<p>Oh, yeah. One more thing. Depending on location, she is unlikely to be able to contribute a nickel to loan re-payment during residency. Or maybe I should say, “unlikey to be willing to live frugally enough to contribute”. lol And that’s just fine by me. ;)</p>
<p>"@MiamiDAP, how you come up with the money to pay for your daughter’s med school is exactly how these kids will be paying off their loans -live under one’s means, no mystery here."
-Not possible. They have not accumulated retirement money yet. I am very close to retirement and can withdraw from 401K without penalty. My house is all paid, so I can take equity loans. We both work and DO NOT have any other dependents. None of these is true for the new resident. None whatsoever, do not mislead them. I have heard from many about having huge loans in hundreds of thousands for a very long time, I heard it from MDs with kids. These are facts for the most.</p>
<p>"If you never seen a single mom raising kids alone with 50k income, again, it merely means you never seen that, it does not mean this does not happen. I assume you know raising kid is not lesser a financial burden than paying debt. "
-it is much lesser until kid goes to college. Done it. There are garage sales for clothes, can buy bags for literally nothing, no trips to McDonald and stuff like that. Can spend within your means and tell them that you love them no matter if they are dressed in hand me downs. I have done living on much less than $50K / year, which is a very decent living. But I did not have to pay back thousands every months. My own education was practically free, my employers paid for it. We fully paid for our oldest and having the same plan for the younger. If plan does not work, then she will have loans, she knows that. However, looking at life with realistic expectations hopefully will help to reduce frustration, and this is the only goal that is doable. Keep yourself happy no matter what, nothing else works.
I am in complete synch with curmudgeon’s post above. I feel that our family situation is similar and the goals are the same. The plan is the plan. If it gets derailed, we will adjust.</p>
<p>A few points - </p>
<p>Residents can no longer defer, but banks are required to grant requests for forbearance with no questions asked. </p>
<p>I know of only one person in residency who attempted to fully pay what was due on their loans (without having a spouse). But they had a lower initial debt burden than most having lived at home for two years in med school.</p>
<p>@MiamiDAP, Were we talking about “paying thousands every month” during residency?
All the posts are still up here. Starting with Mike expressed “that their goal during residency is to pay enough back that the principal grows very slowly rather than genuinely accelerating away and becoming hopeless”.</p>
<p>I don’t know why you are so convinced that I am misleading people and have to speak in such an authoritative voice simply because things you have never heard of or don’t believe.</p>
<p>If I tell you that my child daycare fee was $130-$150/week (dropped to $40-$50/week after she started grade school thanks to public school), do you still think raising a child is much less a financial burden than paying interests on student loans? Was I comfortable then? Probably not. Was I struggling? At least I did not feel it. My job was stable and I never have to worry about paying rent or bringing food on table. I don’t remember buying anything that was not on clearance or on sales though, and I did not bother to think things I could not afford. </p>
<p>Nobody say debt is easy. But for future doctors who are not as fortunate as your daughter, they are not going to living in poverty because they have student loans. Barring any major unforeseen drastic changes of the Job prospects and earning potentials of the MD’s, I believe the average of $150K-$200K medical student debts is manageable. The debt is not going to cripple a doctor-being a resident doctor or attending doctor- as long as he does not quit his job, as long as he makes repaying debt a priority and disciplined to always live within/under his means.</p>
<p>Our D is living proof that loan repayment can begin during residency. She is an intern and began payments after about six months. It is income-based, and she pays around $500 each month. Her apartment/garage takes a good chunk of her salary - safety was important so the extra amount here is well worth it. Luckily, she does not have a car payment and we still pay insurance for the car. H still makes sure everything is in good working order. We also pay for her cell phone, as it is a small amount added to our family plan. Her refrigerator is not well stocked because she works so much that she does not eat too many meals at home, so her grocery bills are small. Somehow, she still manages to have a happy and active social life when she is not working - meals out with friends, travel, etc. When S finishes undergrad, H and I will be able to help her more if needed. We paid for her undergrad and are doing the same for S now.</p>
<p>I really hope a doctor can handle $150k to $200k student loan without lowering his living standard too much.
A related issue is that we are old and need to pay more attention to the accumulation of retirement account. It is not that we did not pay attention to this before; it was just not enough. With a small pension, social security and not enough assets, currently we may not be able to retire in a cheapest town. We have some catchup work to do there before we can no longer work.</p>
<p>happyfit,
I have raised couple kids, I know that you are much more flexible in cuttin cost of raising the kids vs. paying off the amount of Med. School loans. I am paying this tuition currently and the funds that are available to me are NOT there for the resident, period. If you are NOT paying thousands every month, you can call it repayment and I do not, that is where we disagree. if you are paying few hundreds of dollars (if this even possible at all), it will NOT make any visible dent in the amount of your debt. In case of my kid, she would have had about $300k of debt at the end of her Med. School (no debt from UG, she was on full tuition Merit award, but many have the debt from UG also).<br>
As a hypothetical example, say she pays $300 every single month (I personally think that it is not possible at all as her future cost of living might be very high at the expansive location, living in NYC close to your residency will not allow such a re-payment schedule). The $300 every month after average of 4 years will result in repaying $300 X 12 = $14,400. You might call it re-paying, I do not, not even close out of $300k.</p>