Wellllll, I'm not quite there yet. This has been a blog post that I have been waiting very patiently to put up. The picture above explains how I felt when graduating from medical school in 2012. The money from being an attending seemed so far away, and the reality of student loans came full force.
The man in charge of student loans at our school had no way to relate to us soon to be medical school graduates. He said, " I did not have to deal with this when I graduated from school." He showed use a calculation where our 200K in debt would ballon to closer to 400K or more if we used the total 10 years for repayment. We were all graduating from a private medical school in an expensive city. Our loans averaged close to $200,000 and may more- including myself, who do not come from privileged families - had even more debt than that. Probably around $240. We had to do atleast 3-7 years of residency, getting paid way below what someone of our education level should be paid, before we can even think about tackling these loans. It was SCARY.
2 years later, I am around 3/4 done paying off medical school. I am fortunate because my husband is a physician in practice. But the main reason we are able to do this is sacrifice, sacrifice, sacrifice! We are living well below our means. We don't have cable. I don't have a smart phone. We don't drive luxury cars. We live in cheap housing. We don't take excessive or expensive trips. I buy and sell things on Ebay. I never buy clothing at retail.
This I believe is the key to getting out of debt and getting out quick.
My husband and I realized that financial freedom is more important than ANY material good. I don't need an expensive car to show off my worth as a person. An average car will do just fine.
The plan is to pay off medical school in the next 2-3 months. I wanted to write this post to inspire others to make similar changes to be debt free quicker.
Good luck to everyone! Whether college, law school, or medical school debt.
