 Hello everyone, Andrea Mayesca here with Dental Tutoring. So let's talk about student debt, student loans, student debt. Everybody likes to hear of those who have gone to school, who are now done school, who have been working for a number of years. Everybody wants to know how long it took us to pay off our student loans. So this does depend, of course, on the program you're taking. Dental hygiene is more than dental assisting, but the same thing still applies, where we don't have 20,000, 40,000 or more for schools. So we all had to take out that loan of some kind. How did that work? How did you pay it off? So I can't speak for anybody else, but I can only speak for myself and kind of how that worked for me. So a quick recap was I became a dental assistant first. I became a dental hygienist after that, but I did take the hygiene program twice because the first time I took it, I was three weeks away from graduating and my school shut down. So I did have to take it twice. I did have to pay for it twice, not the entire program twice, but pretty close. I did have to move away from home the second time when I took hygiene because that program that I was taking the second time was in Toronto and Toronto is very expensive. Living away from home is expensive when you have no money to begin with, right? So I'll be talking about a little bit about that as well. I also took restorative hygiene about three years ago. So a question that everybody asks me is, well, did you have to get a student loan? How did you pay through school? What I did was I signed up for a student line of credit. If you're able to do that, if you have that where you live, that's actually less of an interest rate than getting a loan. I don't remember the exact numbers, but it was something like a student loan is 6% interest whereas, or sorry, no. The student line of credit is a 6% interest whereas a student loan was 10 or 11% at the time, but things could have changed now, but I'm just kind of letting you know why I did that. Plus for me, a student loan was just easier to access. No, sorry, I keep on saying the wrong one here. A student line of credit, not a student loan. A student line of credit was just easier for me to access because as long as I was paying, I believe it was $50 a month, I did not pay interest until a year after I was done school or when I was done school. I can't remember the exact, but you get the idea. You don't have to pay interest right away on a student line of credit. If you have this where you live, okay? Student loans are different. Depending on where you live as well, you might have what's called OSAP. I don't know what that stands for, but it was just pretty much where the government gives you money to pay for school. They usually give you a lot of money, but you will only qualify if your parents don't make a certain amount, but you do of course have to pay all of that back. As with any loan, you have to pay it back, but I liked my student line of credit because as long as I was paying, and I do remember this, it was $50 a month, which I could afford. I didn't pay any interest. I believe it was until I was done school. So as long as I was making those minimum payments, I didn't pay interest. Of course though, as soon as I was done school, I paid a lot of interest per month depending on how much I was able to pay back. But my case was a little bit differently where I worked all the time, okay? I had a job all throughout school where I worked all the time to help to pay off my student line of credit quicker. So I never paid a lot of interest. For dental assisting, that was a good case for me too, because I was always saving my money. Since I had my first job at age 15, I worked at Subway. I saved nearly everything that I did earn to pay for a dental assisting school because I knew that I wanted to be a dental assistant first. And dental assisting at the time was manageable. I went to a private college where we had to pay, and I do remember this, all we had to pay was $1,000 a month for 11 months. That's how long my program was. So it was about an $11,000 course. It's a lot more expensive now. But that, to me, was manageable. I did still take, though, out a student line of credit because I was, you know, I was probably able to pay from my own money, $200 a month, which still helps, right? But I did still take out a student line of credit, but I was able to pay off my entire program before I was done school. So I didn't owe any interest, which really helps. Hygiene, of course, was different because at the time it was a $45,000 program, plus living expenses, all of that, right? So I did have that student line of credit that I did very much rely on, but I did still work all the time. So I was able to make the minimum payments and a little bit more, plus be able to afford, you know, rent, food, textbooks, uniforms, you know, shopping, because you still have to have a life, right? So that's what I did, but that was the easiest for me. I was so happy that I was able to save up some money before I went to school. I was so happy that I was able to make those minimum payments. It's a lot harder if you have a job throughout school, but just I couldn't afford not to. If I didn't have to have a job, oh my God, you guys, that would have been so much easier. So if you don't have to work, that's amazing, but just remember you have that, you know, student line of credit, student loans, pay that off, okay? Seriously, but also having that said, even after my dental assisting program, even after dental hygiene, I worked like 10 hours a day every day, but I was young at the time. I'm not old now, but I was a lot younger 13 years ago, right, where I worked 10 hours a day, but I loved it. I did, I loved it because I was just so happy to be able to work in a dental office. I was so happy to say I'm a dental professional. I was making more money than a lot of people my age because I did work so much. I started assisting age 19. So a lot of 19 year olds are still in college there, you know, still doing what 19 year olds do, but I was working 10 hours a day, making a lot of money at the time, right? And that helped me so much pay off my student line of credit sooner rather than later, okay? Plus I lived at home until I was about 26, even when I was tutoring dental assisting students. So I was actually tutoring dental assisting students when I was 19. So for all of that time, I was living at home, even when I was in the dental hygiene program, I was tutoring dental hygiene students who just wanted the extra help because I was always very good at my classes, my, you know, being able to explain things, right? So even then I was at home, like it was hilarious. I was at home. When I lived in Toronto for my dental hygiene program the second time, I was tutoring people from my like little crappy condo or sorry, apartment in Toronto, like on my kitchen table, like the place was a dump, like literally. Now that I'm looking at it, a place was a dump. At the time I didn't think it was a dump, but you know, people didn't care because I was helping them pass, right? But I did everything that I could to make the money. Once you're done school, work hard, work 10 hours a day, if you can, I did and didn't think anything of it. I loved it. I wanted to actually work, you know, Saturdays, everything because I loved it. I felt that I was good at it too, so that kind of made me excited to work and I was just happy to work. I was just so happy to be done school that I would have done like anything, right? But working those 10 hours a day won't last forever. So do it when you want to, you know, do it when you're young. Pay off those loans, student line of credit, all of that because you have to remember school's expensive, but that's okay. It is an investment into you making more money. Those who don't go to college don't typically make the money that they want to make. They lead their lives always saying, always wishing they went to college. So yes, it's expensive as heck, but once you start working in our profession, we do make good money. So, you know, do it, work hard. Paying off those loans won't be forever. So just think about that. As I say all the time, school isn't forever, but so is not having to pay those student loans. It's not forever. I hope I did answer all of your questions. Just a quick recap. Is I signed up for student lines of credit, not student loans because student line of credit has less interest rates. So that's what I did. That's what worked for me. I did work all throughout assisting hygiene, restorative hygiene, all of that. And save your money. Yes, it sucks, but I saved almost every penny that I pretty much earned at the age of 15. I just saved all of it because I knew that I wanted to become a dental assistant and then a dental hygienist after that. So if I left anything out, please make sure to comment below. And if you haven't yet, make sure to hit subscribe because I do upload these types of videos often. And this way, if you guys do have questions, I've been checking the comments now at least once a week because things are getting busy, which is good. But I've been tutoring a lot more lately so I might not be able to get to your comments as quick as I would like to. But just make sure to comment because I love seeing them. I love answering them, the whole works. I am always happy to help. So thank you guys so much for watching and I will see you in the next one.