If you have a little spare time, do you bother entering competitions, answering surveys, becoming a mystery shopper and the likes to make a little extra money, or is it just a waste of time?

Also, upon graduation, you have very little say about where you will live. It all depends on where you get “matched” to for residency. Take that into consideration for housing; I would advise against buying, since when the time comes to move you may or may not be able to sell quickly.

If you like basic science and research, consider a MD/Ph.D. program. They sometimes pay for you to go to school, and you get out with a dual degree. If you decide that medical practice is not the way you want to go, you have a research degree that gives you added flexibility.

Bless you for wanting to be a doctor; I just hope you aren’t planning to go into it for the money!

Like I said, I’d be unwilling to buy a place the size that I’m willing to rent. So I pocket and invest the difference, have the freedom to easily move, and most importantly am not cash flow poor. I’m not saying that everyone who buys is cash poor (hardly), but to buy something where I live, I would have to devote a crazy percent of my take home to a mortgage. No thank you.

To say that buying is automatically the best choice is foolish, especially in very expensive markets.

One point I would consider if planning to buy a house to raise a family in is the location of the property in a good school district (unless you plan to pay for private schools).

It won’t pay to buy a house now that you’d be happy to raise a family in, only to find later that you’re living in a bad school district where public schools are unacceptable and you’ll have to either move later or pay for private schools.

This is something that does not occur to most young couples looking for a home if they don’t have children or friends with school age children.

All school districts are NOT created equal, and home values in an area are impacted by the quality of public education. Being a couple of streets out of the best district will be cheaper, but will have a huge cost in the long run.

I’ve seen this happen to several couples, including my sister, who is home-schooling 4 kids because they are currently tied to a house they can’t sell, in a bad school district.

Just something to think about before making a long-term commitment to a house.

Instead of thinking of the Emergency Fund as a number of months you should use the number of months as a guideline to make your fund and then just think of the fund as that amount of dollars.

I think the hang up people have with this concept is that they hear “6 months” and think the only emergency might be losing your job and you’d need the 6 months to find a new job. Therefore, when you have kids your fund would be larger but only because of the extra expenses.

The extra months, as Trent said, are for extra emergencies that happen with extra people. So instead of thinking of the Fund in terms of how many months you might need to survive without a job think about the amount of money you might need if your child got sick while you were out of work and your car broke down… all at the same time.

More people = more money (rather than more months)

An additional question. What about a 529 plan for myself?

Otherwise thanks to those who’ve responded thus far. :)

Real Estate is a LONG term investment. Purchased my home in 1984 for $168K – today worth $1.9 million AFTER allowing for drop in housing market. Renting only makes sense when you know you will be moving in 2 years or less. Yes there are costs beyond a mortgage but many are tax deductable for the owner. Renters pay those same costs as part of their rent but do not see the tax advantages.

By the way, the scam I’m referring to is the picture of a check and the link titled “How I Make $1700 A Week Posting on Google” and links to http://www.kevinlifeblog.com/index.php?sub=vccpa

and there’s a breakdown of the scam here:

http://electronplumber.com/facebook-google-money-tree-google-cash-and-google-kits-part-time-work-scams/

It depends on if the student loan is subsidized versus unsubsidized. Subsidized loans are loans by the federal government to eligible individuals based on financial need. The interest is not accrued during deferment. Unsubsidized loans accrue interest even if the loan is deferred. You can also get private student loans, outside of the government loans, from a lender like Citibank.

With medical school costing quite a lot of money, even a “low interest rate” student loan can acquire a substantial amount of interest while on deferral.

Also think about the home size that is very re-saleable in your area. If most people have 3 bedrooms and you buy a 2 bedroom, you may have a hard time selling when you want. 3 bedrooms minimum is good for a small family. Young children can share a room if necessary, so 4 bedrooms isn’t required right away if you’re planning on have 2 or more children.

So while bulk food discounts can be good (we always get our cheese, eggs, cereal there), there can be huge savings in the other sections of the store (like Lisa #19 said).