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[quote=Anonymous]OP here...I know I said thanks a few times, but I just want to express how much it means to get this kind of help from an anonymous forum. This financial stuff has weighed very heavy on me since DD was born, before which I was basically a financial disaster. No big debt other than school, but to say I wasn't on a budget is a bit of an understatement. Like many of my peers out of residency, I felt fatigued after eight years of being a broke student/resident. When you finally start making some money, despite the looming loans, it's really easy to eat out, go out, take crazy trips, etc. And for a few years I had a lot of fun.

The interesting thing about it though, is that it didn't take long to feel pretty hollow. DD coming along whipped my life into shape pretty fast, but what's interesting is that feeling accountable to someone/something adds meaning to my life that all those luxuries could never provide, even if our lifestyle is much leaner. It also helps to get a daily reminder through my job that, compared to many other families, our struggle is quite minimal. When my non-English speaking patients tell me that their toddler is back in their home country with grandparents and they are sending money back from their cleaning job, it really hits home.

Being a single parent is lonely sometimes, and while I'm actually quite happy with just DD and I for now, one of the hardest things is not having a partner to run stuff by when it comes to big life decisions. Rent or own? Save or invest? An earlier poster chided that "for a doctor", I'm not very smart. Not a helpful comment, obvs. But when it comes to $$, it's not inaccurate. Given the average debt incurred by American medical students (119K for public med schools, 150K for private, usually in our 20's, and those are 2003 numbers), it's surprising the amount of financial counseling we receive; i.e. zero. I think about folks incurring signif debt for undergrad and imagine it's worse.

Anyway, I'm psyched about this plan, and it's an exciting way to enter 2014. Thanks all![/quote]

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