Doctor-Doctor couple and paying back loans

[salsasunrise123]

Hello, so I was wondering if I could get some opinions on how likely it is to live a comfortable life as a physician while paying back massive amount of student loans. Post residency I will be paying back approx $4-5k/month in loans. My spouse (also a physician) will have no student loans. Our combined monthly income pre-tax will be between $40-50k/month. We want to live in a nice home preferably in a Philly suburb and have a comfortable lifestyle. We want to know if it will be possible to raise 1-3 kids, save for retirement, and do all those other "life things" that we've been putting on hold through school and training. I would really appreciate some legit advice and guidance. Thanks!

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[atomi]

Your combined yearly income will be 600k. After taking out loan payments your combined yearly income will be 540k. You are asking if it is possible to live in a suburb and raise 1-3 kids on this and save for retirement, which is something that most americans who went to college or who have a skilled trade are able to do. Please take a second and think about what you just wrote.

 

[smq123]

You should read The White Coat Investor. The guy who wrote it (@The White Coat Investor) posts on SDN. It is full of good advice on how to manage your money wisely as a physician. He also has a blog.

(This is a completely unsolicited post, by the way. I bought the book on my own and truly found it useful. My boyfriend, who is also a physician, reads his blog regularly.)

 

[calvnandhobbs68]

Hello, so I was wondering if I could get some opinions on how likely it is to live a comfortable life as a physician while paying back massive amount of student loans. Post residency I will be paying back approx $4-5k/month in loans. My spouse (also a physician) will have no student loans. Our combined monthly income pre-tax will be between $40-50k/month. We want to live in a nice home preferably in a Philly suburb and have a comfortable lifestyle. We want to know if it will be possible to raise 1-3 kids, save for retirement, and do all those other "life things" that we've been putting on hold through school and training. I would really appreciate some legit advice and guidance. Thanks!

is this a joke?

brb figuring out if someone can live on 420K-540K gross/year (yeah I know it's a rough estimate bc the loan payments are after tax but close enough).

You don't need "legit advice and guidance" to figure out if you can live on a half mil/year, you need some common sense. Was your dad the CEO of GE or something?

 

[salsasunrise123]

The concern stems from paying off my student loans WHILE also living, saving, and raising children.

 

[calvnandhobbs68]

The concern stems from paying off my student loans WHILE also living, saving, and raising children.

Go run your numbers through a financial calculator, come back and tell us what you found. There's only about a thousand of them online. Once you do that, I think you'll realize why you're going to get a "wtf" reaction to your question.

Edit: Oh wait you're also the guy who thought that doing chart reviews for a malpractice attorney would be a good idea for summer research. You're either trolling it up around here or just have really bad ideas. I'm guessing trolling since you claimed to be a lawyer before medical school, yet somehow can't figure out how to live on 500k/year.

 

[Narcomedusae]

Seriously??? Are you terrible with money management or just trolling?
You know, you could always consider being really aggressive with your loans at first, given that you stated you'll be making HALF A MILLION DOLLARS A YEAR.
Pay that **** off and just don't live Lifestyles of the Rich & Famous.

 

[VA Hopeful Dr]

That should have you netting about 18-20k per month. If you can't live comfortably on around 12k/month then you are going to have a difficult life.

 

[rokshana]

exactly what kind of children do you have? Kardashians?

 

[atomi]

The concern stems from paying off my student loans WHILE also living, saving, and raising children.

What part of my reply, using extremely simply math where I demonstrated that you will have over a half million dollars a year AFTER your loan payments are deducted, did you not understand?
If this math is still too hard for you to comprehend, I suggest you pretend like you are in medical school for another year and put 100% of your income after basic needs are met towards your loan debt. You should completely eliminate it within a year. Then you will have the $50k/month you desperately need to live off of and raise your theoretical children and not be forced to somehow make ends meet on $45k/month.

I hate to break it to you, but there are going to be people far richer than you in your community. Yes, you may struggle to somehow come up with the $200k/year needed for elite club membership fees and philanthropic donations and still somehow make payments on your Bentley and 2 million dollar apartment. However, the people who do live this life either inherited their money or took financial risks and have a far greater understanding of money and investing than you will ever have. Please don't confuse this with simply "living, saving, and raising children" which most american families are able to comfortably do on 10-20% of your projected income.

 

[smq123]

Cross posted in the Finance and Investment forum. Closing.