blah, blah.
Bonnie: Right.
Sim: Yeah. Okay, so what's going on? Well, we had this wonderful new plan come out called SAVE. So what they did was they took an old income-driven repayment plan, repay, and they made some great changes to it, helped a lot of borrowers. It's called SAVE. It was eligible for PSLF, long-term forgiveness. And it became a political topic.
And my opinion has always been that student loans on the political spectrum are actually very small, right? And that our politicians on both sides of the aisle don't really care about it. And that's my opinion. And in an election year, you hear about student loans a lot because it's a carrot that they're dangling in front of people.
Well, so what happened? Well, the SAVE plan was challenged and now it's kind of stuck in limbo in the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, if I said that right. So it's frozen. Anybody who was on the SAVE plan who made that switch is in a forbearance. It's a SAVE forbearance. And unlike the forbearance that we had during COVID, this one does not count towards PSLF, and it does not count towards long-term forgiveness.
The silver lining, if you will, is that interest is paused, so there's no interest accrual, but it doesn't count for anything. So for someone who is going for PSLF, you're not totally screwed, right? So these last six or seven months that haven't been counting you will have an option to do something called PSLF buyback. And we don't think PSLF buyback is on the chopping block because I know people are going to ask that next. Can I do PSLF buyback? Can't promise it, but it's on the table for now.
The way PSLF buyback works is, let's say you get to 114 months out of the 120. You need 120 for PSLF.
And you're 6 months short because, hey, you got screwed with the safe forbearance. Well, now you can buy those 6 months back. So whatever your payment would have been over the 6 months, you'll just write a lump sum check, essentially, and you're buying those months.
If you had a $0 payment, because maybe you haven't had a payment in a long time, you came out of residency and you were in attending, but you didn't have to recertify your income, you had a $0 payment, you don't have to write a check. They're just going to give it to you. But you have to go through what's called PSLF reconsideration.
So essentially, you're appealing and saying, hey, I didn't have a payment, and I would have had these months count had I not been in the forbearance and then they should give it to you. You cannot do PSLF buyback unless it brings you to the 120.
So if you're like at 90 months and you're really itching, you want to see those 6 months on your file, I'm with you, I would probably want to get that right away. They won't give it to you. It has to bring you to the 120. So that's the deal with that. So a lot of people are gonna be kind of waiting so that they can do that.
Bonnie: What else do we need to know?
Bonnie: Okay, so that's the PSLF crowd. Non-PSLF crowd, they have the six months forbearance. I don't know that there's any kind of buyback option for them. Don't quote me on that. I just know for PSLF buyback.
So what's the deal with everybody who's stuck in this SAVE limbo? There are some options. We have different income-driven repayment plans. So if you wanna make sure all of your months are counting for something, you can switch out. Some people are not going to switch out, and there's maybe some rationale to not switching out either.
Some folks who have maybe like cashflow problems and they're not going for PSLF, maybe just ride out that 0% interest as long as you can. Or if you know, hey, I'm going for PSLF next year. This is actually a case that I had. Someone who's going to hit the 120 next year, she's kind of waiting to see what happens and then do the buyback and she's at a $0 payment. So for her, she may end up doing like a six to 12 month buyback of $0 payments.
That could be very strategic for her versus switching out. But for someone who has more time until they hit PSLF, might start being a good time to looking at different income-driven repayment plans, specifically IBR, ICR. I think repay might come back if SAVE is gone, and pay as you earn. Pay as you earn, by the way, went away when SAVE came about, and then they brought it back last month. So a lot of people are applying for it right now. Very slow processing with the paperwork. So someone who may be.
Bonnie: Isn't it always?
Sim: Yes. I mean, that's right. That's just the case with anything like this, but especially so with pay. Because a lot of people left pay to get on SAVE, and then they were screwed because pay was gone. And so they couldn't do anything.
They were like, okay, well, now what are my options? But now pay is back, so people are making the switch. So I would caution, you know, if you put an application like in December, give it at least 2 or 3 months, 2 or 3 billing cycles.
Bonnie: I kind of want to slow down and unpack because we said a lot of acronyms and
Sim: Yes.
Bonnie: So was everyone on a SAVE forbearance?
Sim: If you were able to get on the SAVE plan, then yeah, you're on the forbearance because they basically blocked the plan.
Bonnie: So I guess, you know, I'm just thinking of someone listening to this who has loans and is trying to learn what to do. So well, first, you probably have some more things to say, but maybe towards the end we can talk about, like, kind of give a rough algorithm, just so people can kind of at least figure out what they need to file, if anything. So I don't even know what questions to ask.
Sim: So maybe let's talk about a game plan then. What should someone do who's in this situation? So I'm kind of breaking this up into like the PSLF gang and the non-PSLF gang. PSLF gang, always get your employment certification form done. I tell people, let's do it every 12 months. Don't wait longer than that. Some people are, you know, we call them like spelling bee kids and I'm one of them, do it every six months if that makes you feel better. But we wanna make sure that you're getting the credit that you're owed on file. So that's part one.
Part two is figure out what income-driven plan is the best for you and if you should switch or not, right? If you're like really close to PSLF, like maybe like a year out, it could be strategic to wait if you have a low payment. Otherwise, if you're like, you know what? I don't like my job. I just wanna be done. I wanna go part-time, you know, then let's get every month on file and maybe that's the time to switch to a different plan.
One thing to note is that anytime you change plans, like if you're leaving SAVE and you're going to like a different income driven repayment plan, they will have you recalculate your payment. So if you were lucky enough to have a $0 payment, Now you're in attending, you have a higher salary, your payment will go up. And for some people that's worth it just to get all the months counting.
The next thing to figure out once you've figured out what payment plan you should be on is how do you file your taxes? Because our goal is always, let's get your payment as low as possible. They're calculating your payment using your family size that matches your tax return. And they're using your AGI, your adjusted gross income. That's line 11 on the 1040. So how do we legitimately lower your AGI?
Well, if you file your taxes separately and you totally ignore your spouse's income, that's a great way to lower your AGI. There's pros and cons to that approach. If you live in a common law state, sometimes filing separately can leave you with a much bigger tax bill than if you had filed jointly, and that stinks.
However, you have three years to amend your return from separate to joint. There's actually this really corny expression in tax world. You can make up, but you can't break up. So you can go from separate to joint, but you can't be like, you know what? I would have been better off just filing separately. You can't do that. So when in doubt, I would say for the flexibility, consider filing separately and then amending to joint later.
An exception to that approach is if you and your spouse both have similar levels of student loans, sometimes it's advantageous to actually file jointly. But the way they calculate your payment when like both people have student loans is they actually calculate like a household payment and then they prorate it for each person based on like their percentage of student loans.
So if you have two people, they have very similar balances, maybe like a dual physician couple, they're going to basically each have 50% of that payment. And sometimes that can be really advantageous versus filing separately. So it's a math question.
Bonnie: So people listening will be like, well, how do I know which one is best? Is this something that Student Loan Planner, the company you work for, is that something you help figure out? Who should they talk to figure out what would be the best for them?
Sim: Yeah, we offer consultations for an hour. We will look at your student loan data file. And if you have a partner spouse who also has federal student loans, we'll look at that as well. And we'll just kind of run everything through our calculator and we'll talk you through, you know, your tax situation.
And actually, if anyone wants to look at the calculator for free first before working with us, they can text loans, L-O-A-N-S to 33777.
I'll mention that at the end of our chat today as well. But then you can get a free calculator and kind of play with it if you want to. But we do that analysis all the time. We actually do talk people through their private loans as well. There's just less options with that.
Bonnie: Yeah, that's cool that you guys got that text thing.
Sim: Yeah, I just learned about it today.
Bonnie: Yeah. Okay, so there's still a lot of people who don't realize that there are forgiveness plans that are not PSLF. So basically these are people who are working for a for-profit versus a nonprofit, right? So can you just give us an overview of what that is, what's changing, if anything, and things to keep in mind?
Sim: Yeah, so people in that group have one of two options, which is either your income is so high you're going to end up paying off these loans anyway, or the math supports you're going to be able to get forgiveness. And so we're talking about forgiveness outside of PSLF.
So quick level overview, PSLF, Public Service Loan Forgiveness. You work in public service, essentially 501c3 nonprofit, government, military. You do that for 10 years, 120 payments. And then at the end, whatever balance is left is forgiven federally tax free.
Then you can get forgiveness outside of that. You're on one of those income-driven plans we talked about, and depending on which plan you're on, what you're eligible for, whatever balance is left after 20 or 25 years is also forgiven. However, there will be what we call the tax bomb. We call that lovingly because we hate the tax bill.
Now why is there a tax bomb? So whenever you get any kind of debt forgiven, whether it's student loans, credit cards, et cetera, you're going to get issued a form called a 1099-C, which is like a cancellation of debt notice. And so you're filing your taxes, you're getting all your forms together, your W-2s, your 1099s, you have this 1099-C. Whatever balance is on that 1099-C is going to be reported as income.
So if you got like $200,000 of debt forgiven, they tax you on it as if you just earned $200,000 that year, even though you didn't. It's like phantom money.
Now, I'm putting a big asterisk next to everything I said, because you have to do that in the student loan world. During COVID, they got rid of the tax bomb, and they got rid of it through the end of this year, through the end of 2025. So anyone who's getting their loans forgiven outside of PSLF on these like long-term plans is going to get that forgiveness federally tax-free. And most states don't tax it as well. I think there's like four or five that tax at a state level, but most people won't pay taxes on it. So this is a question we get a lot.
Well, I have to pay taxes on the end. And what happens if I can't? A lot of people who are going for long-term forgiveness don't have that much time towards the credit, right? Most of our borrowers, they're like maybe five or six years into it? Occasionally we'll get like people who are much closer, about 15 years. But if you're farther out, you have more time to prepare for this tax bomb. And that's actually something we can mathematically calculate.
We have to make some assumptions, right, about like, what will your tax bracket be? That's an assumption. Any president can come in and change it. Any administration can change that. We make some assumptions about rate of return on your investments, but at the end of the day, we get to a number and we're like, okay, this is your tax bill. And then we work backwards to say, okay, we have this many years left. This is what you're going to get on your investments. This is what you should save every month. This is what you should set aside every month, maybe in like a taxable brokerage account or something. And theoretically, right, if our estimates aren't too off, you'll have what you need by the 20 or 25 years.
If there is enough political will, and by that I mean people pick up the phone, call their congressperson, write letters. Because like I said, small fry issue for them. This is not something they care about. And the evidence, you know, I would say for that is we just had a new administration come in on day 1. Trump did a bunch of executive orders. Not one of them was student loan related.
So all of this talk about student loans in the election, not a single executive order about student loans. So to me, that's evidence that this is not something they care about. They'll probably get rid of SAVE and not look at student loans again. We have to advocate. So you can call our congressperson and say look you guys got rid of this tax thing through the end of 2025.
I would like for you to extend it, delay it whatever. But at the end of the day, it's something we prepare for. If they do get end up getting rid of it or modifying it somehow then look you just have this bucket of money you've been saving that you can do something else with. So it's a win-win.
Bonnie: Yeah. So obviously, I'm just thinking these are complex calculations because, as you said, it's like you want to make sure this forgiveness is advantageous. I'm assuming, and correct me if I'm wrong, because I don't do math very fast in my head. But is it possible for someone to actually owe more than if they paid it off quicker?
Sim: Potentially. So that's why it's always a math question, right? Is it worth it to go for forgiveness? Or are you going to end up paying so much more versus if you had just tried to pay it off over like 10 years. But that's always the question too, because if you're trying to pay it off over 10 years, you're probably going to have a very high monthly payment.
So like I said, it's always a math question, which one is saving you the most money overall? But part two would be what gives you the most flexibility. So some people maybe don't want to save the most money overall, they want to have the lowest monthly payment and then use the rest of their cash flow to like, invest or something.
Bonnie: My opinion is student loans are, they were already complex, and they've been in complex, it's not even more complex, just the rules have kept changing over the last you know since 2020 right.
Sim: Yeah.
Bonnie: And so honestly that's why I lean on you and Travis's group because you know that's your job to kind of keep up with what's going on and you know you know you've worked with some of my clients and definitely I've had clients who did not think they were eligible and then found out that they were. And this also includes non PSLF. I had one client who, an older client who just was like, I'm not eligible, but then got like $30,000 forgiven, right? So what would you say someone listening who has loans but thinks that they're not eligible? Do you think, well, I think the answer is yes.
Do you think it's worth it for them to kind of get a second look?
Sim: I think it's always worth it because the rules change constantly. And some of this just has to do with timing. I know, actually, I think I know you're talking about Bonnie. I think this is someone I worked with. And she was eligible for her loans being forgiven because of the timing of when we met.
If we had met like now, probably not. If we had met like a year earlier, probably not. It's just the timing of when we have certain programs available.
Bonnie: That's what's a moving target these days, right?
Sim: And it's so unfortunate because, you know, while these political battles are going on, it's real people who are getting affected. And people need to make decisions about their cash flow or even where they want to work. And so I have so much sympathy for people in that situation.
Bonnie: What's the Instagram handle that people should follow? Because I know Travis is really good about doing lives and telling people.
Sim: Yeah, it's just @StudentLoanPlanner.
And we also have our website, https://studentloanplanner.com.
Bonnie: Yeah, yeah, so it's @studentloanplanner, you're right, for the Instagram, yeah. So that's kind of how I get my updates is looking.
Sim: That's how I used to get my updates before I joined the team. I was with another financial planning firm, and I wanted to be the student loan gal. So I was like, who's this Travis guy? And I just started following his newsletters. I have a hope I can tell a quick, funny story, Bonnie.
But we were at FinCon just a couple of months ago in October, and that's when all of the court stuff was going on with SAVE and everything. We were at lunch and Travis has his headphones in, like I do now, and the rest of us are just talking. And every couple of minutes, he's like screaming something that they said. He's like, oh, they just said this. They just said this.
So like literally live while this stuff is happening, we're trying to keep on top of it.
Bonnie: I just love how much Travis cares and really takes the time. And he really does what he says. You know what I mean?
Sim: Yeah, we're doing our best, especially like you said, it's a moving target. So all we can do is just follow it and give our best advice as of today. And that's true with any kind of planning. All we can do is really plan with what we know.
Bonnie: Life situations change, marriages come and go.
Sim: I think it's always a good idea to revisit your plan. Like every few years, you know, some triggers might be, and I'm a financial planner, so I'm going a little off topic, but like if you move states, right, because you want your plan to conform with state law, so if you move states, relationship changes, either with you and your partner or like, this is an awkward one, but I went through this, guardianship for your children. If you're like, I want so-and-so to take my kids, and you're like, you know what, now I hate you, and you're gonna go nowhere, you're my kid, that is a great time to redo your statement. Ask me how I did.
Bonnie: That's actually something I recommend that you, that I recommend my clients to review those important people on an annual basis. Cause you forget who, you know, cause you know, if you're married, usually your spouse is the executor, but then, you know, usually you have backup. So it's like, are those people still alive, number one? Are you still friends with them?
Do you still trust them to do it? And then obviously the guardian is the same exact sort of thing. And it's easy to forget, you know, because you're not really actively thinking about your estate plan. So I kind of put it on the annual sort of checklist of things to kind of just briefly review.
Sim: Yeah. And I would also add to that, for your estate planning, if you have like a 401k or something, your beneficiary designations, those are actually going to override whatever's in your will. So even if you have a will and you're like, "I want everything to go to my honey," but you have your mom or somebody on your 401k, that's who's getting your 401k.
Bonnie: Yeah. I think that's really important, because when people get divorced, I think that's something you can easily forget to change, not give it to your. I actually heard of a case, and I don't know, I probably read it in the news. I don't remember where, where that actually happened. I think it was the man who died, but forgot to change the beneficiary, so it went to his ex-wife.
But that sounds like the ex-wife actually gave most of the money to his new wife or new family, or something like that. She actually was very gracious about it.
Sim: Surprisingly and refreshingly amicable.
Bonnie: Pretty amicable. They do exist. I don't know what percentage exists, but they do exist. But you don't really hear about them, because people aren't saying, "Everything's going so great, so easy," because people don't usually brag about that stuff.
Sim: Yeah, they're gonna take to social media when it's negative. "I hate my ex" or whatever.
Bonnie: Okay, so we digressed a bit about estate planning, but obviously extremely important. Well, since we're talking about that, can you remind people what happens to student loans when you die?
Sim: Yeah, great, great segue. So if you have federal student loans and they're in your name, no one is responsible for them. They die with you. Now what happens to the taxability of it? Through the end of 2025, there's no tax consequence.
After 2025, it's more like a we don't know unless they change things, but it could be taxable to your estate. But that does not mean that anyone outside of that is liable. There could be taxes coming from the estate. Private student loans are a different story. I would imagine, and I'm gonna put an asterisk next to that, depends if you're in a common law or community property state, most likely that there's going to be taxes owed by the estate as well.
I'm not an attorney, but I have heard that it depends on when you borrowed the loan. So if you're in a community property state, of which there are nine, and you borrowed private loans after you got married, the question is, are those loans considered to be property of the community or not? And I actually don't have a clear answer. I've tried to find out from an attorney if that's the case or not. I don't know what's gonna happen to those private loans in those nine states, but outside of that, my best guess is that no one is liable.
Because that's true for most types of debt that are in your name. Someone dies with a lot of medical debt, and the kids are like, do we have to pay it? No. So that's going to all come from the estate.
Bonnie: Because I did have a private loan that I did end up paying off early, but I remember reading specifically that it's not forgiven upon death.
Sim: The private loans probably are not. So they would be, the private loans would be owed from the estate, but the federal loans would be forgiven. The question is, is that forgiveness taxable or not?
Bonnie: Okay, so I don't know if you know the answer to this, but what happens if the debt isn't forgiven and there is no estate to pay for it, then who has to pay?
Sim: The custodian, the lender, is probably just gonna have to eat it and they'll write it off as a bad debt, but they can't go after someone else for it because they're not legally liable for it.
Bonnie: Well, that's the question, right? So...
Sim: They will try. They're going to try these shady tactics. They'll probably go after your spouse and say you have to pay it, but that's not true. Again, it's that weird specific situation of like a private loan borrowed after you got married in community property estate. I can't think of a situation where your spouse is gonna have to pay that.
Now, maybe the caveat would be if there's like a cosigner, the cosigner's gonna owe it. And actually, this is a really unfortunate situation with some lenders. Some private lenders, at the death of the cosigner, will have you owe the whole private loan in full up front. They just change the terms on you if there's a death of a cosigner. I don't know why they do it that way.
But that's why it's...
Bonnie: But assumes that they can do it, that they can pay it.
Sim: I mean, who has that kind of money sitting around? Most people can't do it. So if you have a cosigner, it's really important to read the terms of what you've signed.
Bonnie: Yeah. Basically read the fine print that most people don't read. You know what's nice about... I think ChatGPT is actually really good for this stuff. You feed it the contract and you ask it to kind of pull out, like, what are the things that I should keep in mind?
You know, that's something I need to watch for. Like, I forget the wording, but I find it really helpful to kind of like unpack things. So I don't have to read all this legalese. That doesn't make sense to me anyway.
Sim: Yeah, actually, I can nerd out about this. My husband works in AI. And so the new hot thing he really likes is Gemini, but they have a new Gemini. It's 1260. So it's like the new one that just came out.
And I think that one, in my opinion, is much better than ChatGPT. It's a lot more detailed. Whatever you decide to use, whatever AI you like, just make sure in your prompt, you say, using Google and cite your sources. Because sometimes they'll just make stuff up.
Bonnie: And sometimes the math calculations are wrong.
Sim: Yeah, and you can tell it. You can talk to it like a person, be like, that doesn't make sense. And they'll say, oh, I'm sorry, let me try again.
Bonnie: Again, this is off topic, but I'm sure people are curious. So I have the paid version of ChatGPT. I have Perplexity, I have the free version. What do you think is better about Gemini? Is that something you pay for?
Sim: Yeah, we have a paid version. And so I'll give you an example of what I used it for. I run a podcast called The Financially Free Physician. And sometimes I need help coming up with my outline for my podcast and so I'll tell them.
Yeah, so there you go. So try it out and see what you get, but I do it in ChatGPT, we have a paid version for that, and I'll do the same topic, same exact prompt in Gemini, the 1206 or 1260, and the Gemini one is so much more detailed. And it's part of Google, so it already has the sources. You can say search Google, and it's part of Google.
So the outline I get is so detailed and beautiful, and it lays out, talk about this for five minutes, talk about this for five minutes, or a ChatGPT kind of gives me a bunch of stuff. And it's like, here you go.
Bonnie: Okay, when I do it, it gives me timing.
Sim: Try out both and see what you get.
Bonnie: Curious, can you train Gemini like you can train chat? Because like, you know what a GPT isn't?
Sim: Yeah, you're like, it's doing like machine learning. I would assume so. I actually don't know the question to that.
Bonnie: Yeah, because I've trained it to know sort of like my brand, my voice. It's not perfect, but it's much better than if I just use plain ChatGPT.
Sim: I think that the new Gemini version doesn't remember what you said previously. I know ChatGPT will save what you've searched, if you have the paid version at least. I don't think Gemini does that, or the new Gemini.
Bonnie: Okay, well I'm gonna have to do some research and look into it. Not that I'm a ChatGPT genius, but I know more than the average person.
Sim: Just try it out and see what works for you.
Bonnie: So, you know, right now we're recording, I'm using Fathom. I'm sure you noticed. Do you use Fathom at all?
Sim: Okay, you're gonna hate me. So, our financial planning firm, I'm our chief compliance officer. I have interviewed a bunch of note-taking tools. We use Zox because they're more secure than Fathom. Now you're not using Fathom, I assume, for like client meetings or anything.
So for something like this, it's fine. But if you have like sensitive information, I wouldn't use Fathom because they actually store the data.
Bonnie: But what do you mean by store the data? Because obviously it lives on their, like I access the notes on their server. So like.
Sim: Zox will clear it out periodically. And then the other question I asked all of these providers is do you use this data to train your models? And so Zox does not, Fathom does, at least at the time that I interviewed them, this was like early 2020.
Bonnie: I think ChatGPT does that too. A lot of them do, right?
Sim: A lot of them do. So if you're going to use something that's like for sensitive purposes, you want to make sure it doesn't do that.
Bonnie: So I'm curious. I don't know if you know this, but does Fathom, can you delete things in Fathom? Or does it always keep it, even if you clear it out?
Sim: That I don't know. All I know is that a bunch of people on my team were very upset with me when I told them they can't use Fathom because they really liked it. But that's a good tip.
Bonnie: For like work?
Sim: Yeah.
Bonnie: Because, you know, for example, when I do my program, my group program calls, those are recorded. And obviously, it's put in a password-protected sort of site.
Sim: I think at the end of the day, we're all just kind of doing the best that we can because like we're in a, we're in an information age, which is wonderful. And it's always the question of like, well, what are you doing with my data and there can always be a data breach. So, you know, just do your best.
Bonnie: Yeah, I don't know if it was ChatGPT. But I remember reading that sounded scary that it was like, I think they were like redoing stuff and deleting parts of the software or whatever you want to call it. And then like it was doing things to prevent that to happen. It was something like that. And I was like, that can't be good.
Sim: The other issue with a lot of these AI tools is that they're going to reflect the biases of the people who build them. And unfortunately, this world, it's very white male dominated. And so whatever the biases that group has can be reflected in the outputs you get.
Bonnie: This is what I talk about a lot with finances, right? A lot of the rules or even the financial advisors, the vast majority of them are not women, right? And so things are different for women. And then especially if you're a mom and a breadwinner and just like different considerations. We live longer, right?
So yeah. That's not changing anytime soon, unfortunately. But.
Sim: Yeah. I did see a statistic as of 2019 that if you look at med school applications, who was getting into med school, it was now primarily women. Like, the percentages had changed. So the majority was women. So I'm hopeful for our future, because the statistics are starting to change a little bit.
But like you said, even in financial planning, those statistics haven't changed since 2020. These number of CFPs who are women is at 23%. That has not budged.
Bonnie: Yeah. Speaking of med schools, yeah, so my class was 50-50. Obviously, the physicians in the workforce are, it's still predominantly men. And the truth is women do tend to go part-time and quit medicine at higher rates than men. Actually, this is totally off topic, but this is something I've been thinking about and reading about how, again, what you just said about how AI predominantly created by men.
I mean, I don't know if there's any, are there any women who are involved in AI? Like, I haven't heard of any.
Sim: I'm actually meeting one next week from my alma mater, so I'm so excited to pick her brain.
Bonnie: Okay, well, definitely, you know, if you remember, shoot me an email and just tell me a little bit about it. So if you think about the workplace and just the things that we think are normal, all the working conditions were designed for a man versus a woman who tends to has kids, right?
And so I read, you know, there's a lot of complaints about how these accommodations need to be made for women. But the truth is, it's not that these are like accommodations, just that women are different than men. I read even something like the ideal temperature for women is higher than like that's why women are cold.
Sim: Yeah.
Bonnie: Because they actually do run colder than men. But you know, the workplace temperature is set to whatever the standard and it's all around men and like maternity leave and like, you know, pumping and these conditions are not good for women. And so people will say, oh, women can't cut or whatever. It's just that you can't do everything, you know, just it's like, I don't want to say it's physically impossible, but it's very different for a working mom.
Sim: It's a design flaw.
Bonnie: It's a design flaw, yeah. But I think there's a lot of people saying, well, they're not saying that, but they're saying, women aren't cut out for the workplaces. But the real problem is, and this was a very recent thing I realized is the workplace is designed for men, not for women.
Sim: Yeah. So. I have definitely experienced that. When I went on my maternity leave, I have a twin 19-month-old boys, and it was a very difficult transition. And I felt like I got left out of stuff.
There's a conference I wanted to go to. I had to pump for two. There was, you know, what am I gonna do? Disappear eight times a day? Like, could I sit in a different room and watch, you know, the speakers?
But they don't have stuff set up like that. And, you know, an example comes to mind, Bonnie. I heard about, this is starting to change this year, but like crash test dummies, they always use like the standard male, like five foot whatever, when they test like if their vehicles are safe enough for a crash, but women tend to be shorter. They're not using like five foot three, five foot four dummies. Now, more companies are starting to do that, but this is why.
Bonnie: It's just another example of. And even the, I'm sure you know, BMI's was based on white males.
Sim: Yeah, I didn't know that, that makes sense.
Bonnie: Okay, is there anything we have not said about student loans that you think people need to hear?
Sim: Get a plan, I know that that plan might change in a few months and that's okay.
Bonnie: So definitely follow Student Loan Planner, Instagram, and you guys have a blog, which you guys are really good about updating. And I always see the timestamp of when it was last updated. So probably the easiest thing is to follow Travis or Student Loan Planner on Instagram because you know people aren't necessarily remember to like look at a blog post right.
Sim: Yeah, we sent out a weekly newsletter. I'll just put another plug if you want those free calculators text loans to 33777 they are free and you can tinker with them and if you want some help you can book a call with us.
Bonnie: I will give out the link I have to book a call. I think it's just wealthymommd.com/SLP. It might even be /Travis. I think that was the original one. I'm like, OK, Travis is the only guy at SLP, so I should probably just make it SLP.
Sim: Yeah, we got, we have women on the team now.
Bonnie: Yeah, exactly. Okay, well, thank you so much for being here and giving out this very timely information. But I think the bottom line is if you have federal student loans, you're going to want to revisit it periodically and maybe even more frequently with the administration change.
Sim: Yeah, absolutely.
Bonnie: Okay, well thanks for being here.
Sim: Absolutely. Stay safe, everyone.
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