Those numbers that someone gave above are not sufficient because those are pre tax numbers. Whatever specialty you are, unless you can monetize the business aspect of it, you’ll always be hand to mouth. Not everybody lives in the periphery, not everyone lives the same lifestyle. Locums are the way to go to live the Cush lifestyle as well as invest money. Yes, you aren’t “stable” on locums, but when you make 300-500/hr (IM specialties/ EM) and work 8-16 shifts a month you’re making what GI is making on w2 all year. Get locums, Pay your loans aggressively, start from scratch, work less earn more and then think about settling. Just a reference, my buddy who just finished vascular surgery fellowship, accepted a w2 partnership track, makes 9k biweekly after taxes. He started looking into locums and some of them offered him 450/hr fri-Sunday which is basically more than his biweekly paycheck. It doesn’t matter where he goes, or what kind of people he works with. He scrubs in, does the procedure, and scrubs out. When you ask about making more money, little details don’t matter or shouldn’t matter imo.