<p>For a young single person, a resident’s salary is actually not bad, although it will be hard to save very much. If your spouse works, then even for a family the income is very reasonable.</p>
<p>The problem with residency is twofold. First, many of them are carrying strikingly high debt loads; the national average is something like $150K, meaning a “standard” debt repayment plan will be about $1700/month ($21,000 a year). That’s… a lot of money, especially in after-tax dollars. And that’s just the AVERAGE.</p>
<p>The second issue is that residents are BUSY, and a lot of being frugal takes time: shopping around, tracking a budget, that sort of thing. That can be really hard when you’re at the hospital 80+ hours/week.</p>