Starting life at null

[RocDoc]

You are both doing so well already! Keep up the good work.

I agree with CM above and would avoid moonlighting during residency. Take the time to enjoy your studying and concentrate on becoming good doctors.

if you have an interest, I would highly recommend doing some extra electives and training in the emergency room at your teaching hospital and becoming comfortable doing emergency procedures. If you enjoy emergency medicine, there's a huge need for family medicine doctors who can help staff shifts in the emergency room of their rural hospital. The emergency room work keeps you sharp and can be so interesting. (The pay is excellent too!)

[hightower]

Congrats on being almost done with school.  I agree with the advice given above, except I don't think you need to buy extra life or disability insurance yet.  Wait until you're done with residency.  Start contributing to tax advantaged space as much as you can stand to part with.  Study hard, work hard, play hard.

Just curious, how did you both manage to get through school with no debt?  That's incredible and very rare these days.

[Dreamgiver]

In addition to what was said above, group DI is generally worth very little, you need a good personal DI policy. I would not worry about life insurance at this point in your life, wait until you have kids.

[fmresident12]

My father is a construction forman and part of a workers union (great retirement and health benefits.) My mother is a court reporter. Combined they probably generate 150k a year. we rarely ate out, drove used cars, lived in a small house inherited from my great grand parents, took one beach vacation a year to which we drove. My parents were able to save about 5-10,000 per year for mine and my siblings college education by treating our education like a house payment since our house was paid off and inherited. My father had taken my college fund out of the stock market before the 2008 financial collapse. I graduated high school in 2010 and due to him being risk averse it never took a serious hit. Starting when I was 16 I began working on a farm every Saturday and on school breaks for minimum wage. I would earn around 12,000 every summer. My senoir year of high school I was named a presidential scholar and recieved full tuition and a living stipend at my university. The scholarship covered my undergraduate bill in its entirety including living. It was a state school and my father told me to go wherever it made the most sense financially even though I was accepted to schools like Duke, Vandy, Emory, etc. I continued to work every summer and also tutored for the university and was a lab TA. I continued to save my money. I rarely ate out or went out, rarely bought clothes or anything I didn't need. The TA job was my fun money for things like going to the beach for spring break, camping, having a beer with friends, dating girls here and there.

Then I was accepted to the state's public medical school at a tuition of around 30,000 a year my senior year of college. 120,000 total tuition + 18000 living/year= around 200,000. my college fund was around 150,000 plus the 40,000 I had saved from working in high school and college. So I knew I would be a little short. I worked the summer between undergrad and med school, the first and second summer of medical school at the same farm as I always had and made 12,000 between undergrad and med school, 12,000 the first summer and 6,000 the second because I couldn't work the full second summer due to step 1. I knew from shadowing in undergrad that I wanted to do Family medicine in a rural area so I knew research wasn't nearly as important to me as staying debt free. I did well in all my classes and average on step 1 (very competitive for FM). Then my third year I went to a regional campus and commuted 45 minutes from my home living with my parents to help save on living expenses as 18,000 a year wasn't quite enough for living in the city the first two years. These past 2 years doing that has averaged living out at 18,000 per year and allowed me to pay for my step 1, step 2 ck and cs, plus uworld for studying, and ERAS. For travel my fiancé and I have driven to every interview and scheduled them as close as geographically possible. A perk of Family Medicine is all but one program has paid for our hotel room the night before.

My fiancé has a similar background and was a collegiate athlete and that is how her undergrad was covered. She had a larger education fund than I did but still not quite enough. However she spent 3 years working as a scribe before medical school and that has helped her make up the difference between her education savings and the total cost. We met our first year and began dating. She also went to a different regional campus 3rd year and commuted from her home and we made an effort to see each other every other weekend. 4th year we have done most of our rotations in the same place and have spent the entire year together. We got engaged this past summer, did well on step 2, have volunteered throughout school, and have been rewarded with lots of interview offers and feel very good about matching together. She is very cost conscious and we are very excited about building our life together.

We definitely know we are in the minority when it comes to loans and are thankful for how much our families have helped set us up in this situation. Not only from a financial stand point but also in the morals we were raised with and continue to live by. I hope this explains how we were able to make it through school without any debt through help from our family combined with hard work and a cost conscious attitude.

[fasteddie911]

Well done, and really there's no need to explain why you're debt free or feel any guilt or judgment.  On 2 resident salaries there should be good room for savings as well as living a comfortable lifestyle.  Definitely consider saving in a roth and 401k, you can max your roth for 2018 and maybe start working on the 401k.  Be conscious of your tax bracket, at 110k income and standard deduction, you're in the 25% bracket, you can bring that down with the 401k usage.  Eventually, maybe you could consider getting to the point of maxing the 401k, but that depends on your expenses, not sure if a new car is on the horizon, how much healthcare costs, expenses for housing, activities, travel, etc.  Residency is a great time to travel too, especially with no kids yet.  However, I wouldn't worry over differences in a few thousand in contributions, likely won't make a huge difference in the long term.  If you want to moonlight, I say go for it, especially if you both can moonlight together, that way one of you isn't waiting around and you can make double.  I also would recommend DI, not necessarily for coverage in case something happens in residency, but to maintain insurability.  I knew a few people in residency that got into accidents, one that had to miss a few months to recover and rehab.  You never know what can happen and if it might lead to an exemption on your policy (if you didn't have one in place) or cause recurring issues years down the road that would require DI benefit usage.  Despite being in a "low" paying field, being a dual-MD couple will have you setup on a nice financial path for years to come.

[jz]

Not now,  but 5 years from now, start learning the labyrinthine agricultural tax laws.  Then hire a agriculture specialist CPA to teach you more.  If you purchase agriculture land - favorable cost, favorable finance rate, favorable cycle-  you could pay for land instead of paying income taxes.

[Dreamgiver]

jz wrote:

Not now,  but 5 years from now, start learning the labyrinthine agricultural tax laws.  Then hire a agriculture specialist CPA to teach you more.  If you purchase agriculture land – favorable cost, favorable finance rate, favorable cycle-  you could pay for land instead of paying income taxes.

Click to expand...

Please offer some guidance and teach me more. My in-laws rent out a 400-acre farm in Iowa and I think they'd be interested in selling it.

[SValleyMD]

Geez. U guys are set

2 physician income famiky with no debt and your guys history, habits and track record

I would forget about moonlighting too.

Enjoy life and the journey and you’ll guys hit FI incredibly quick I’m sure

Good job

[jz]

@dreamgiver,   I have no direct involvement with agricultural  real estate .  What I've gleaned from  friends, relatives, and physician friends who own farm land:

1) more advantageous to actually plant crops than to be a passive owner only.  2)  important to buy on best terms in the business cycle at low interest rates. 3) owners can be  paid simply to leave land fallow. 4) crop insurance is paid by some gov't program.

For a physician, the ideal is to channel excess income into land, and then pay no income taxes.