<p>Consider that the cable/internet/telephone likely includes two cell phone bills. Even shared cell plans will probably run them close to $100 a month.
High speed internet is a must. Researching on pubmed is agonizingly slow over dial up (believe me, I’ve done it). Many medical schools strongly require that students have high speed access, so I don’t find surprising that hospitals would demand the same from their residents. Depending on what sort of stuff they have available to them (ie blackboard), there are a lot of videos available on line. Several of the departments at my school videotape all their noon conferences and make them available online, and residents can fulfill their required attendance by watching them online. </p>
<p>Also I’ve heard rumblings of some hospitals are dropping their pager services (because pagers are such outdated technology and it’s getting harder to find people to service them and such) and just using cell phones. Not saying I’ve verified this, but I’ve heard it as fourth and fifth hand information. </p>
<p>Food budget - most residency programs include lunch programs and provide money for food while on call. Usually only $5-10/day, but it can help a lot. </p>
<p>Gifts seem a lot, but who knows how large their families are. I have friends with 7 brothers and sisters married to girls with 5 siblings. By their own admission they don’t feel like they’ve yet reached that critical mass/set of ages where they can go to drawing names and only spending limited amounts on christmas gifts. So everyone buys for everyone for the most part, and it gets expensive.</p>