how much do you owe? stragegies to paying off loans

[Optodoc]

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Hey so i'm a new optometry grad but I think we all owe quite alot of money to school I just want to get your input on this issue thanks : )

original post:

Hi all, I have 6 months till I have to start paying off a massive loan amount of $180,000. I'd like to see what others owe and how they plan on paying it off. (that's 33k tuition + living + interest)

I got a job that pays 95 k year + bonus; I will probably work a 6th day to get more income.
My living expenses all inclusive is about 2,400 a month.
Taking home I would expect about 5,000 every 4 weeks, leaving me with 2,600 to pay towards loans for the next 10 years at a 6.8 interest rate. that sounds pretty bleak and depressing...

I actually know some friends who are buying a house and stretching both student loans and mortgage to 30 years i think that's a bit risky but according to them housing market will improve and with inflation that might be a worthwhile investment.

 

[Minnerbelle]

Hi all, I have 6 months till I have to start paying off a massive loan amount of $180,000. I'd like to see what others owe and how they plan on paying it off. (that's 33k tuition + living + interest)

I got a job that pays 95 k year + bonus; I will probably work a 6th day to get more income.
My living expenses all inclusive is about 2,400 a month.
Taking home I would expect about 5,000 every 4 weeks, leaving me with 2,600 to pay towards loans for the next 10 years at a 6.8 interest rate. that sounds pretty bleak and depressing...
.

Calling that bleak and depressing is kind of like a slap in the face for us veterinary folk

Calculated cost of attendance (tuition + living only...) range from $120k - $280k for in state students, and $170k - $300k+ for out of state students. In terms of loans, currently $150k is the average. That includes all the people with cheap in state tuition and the independently wealthy, so there's a helluva lot of people in the $200k+ zone.

And I'm pretty positive that I will never hit $95k base salary plus bonus anytime in my career... nevermind starting salary (unless it all of the sudden becomes trendy for the general public to spend money on vet care). I'm actually worried if I'll have a paying job at all to be honest :cry: If you can live a $2400 monthly budget lifestyle and pay your debt in 10 years, you are in a seriously envious position from the perspective of many vet students.

 

[Jamr0ckin]

Calling that bleak and depressing is kind of like a slap in the face for us veterinary folk

Calculated cost of attendance (tuition + living only...) range from $120k - $280k for in state students, and $170k - $300k+ for out of state students. In terms of loans, currently $150k is the average. That includes all the people with cheap in state tuition and the independently wealthy, so there's a helluva lot of people in the $200k+ zone.

And I'm pretty positive that I will never hit $95k base salary plus bonus anytime in my career... nevermind starting salary (unless it all of the sudden becomes trendy for the general public to spend money on vet care). I'm actually worried if I'll have a paying job at all to be honest :cry: If you can live a $2400 monthly budget lifestyle and pay your debt in 10 years, you are in a seriously envious position from the perspective of many vet students.

👍👍👍

 

[katryn]

Calling that bleak and depressing is kind of like a slap in the face for us veterinary folk

Calculated cost of attendance (tuition + living only...) range from $120k - $280k for in state students, and $170k - $300k+ for out of state students. In terms of loans, currently $150k is the average. That includes all the people with cheap in state tuition and the independently wealthy, so there's a helluva lot of people in the $200k+ zone.

And I'm pretty positive that I will never hit $95k base salary plus bonus anytime in my career... nevermind starting salary (unless it all of the sudden becomes trendy for the general public to spend money on vet care). I'm actually worried if I'll have a paying job at all to be honest :cry: If you can live a $2400 monthly budget lifestyle and pay your debt in 10 years, you are in a seriously envious position from the perspective of many vet students.

Yep. Even from the privilaged position of a two income household, we'd love to be making that much between the two of us. My suggestion is to get over your previous ideas about life style, and live like a pauper until your loans are paid off. Then enjoy making more than any of us here ever will.

 

[Optodoc]

Calling that bleak and depressing is kind of like a slap in the face for us veterinary folk

Calculated cost of attendance (tuition + living only...) range from $120k - $280k for in state students, and $170k - $300k+ for out of state students. In terms of loans, currently $150k is the average. That includes all the people with cheap in state tuition and the independently wealthy, so there's a helluva lot of people in the $200k+ zone.

And I'm pretty positive that I will never hit $95k base salary plus bonus anytime in my career... nevermind starting salary (unless it all of the sudden becomes trendy for the general public to spend money on vet care). I'm actually worried if I'll have a paying job at all to be honest :cry: If you can live a $2400 monthly budget lifestyle and pay your debt in 10 years, you are in a seriously envious position from the perspective of many vet students.

let me apologize for coming off the wrong way that's definitely not my intention. What I know is that vet school is very competitive to get into (much more than optometry) and cost of tuition is equal to if not more than optometry schools. I would think with all the training and specialty training you would be in the 100+ range starting but I now see that's not the case for most of vet grads. i think optometry is somewhat comparable to pharmacy in terms of tuition and salary; whereas dentists pay more in tuition but they also make more in the long term but now everyone is dragging around a 6.8 % interest while the job market continues to be oversaturated in a bad economy with 200/300+k loans.

That would mean, that for all of the people who have 180/200K+ range, if with a salary of where from 65-85k (just throwing a number out there), it would take a minimum of 10 years of tight budgeting to even start to be able to save? I think optometry is somewhat of a bad ROI (return on investment) but seems like vet school is seemingly even more so... i hope things start to look better for all of us. i definitely don't expect to be living lavishly but having so much debt is taking a toll on my mentality.

 

[WhtsThFrequency]

Hey Opto - none of us meant anything by it either - debt is a big concern in vet med so we're all a little touchy - no hard feelings 🙂 I personally like hearing about how other fields are going, even if it makes me a little envious 😉

I guess my contribution would be....$2400 monthly budget?

I don't know your situation...maybe you have kids or own a house..or live in an expensive area....but damn, that could be trimmed down quite a bit unless you live in Boston or something.

I make 30k as a resident, and my fiance makes about 35k as a programmer, so together we bring in the same as most starting vet grads. My school debt is about 160k right now and in forbearance.

Our rent is $725 a month for a small one bedroom with den, utilities are about $150-200 in the summer (cruddy insulation + hot weather, ugh), $400 a month for food and household supplies, $100 for gas and random stuff like pet food, $60 for internet (we don't have TV), and let's throw in another hundred for anything I'm forgetting, so our expenses run about $1600 a month for two people. Admittedly we don't live in an expensive area, but just for comparison. We'd have to be paying almost 1600 in rent to have a budget like that...again, apologies if you just live in a crazy expensive area.

I'm not saying this to put you down in the least - but I do think that the best way to have that extra cash is cutting some of the fat. I.e., do you really need that nicer apartment? Do you need TV? Do you need that ipad/iphone, whatever? Etc. All that stuff really adds up.

I very much get the downtrodden feeling. It's hard to be ok with living like a student and eating ramen or whatever after you've put so much towards your education. Trust me - I see all my friends buying houses and going on vacation, and it's somewhat depressing. But when you really think about it...we're *still* making more than a large proportion of America, even when you take into account loan payments. We have a roof over our heads, we have food, etc. We can't let the pipe dream of riches make us feel crappy when we're actually not too bad.

 

[Minnerbelle]

let me apologize for coming off the wrong way that's definitely not my intention.

No worries, you didn't come off negatively at all. Very few people know what a horrible ROI vet med is, so I wouldn't have expected you to know either 🙂. I do see where you're coming from when you say that your financial future is bleak. I was more just laughing off how crappy our situation is. Sometimes all you can do is laugh it's that bad.

But, we all do it because we looooooove what we do!