Hi Laura – thank you for recommending I look into this. Do you have any pet insurance provider recommendations?

Thanks for posting this, Kerin! I came here to right something similar.

Actually, the North Carolina retirement system (TSERS) does contribute. Employees don’t receive any of the employer contribution until vesting.

“You become vested in TSERS once you have completed a minimum of five years of membership service. This means that you are eligible to apply for lifetime monthly retirement benefits based on the retirement formula in effect at the time of your retirement and the age and service requirements described in this handbook, provided you do not withdraw your contributions.”

TSERS has a reciprocity agreement with Local Governmental Employees’ Retirement System (LGERS) which also might be of interest to Veronica

https://files.nc.gov/retire/documents/files/TSERSHandbook.pdf

To everyone who recommended not making any big decisions for a year: I have taken this advice to heart and I am viewing this time as preparation time. Time to learn, time to heal, time to feel this all out. I have given myself permission to take longer than a year if that’s whats needed. I deeply appreciate this advice above all.

In my 12-step program (in all 12-step programs), we have to first admit we are powerless and that life has become unmanageable. I had heard others share in meetings about how unmanageable prosperity feels when it comes, I never thought that would apply to me. It does. It feels good to surrender this unmanageability over and to be able to receive time and space for it to become manageable, one day and one step at a time. It doesn’t feel manageable yet, but I hear my higher power speaking to me through all of you so I know there’s hope and solutions to be found. I am grateful to have had this tremendous opportunity to practice step 12 (“Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to compulsive debtors, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.”) and tradition 5 (“Each group has but one primary purpose–to carry its message to the debtor who still suffers.”) and to share my experience, strength, and hope with you all. My greatest hope is that this reaches one person out there who is still suffering from compulsive debting and brings them the reflection they need. Thank you!

Antonia makes a great point here and, as she noted, a fee-only fiduciary is the way to go!

I honestly think that as sound as Mrs. Frugalwood’s advice has been, there are a lot of moving pieces here. And given that your salary is relatively low, you can’t easily recoup from financial mistakes. As such, I think it is important that you get this right, and I believe you really want to maximize your assets, which is why you reached out to Mrs. Fruglawoods to begin with 🙂 Good for you!

Again, I would talk to a financial adviser. They get a bad rap, but a fee-only fiduciary is legally bound to do what is in your best financial interest. My husband and I were in a similar situation as you, and we hesitated to get a financial adviser because there is a lot of talk out there how the fees aren’t worth it, and how you can do it yourself, but eventually I decided to pursue it and it was one of the best decisions I ever made.

A good adviser will be able to look at all the moving pieces of you financial puzzle and advise the situation objectively. They will also EDUCATE you so that you understand why certain decisions are better than others, and then you’ll feel more confident and will have both a short term and long term plan that is sound. And if situations change, the adviser will be able to help you make adjustments, so that you don’t get stuck or lost in the future.

Good luck with everything! And I am sorry for your loss.

There is an excellent sub-Reddit for PSLF! https://www.reddit.com/r/PSLF/ It is a gold mine of information. +1 to everything Allie said, and in such an articulate fashion.

1. To echo Kerin and Stephanie above, the NC State pension is more than just the 6% you contribute. It’s a defined formula (info here: https://hr.unca.edu/tsers-faq): 1.82% * Average salary based on the 4 highest consecutive years of earnings * Your years of credited service up to 20 [minimum of 5 years]. I plugged your rough stats in (here: https://orbit.myncretirement.com/Common/PublicCreateEstimate): if you retire in 2040 after 22 years of service and a max salary of $50,000, you’d receive a monthly payment of $1,454.18. This is actually quite a valuable benefit and I encourage you to run the numbers. Crucially, it also provides access to Medicare supplement health insurance in retirement and covers the cost anywhere from 0 – 100%. Info here: https://www.myncretirement.com/non-retirees/current-employees/nearing-retirement/health-benefits

2. PSLF is very valuable for you as well. I would advocate (a) maxing out your 457, (b) maxing out your 403b, and (c) maxing out a tIRA to reducing your AGI as much as possible and staying on an income-driven plan to pay as little as possible. For example, using your loan balance, I moved the AGI from $43,300 to $28,000, which lowers the payment from $205/month to $77/month. There are some good calculators for this: https://studentaid.gov/app/repaymentEstimator.action. I also recommend the sub-Reddit for PSLF: https://www.reddit.com/r/PSLF/. Any deficit between your expenses and your income could then be covered by your inheritance, and you would turbo-charge your own retirement savings.

3. It sounds as though you love your job and it took you a while to find one that’s a good fit. I wouldn’t discount quality of life!

Other recommended updates:
*Given your current status in DA and grief counseling, I would not get roommates or purchase property at this juncture.
*Consolidate savings accounts into 1 high-yield account for simplicity and better interest
*Consolidate checking accounts into 1 fee-free account like Schwab for simplicity and reduced monthly cost
*Move investments from Edward Jones to Vanguard or Fidelity for low-cost funds. If you need additional assistance, find a fee-only fiduciary financial advisor to assist you
*Can you get a prescription for any of your Vitamins and Supplements? That way, you could contribute to your FSA and use pre-tax funds to pay for them

Hopefully the info and calculators above will be useful to you!

I second the suggestion to look for earning opportunities related to your experience outside of your field. Elder care is a booming area. I care for my mom each weekend; the cost for aides for companionship care during the week (when I am working) is 20$ plus per hour. This is not medical care; it is help with the tasks of daily living. You may not be interested in this type of work right now, but it is worth considering. Plus, it is highly valued by the families you are helping.

Veronica, just a couple of thoughts on the subject of owning a rental house. I have owned rental houses for over a decade, and I know many people who do it as well, or who tried it and had bad experiences that turned them off for life. It is definitely something that you want to research and prepare yourself for before stepping in. I had a lot of resources when I got started (my mom and aunt have owned rental real estate for many years, which is why I got started myself). My family had a standard lease crafted over many years of experience that I was able to use, and we continue to add something new to it every year. Even then, tenants will do things that surprise us (From shoving corn husks down the kitchen disposal that get stuck six feet into the drain line, to turning off the heat in the middle of winter when they go out of town. Spoiler alert – if water pipes get cold enough, they can freeze and burst and cause major damage.)
As a landlady, you will often be helping people learn how to be homeowners. (Yes, you need to change out the furnace filter regularly. Here’s what a furnace filter is. Here’s where it goes. If you don’t change it out and it gets full of dust and pet hair, the furnace will have to work harder, which not only leads to you paying more for your heat, but puts additional strain on the blower motor and could lead to it going out. Right in the middle of a cold spell. When furnace servicers are especially busy and harder to schedule.)
Speaking of furnaces going out, with your particular job right now, I’m not sure that owning a rental property would be the best idea. Rental emergencies are very rare, but if one happens, you do want your tenant to be able to get ahold of someone right away. If the heat is out, you don’t want them to be unable to reach you, so they go stay with a friend and leave your house to get colder and colder – potentially leading to freezing pipes. Similarly, if water is coming out of somewhere it shouldn’t, you want to get eyes on that as soon as possible – and maybe shut off the water supply line until you figure out how to stop the problem, depending on whether the problem is in a pipe taking water away from or bringing water into the house. (In my own personal home, I recently had a supply line to the hot water heater spring a leak and had water spraying on me until I could get the very hard-to-turn shut-off valve to finally turn.) With your job, you are often in very remote areas, and (I’m assuming) sometimes outside of cell service, leaving people unable to reach you.
I personally think owning rental real estate can be a great investment, but there are a lot of factors to consider, not the least of which are which areas you’re thinking of buying in (What are the local regulations regarding housing and renting? Does the city have or is it considering rent control? Would it apply to you as a small real estate investor?) to which house to buy (Is the house in an area where you can rent easily? How old is it? How old are the furnace/hot water heater/roof/appliances? Was it built before 1978 – in which case there could be lead in paint/pipes, which is not a deal breaker, but something you will have to address, even if just by warning tenants about the home’s age and the potential for lead, even if you haven’t found any https://www.epa.gov/lead/real-estate-disclosures-about-potential-lead-hazards ? Are you going to be able to get cash flow off of the property, or are you focused on appreciation? [Spoiler – depending on the market, cash flow can actually be hard to achieve, but a house can appreciate tens of thousands of dollars if you’re willing to hold on to it for the long haul and through good and bad times in the market.]) Also, do you have the temperament to be a landlady (If you get a phone call late at night about the heat going out or the water backing up in the house, are you going to be able to handle it with calm and offer potential solutions, or are you going to freak out? Will you be able to reject applicants who don’t meet your criteria [maybe they have a bad credit history] but have a story that makes you feel sorry for them – and will you be able to evict a tenant who isn’t paying the rent if it gets to that point? [As a small real estate investor, especially if you only own one or a few houses, these questions are really important. You need your tenant to pay the rent or you can’t pay the mortgage. As a side note, I’ve never had to evict a tenant, but I use a fairly high credit score as one of my main criteria for accepting an applicant. Make sure you follow all local and federal fair housing laws, too, not just in relation to the application process but to other things like rent increase notices and eviction notices.])
All of this is to say that, like with anything, there are a lot of factors to consider, and if you decide to go this route, you want to do it with as much information as possible. I highly recommend doing some reading on real estate investing first. Also, go out and look at houses – not just online, but with an agent. Nothing beats seeing a house in person, and a good agent might point out things that you hadn’t considered as purchasing factors.
Best of luck to you, Veronica! As many people have mentioned, and as you seem prepared to do, take it slow this year. Use this time to gather information and learn more about your options.

I also work for a huge state university and have heard from the folks in HR that we already have employees getting their PSLF forgiveness on our campus. Our HR department helps us file our annual re-certification process with FedLoan each year, to help us make sure we’re on track for forgiveness. (I have four years to go.)