Debt in Med school.. Do u start paying it off in residency?

[med.goals]

I will finish med school with huge debt, almost 70k. I had no financial support during my med school and undergrad and I used up all my savings to pay the tuitions for the first two year of med school.

I'm wondering how long it takes to pay debt. Currently, I have no dependents and no one to support but myself so once I graduate, I was planning to put most of my savings into paying my debt.I was wondering is that what most people try to do? Do u try to pay ur debt as soon as u can throughout ur residency so it does not accumulate interest?

 

 

[Edict]

Yeah, 70k is totally reasonable to pay off. If you have tuition tax credits, you may find yourself paying little to no tax in the first few years of residency. This will go a long way to helping you pay off your debt. Depending on where you do residency and your expenses, its reasonable to expect to pay it off in 3-4 years if you are very judicious with spending and have tuition tax credits. 

[blah1234]

Really depends on where you do your residency and the cost living there. You can probably help chip away at your debt during residency but don't feel bad if you have to wait until staff to pay it off. 

[Bambi]

$70,000 is not a huge debt! Mine is north of 200. It grew during residency. I am not worried, I am a R-4, and will start paying it off in a couple of years. I come from poverty, have survived on student loans strictly once I left high school and it has never been a stressful issue for me. It is what it is. Loans have brought me to this stage of my life and I am grateful.

[billy55555]

What's the rush in paying. It may be the cheapest rate of interest you get compared to car loan, credit cards, house mortgage etc...

 

[NeuroD]

Good job keeping your debt to 70k. It's getting harder and harder to do that. As long as you're not doing residency in Toronto or Vancouver, it should be very possible to pay it off by your third or fourth year of residency.

Then, with no debt and no dependents (yet) haha...you can enjoy a bit of freedom when you start your job.

[BigM]

It's very dependent on the person.  I ended up having two kids during residency and my spouse is stay-at-home with them.  Because of this my debt has grown over the course of residency.  Ever year you get a raise of $3000 - 5000 which makes it easier to balance the spreadsheet.  However, your royal college exams and licensing applications cost in the range of $10,000.  You want to strike a balance between not frivolously spending on things that don't had much to Quality of Life (since you will need to pay back about 130% of this amount later) and also getting a reasonable amount of enjoyment out of your non-working/non-studying hours.  If you are doing a 5 year residency, that's 5 years of your prime invested.  When you finish up and look back, those years are gone and they aren't coming back.  Your life may also look very different when you are done (family, dependents, more responsibilities) and you may not have many of the opportunities to spend the money even if you have it. 

[NeuroD]

 

 

1

4 hours ago, BigM said:

 If you are doing a 5 year residency, that's 5 years of your prime invested.  When you finish up and look back, those years are gone and they aren't coming back.  Your life may also look very different when you are done (family, dependents, more responsibilities) and you may not have many of the opportunities to spend the money even if you have it

Jeez that depressing :'(. About to start a 5 year specialty. That's always been in the back of mind.

[BigM]

11 hours ago, PhD2MD said:

Jeez that depressing :'(. About to start a 5 year specialty. That's always been in the back of mind.

Being a resident doesn’t mean that you aren’t experiencing those 5 years. In fact, the experiences you have during those 5 years will be in an entire league altogether from most of your age-matched non-medical friends. It will include both ups and downs likely fairly extreme on both ends. Maintaining a life outside of residency should be doable for all residents, it will be much easier to do in some specialties than others, but regardless, you’re not going to be working ALL the time. So don’t skimp on the small costs that would make a rough day a bit better. At some point you may be an attending waking up to a pager going off thinking that you would be glad to forego making hundreds of dollars/hour on call just to curl back into bed.

[JohnGrisham]

On 4/26/2019 at 7:55 PM, med.goals said:

I will finish med school with huge debt, almost 70k. I had no financial support during my med school and undergrad and I used up all my savings to pay the tuitions for the first two year of med school.

I'm wondering how long it takes to pay debt. Currently, I have no dependents and no one to support but myself so once I graduate, I was planning to put most of my savings into paying my debt.I was wondering is that what most people try to do? Do u try to pay ur debt as soon as u can throughout ur residency so it does not accumulate interest?

 

 

70k is not huge at all, you must have had a lot of savings or received alot of grants/scholarships?

Seriously, 70k is nothing for someone who had no financial support - that is less than the total tuition for most schools. 

[NLengr]

4 hours ago, JohnGrisham said:

70k is not huge at all, you must have had a lot of savings or received alot of grants/scholarships?

Seriously, 70k is nothing for someone who had no financial support - that is less than the total tuition for most schools. 

I thought the same thing. 70k is a pretty low debt level for the end of med school. 

[NeuroD]

21 hours ago, BigM said:

Being a resident doesn’t mean that you aren’t experiencing those 5 years. In fact, the experiences you have during those 5 years will be in an entire league altogether from most of your age-matched non-medical friends. It will include both ups and downs likely fairly extreme on both ends. Maintaining a life outside of residency should be doable for all residents, it will be much easier to do in some specialties than others, but regardless, you’re not going to be working ALL the time. So don’t skimp on the small costs that would make a rough day a bit better. At some point you may be an attending waking up to a pager going off thinking that you would be glad to forego making hundreds of dollars/hour on call just to curl back into bed.

True. I guess what I was referring to was being away from family and friends for another 5 years (I've already been away for 8). 

[NLengr]

56 minutes ago, PhD2MD said:

True. I guess what I was referring to was being away from family and friends for another 5 years (I've already need away for 8). 

Yeah that really does suck. I hope you can get home at the end of it all if that's what you want. 

[Bookmark311]

2 hours ago, NLengr said:

Yeah that really does suck. I hope you can get home at the end of it all if that's what you want. 

 

 

3 hours ago, PhD2MD said:

True. I guess what I was referring to was being away from family and friends for another 5 years (I've already been away for 8). 

I hear ya. Medicine is so long and can be isolating at times.   My partner and I are both in med school, and we spend most of the time with each other studying and working, but barely have time to reach out to our family and friends.  We made a pact that once we finish residency we will both work part time so we have time to spend with our family and friends,  but we will be 30 by then, and we won’t have our youth back. 

I wonder how feasible it is to only work part time and still make ends meet, pay debt, mortgage? I know of ppl who once finished residency had to still work hard to payoff their debt, mortgage, etc.. I wonder if that’s what most people have to do, or do most people get a break after residency and are able to have more time for leisure activities, spending time with family and friends... etc

[blah1234]

37 minutes ago, Bookmark311 said:

 

 

I hear ya. Medicine is so long and can be isolating at times.   My partner and I are both in med school, and we spend most of the time with each other studying and working, but barely have time to reach out to our family and friends.  We made a pact that once we finish residency we will both work part time so we have time to spend with our family and friends,  but we will be 30 by then, and we won’t have our youth back. 

I wonder how feasible it is to only work part time and still make ends meet, pay debt, mortgage? I know of ppl who once finished residency had to still work hard to payoff their debt, mortgage, etc.. I wonder if that’s what most people have to do, or do most people get a break after residency and are able to have more time for leisure activities, spending time with family and friends... etc

Even part-time physicians (and better yet a physician couple) should be financially fine with regards to income. The bigger component is probably your job requirements and expenditures (debt/mortgage/cost of living).

1) Depending on your specialty and the group you join you may have significant call requirements or hospital coverage requirements that cannot be avoided if you want the position. You could also be in a field where you just run your own little outpatient clinic and you are your own boss and can control your hours. However, even then you could be limited by needing to work to cover your overhead and staff expenses. 

2) Depending on how much debt you take on and what kind of retirement you want to have will also dictate your working schedule. There is no free lunch and if you want to live extravagantly and pay for expensive toys you'll need to make the financials work somehow.