Blog Post #4: Finances for Future Lifestyle

In fifteen years I may be a certified medical practitioner, but this will only be true if I graduate from college, go to medical school, and finish my residency program without any breaks in between. One of the paths to become an interventional radiologist is to go through the DIRECT route of six years of training before testing for certification. To give myself a little more leeway (because fourteen years of nonstop learning sounds overwhelming), this plan is predicting my lifestyle in ten years. In ten years I will be a first year resident with all the stress and hours of a medical student, but at least I will be getting paid?

• The total of my future expenses each year will be maybe $36,000 if I have roommates to split the monthly rent. I know this is logical because my primary sources for information are from blogs of people currently living in New York City and expatarrivals.com. 
• According to salary2014.com I can likely count on making around $45,000 for the first year. Towards the end of the residency I can make upwards of $60,000 each year in my future job as a radiology resident. My education/training to get that job will cost $280,000 (expenses and books without aid) for medical school and around $80,000 in total for college (with financial aid, but little grants and scholarships). In total, this may amount to $360,000 for all years of training. 
• For my “rainy day” fund I want to have six months of living expenses - this amount will total $18,000… and may take a couple years to reach if I want to save for retirement as well. I want to save 10% of my income each year for my retirement fund. This will total to $4,500 the first year, but this amount will continually increase as my income raises as well. for retirement each year. If I save for retirement each year, by the time I am 65 years old I want to have at least $2 million plus interest. This amount is based off of information from moneyunder30.com.
• Comparing my future income and expenses makes me think that I am going to be in debt and living off of cheap instant noodles for a long time. For that first year as a resident I will be scraping by if I really spend $3,000 a month, save $4,500 yearly, AND try to save some for a rainy day. Hopefully if I stick with it, then everything will pay off in the end and I will be able to live comfortably and do whatever I missed in my years of living with too much stress and a too empty wallet.