How does the IRS know I’m being accurate: If you received 1099’s for your work, they also received them. They will know if you omit income, unless it’s cash. I don’t recommend not reporting your cash because 1. It’s illegal and 2. You have a growing business and should be proud of your income. If you ever want to purchase a house, car, etc. you need to be able to show proof of income and that’s what your taxes are. As far as expenses use the honor system but keep in mind you need to keep records in case of an audit. Speaking of audits, they are very rare and the IRS is TERRIBLY understaffed. Not even worth thinking about in my opinion. As I mentioned before just keep records and receipts just in case. Since you’re doing your first Sch. C you should probably use a service like TurboTax, they make it dummy proof and they have live agents that you can chat with or call when you have questions. Some people hate TurboTax, I personally think it’s great especially for beginners. Good luck!

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There’s no previous years for you so there’s nothing to compare against.

Being audited isn’t as onerous as it may sound.

You can worry less about being audited the more accurate your records are.

If audited, you just get letters in the mail asking for you to submit the proof that you should already have maintained to substantiate your claims. That’s the vast majority of audits.

There’s no person with a badge who comes knocking on your door and shining flashlights in your eyes. There’s no handcuffs. There’s no chains. There’s no whips.

Just plain old boring paperwork.

It’s not unexpected for someone your age to have not filed.

If you were reporting $360,000 in income, maybe that’d get more attention. But your earnings is in line with your age

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> How does the IRS know I’m being accurate? Will they audit me?

Usually some level of statistical sampling. The very old computer does math to determine if your return is odd enough to warrant additional information.

Self employed persons are more likely to get audited but the number of audits is still tiny.

If your taxes are accurate, nothing to worry about.

Is the plan to stay in CT? Can you look into working at the hospital system your GF will be at and got the PSLF route?

3.75% return when inflation is 8% = less money than when you started. Losing ~ 4.25% on your money by letting it sit there.

Good job and congrats!! I would recommend that you start to slowly educate yourself so that you can eventually dip your toes into investing. US Government Bonds are paying well ( vs cash) and are as safe as it gets.

At the very least, if you haven’t yet, you will want to ensure that any excess cash, like emergency funds, is not just sitting in a bank savings account paying .1%.

A high yield savings account is easy to set up, easy to transfer funds and pays at least 3-4.5% interest right now. That’s $30-45 per year per $1000 and it compounds. Free money… well, it least it almost keeps pace with inflation.

I 100% agree with you. It was turned to a doctorate so we can do “direct access” so you can see a PT without being referred by a MD … buts it’s only for 10 visits of 30 days whatever comes first. Plus that’s only after 3 years of experience. I’ve talked many aides out of pursing PT. It financially just can’t be justified. Reimbursements keep getting cut so we have to see more people.

I personally think DPT is a rip off, if not outfight a scam. Calling it a “doctorate” so they can charge PTs more for schooling is abhorrent. But that’s besides the point.

My wife also had about $125K of loans at ~6% APR for her grad school. When loans got put on deferment she went in super hard and paid all of it off. You have plenty in savings IMO- I’d go all in on those loans again.

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Had a bunch of classmates do travel PT. Very lucrative if ur willing to move around every 13 weeks. I was applying for travel positions in Georgia back when Covid started but ended up staying in NY and met my gf. I am going to look for travel jobs in CT. Just applied for my CT license $400 later.$285 application fee. $90 for fsbpt to send my scores to ct. $20 for official New York State license to be sent to CT then $10 for transcript to CT… my gf is a physician so gotta stay close to the hospital. But I will check out some home care cuz I ain’t selling my soul in outpatient for much longer

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Thanks! Yeah I’ve seen and used this chart as an outline. I have it printed out in my office. I plan to follow this when the loan pause stops.Unique situation rn with the pause

Thanks for the response. Yeah I’m leaning more toward continue aggressive savings and see what happens with this pause or “forgiveness”.

I did that last September 22’. Then I made a large lump sum payment right before loans started back up. And then they got paused again so I went back to saving up

Yeah I invest in the mutual fund bi-weekly so not trying to time the bottom. But with last years volatility within the market on those really bad wash outs I did throw significantly more $ into stocks I’ve been patiently waiting an entry for.

Agreed I could probably do both, but would probably want to do 60-40 of 70-30 to get ahead of this thing.

And totally agreed. I was dumb and went into PT to help people. It’s rewarding but the financial stress is not worth it for me personally. I’ve worked an “easy gig”. A “low volume” clinic… however now we are slammed and I’m seeing 15-18 patients a shift. It’s exhausting. Mentally and physically.

I’ve realized I need to increase my income. We are moving for my gfs job. She’s a physician and doing her fellowship. I am going to use next year to look for a higher income position as this may mean I need to leave orthopedics (my “passion”… what I studied my ass off for 3 years to learn) for home health care or a nursing home/ snf. I will also be looking for a travel position as we will only be in CT for a year.

But yes the debt to income ratio or rate or return for physical therapists is atrocious. I just did not understand this when I was younger.

Thanks for the response

Flowchart advice definitely works! Highly recommend it, OP.

Sounds like you have approx $25k liquid cash between the emergency fund and the HYSA, which is a nice emergency buffer. I would recommend you continue taking advantage of the student loan payment pause by saving & investing as much as you can. Once payments resume, assuming you don’t have any projected major expenses in the short term, I would recommend assessing how much liquid savings you can apply towards the loans at once in a lump payment while still retaining at least 6 months of emergency fund at a minimum. After that, prioritize paying the remaining loan balance using the avalanche or snowball method until paid off.

Only experience with this: operating agreement and subscription agreement for creating a couple business entities (since there was some considerations about the structure) cost about 25k for the first draft. then about 10k to adjudicate member/subscriber/investor feedback. in general, this stuff covers pay outs, governance, raising additional capital/dilution, etc, etc. there's boilerplate stuff to put in each section but which boiler plate thing to put in matters a lot to the investors, owners and management

First of all if you are going to invest stop trying to time the market. You wont win. You wont beat anything. You should be investing in tax advantage accounts every pay period. Second there is nothing wrong with paying down loans since they are 6%ish. You could do both. And third you need to find a higher paying job. 300 hours of OT to "only" make 90k isn't great and to spend 130k on student loans to do is crazy to me

Treasury bills. Currently at about 4.9% for a guarenteed return. Can do a ladder where you buy a tbill with part of your money then a month later buy another and another and by the time you use all your savings buying tbills the initial tbill cashes out so you constantly have them cycle back to cash.

Here's a link to the PF Wiki for helpful guides and information.

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I love the flowchart! Here's the wiki page with more context and information.

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Follow the flowchart.

My generic advice:

https://i.imgur.com/lSoUQr2.png

Here is the flowchart from the r/personalfinance subreddit’s Prime Directive. If you follow that, you will be ahead of almost all of your peers.

Stop by the sidebar to see the Common Topics, which include basic money handling and investing.

You don’t need to talk to anyone or buy some random book to do this. You have all the tools right here.