life on a resident's salary

[emtji]

hi all,
current MS4 here, looking forward to my residents salary.

can someone do a relative breakdown of where your salary would go, that is, a budget? i'm trying to figure out how nice of an apartment i can afford next year. assume that i'm single have the average med school debt (180K) and have a 30 year pay back like most people.

this is my rough estimate:
50000 salary

minus 25% in taxes:
37500

minus loan payback, assuming not forbearing or hardship deferment:
22500

so that leaves roughly 22500 for life expenses.

assume 1300/mo for an apt: 15600
400/mo for food: 4800

leaving: 2100 for everything else. moving. furniture. other nice things.

crap.

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[yadayadadude]

Most "experts" recommend housing take up around 25-30% of your monthly (after taxes) budget. Your after tax income each month will probably be around $3K, so I'd try to spend around $800/month on rent or a mortgage. Even so, if you make $1250/m payments on your student loan, your budget is going to be seriously tight. You didn't mention: car payment, insurance, gasoline, utilities, phone, internet/cable, entertainment, clothing, health insurance, gym membership, etc. I'd say you're looking at deferment on at least some of those loans.

 

[alwaysaangel]

Is the 40k after taxes accurate?? For some reason I was under the impression that the salaries were typically 40k before taxes, but after would be awesome!

 

[emtji]

Is the 40k after taxes accurate?? For some reason I was under the impression that the salaries were typically 40k before taxes, but after would be awesome!

hmm, good point. looks like a hardship deferment. oh well.

as for salaries, pre tax, they seem to run the gamut. probably the worst i've seen (albeit in a cheaper area) was 43K/yr, while the best i've seen is closer to 50K a year.

 

[alwaysaangel]

hmm, good point. looks like a hardship deferment. oh well.

as for salaries, pre tax, they seem to run the gamut. probably the worst i've seen (albeit in a cheaper area) was 43K/yr, while the best i've seen is closer to 50K a year.

Sorry wasn't trying to make the outlook worse for you - I just thought you were right about the 50k and got excited.

Just remember that being out of school doesn't mean you can't just rent a room or have a roommate in an apartment. That would (depending on where you end up) put your rent at 500-9000 (including utilities) if you're smart about it. Food is doable at 200-300 if you're smart and cook for yourself most of the time. That puts you at like 700-1200 for living expenses. Leaving about half your monthly salary after taxes 1300-1800 per month to pay off loans and for other living expenses.

Completely doable if you just live frugally for 4 years.

I'm ideally hoping to still be with my bf when I get out of medical school. I plan to marry him and move in and have him cover our living costs for me while I use all my salary to pay back loans - which will put me way ahead of loan payments and save me a lot of money. So if you're in a long term relationship you should see what you can do about some relationship like that - would make life a lot simpler.

 

[dpmd]

That salary must be specialty dependent since I have been seeing stuff in the mid 30's and low 40's before taxes.

 

[emtji]

That salary must be specialty dependent since I have been seeing stuff in the mid 30's and low 40's before taxes.

it's the same across all specialties at all the hospitals that i've been at. maybe it's regional. i'm in the northeast- boston, new york, philadelphia.

 

[dpmd]

it's the same across all specialties at all the hospitals that i've been at. maybe it's regional. i'm in the northeast- boston, new york, philadelphia.

Could be. Most of the PGY 1 salaries I have seen have been in California with the higher numbers being on the east coast.

 

[Miami_med]

Freida from the AMA website has all of the residencies and salaries in the country for MDs. They run from the mid 30s to the mid 50s. The 50s are usually in NY or for FP programs that are having trouble filling. Low 40s is the norm.