Medical How do I manage student loan stress?

[Mr.Smile12]

I have just begun working out my medical school budget and I must say I'm feeling very, very overwhelmed, and need some advice. I'll give a general idea of my finances below:

-Married, wife makes right around $1900/month - in her field, she probably won't move up much, if at all, in terms of pay.
-I've been working like a madman during my gap year pulling around $2400/month (obviously this income will be gone once I start and I 100% do not plan to work at all during medical school besides possibly TA'ing or doing some paid research between M1/M2 if the opportunity is there).
-We already have a house we rent for $1390/month (we already live in the city I will be attending medical school).
-School tuition is $52xxx/year and I have a $10xxx/year scholarship, so I've basically lumped it and will say tuition is $42xxx per year.
-She has about $20K left in undergrad student loans and the monthly payments are about $410. I have about $50K left in undergrad student loans, but those payments will be deferred again once I start.
-We have $15000 in savings, most of which is from the past year in which we have been saving a lot with all my gap year job money. We have budgeted up to ~$4000 for various onboarding expenses (laptop, some required medical equipment, etc), and a modest week-long vacation we plan to go on before I start. This leaves us with $11000 in savings for anything that may come up which we are comfortable with (Is this reasonable? Do we need this much?).
-If you need further specific numbers let me know and I can provide that, but I would say our spending/budget is definitely within our means (reasonable phone/internet etc, own both our cars, enjoy a pretty simple life, maybe eat out twice a month) and we're generally very good with our money having both grown up in fairly frugal families.

My current budgeting has me taking out the 42K for tuition plus about 1400/month (16800 yearly) to supplement her income. We'll be making cuts in our budget since my "income" will effectively be going from 2400 to 1400 monthly. Basically, with fees and everything all added up, it came up to ~60K/year and around ~240K for the four years, disregarding interest. The number just scared me even though I have friends that will have more than that. We have planned to pay off all of her student loans by the time I'm done and just continuing to defer mine, which means we'll be right under 300K when I graduate, again disregarding interest.

Is this all reasonable? I have no background in finance. I have some understanding of economics but not enough to just trust my gut with all this stuff. Sorry if this seems like me just looking for someone to tell me it'll be alright, just looking for some general advice about my situation.

Of note, I will be attending a DO school. I am interested in surgery and some competitive fields but that can all change and bearing in mind that it is a DO school, I am also ok with a career in PC.

Thanks so much for any and all advice!

Hopefully you're very friendly with your financial aid office. There are some online tools that can help you, but you should have a good conversation with your financial aid person.

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[TheBoneDoctah]

Your situation is the average (or better) than most D.O. medical students. At my school, I would say over half of the students took out full loans for tuition and living expenses (around 75k/year) and would be sitting with at least 300k (around 325k with interest) when they graduate. I only paid for three years of medical school (scholarship), my spouse is working making about 35k/year, and I still have 285k (with interest) in medical school loans.

I have been reading financial books this last year including White Coat Investor, etc, and although I have seen the quoted average medical school debt at 185k, the only way I can see this is feasible is if you went to a state school where tuition is cheap which is not an option for everyone since medical school is so competitive nowadays, or have a working spouse/family assistance with tuition/living expenses. Even if you do have a working spouse, throw in a kid, and all of a sudden you STILL need to take out some living expense loans cause daycare is EXPENSIVE.

I know it is a daunting number to see, however, if you are already worried about it I think you will be far better off than most since you won't be spending frivolously throughout medical school. I think I saw you wanted to go into orthopedics, so if you do, you will have no problems paying off your loans. There are also programs for loan forgiveness (which may or may not be there when you are done) and REPAYE which is an income-based repayment plan so you won't have to pay the entire amount during residency. You will pay income-based repayment as a resident, and then knock out your loans as an attending and can afford it.

Main thing: Live frugally as a medical student and focus on your studies. Don't let the debt bog you down as you are not the outlier here. Do what you can and let the rest work itself out.