Using student loan money to purchase nice laptop

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RealHumanBean1

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Is this a bad idea? I'll be entering school with a couple thousand dollars. I could either use that money as a safety net and purchase a new laptop with my loans, or eliminate that safety net while minimizing loan usage. Thoughts?

Thanks you for your time!

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Your new laptop doesn't have to be several thousand dollars, but this is a school/life expense and it's what loans are for. If you really need a new laptop for medical school you should buy it. It's a drop in the bucket for most med students, debt-wise.
 
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You should keep a safety net. If you want a nice lap top use the loans.
 
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Is this a bad idea? I'll be entering school with a couple thousand dollars. I could either use that money as a safety net and purchase a new laptop with my loans, or eliminate that safety net while minimizing loan usage. Thoughts?

Thanks you for your time!
Think of it as an investment ^^ I would do it - you'll have to pay off your loans the end, eventually.

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Is this a bad idea? I'll be entering school with a couple thousand dollars. I could either use that money as a safety net and purchase a new laptop with my loans, or eliminate that safety net while minimizing loan usage. Thoughts?

Thanks you for your time!

Having just purchased a laptop with student loan money, I feel like I can chime in.

I kept my personal funds for emergencies. I'll have to be moving soon, which carries with it a number of financial surprises. Moving costs, car expenses, deposits on this and that, etc. I preferred to take out the extra bit in loans for a sense of financial peace of mind, which I think is important in the month or so leading up to medical school (holy cow, can you believe we start in about 6 weeks?).

However, I will also add that I was considering a ~$1600 laptop but ended up settling on a $780 Asus Zenbook. After reading a number of SDN posts on laptop use during school, I decided I didn't need the extra touchscreen/processor power/RAM/etc. Of course, your needs may vary! As an aside, though, I really love the Zenbook. I highly recommend looking into their series; Asus makes some great machines, IMO.

Best of luck!
 
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treat yo self, you earned it
 
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Does anyone know if they put limits on how much you can spend on a laptop? I prefer to purchase a high end one that will last a long time, but that's in the $3200 range.
 
Does anyone know if they put limits on how much you can spend on a laptop? I prefer to purchase a high end one that will last a long time, but that's in the $3200 range.
3200? You're reading power points and watching pathoma videos, not hacking russian subs
 
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Does anyone know if they put limits on how much you can spend on a laptop? I prefer to purchase a high end one that will last a long time, but that's in the $3200 range.

May I suggest buying a high end desktop for ~$1000 (if that) that will undoubtedly far outperform the $3200 laptop and then spend ~$700-900 on a decent/portable, but not break-the-bank PC laptop for academic and/or light entertainment use? Spending $3200 on a laptop is not an efficient use of money. You're paying a premium for "top of the line" components that will be outdated in a year and that are already outperformed by desktop equivalents.
 
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What daily driver laptop is even $3200? If this estimated expense is accurate, I assume it's an Apple product.
 
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3200? You're reading power points and watching pathoma videos, not hacking russian subs
Speak for yourself :ninja:


OP, I'm still using a 2011 MacBook Pro with an SSD and it runs like the day I bought it. I think it was a $1200 well-spent as it's lasted so long when other folks I know have had 2-3 low end PCs in the same amount of time. Can def recommend a good base model Mac
 
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What daily driver laptop is even $3200? If this estimated expense is accurate, I assume it's an Apple product.
MacBook pro i7,16gb, 1tb 3250
Surface book i7, 16gb , 1tb 3200
 
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To answer OPs original question. Take out the loan money to buy the laptop and keep the emergency fund intact.
 
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Not sure if it's been mentioned yet, but my school gave me a "separate" loan for a laptop when mine died during second year (they really just increased my federal loans by the amount of the laptop).
 
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Not sure if it's been mentioned yet, but my school gave me a "separate" loan for a laptop when mine died during second year (they really just increased my federal loans by the amount of the laptop).
Most schools function like this. I think the limit is once per four years and it is roughly 3000.
 
You can buy perfectly functional laptops for < 500 that will last you 5 years atleast. If it starts to run down then in 5 years you can buy another one for 500 that might be better than one you'll pay 2k for now. You are still coming out on top.
 
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You can buy perfectly functional laptops for < 500 that will last you 5 years atleast. If it starts to run down then in 5 years you can buy another one for 500 that might be better than one you'll pay 2k for now. You are still coming out on top.
Plus does anyone really want to use a 10 year old machine? Not me. Technology moves so quickly. 1000 dollar machine will easily last 5 years and you can upgrade at that point to the latest and greatest.
 
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Plus does anyone really want to use a 10 year old machine? Not me. Technology moves so quickly. 1000 dollar machine will easily last 5 years and you can upgrade at that point to the latest and greatest.

Piece of mind is nice. I bought an upgraded Macbook pro 2 weeks before I started medical school in 2009. Maxed out the RAM and added an SSD in 2013 but otherwise the thing has been going strong as a daily driver for nearly 8 years. I really appreciate the fact that I haven't been forced to buy a whole new laptop (with all new software costs and warranties).
 
Piece of mind is nice. I bought an upgraded Macbook pro 2 weeks before I started medical school in 2009. Maxed out the RAM and added an SSD in 2013 but otherwise the thing has been going strong as a daily driver for nearly 8 years. I really appreciate the fact that I haven't been forced to buy a whole new laptop (with all new software costs and warranties).
Here is the thing, you cant upgrade the new generation of macs now. The piece of mind might be there for you, but a person who bought a similar computer may have faced catastrophic failure. The magsafe charge ports wear out, the screen starts to pixelate, the battery doesnt hold a charge any more, the fans start to get noisier. Plus you own software , you can reinstall without cost on new computers as long as you uninstall on old ones. You in all liklihood would be unhappy with your computer right now if you were unable to upgrade in 2013. Ram and Harddrives and graphics cards will continue to get faster even if we have leveled off in processor performance over the past few years .
 
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Is this a bad idea? I'll be entering school with a couple thousand dollars. I could either use that money as a safety net and purchase a new laptop with my loans, or eliminate that safety net while minimizing loan usage. Thoughts?

Thanks you for your time!
MacBook Pro
 
OP, please don't use your entire safety net on a new macbook pro. They are great computers. But for now buy a more affordable laptop to use for power point, have a nest egg and then have your first job buy you a macbook pro in a few years :)
 
I spent $215 on a used Thinkpad T series with a solid state drive, including shipping (eBay). Thing is light as a feather and much faster than previous laptops I've owned, and I used to own a Macbook Pro. It boots up and is ready to run apps in literally 10 seconds, and I have never had any trouble running any program or doing any task for med school at maximum speed. There's no reason to be spending thousands on a laptop when even 5+ year old Thinkpads will be way more than sufficient to handle anything that med school throws at you. A $2000 laptop won't give you any sort of edge. By all means do it if you have money to blow like that. If not, then this is precisely why doctors have such a reputation for being terrible with money. Trust me. You won't regret saving more than enough to cover all of your Step 1 expenses, which are a lot by the way. Also, have you noticed how most hospitals tend to use Thinkpads? They're still using T420's at the top hospitals in America. Enough said.
 
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I spent $215 on a used Thinkpad T series with a solid state drive, including shipping (eBay). Thing is light as a feather and much faster than previous laptops I've owned, and I used to own a Macbook Pro. It boots up and is ready to run apps in literally 10 seconds, and I have never had any trouble running any program or doing any task for med school at maximum speed. There's no reason to be spending thousands on a laptop when even 5+ year old Thinkpads will be way more than sufficient to handle anything that med school throws at you. A $2000 laptop won't give you any sort of edge. By all means do it if you have money to blow like that. If not, then this is precisely why doctors have such a reputation for being terrible with money. Trust me. You won't regret saving more than enough to cover all of your Step 1 expenses, which are a lot by the way. Also, have you noticed how most hospitals tend to use Thinkpads? They're still using T420's at the top hospitals in America. Enough said.

great advice, can you tell me which thinkpad you ordered? super interested
 
I spent $215 on a used Thinkpad T series with a solid state drive, including shipping (eBay). Thing is light as a feather and much faster than previous laptops I've owned, and I used to own a Macbook Pro. It boots up and is ready to run apps in literally 10 seconds, and I have never had any trouble running any program or doing any task for med school at maximum speed. There's no reason to be spending thousands on a laptop when even 5+ year old Thinkpads will be way more than sufficient to handle anything that med school throws at you. A $2000 laptop won't give you any sort of edge. By all means do it if you have money to blow like that. If not, then this is precisely why doctors have such a reputation for being terrible with money. Trust me. You won't regret saving more than enough to cover all of your Step 1 expenses, which are a lot by the way. Also, have you noticed how most hospitals tend to use Thinkpads? They're still using T420's at the top hospitals in America. Enough said.
I recommend this option wholeheartedly.

OP: there is a sweet spot for laptops, just like cars. If you go with the cheapest car you can find, odds are you will sink more into repairs than the cost of getting something more reliable. Find a cheap and economical model with demonstrated reliability (e.g. HP Elitebook, Dell Latitude, Lenovo Thinkpad - these are all business grade laptops) and go with that.
 
great advice, can you tell me which thinkpad you ordered? super interested

No problem. Mine is a T430, 14" screen, with intel core i5 processor, 8 gb RAM, and 180 GB solid state drive. It even has a backlit keyboard! (Which is the only thing I would have missed from the MacBook Pro)

When I got it, my only concern was that 180 GB would not be enough storage, but it has actually ended up being much more than I need. I've used only 46 GB, and I don't see myself ever needing much more than that. Plus, like I said, the fact that it's solid state makes it suuuuuper fast. That's the one thing I would suggest you look for. It's much, much better to have 180 GB of SSD than a TB of slow HDD. The only reason you'd ever need massive amounts of storage like that is if youre collecting music or movies or something, and if that's the case, it's cheaper and better to just get an external harddrive for that. When it comes to a laptop, I just want it to be fast, cheap, and reliable. And that's precisely what you get with Thinkpads.
 
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