Help an M1-to be with budget

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ESzczesniak

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I'm working through budgets right now (I got in off a waitlist, so I am slighlty late) and have some questions. Obviously planning rent and tuition and even utilities to an extent is pretty easy. However, I notice the school budgets (at least for Northwestern) include about $2500 for books. Am I actually going to spend this much? I have gotten the impression that likely only a couple books will be particularly useful and that I will have to buy a couple pairs of scrubs for anatomy lab and a stethascope or so, but $2500 covers a lot more than this.

Basically, my question is how much should I budget for the books and supplies? I know that no one can really tell me, but some feedback would be helpful.

Also, what were some of the that you guys never thought of when looking at budgets, but should have?

Thanks for your help.

Eric

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I'm starting MS1 this fall too, and I'm not buying any textbooks until I get there. I don't think I'll need them between the material that they give us and review books; any other texts that I might need I'll buy as I go along. You're right, though, 2500 bucks does seem a lot for books.

P.S. scrubs don't cost that much, particularly if you buy them online and a stethoscope is only about $140 if you buy it at the right place (got mine online too).
 
ESzczesniak said:
I'm working through budgets right now (I got in off a waitlist, so I am slighlty late) and have some questions. Obviously planning rent and tuition and even utilities to an extent is pretty easy. However, I notice the school budgets (at least for Northwestern) include about $2500 for books. Am I actually going to spend this much? I have gotten the impression that likely only a couple books will be particularly useful and that I will have to buy a couple pairs of scrubs for anatomy lab and a stethascope or so, but $2500 covers a lot more than this.

Basically, my question is how much should I budget for the books and supplies? I know that no one can really tell me, but some feedback would be helpful.

Also, what were some of the that you guys never thought of when looking at budgets, but should have?

Thanks for your help.

Eric

If you bought all the required and recommended books you would probably hit the $2500 mark. If you only bought the books you actually "needed", you could spend about $300. You can also buy stuff used from upper classmen. I recommend waiting until you talk to upper classmen about what is a necessity and what is a nice luxury to have on the bookshelf but only perhaps use once (in which case the one in the library is sufficient), and what is a total waste of time. Everybody in med school will end up spending hundreds of dollars on something they never use at some point -- it's the nature of the beast.
 
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They pad the budget as much as they can. They can only budget for education related expenses. Things like a car payment is not included but many people have these. They will inflate the costs in other areas to allow you to cover these items.
 
Law2Doc said:
If you bought all the required and recommended books you would probably hit the $2500 mark. If you only bought the books you actually "needed", you could spend about $300. You can also buy stuff used from upper classmen. I recommend waiting until you talk to upper classmen about what is a necessity and what is a nice luxury to have on the bookshelf but only perhaps use once (in which case the one in the library is sufficient), and what is a total waste of time. Everybody in med school will end up spending hundreds of dollars on something they never use at some point -- it's the nature of the beast.


I absolutely agree with Law2Doc. Wait until you start and ask some 2nd years which books they felt were a necessity. You can purchase them from 2nd years at a cheaper price and also try half.com. I felt that Netters Atlas was a necessity and a physio book (it was poorly taught, although they had plenty of copies in the library). YOu can also ask your professors if they have any extra copies, they usually do. You might be able to hold out til next year to purchase a stethoscope. I did not need it for 1st year but for 2nd year.
 
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