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Losing at least two hours a day to commuting instead of study time is a recipe for disaster. And I have seen it crater my students ambitions.Hi all, I am fortunate enough to be a M1 this fall! Yay! However, recently, as many students are looking for rent and I live close (but not extremely close) to school, I have been stuck in the dilemma of whether I should live at home to save money or at school again. So my school is located in a medium-big sized east coast urban center with expensive living costs and unfortunately, will probably not qualify for financial aid at my private school and will have to take full 90k/yr in loans for COA (tuition + room + board + costs). I do not have any cheaper options as I was accepted through a direct admission program which I applied to this one school without the MCAT. After browsing for rent, anywhere within 20 min public transportation appears to be at least 800/month (if I find 3 or more roommates) or 1k/month+ if I want to live closer or rent alone.
However, I live in the suburbs of the city (around 50 min public transportation (bus -> subway) and figured if I lived at home, I could save 10k (potentially more a year if factoring in groceries/laundry/food) even if I factor in commuting costs. Still, after talking with some M1s at my school, it appears that while classes are P/F nonranked and 2 days of in person (for labs) classes during COVID, commuting 1 hr each way would not be very doable and most students have agreed on 20 min transportation max. Also, pre-COVID, while most classes are recorded and attendance is not mandatory, M1s have told me to expect 3 - 4 days of in person classes weekly. While 2 days of commuting 1 hr each way seems fine, I do not know if I can do more than that if the pandemic ends soon. An additional option could be to buy a cheap car for 5k (also useful for rotations M3/M4) and drive 20 - 30 min to school from home each day (parking costs 10/day at the school garage) but I am not the best driver and morning traffic could be a problem. I could also bike instead of take the bus to the subway station, which would be around 40 min instead of 50 min commute total since bus traffic, but that could be a problem as it gets snowy in my city in the wintertime and is difficult to bike back from the station in the dark if I come home late.
Apart from finances, while my parents are letting me live at home for M1, I do not have the best relationship with my mother (we fight occassionally, but things have been peaceful for the past few months since we agreed to limit talking). During our fights, she has also accused me once or twice of "freeloading" (living/working 9 - 5 at home in my gap year at 21 even though we are lower-middle income and I do not have financial means to rent out) and does not let me eat her cooking. Still, I will probably have to cook anyways in med school if I rent out (I already cook most weekdays in my gap year while working) and I do have a wonderful relationship with my dad, who works weekdays but covers cooking for me on the weekend. Personally, because of my relationship with my mother, the distance, and perhaps for the good of my sanity during med school, I am thinking of moving out, but the past few months living at home have been peaceful (no fights) and taking out 90k/yr in loans with 6% interest has been stressing me out more. I think I will definitely move out for M2, but I do want to save as much money as possible and do not know if my concerns justify an additional 10k - 15k in loans. I know this is a long post and a personal decision but any suggestions/advice from current med students on what I should do? Thanks!
THIS^^^^^^. You are freaking out because you are facing a tremendous amount of debt. $10K plus interest on top what is already going to be $400K+ is NOTHING!!!!! There really is nothing to think about here.You are 21, taking a hugggggeeeeee yearly loan out regardless. What really is 40K over 4 yrs for sanity, extra 2 hrs a dy to do whatever you want. And that is not even taking into account your toxic family issues.
Its a no brainer to me. If your mom lived 1 min from school, I would tell you to find your own place and time to be an adult. She will respect your more for that.
And .. it's not even $40K! OP said they were always planning to move out after the first year, so the question is literally just about $10K for the first, and arguably most important, year.I completely disagree with anyone saying that there is a debatable or difficult decision here. Less than ideal performance in medical school, even during the first two years, is going to cost you much more than $40,000 over the course of your career if you are forced into a less lucrative specialty and/or a specialty you are not happy in which makes you want to work less or retire early. I could go on and on about the pros and cons of living at home vs. near campus, but the short answer for OP is to get an apartment close to campus that is safe and clean and never look back.
This post brings up a way too common misunderstanding about the opportunity cost of spending relatively small amounts more when taking out loans in medical school. The financial aid people (who have never gone to medical school or earned a physicians income or matched to residency) tell you to take out as little as possible, but the most important thing in medical school is to match into your top specialty at a program you will be happy with. $200,000 or $250,000 in debt even with 3 to 4% interest is a tiny tiny drop in the bucket to your overall career earnings as a physician. This advice also applies to the horrible opportunity cost of working during medical school which I've seen people try to do in real life and ask questions about on forums.
That is probably what they mean, but at many schools, the maximum barely covers rent, groceries, utilities and school resources. This is assuming you come into medical school with a reliable car and little to no credit card debt from applying. Forget emergency expenses or travel home to visit family. It is basically required these days to spend $1-2k on 3rd party research each year in M1 and M2 and many schools don't include that in their COA.I think that when financial aid people tell you to take as little as possible, they are talking about non-essential spending -- a new phone every year, subscription boxes, non-essential travel, ordering take-out every night and $5 coffees every morning. They aren't talking about rent, groceries, utililties, and similar essentials. Taking the maximum and treating some of it like mad money is madness.
i hate to say this but i agree... i have to work 15 hours + a week in addition to financial aid to support myself.That is probably what they mean, but at many schools, the maximum barely covers rent, groceries, utilities and school resources. This is assuming you come into medical school with a reliable car and little to no credit card debt from applying. Forget emergency expenses or travel home to visit family. It is basically required these days to spend $1-2k on 3rd party research each year in M1 and M2 and many schools don't include that in their COA.
So blowing any "left over" money on non-essential spending would be maybe $200-300/month, or $15k for a $200k-300k degree. Definitely worth it if it makes you stay a little more sane.
By “third party research”, what exactly are you referring to? I’m just curious.That is probably what they mean, but at many schools, the maximum barely covers rent, groceries, utilities and school resources. This is assuming you come into medical school with a reliable car and little to no credit card debt from applying. Forget emergency expenses or travel home to visit family. It is basically required these days to spend $1-2k on 3rd party research each year in M1 and M2 and many schools don't include that in their COA.
So blowing any "left over" money on non-essential spending would be maybe $200-300/month, or $15k for a $200k-300k degree. Definitely worth it if it makes you stay a little more sane.
Are you currently in medical school? How much do you spend a month and how much does your school give you in cash per year/semester? I have a very hard time believing $7-11k left over per year. On the high end that is almost $1,000 a month your school gives you that you don’t spend on required stuff like rent and school resources.Do you have a source for this? At my school, the COA loans leave about $7000-11000/year for discretionary spending depending on how frugal you like to live (even getting your own apartment near campus). I imagine that's the case with my dental school friends (120k+ COA) since they all come from lower-income families and still had enough in loans to vacation in Hawaii and the Caribbean 2x a year.
I don't need you to run the numbers for me since I already am in medical school lol. I know how much my rent and bills are because I pay them every month.If you don't mind sharing your school's name I can crunch the numbers on my end using zillow/apartments dot com/local grocery/insurance etc
Gotcha. I wish I went to that school lol. It took years of campaigning for them to give us a budget for Sketchy and UWorld. And “average” in my city means cockroaches and getting woken up by drug busts down the hall 😃 fortunately that isn’t universal to where everyone goes to medical schoolI believe you. I'm lucky to be attending a school in a decent COL city. Within a 2 mile radius there are $700 $1200 and $1800/month 1BR apartments depending on how luxurious I want to live (80s cabinets/no amenities OR average OR pool/guard/marble & granite etc). I guess not everyone has that same opportunity. Another school I interviewed at last year told us they overestimate misc expenses, transportation and books a bit to give people a nice buffer if they need it.