to rent or to buy?

Pros of each:

BUYING PROS:

• Monthly payments are like putting away into a savings account (towards your equity.)
• Job security – we know for a fact we will be in this city for the next 4-8 years if not longer.
• The thought of moving AGAIN in the next year makes me nauseous. I am a bad decorator when I know I am leaving in a few months. What's the point when it might not fit in the next place you live? I would love to finally settle in and buy curtains.
• Great time to buy.
• Sense of freedom to create your own.

RENTING PROS:

• A landlord is responsible. StuDoc will not be accessible to do as many honey-to-dos around the house as he would like (as I would like). Therefore, it would be nice to have someone else responsible and to turn to. I like to think I can do a lot on my own, but lets be honest... I can't even reach the top shelf of the kitchen cabinets without climbing on the counters.
• A chance to figure out what is important to us when we do buy.
• We don't feel comfortable using our loan money given to us to buy a house. For example, using a loan to pay a loan. It is important to us to always live within our means and never take more than we NEED.
• Take the time to get to know the area (communities, school districts, all those things to consider when re-selling).

The ideal situation would be rent the first year and buy it the following year if we really enjoy the property. If the PERFECT house presents itself we will consider. Here are some things that are important to us while we are searching.

1. Close to campus. – at our pre-orientation at TCOM there was one family who lived 2 blocks away and was able to meet and have lunch and dinner with her husband and their little girl on campus everyday. Another woman said that they bought a house in a cute little town outside of the big city and it was the worst decision they made. It took her husband 45 minutes to get to campus. What a waste of time driving.
2. Backyard – a good backyard for Boss. This apartment dog deserves it! He will just need to learn to be a little more independent and not have to ALWAYS be around people. As cute as he is, this gets really annoying sometimes.
3. Three-four bedrooms - It is important to this StuDoc to have a nice, quiet, organized study room. This will help our time management and give him a chance to spend more time at home. Since we will not be able to travel much, we want to have enough space for people to come visit us.
4. Open kitchen - I have realized growing up how important having a large open kitchen is to me. When my brother and I would come home from college or family would visit, it was always the kitchen where we would meet, eat, and greet. It allowed my parents to make dinner provide snacks, but not be secluded from conversation.

It is exciting to think that we will soon be picking out OUR FIRST HOME.

Medical School class of 2015

We finally know where we will be living for the next four to who knows how many years!  We will be attending  North Texas Health Science Center  in Ft. Worth for medical school.

  I wanted to give a little information/background on it, and just why we are so excited.  People that attend UNTHSC also refer to it as TCOM so if I say TCOM you know what I mean. In the past year TCOM was ranked the number 11 medical school in the country as far as producing family doctors and number  19th in primary care (two behind Harvard for 1/3 of the price!).  Now, I am not necessarily interested in those specialities, but I still think that it is a  noteworthy accomplishment.  TCOM has a brand new state of the art facility and is located in the beautiful cultural district of Ft. Worth.  There are a lot of things to do and see in Ft. Worth which is vastly different than some of the others schools we could have ended up at!  TCOM has a great systems based curriculum, and I will be doing my clerkships or rotations around the Dallas/Ft. Worth area.

The first and second year of medical school are referred to as the PreClinical years and they are were you learn all your fun basic sciences again (biochemistry, molecular biology, etc.) and then also systematically learn anatomy and pathologies (diseases) and the mechanisms by which drugs can be used to treat those diseases.  So what that means for family life is incomprehensible hours studying and taking advantage of family time with my wife when it exists. Now that sounds morbid, but we will have to become experts at time management and not take any time together for granted.  My beautiful wife knows that the only reason I am ever successful at a task is because I outwork people which in medical school means studying a super rediculous amount instead of just a rediculous amount.  Sadly I am excited about this and the opportunity to compete and work alongside the "best of the best" that generally make up a medical school class.

Besides working a lot (i love manual labor) these past few months, I have been doing as much research as I can about the best ways to study and be successful in medical school.  It has been very interesting to see what works for different people, how to deal with the stress, and to witness the nostalgia that people experience when they look back on the "toughest years of their lives". I will be contributing to this blog and giving my input on medical school for several reasons:  the first is that as I mentioned I have learned a lot about preparing for school by reading other peoples blogs.  If any premeds or med students are out there and can get anything out of this than that would be great.  Secondly I look forward to looking back on this blog in four years and seeing how much we have grown and how I went from an excited optomistic first year out to save the world to what I will become once the process is over. I am praying that it is not a cynical, grizzlied, doctor who forgot what I set out to do.  I also think that jotting down my ideas, stress, and memories will be cathartic and a way to decompress and really think about what I am doing.  I know we both really look forward to starting this new chapter in our lives, but I have been praying that we would not take the time we have for granted now and that we would enjoy it and make some great memories. 

Just for fun and for comparison my entering specialty choices are:
1. General Surgery (and a further specialization later on ie. cardiothoracic, trauma, vascular,  etc.)
2. Orthopaedic Surgery
3. Emergency Medicine
4. Cardiology

The Newlyweds

We can't believe it's already been 9 months!! Our ONE YEAR anniversary is right around the corner! Married life has been great! Here are our Wedding Pictures to share with family and friends. Thank you to all who made the trip and celebrated with us. It meant so much to us and we wish we could live the day all over again. You can view all of them here at shutterfly and here are a few of our favorites:

The best advice I (Whitney) can give for those planning their own... the DJ can make or break the party! Our DJ made our reception great and people are still talking about how amazing he was. His name was Mark Klentzman and here is his website: http://www.klentzmanentertainment.com/ to book! Our families will forever recommend him. He made our reception so much fun!

Since we have been married, we joined a newlywed group at our church, Austin Stone. We really met some great couples and enjoyed the company of others going through the same season of life as us.

So many changes, moves, and new lifestyles are upon us and we would like to use this blog to keep family and friends better updated on our life. I know I have been reading friends' blogs and he's been reading blogs such as 'what to expect in medschool.' We would also like to be able to provide our own insight for the public/future families entering medschool to come. We are excited to start this new chapter in our lives and are trying to mentally prepare for all the changes (probably more me than him). I'm sure a lot of y'all will enjoy reading the StuDoc's updates, stories on medschool, and healthcare facts too.

I hope you follow us on this journey, provide us wisdom, pray for the struggles, and celebrate with us on the accomplishments!


With love,
The Newlyweds