Living expenses??

[jess818]

Hello all!

I know the topic of attendance costs has been beaten to death. Fortunately, I'm not worried about that so much as how I am going to afford my apartment?!?! Maybe this is a silly question but how did you all pay for your living expenses (rent, utilities, groceries, etc.) especially when it seems a lot of DPT students didn't work? Did you use your loan money?

Sorry if this is a no brainer type of thing-I worked and paid for everything all through undergrad so not being able to do so is a bit of a foreign concept to me

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[johncronejr]

I would say 1) Loans, 2) Parents, 3) Lottery winnings

For me it looks like it's going to be loans....

 

[Karbo]

I'm living with my parents so I don't have to worry about rent, but I took out extra loans for books, living expenses, transportation, etc. With my school atleast, they estimated how much extra I would need besides tuition and you can accept as much of that extra amount as you want through the PLUS loan. I don't like having to take out 6k extra in loans per year but it would be very difficult to work during PT school!

 

[DancerFutureDPT]

At my school (and I think most schools), they factor in living expenses into the cost of attendance, so it is possible to get more loan money than just tuition itself. For us, they factored in I think $1300/month for rent (a studio or 1 bedroom in downtown Chicago), but most people find places for around $700, so they don't need to take out the full amount.

A lot of people are using loans to cover it, or getting parents to pay. Mine won't pay, and I didn't want to spend 8% extra on my rent to cover interest payments (I did the math, and if I took out loans to cover rent, at the end of 3 years that extra cost divided by 12 months per year for 3 years ended up adding $450 per month...my $650/month rent would be $1100/month, and frankly my place is not that nice. It's not worth that kind of money. haha). I'm not sure that made sense, but yeah...

This year I'm using my personal savings to cover rent + food, because I didn't want everything I eat and my apartment to cost 8% more...it adds up over time. After this year I'll decide if I want to continue depleting my savings, or if I want to take out some money in loans. The first year I wanted to save as much as possible...if I took out loans now, interest would keep accruing for the next 3 years. By not taking extra out now, I'm saving some money in the long run. I figured it's better to take out more loans my 2nd or 3rd yr, because they have less time to gather up interest.

 

[jess818]

gotcha....i would think my program would offer something like that....we're having a reception in november to discuss more of the specifics so i'm guessing that's when we'll go over stuff like that.

looks like i'll most likely have to use loans thanks for the responses!!