Match Day is coming up, and soon 4th year medical students will find out where they will be training for the next several years.
Best of luck to those waiting to hear the news, I hope any senior medical students reading are happy with their result.
From a financial standpoint, making the transition from a tuition-paying, negative income flow state to working (and paycheck earning) is huge.
Making better decisions during residency can really set you up for financial success as an attending.
I don’t like to imply that if you don’t get it right now, you’ll be doomed, because that isn’t true. However, you can really make your attending life easier based on habits you build earlier.
I’ve written about this several times over the past years. If you’d like to read my thoughts in longer form, here are several of my prior posts:
- Budgeting for intern year (2019).
- What should you budget for intern year? (2020).
- What is a good budget for intern year? (2021).
- What should you budget for intern year in 2022?.
- Sample budgets for intern year (also 2022).
- Building a budget for intern year (2024).
However, if you just want a short list to consider, this would be my (financial) advice for the coming years:
- Figure out how much you will be earning each month, and make sure that you don’t spend more than you make. A paycheck calculator can help you estimate your income before you actually get that first check; this will it easier to make plans now.
- Build some savings into your budget. Shoot for 20%, which will likely be about $800 a month. This leaves you some wiggle room in case your proposed budget is off. If it turns out you can “only” save $500 a month (or $200 a month), that’s still better than spending more than you earn.
- Once you know how much you can really afford to save, consider a retirement account. But only after you have something put aside for emergencies.
- Make sure that your housing costs are reasonable for your income. Given the average resident salary, this comes out to $1000-1500 per month. If rent is much higher where you will be living, consider splitting rent with a roommate.
- Also make sure you include your student loan payment(s) in your budget. If it turns out you don’t have to make payments for a few months, that money can help build up an emergency fund.
Do you have any other advice for graduating med students? Or, are you a med student looking for advice?