Can you still make money while in Physician Assistant (PA) school? The answer may surprise you

Can you still make money while in Physician Assistant (PA) school? The answer may surprise you!

Author: Matt Delph, PA-C

During my gap year, I worked three jobs in order to build some capital because I knew I wouldn’t have a steady stream of income during the 24 months I was in PA school. I made an excel spreadsheet of my expenses (car payment, gym payment, phone bill, etc.) and calculated what amount I needed to get through school. Towards the end of my clinical rotations, my account was starting to get low enough that it was questionable if I could afford a tank of gas to even get to my rotation sites. Therefore, I started trying to come up with different unique ways of making money.

Work Weekends When You Can

PA school is no joke with regards to studies and testing, but if you have the opportunity to work one weekend a month, it could pay dividends, especially when it comes time for tax season. I always kept in close contact with the PT clinic I worked for and if they ever needed an available body, and if my schedule allowed it, I would sign up for that shift.

Portfolio / Stock Investing

I know this sounds cliche, but I personally GUARANTEE that during your PA school journey you will encounter a surgeon, ER attending or anesthesiologist that talks finance. 100% guaranteed. It’s always good to know basic finance terms and a few stocks so you can chat with a surgeon during an operation so he doesn’t “pimp you” so bad.

I started investing in stocks just prior to the beginning of PA school and I had very little knowledge of what I was actually doing. I did a little research and came up with a plan of investing in low volatility stocks that paid a dividend. From my personal experience, I was always friendly with this one doctor and he started asking me about finance. I told him about this one company that was coming out with a new product line in the near future and it was worth looking into. Needless to say, that one stock jumped over 200% after the product launched. The doctor was then always looking for me after that and took me under his wing and taught me A LOT.

Selling on Ebay

Best for last. Gary Vee is a huge social media influencer and he always talked about flipping products on Ebay for a profit or selling unused products in your house. So I thought, “How hard could it be?” It turned out to be extremely simple. I went to “YouTube University” and watched a few videos about posting to Ebay and felt confident to start posting products. I used this video primarily but there are thousands of videos on how to start posting. I started looking around my house for things I hadn’t used in years and I came across two TI84 calculators.

I looked up the item on Ebay, went to filters and hit “Sold Items” (DON’T FORGET THIS STEP) and saw what my calculator was currently selling for and if it was in high demand.

I followed the steps in the YouTube video in order to post the item and went to sleep. I woke up the next morning with notifications that BOTH calculators sold and just like that, I made a net profit of around $100 and was easily able to buy gas for my car! I quickly began scavenging the house to see what else I could sell and came across these Bionicles that I used to play with when I was younger.

They were just sitting in the back of the closet and hadn’t been touched in years. It felt like I had just found a buried treasure. I have been gradually selling them ever since and still occasionally do some house cleaning and post more items to sell in order to make a few extra bucks!