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Veterinarian: My budget and planning for the future
Betsy Feighner, a 32-year-old veterinarian, shares her financial journey. Living in Denver, she balances saving with enjoying life's experiences. Despite high living costs, she manages to save by contributing to her 401K and Roth IRA, while keeping her expenses low. She wishes she started saving earlier and advises others to do the same.
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What other tips do you have for getting into vet school, and even pre-vet school? Also, if you're sure you want to become a vet, what major gives you the best chance of getting in? I know I'm interested in majoring in Animal Sciences or Biology, but are those too common among aspiring veterinarians? Would majoring in something else like Genetics give me a better shot?(24 votes)
im going to be a vet when i grow up we live on a farm in mount vernon we have 5 goats and 2 pigs 3 dogs 6 cats 1 chicken are pigs ate most of our chickens(14 votes)
funny i have 0 goats 3 pigs 0 dogs 3 cats 100 chickens any one else(10 votes)
How long did it take you to pay your student loans? You had said you had already paid them off. And when you were paying them off what percentage of your monthly income did you use for your loans?(13 votes)
👎👎👎👎👎👎inflation, how could you! you are making it impossible for the next generation!(5 votes)
i had 2 cats named mid-night and nickademus mid-night is gone!
:((4 votes)- Oh,no! I'm very sorry for your lose. It's hard. Did mid-night die of natural causes?(3 votes)
What best place to apliy? Why? Does it very from were someone wants to be what about the UK?(4 votes)- In all honesty, even though I am starting to begin becoming a vet, it would really not matter. It's just varies on the clients.(4 votes)
- I am going into 6th grade and i love all animals and all animals love me i am wanting to volunteer at blue mountain humanity. i am wondering what is the hardest thing that you have to do each day at work? and how many days do you have to work each week? i love to get involved in doing things with animals i have 2 dogs so i would love to be a vet.(4 votes)
- Congratulations on considering the veterinary field as your future career! It is a great job (Haha well I can't say yet, because I'm on my way to being a vet😉), and I wish you luck on achieving your goal(s)!
I think one of the hardest things you may have to do quite frequently- but maybe not on a daily basis- would be the spaying of female animals, which is major surgery to prevent breeding.
As for how many days of work in a week, I think it'll really depend on where you'll be working at. Of course if you'll ever take over a practice/hospital, or even open your own, it might be a bit different, but basically, it will depend on your situation.
Why not try and research your future workplace and see if you can find clues on job hours? Or alternatively, you could email them directly, whichever works best for you.
I wish you the best of luck!
- Cat lover, aspiring vet(2 votes)
How is your life right now?(4 votes)
So I'm in 9th grade, doing Animal care and vet science for my electives. I plan to attend UC Davis, what classes do you recommend I take, and what can I do as a high schooler to gain more knowledge and experience?(3 votes)
It looks like you're really interested in the veterinary field. As for your core classes, take the highest level math, biology, and chemistry that your school offers. Electives like vet science can be really helpful, and taking other health science-related ones would be good. Outside of school, it would be really great if you could ask a local hospital, or even better, a veterinarian's office, if you could shadow them for a day, and really see how the medical field works from the doctor's side. That'll give you a better idea of what you're planning to go into and solidify your decision. You can also ask animal shelters of zoos if they have job or volunteering opportunities.(3 votes)
- Have you ever failed any of operation on animals?(3 votes)
- Maybe
But vets will try not to 🤞(2 votes)
Video transcript
I'm Betsy Feighner. I'm 32 years old. I'm a veterinarian and my annual salary is 85,000, plus production. Spending four years in vet school and a year in internship, it was very much a time not for myself. So, now that I am out and making money, it's very important to me to be able to go out to eat and go to concerts and travel and save up for those types of experiences. I work to live. I'm trying to save as much as I can but it's also very important to me to enjoy the playground I live in. So, living in Denver is definitely expensive. I've been here now for five years and every year I see the rent go up. It's harder to find a place to live. It is worth it, but, I think compared to a lot of other cities around the nation, I think we're right up there in terms of cost of living. But it is definitely expensive. I think if I had ended up in the Midwest where I was born and raised, I probably would be saving a lot more money. My monthly income is around like 7,000, give or take, pre-tax. So, deducted from that, of course, would be my taxes, health insurance, contributing to my 401K, which my employer does match, 3%, so I try to maximize that every month. I end up taking home around 4,000 to 4,500. My rent right now is about 1,000, which I'm pretty lucky to find a living situation where that's the case. A couple years ago, I was paying significantly more than that. So, that's been a big help. TV and internet, really just use Hulu and Netflix, don't really pay for cable or anything like that. And split with my roommate, it's about $25 a month. Phone bill, yeah around $50. I don't really use it too much. So, I don't need one of the bigger plans. I have a car payment that's about 350 a month. I also don't drive a whole lot. I try to ride my bike and use a lot of Lyft and Uber and that sort of thing on the weekends. I, maybe, average about $80 in gas per month. $75 month in insurance, which I try to pay off twice a year to get the cost savings for that. I'm extremely fortunate to not have any loans. So, that is a huge help. Otherwise, I spend roughly $400 on food, in terms of groceries. I usually do a meal delivery service and that can also be about 75 bucks a month. Or, I'm sorry, per week. So, after that, I'm leftover with maybe 500 to 1,000, depending on the month and how much I spend going to restaurants, going out to eat, going to concerts, traveling. I take a lot of little weekend excursions. A lot of overnights up in the mountains so that that other category can quickly add up. I like to have a lot of fun on my time off. After that, I'm also contributing as much as I can to my personal Roth IRA. So, all being said, I'm hoping to save between maybe 500 to 1,000 per month. Despite what else I spend my money on, it is always very important to me to always contribute to my Roth IRA as much as I can. And then my 401K which gets deducted before I see it, which the way I prefer it. I wish when I was younger, that I would've just been much more aware about saving. I think I'm saving as much as I can now. But, if I would have had that on my radar even in high school, starting to put money away, and my spending habits through college, and vet school, even. It always was important to me to buy gear and go shopping and buy clothes and all of that. I think I could've been a little more frugal and started to put money away and even start a Roth IRA the first opportunity I could have. If I would've started that in college, I think I'd be way ahead of the game now.