Your insight please?

[scarlett09]

I don't know anything about life after residency. At first, I thought maybe she was attempting to be sarcastic. But then I realized that she has a lot of visions of grandeur about what it will really be like. And that maybe she's a bit full of herself. JMHO.

Oh, and she seems a bit down on Philly. Which doesn't jive too well with me.

[madeintaiwan]

Sorry for being ignorant (I'm very new), but I'm no familiar with the private forums or how to use them. Should I not have posted on this subject?

There are some forums that are private to which you gain access after a minimum post requirement and granted entrance from an Admin [members whose names are in bold]. Some people are more willing to speak more about more personal subjects in the private forums. Medicine is a very small world. You can always ask, but if your responses are few, that may be the reason why.

[madeintaiwan]

what am i saying is to be very careful when you hold yourself out to be a victim, and consider what your "suffering" may sound like to other people.

Everyone here can understand "where she's coming from"--we've all gone without in the name of getting through training. Her story is not interesting or unique, but nevertheless, she seems to be under the impression that she is "due" something for having gone through it.

Here's the deal: If you are "suffering" residency in the name of money and social prestige, you are going to be sorely disappointed. You'll probably just find some other reason to declare yourself a victim after residency (his hours, his pay--it's never enough, your house, whatever). Only, next time around, you'll sound even more tone deaf.

If she wants some inspiration, she should consider this: Life is hard, and it's a lot of hard work, so get over it. It's a privilege to be able to get the training to be able to be an attending and provide for your family. Thank your lucky stars that you have this opportunity. And, no matter how hard it is at times, it's not exactly like it is a life sentence in a turkish prison camp. Get over yourself.

ita!!!

[v-girl]

I just want to be able to go out and get a mani/pedi or visit the hair salon without planning and budgeting for it for months in advance.

[PrincessFiona]

So...why does everyone feel so negatively about this blogger? Wasn't she expressing what so many of us have from time-to-time...the dream of being able to afford more and do more? Heck...I'm still waiting LOL but I have plans for that dream house/furniture/vacation too.... I'm feeling...vapid...

Kris

[ladymoreta]

I'm with LilySayWhat - DH is going into anesthesiology, but with healthcare reform, we are anticipating a huge hit to the salary he was "expecting". (In quotes because we've kind of anticipated anesthesiology salaries to go down, just not by as much as they likely will with new government regulations.) We are so far behind on our retirement, and we have a balloon mortgage payment due about 5 years after residency, our cars are worth less than it's costing us to repair them so we'll need new (used) ones really soon after residency, plus all his medical school debt and some credit card debt. We're hoping to just get a little breathing room in the first few years. Definitely not planning on anything dramatically changing at first. Ideally, we'll stay in this city so we can live in our current house for a few more years.

But I do admit to dreaming sometimes, and I think that's probably what she was getting at. I've built my dream car on the Jaguar website, and I've looked up million dollar homes on Zillow. Not that I expect to get them, but it just helps sometimes when I'm having a rough day or money is tight. Heck, some days I just dream about being able to buy a pair of jeans that actually fits instead of ones that are on the clearance rack at Ross! To me, it's all dreaming big!

[Thirteen]

The residual anger? Probably comes from little seeds of inner resentment that say "We took a chance, and it was a big risk, and the benefits don't seem to add up to the costs" sometimes. I've been there, and I think DH has too.
I don't really feel like we "did without" that much, as we are still very new in our marriage and the "I can't afford anything" situation of being in college and in L.A. started about 7 yrs. ago for me.
Sometimes I get bitter regarding our living situation, but it's temporary and I know it won't be like that forever.

I think about our home sometimes, but I admit I don't know what it will be/where we will be. It's more about that feeling of "our home" and decorating that I look forward to experiencing. I'm fine with IKEA/garage sale/secondhand furniture. I'm cool with my used Honda. I love my husband, and I love spending time with him.

...But I like daydreaming about color schemes, our brand new car, babies, and being out of debt. Mmmm, no debt. *drool*

[SoonerTexan]

It looks like MarissaNicole is an admin for that blog. Perhaps she has more insight on what the poster's expanded view towards it all is.

[Ladybug]

I think we've all daydreamed about what life will be like on the other end, and if money is your biggest source of current stress then it seems reasonable that your daydreams center around money and having unlimited choices. I think the original poster was asking if things would change that much regarding finances, and I'd say the biggest change post training is your finanaces and choices. I don't think the blogger's ideas about finances post training are realistic, but I don't think our daydreams about retirement are realistic either, but, hey, something has to get you out of bed each day. We know a lot of post training medical families and I don't know anyone that lives the life the blogger projected. Most people do live comfortably though, and feel very blessed to have the choices that they do. My best piece of advice would be to save and go without as much as possible in training. I fell into the trap of thinking we would make so much money someday and I'd easily be able to pay off our debts. It hasn't worked out that way. The taxes are C-R-A-Z-Y and you're starting off with nothing. We had no cars, no furniture, no house, no retirement savings, no savings. It takes years to put a dent in all that. So be as frugile as possible in training. It's the small amount of financial control that you do have right now. If I could go back and talk some sense into myself at the beginning of this journey that's the most significant piece of advice I'd have to offer. Although our income sounds big on paper, we're definitely not rolling in it either. Be realistic, dream big and save bigger. High incomes usually come at a high price. They don't give the money away for nothing, but that's all in the fine print...

P.S. We do have a house cleaner now and my house sparkles today. Even the Target furniture.

[GrayMatterWife]

So...why does everyone feel so negatively about this blogger? Wasn't she expressing what so many of us have from time-to-time...the dream of being able to afford more and do more? Heck...I'm still waiting LOL but I have plans for that dream house/furniture/vacation too.... I'm feeling...vapid...

Kris

I reacted the way I did because she seems shallow and immature. I think it's great to dream about the future. I dream about going to Turkey post-residency and sending my folks on the cruise they'd never spend the money on themselves, and traveling more. It's just that I know a LOT of women like her--"I can't wait until residency is over because I have suffered so long and so hard because I didn't a have a [big house in the burbs] [Porsche] [etc.]" Yuck. They moan and bitch and carry on about how much they suffer and their great and noble sacrifices. And, invariably, it's not really suffering--it's how most people live their whole lives. And their life experience with suffering is so superficial that they actually believe their own crap. It's not sacrificing if you "endure" it for a payoff later--it's just a gamble on delayed gratification.

There was something that rubbed me wrong about her remark about how it would feel to write a five-digit check to charity. It's all about her! Even charitable giving.

But I'm in a really snarky mood today.

I think we've all daydreamed about what life will be like on the other end, and if money is your biggest source of current stress then it seems reasonable that your daydreams center around money and having unlimited choices. I think the original poster was asking if things would change that much regarding finances, and I'd say the biggest change post training is your finanaces and choices. I don't think the blogger's ideas about finances post training are realistic, but I don't think our daydreams about retirement are realistic either, but, hey, something has to get you out of bed each day. We know a lot of post training medical families and I don't know anyone that lives the life the blogger projected. Most people do live comfortably though, and feel very blessed to have the choices that they do. My best piece of advice would be to save and go without as much as possible in training. I fell into the trap of thinking we would make so much money someday and I'd easily be able to pay off our debts. It hasn't worked out that way. The taxes are C-R-A-Z-Y and you're starting off with nothing. We had no cars, no furniture, no house, no retirement savings, no savings. It takes years to put a dent in all that. So be as frugile as possible in training. It's the small amount of financial control that you do have right now. If I could go back and talk some sense into myself at the beginning of this journey that's the most significant piece of advice I'd have to offer. Although our income sounds big on paper, we're definitely not rolling in it either. Be realistic, dream big and save bigger. High incomes usually come at a high price. They don't give the money away for nothing, but that's all in the fine print...

P.S. We do have a house cleaner now and my house sparkles today. Even the Target furniture.

EVERYTHING that Ladybug said. EVERYTHING.

I initially stayed away from this thread b/c my original response was more along the lines of HouseElf and her snot bubbles, combined with Abigail's general disdain for the post in the first place. Ladybug said it all much, much more kindly than I would have (but I still wholeheartedly 2nd about 99% of what Abigail wrote, too).

[Phoebe]

I just skimmed the blog. To answer the original poster's question, DH is starting his 7th year out-of-training. It was a hard realization for me that it took a good two years to recover from medical training both emotionally and financially. We still struggle physically because like many people on this board we (I) are raising young children and DH's hours are rough. Even on his off days he still will go see patients and writes and gives lectures. Also, like others we don't like nearby family. The paychecks are obviously much better, but my 5 figure checks go to Salle Mae and will be for the next couple decades. A couple of years ago we traded some really nice vacations for a really nice house that I have not decorated yet. We still live paycheck to paycheck on some months, but we are all squared away with credit card debt. Kids are expensive. Our neighbors just hired a 40-hour-a-week nanny after the birth of their second child. They aren't in the medical field. While in training it is easy to look forward to the days where things will be a lot easier. It doesn't happen right out of the gate. Things will get better!

You all are awesome! Thank you for your straight-forward responses. You have helped me to understand the reality of it a little more, but also told me the things I can honestly be looking forward to... which helps on those more difficult days I really appreciate all of your honesty! (and no, I do not know the author of that blog post... it is just a website I came across while blog-hopping one day)

[Vanquisher]

This is really, super difficult for me to answer. I have mentally thought of responses and then thought I should just back away. Here I am though, posting like an idiot in search of trouble. I didn't think her blog post sounded THAT bad, not to get the bashing she is receiving here. I come from a bit of a different perspective than most here, and maybe that's why, but I don't see what is so wrong about being a little naive. God, if I could only be naive again. It's so much better than this bitter, hateful, hag that I have become. I remember when I used to be hopeful that I would have many of the things she listed.

Do any of you remember the movie, "The Fugitive?" Remember the part where they are flashing back to the charity dinner in tuxedos? I don't know why, but that image is stuck in my head. Images like that were my childhood/teen visions of people with money, doctors with money. I always assumed that doctors had money. Buckets of it.

Anyway, I grew up on food stamps. My dad was a high school math teacher, and my family still qualified for food stamps. We were a family of 5 that lived in a drug neighborhood in a split level home of 1000 square feet. I think he made something like 10,000 a year back then. My mom went to school and starting teaching when I was 10. We literally moved on up to the east side after that. It made a huge impression on me. My parents always struggled, even with 2 incomes, but we didn't have to have food stamps or WIC after that. Ahhh, King Vitamin cereal, almost just like Cap'n Crunch.

I got married very young, had kids very young. I have struggled. I have struggled physically, emotionally, mentally, and financially. I have no doubt in my mind that there isn't a single person in this board who has more debt than we do. In medical school, I had a child in preschool and kindergarten. He got free lunch. We were on WIC and medicaid. Our rent was $750 a month. It was as cheap as we could find. We got about $1000 a month to live on with student loans, $6000, twice a year. Inevitably, the money ran out. We put rent and food on credit cards more often than I would like. We had one car until 4th year, and we lived far away from the school because rent was cheaper. We took out every loan we could qualify for. We had some undergraduate debt too. I remember thinking that $35,000 a year was such a crapload of money. How nice would it be to not have to worry about buying bread.

So, residency was a huge shock. The money did not go as far as I thought. Obviously. Granted, we were not as careful as we should have been, but we weren't big spenders either. And, we came out of residency with far, far more debt than I imagined. Some of that was our fault, but most of it really wasn't. We couldn't have foreseen the six-figure lawyer expense, for example.

However, with all that, I have to believe that someday I will be able to go to the grocery store without checking my bank balance first. Her blog post may have been a bit naive, but maybe she was using some hyperbole? Maybe she is blissfully ignorant. How the hell do you make it through otherwise?

I think it will take us 2-3 years of aggressive paying to get out of our consumer and lawyer debt. Student loans don't even count. They will be there at 1.75% interest for 27 years, and 2.75 for the first 3. We live in an apartment now. It is certainly not what I envisioned while I dreamed of the future. I do think that most of us are far from perfect, and we should cut some slack. After all, I often feel inferior and "less than" on this website for my choices to shop at Wal-Mart, buy regular, inorganic food, send my kids to public school, wear Payless shoes, etc. I think we all have our moments of vapidness and shallowness. Have we all lost our ability to dream. Sven, where have you gone? Champagne? Orgasms?

[diggitydot]

Quite a few times, I've gotten the proverbial eye roll. I wonder why this is...

Random different people don't roll their eyes at you without some kind of reason. Honestly, I don't think the blog writer is terribly toxic or even a horrible person. I get the vibe that she's incapable of picking up on social cues and is a tad immature.

And, just an FYI -- I'm fairly certain that a good portion of their audience lurk here, as well.