placenta Posted March 8, 2015 Report Share Posted March 8, 2015 Hello all, I'll be starting 5-year residency in Ontario in July, and oh boy - financial reality hits hard!! I have a question in regards to OSAP repayment during 5-year residency. I was wondering if there is any program that allows residents to defer OSAP repayment until they finish their residency. If there is no such wonderful thing available, it seems like I am expected to pay about $500, which will be challenging given I would be spending almost $2000 for housing/car/life expenses. I have heard about paying all the OSAP debt with LOC, and pay LOC interest instead. Has anyone done this? Thoughts on pros and cons? Any advise on this would be greatly appreciated. I guess medical school vacation is over now! Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rmorelan Posted March 8, 2015 Report Share Posted March 8, 2015 Hello all, I'll be starting 5-year residency in Ontario in July, and oh boy - financial reality hits hard!! I have a question in regards to OSAP repayment during 5-year residency. I was wondering if there is any program that allows residents to defer OSAP repayment until they finish their residency. If there is no such wonderful thing available, it seems like I am expected to pay about $500, which will be challenging given I would be spending almost $2000 for housing/car/life expenses. I have heard about paying all the OSAP debt with LOC, and pay LOC interest instead. Has anyone done this? Thoughts on pros and cons? Any advise on this would be greatly appreciated. I guess medical school vacation is over now! Thanks. there is a return on service agreement with the Ontario gov to defer payments until post residency. The issue is you would be locked into Ontario for 5 years. Sounds minor but in many fields not being flexible in where you could work is rather limiting. Plus in some fields like family medicine you are trading 2 years of no interest for 5 years of return of service. Lots of people put the osap loan on their loc because the interest is cheaper in some cases, and you don't have to pay off any principle each month like you do with OSAP. It also provides more flexibility because you don't have to make a set payment each month in theory (the loc will increase but there is no set amount per month required). Only drawback I could some up with is you now have reduced your total amount of credit you had access to (osap + LOC max amount is more than just LOC max amount). Still that seem relatively minor in the grad scheme of things. The biggest issue with residency an money I have found for most is just that things are less flexible overall. You actually are earning money but still some find it hard to keep up with things without going further in debit - particularly in big cities etc. You really aren't much farther ahead initially than you were as a medical student really so it is likely unwise to go too extreme with thing money wise Rent+living+loan interest takes up quite a chunk for the initial earnings. Rule of thumb is spend no more than 35% of your income on housing (that is a old finance guideline), but try doing that and living in toronto on a resident salary and you will find it rather challenging. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
placenta Posted March 8, 2015 Author Report Share Posted March 8, 2015 Thank you! That was very helpful. As I am doing some math for potential expenses, I do realize that I will be living off ~$500 a month for survival. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NLengr Posted March 8, 2015 Report Share Posted March 8, 2015 You can also do a few things with Canada student loans to get the monthly payment as low as possible. 1. Get them to extend the repayment period to the max amount of time. It doesn't really matter in the long run since you'll pay it back pretty quick once you are a staff. 2. Get interest only payments. You only pay the interest on your loan every month. That will significantly lower the amount of money you have to pay back over residency. It'll cost you slightly more in the long run but since you'll be so well compensated as a staff that's not too much of a concern. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CanuckMoose Posted April 6, 2018 Report Share Posted April 6, 2018 On 3/8/2015 at 1:18 PM, NLengr said: You can also do a few things with Canada student loans to get the monthly payment as low as possible. 1. Get them to extend the repayment period to the max amount of time. It doesn't really matter in the long run since you'll pay it back pretty quick once you are a staff. 2. Get interest only payments. You only pay the interest on your loan every month. How do you go about getting those things done? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NLengr Posted April 6, 2018 Report Share Posted April 6, 2018 59 minutes ago, CanuckMoose said: How do you go about getting those things done? Call student loans and tell them that's what you want. They'll ask you about repayment assistance, which you likely won't qualify for since they dont count bank debt from med school as real debt and you make an income. Once they figure that out, they'll do what you ask. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CanuckMoose Posted April 6, 2018 Report Share Posted April 6, 2018 22 minutes ago, NLengr said: Call student loans and tell them that's what you want. They'll ask you about repayment assistance, which you likely won't qualify for since they dont count bank debt from med school as real debt and you make an income. Once they figure that out, they'll do what you ask. Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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