Not worth it now to go to med school and accumulate 300k+ in debt for a salary <300k/year... The goal should be a 1:1 ratio.
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deleted480308
You only need one person. That doesn’t require a population of 40mil
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deleted731525
PSLF + finding a job after residency with generous loan repayment. For me psych has some places offering 5 years of 30-50k/year for loan repayment. So you do Repaye, and for you in FM you'll be paying very little during residency. Then 5 years(if the loan repayment offers are similar in FM) of having your employer essentially cover your repayment(from what I have heard most places will take the taxes out and give you the money if you ask, so you can just use that money for your loan payments). That brings you to 8 years, and you do 2 more on your own paying 10 percent of your discretionary income and you are done. The trick is to find a job offering repayment that is also eligible for PSLF, I dont know how common that is in FM. Some people will tell you that PSLF wont be around in 10 years but even the Trump admin's attempt to nix it that failed, grandfathered everyone who took loans out before 2020 in.
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PLSF can be restrictive though when trying to find an employer. If the opportunity arises then great, but I would consider PLSF a plan B and wouldn’t rely on it. Ideally, you need to be looking in areas that you can pay your loan payments out of your own income and live comfortably. Then if PLSF is available, it’s icing on the cake.
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It actually isn't all that restrictive. Academic centers, VAs, community hospitals, and millions of outpatient clinics. Even a lot of practices not associated with hospitals/clinics qualify if they're non-profit. Not sure how it could be least restrictive without allowing every single private/solo practice to qualify.
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hust meant not every non-profit entity is approved through the program. Local entity was notwhen I was looking into it. Just depends on how flexible you are and to double check with prospective jobs and do your due diligence.
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This is pretty much impossible if you don't go to a public school, though. Private school tuition averages at $50k, plus another $20k for COL pretty much puts you at $280k before interest etc. Not hating on your point, just saying.
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Oops
Then don't become a PCP unless you are willing to work 60+ hrs/wk...
My loan servicer sent me my monthly payment if I decide not to continue with RePAYE and it's whooping $3700/month. How the heck someone will be able to pay that if not making 300k+/yr
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deleted480308
First, if you make less the number changes. Second, you can totally make that payment on 200k
When Is It OK to Start 'Enjoying' Your Money? | White Coat Investor
You might not want to live like a resident once you're an attending, but here's why delaying your gratification can be so powerful for a doc.
www.whitecoatinvestor.com
Always relevant. Should be required reading for all graduating med students and residents.
Personally, I would be a Dr. Benson.
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I mean, if you can't pay $3,700 on an income of $200k+ that seems more like a personal finance issue.
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Especially if you refinance.
350k at 6.8% is a 4k monthly payment.
Get that down to 3.5% and you knock $600/month off of that number.
Plus, lots of PCP jobs will offer loan repayment. If they pay off 50k at the start and you refinance to 3.5% your monthly payment is down to $2800.
200k/yr is like 10k/month after tax, health insurance, 401k etc... are taken out. After the $3700 monthly student loan payment, you are left with just $6300. If you live in a region of the country where housing is expensive, you are left with almost nothing after paying your rent/mortgage.
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Then don't live somewhere expensive.
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“Just” hahahha
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deleted480308
All I have is “just” 3x the take home of the avg family. Woe is me
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Probably will be eating canned tuna well into your 60s with those meager wages.
Great thread besides that remark, though.
Some people are restricted due to family circumstances...
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Locums can pay very well.
Take a job somewhere undesirable for 1-2 years, save and pay down the loan like crazy.
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Also, smaller houses and longer commutes exist. I understand restrictions absolutely, but complaining about not making enough when you're 3x the average american household isn't something that will garner much sympathy
I plan to do that... My point was that the public think physicians are swimming in a sea of $$$.
I was just shocked when saw my loan payment will be that high.
Well, the average American did not spend 11 years in school. They did not have to take the MCAT and step 1/2/3 and complete 3 yrs of residency working over 60+ hrs/wk
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I grew up low income..
i think this whole conversation is absolutely ridiculous lol
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I grew up very blue collar too. I can’t even compare what salary I’m guaranteed compared to what my parents made haha These sentiments are the reason people are never sympathetic to docs
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And compared to them we are.
Our loans are for Max 10 years. Most of us will have another 20 years of earning power after that. 20 years earning minimum 4X the median wage in this country.
Don't get me wrong, I don't think we are overpaid. But no one is going to feel bad about us because even with your sky high loans, after paying that you will still have around 2-3X median income.
No, we are not. We just make more.
Hopefully I will be able to bring home 14k/month by having another side gig...
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200k/yr is at least $140k (source) after taxes in every state. If that isn’t enough to pay a $3700 loan payment then you should hold off on 401k contributions.
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Right now I live perfectly comfortable on a 60k salary with a wife and two kids. I also live in a major metropolitan area in the West.
On a 200k salary (140k take home after taxes and health insurance copay), this leaves me 80k. This would allow me to knockoff the debt that I have in 7-8 years (and my debt is higher than most people on this forum).
But 200k, although great, tells me you are not motivated enough to reach financial independence. People in my region make this working 4 days a week as a FM doc and seeing no more than 20 pts a day.
Point is, be content. We make solid incomes. But if you have debt, you should do better.
On a 200k salary (140k take home after taxes and health insurance copay), this leaves me 80k. This would allow me to knockoff the debt that I have in 7-8 years (and my debt is higher than most people on this forum).
But 200k, although great, tells me you are not motivated enough to reach financial independence. People in my region make this working 4 days a week as a FM doc and seeing no more than 20 pts a day.
Point is, be content. We make solid incomes. But if you have debt, you should do better.
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Finding that 1 person when you are a gay female - a population famously aversive to socializing
- is a little challenging in smaller places. When your pool comes down to (0.5)(0.01)(0.3)*(adjustments for personal preferences)*Population, it's better when the last factor is larger.I'm stuck there for at least 5-6 more years at least, so maybe I'll figure it out.
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deleted480308
I guess that’s a good point. My personal preferences were a little more prevalant 0.00005%Finding that 1 person when you are a gay female - a population famously aversive to socializing
The goal is to make 300k+/year so I can be semi retired in 10 yrs...
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300k is very attainable in the IM hospitalist field. In a place where taxes and COL are low, over a 10-year period you should be able to payoff 300k of debt, 300k of mortgage, save about 1M in retirement (not including employer's contribution) and still have 50-60k/year of cash to survive on.
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Yes we absolutely are.
When I was an intern I was making almost the same amount that my mother was making after teaching for 29 years with the 2nd highest amount of education (just shy of a PhD).
My take home pay for my very first attending paycheck was 3X what my take home paycheck was as an intern. This means at 29 years old I had 3X as much money coming into my bank account every 2 weeks as the vast majority of Americans.
I don't know what the exact figure is for swimming in money compared to someone else is, but I feel like 3 times as much is a good starting place and keep in mind that I'm one of the lowest paid doctors. Most of physicians will make a fair bit more than I do so that 3X becomes more like 4-5X.
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Most people are not restricted due to family circumstances. The majority of people live in expensive places because they want to live in expensive places. If I had a nickel for every time I heard on SDN something along the lines of "I don't think I could survive outside of LA or NYC..."
Part of personal finance is deciding what you can and can't afford. I do think that some docs will have trouble making that sort of payment, but it's because they want the elite doc lifestyle while making a starting doc academic salary. You're right that $6300 isn't much leftover if you're the breadwinner, attempting to pay a $3500 mortgage, a ritzy private school for the kids, high car payments, and constant entertaining. You will definitely have a problem.
But if you keep things in perspective, buy the non-McMansion in the suburbs or in less expensive areas, limit the eating out to once a week or twice a month, send the kids to a less expensive school, you'll be more than fine.
The bigger issue here is the cost of tuition at schools. Yes, doctors can pay those prices, but WHY are schools able to charge such astronomic fees? And no, it's not because that's how much it costs to train a doc. If that was the case, then every school's tuition would be identical. There's a difference in tuition prices even among private schools. Why are the NBME and NBOME able to charge such prices for required tests? I hope that once enough docs qualify for PSLF and/or receive loan forgiveness on the 20-year plan, there may be some deeper look into federal loans and why med students need so much. But maybe I'm hoping for too much.
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I see this argument, really, I do. I'm in school in the midwest and the prices of homes here are so cheap compared to where I'm from (and where I want to return because that's where my family is). But....it's my choice to return there. You're not "restricted". No one is forcing you to live there if you really couldn't afford to. As others have mentioned, I grew up with parents who struggled to have a consistent paycheck as my father was self-employed. Because of that, we never had health insurance because we couldn't afford it but we weren't poor enough to get it for free. I just consider myself lucky that I will have a pretty much guaranteed paycheck landing in my bank account every 2 weeks; that alone is far more than a lot of people have, before you even consider the dollar amount.
I think I will move to TX after training. I probably will land in one of the suburbs of Dallas or Houston. Based on my research, homes are relatively inexpensive. You can find a ~ 3,000 sqft home in a good neighborhood with good public schools for <400k.
Anyone who is familiar with Houston or Dallas can chime in...
Look at a home in Cypress TX... It's unbelievable one can find a brand new home like that for < 400k
www.zillow.com
Anyone who is familiar with Houston or Dallas can chime in...
Look at a home in Cypress TX... It's unbelievable one can find a brand new home like that for < 400k
13610 Sandford Meadow Ln, Cypress, TX 77429 | Zillow
13610 Sandford Meadow Ln, Cypress TX, is a Single Family home that contains 3235 sq ft and was built in 2020.It contains 4 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms. The Zestimate for this Single Family is $523,700, which has increased by $4,067 in the last 30 days.The Rent Zestimate for this Single Family is...
www.zillow.com
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I think I will move to TX after training. I probably will land in one of the suburbs of Dallas or Houston. Based on my research, homes are relatively inexpensive. You can find a ~ 3,000 sqft home in a good neighborhood with good public schools for <400k.
Anyone who is familiar with Houston or Dallas can chime in...
Look at a home in Cypress TX... It's unbelievable one can find a brand new home like that for < 400k
13610 Sandford Meadow Ln, Cypress, TX 77429 | Zillow
13610 Sandford Meadow Ln, Cypress TX, is a Single Family home that contains 3235 sq ft and was built in 2020.It contains 4 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms. The Zestimate for this Single Family is $523,700, which has increased by $4,067 in the last 30 days.The Rent Zestimate for this Single Family is...
this is normal is most of the United States (at least geographically speaking). Not if you want to live on the coasts or in the biggest cities.
Probably... I don't want to live in the Midwest, deep south, West, Northeast. So I am severely restricted.
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This discussion is pretty funny. I'm living fine on the money I have right now as a resident. The biggest struggle I have to worry about is how I'm going to max out my Roth IRA and send both my kids to a Montessori school, while maintaining a specific level of charitable contributions. If I eliminated any of those I'd not ever worry about money even in times like this (assuming I don't think about my loans). I'm lucky in that I'm covering only my immediate family of 4 and don't have parents or extended family to pay for.
When that's happening and everyone around me is struggling financially and deciding between their health and their livelihood, it's hard to argue doctors aren't doing well, even at the meager 3x my salary that an academic primary care doc makes. The docs struggling right now are the ones that lived like they'd always be paid the same or more. You can't live like that. The very fact that you guys are so worried about paying off federal loans and saving at this point makes me think it's not you guys that will be living paycheck to paycheck.
Put $50k of that $130k take home ($4k/mo of that $6k someone mentioned) away every year and at very least you'll be able to get by even in times like these. 95% of this country can't put anywhere close to that away. Sure we're not making anywhere close to CEO money and I think we could be paid more or at least pay less for school, but we're still doing just fine.
When that's happening and everyone around me is struggling financially and deciding between their health and their livelihood, it's hard to argue doctors aren't doing well, even at the meager 3x my salary that an academic primary care doc makes. The docs struggling right now are the ones that lived like they'd always be paid the same or more. You can't live like that. The very fact that you guys are so worried about paying off federal loans and saving at this point makes me think it's not you guys that will be living paycheck to paycheck.
Put $50k of that $130k take home ($4k/mo of that $6k someone mentioned) away every year and at very least you'll be able to get by even in times like these. 95% of this country can't put anywhere close to that away. Sure we're not making anywhere close to CEO money and I think we could be paid more or at least pay less for school, but we're still doing just fine.
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The current situation has definitely solidified my belief in having a strong emergency fund (6 months of expenses or more). There is just zero reason not to have one on a physician’s income.
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No offense intended, but those first two sentences compared to your third sentence make you sound incredibly out of touch with the average person. I was raised in a family that brought in well under 14k/mo and I lived a well above-average lifestyle. That same lifestyle could be achieved for well under 14k/mo in 99% of the country. There's a reason why the general public has a growing disdain for physician salaries, and a lot of it is likely attributed to thoughts like this, or when my classmates say things like they can't live on a FM physician salary when the average person is earning 1/5 of that. It's honestly mind-boggling to me that some highly intelligent medical students do not realize exactly how much 250k/year actually is in the vast majority of the country, regardless of delayed earnings, debt, etc.
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When I think of restricted, I think of inability to move/live in certain places. What you're talking about is WANT, which is loads different.
Also, no one actually needs a 3000 sq ft house. That's another want. Wants are great, but you're not entitled to them.
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When you become a doctor you are no longer low SES (it would be insulting to say you were) and you are geographically restricted by want, not need.
I am not out of touch with the average person since I have lived like them most of my life. It was just a shock when I saw that loan repayment. I thought my loan repayment was going to be ~ $2.5/month, I did not think it was going to anywhere close to ~4k/month. I guess I just have to refinance and work a little bit more in the first few years as an attending.
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I'm curious how these perspectives would change if debt wasn't an issue. Especially for those against living in high COL areas like LA or NY, would your decision change if you were to graduate debt free? I know this is a minority of people but just wondering.
9blade
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Everyone has their preferences for wanting to live where they want and some have to make sacrifices. Some don't need a big house as long as they live in SoCal. I think that's fine as long as you know going in that you will be content with a small house. At least with SoCal, I can understand people wanting to live there. I've never understood the love affair with NYC. I lived there and I felt so broke. To be fair, I was coming from Dallas, so everything in NYC just felt way too expensive for me. At least California people have the weather. What do NYC ppl get in exchange for living in a high CoL area? I still don't get it. I guess there are museums, and clubbing..but in my time in NYC, most everything I did there, I could do in Dallas and Chicago at a fraction of the cost. Personally, I think the Carolinas or Maine/VT/NH are a best of both worlds. You get the beach and a decently low CoL
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every single, and i mean EVERY SINGLE, discussion about money in med school feels like this:
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I'm a big city guy and in any other world would be living in NY/LA.
But having interviewed all over - the salary for the job I took in the midwest is literally 75% higher than anywhere else in the country I was offered. It's just not worth it to work twice as much (you have to hustle for referrals, kiss ass, give talks, chat up PCPs, etc) to make half the salary. You get way more per RVU outside of the coasts. As in, for doing the same work, you get paid more. So even if I had no debt it wouldn't change. I read a lot of white coat investor and financial literacy things and I should be financially independent (living at a reasonably high level, not resident level) within 10 years. It'd take way longer working on the coast. And I have 40 days of vacation a year and a good sized airport - I can fly wherever the hell I want if it comes down to it. And I'm not living in the sticks - just a mid-sized midwestern city.
