Week 1 of 3rd year of PT school
This week I start my 3rd year of DPT school by starting an acute care internship.
- Location: Miami, FL
- Salary: about 2000 per month, but it varies
- Rent: $560 per month
- Health Insurance: $14 (thanks Obama!)
- Electric: $40
- Water : $15
- Internet: $15
- Phone: family plan 🙂
- Food: probably around $200 per month
- Car insurance: $100
- Gas: $75 (an estimate, this totally varies)
- Netflix: family 🙂
- Spotify: $5 student deal (includes Hulu too!)
- Adobe Creative Cloud: $16 (an amazing Black Friday deal they ran for students!)
Day 1 August 25
It’s Sunday, the day before I start my internship and I am spending pretty much the whole day studying, preparing food, getting my stuff ready, going through paperwork, cleaning my room, and working on all of my side projects.
I went grocery shopping on Friday at Publix. I alternate going between Aldi and Publix. I absolutely adore Aldi and their prices(!) but sometimes they don’t have certain things. Since I’m like 90% vegan (give or take some cheese lol), there are some items like tofu and some of the more specialty vegan “meats” and “cheeses” that Publix carries. I also bought a scrub top on Saturday night, which I needed since I only had scrub pants, plus some notebooks and folders for internship. I’m including those charges here because technically they’re for this upcoming week. Groceries: 52.69. Scrubs: 30.20
I go to Office Depot to print some pages of notes and important info that I hope will help for my internship. My printer isn’t working and I don’t print very frequently. I usually print on campus which is super easy and reliable, rather than trying to deal with my own printer, which seems to elicit Office Space level rage. Or Rosa Diaz rage if you prefer a more recent reference 🙂 Printing: 6.10
I do some form of meal prep, which is not as rigid as a specific plan. I just make some sort of dish and put the extra in my glass containers. Today it’s a pesto pasta. I prep my lunch for tomorrow, which includes the pasta, plus a salad, and chocooolllaattee. I also include some snacks because sometimes in internship there is no time to eat, so I like to have something I can quickly eat while reviewing charts or doing documentation. For tomorrow it’s peanut butter crackers and a handful of almonds. I make sure to prep my coffee in a French press and save it in a jar in the fridge for the next few mornings. It’s August in Miami so a nice cool coffee in the morning is so refreshing.
Total spent today: $58.79
Day 2 Aug 26
6:00am. It’s Monday, the first day of my internship. After a summer break of 1 month, it’s really hard to wake up this early. I prepare my breakfast of oatmeal, an apple, and coffee and head out the door, scrubs on and kinda nervous.
For my internship I have to travel pretty much all the way east across the city of Miami, and the highway to get there is a toll road. One way is $1.60 which isn’t a huge amount, and can be done I’m running late, but I prefer to save the $60 a month it would add up to by taking surface streets. Traffic isn’t super bad since I left really early. (Editing note: I totally gave in about a week into this and just paid the tolls. Mental heallttthhhhh!)
I arrive to the hospital and I have no idea where to park. They want me to pay a $5 valet fee, but they only take cash and I don’t have any, so I am redirected to an offsite parking lot that they provide a free shuttle for! I’m super happy they showed me this, because parking in the hospital lot seemed pretty challenging and of course I don’t prefer to pay for valet every day 😱
I need more scrubs since I only have one set, so I order some from Amazon for $17.99 for pants and top. Seems like a great deal, but we’ll see how they fit. (Editing note: they fit wayyy too big and also they looked like scrubs a scrub would wear) Scrubs $17.99
I wash my single set of scrubs, then start making my food for tomorrow which includes the pesto pasta, salad, and I decide to bring a jar of vanilla almond milk and vanilla protein powder to really help fill me up. Running around the hospital makes you hungry 🙂
Total spent today: $17.99
Day 3 Aug 27
Today is Day 2 of my internship and I’m just driving to the hospital really early, getting there and working on side projects/studying in the lobby, then going in at around 8am to do chart review. We start our day around 9am, seeing our first patient maybe at 9:30 or 10, since my instructor is taking time to teach me sooooo much!!!
I get off around 5:30 and traffic is horrible, so I work on my computer job while waiting for traffic to die down.
I come home and read some of my textbooks, prepare my food for tomorrow, shower, and hit the bed with my cat. Wait that sounds like I’m using my cat to hit the bed lol.
Total spent today: $0
Day 4 Aug 28
3rd day of internship. I’m learning a ton.
I received the scrubs from Amazon and they are huge on me. They were listed as women’s so I got a small, but I think they are unisex so I should have gotten XS. I am a small person in stature and size, so these look pretty ridiculous on me. I decide to wear them the next day anyways. I message our class GroupMe to ask if anyone has any suggestions on more petite scrubs.
Total spent today: $0
Day 5 Aug 29
I didn’t spend anything….just spent time at my internship. I’m really, really enjoying this internship 🙂 I love being in a hospital setting and like I’ve been saying, I’m learning so much. Plus my Spanish is coming back to me.
Total spent today: $0
Day 6 Aug 30
This is Miami, and everyday is a cafecito day. I buy the colada for $1.92 from the little hospital cafe stand. It comes with these little plastic cups so we can share it with a bunch of people. It’s a small price to share caffeinated love!
Total spent today: $1.92
Day 7 Aug 31
Finally it’s Saturday! I’m super exhausted and can’t seem to move at all, which is great for the wallet. I’m spending the weekend resting, studying, going to the beach, seeing some friends, watching some Netflix 🙂
I do buy some gas for the upcoming week ($25.84). I also pay for a service to remove your name from junk mailing lists. Not sure if it works, but it’s worth the $2.00 to try. I also spend 14.86 at Publix for some groceries. I also spend 12.15 at Home Depot, but I don’t remember what that was for lol.
Total spent today: $54.85
WEEK TOTAL: $133.55
All in all this was a great week. It is super stressful starting your internship, but luckily my CI is truly truly great and made me feel so comfortable and happy. I can’t wait to see what the next 7 weeks will bring!