The disconnect notice...

 I just walked in home after being gone for several days ‘back home’. We had such a great time with family and friends who we miss tons since moving for med school.  As we drove through KS my husband and I could do nothing but talk and enjoy being stuck with each other.  My husband made me laugh for most of the trip and we truly had a blast.  At some point I told hubby I was having a very ‘glass half full’ kind of day to which he agreed.  Truly, all was well in my world. 

So much joy, something had to give.

Upon our arrival we retrieved our mail and what do I find? A disconnect notice from our gas company.  Apparently, I forgot to pay the bill last month and since we were gone for a couple of weeks, the disconnect notices piled up in our mail box.  When will they disconnect our gas? Tomorrow.  It’s too late to pay over the phone tonight so I wait until tomorrow to deal with it all.  Will I pay the disconnect fee and who knows what else? Probably.  While I am trying to get this issue taken care of my sweet five year old boy has informed me that while we were gone his stuffed collection of ‘Angry Birds’ has shrunk and it's a terrible problem that we truly have to deal with right now. Of course it is.

At this point, perhaps you are wondering why I am sharing this non-sense with you.  My answer to you is, blame the hubs.  During my various forms of stressing, he smiled and said “You should post about this”.  I raised my metaphorical eyebrow at him to which he simply explained that there is probably a pre-med wife wondering if there will be enough money to pay the bills while in med school.  He thinks I should share this story to ease your budget concerns, if you have them.  In his words ‘you have the money to pay the bill but your life is just too ridiculous sometimes and you forget to pay a bill here and there’. 

He is kind of right.  Depending on where you live, there is enough money to pay the bills.  We are in the Midwest so cost of living is fairly low.  I’m a stay at home mom and we have managed to do okay.  We live in a tiny apartment, our cars are not new but they are paid for, there is food on the table every day and the basic bills get paid.  Before starting medical school, I didn't see how our budget would work since I stay home. I am happy to say that with some sacrifices and quite a bit of planning it works.  

I hope that if you have been stressing about your future budget once your husband enters medical school, this post gives you a bit of hope.  If not, remember there are lots of families in medical school and they are making it work.  Yes, some financial sacrifices are made but it can be done.   It’s not always super fun and your list of what is a necessity changes a bit.  It is a challenge but not impossible.  I share this with you not to give you a false sense of security but so that you may be encouraged with the knowledge that it can be done and a lot of us are doing it.  If you are following this blog, I encourage you to read the posts by others who give wonderful tips on how to budget when in medical school including the post by Melissa Stringham.  While her post comes from a residency point of view, her tips translate well to medical school.  I follow most of them and find her list to be very helpful.

No matter where you are in the medical journey, I wish you all the best of luck.  Now, I wait for the morning to arrive to hopefully pay my very late bill and keep some of my utilities on.