Screening your potential roommates is a good plan, consider finding a friend who can be cool about helping out as opposed to actually co-signing and subletting. I would probably look into putting the spare room on AirBnB at like $45/night, which is good because SLC seems to run $24-50 for a private room. I'd probably go slightly above market to help with screening, so you get the customers who are willing to pay a little more to live with a quiet med student instead of some psycho. If you have someone from AirBnB in there 10 nights a month, you make $4-500, if you go to 20 nights, you've paid your rent, pocketed $100, and have ten days in the house on your own. Either way, probably better than a roommate. You might even be able to network. And, as a bonus, pull your listing down on days that are significant on the academic calendar (I need a week to study for midterms, so just not going to let anyone in and eat the rent this month).
For general lifestyle, bike, motorcycle, or cheap car bought in cash. DO NOT GET A CAR PAYMENT. SLC is great for outdoorsy stuff, and exercise outdoors is better than indoors because of the vitamin D, so a decent bike could be a lot of fun, or if you're more of a road guy, there's some great motorcycling out there.
Don't skimp on groceries, gym time, or other health-related investments. Have cheap or free hobbies like gym, avoid alcohol, travel unrelated to education, chasing the next shiny electronic thing, and status purchases (but do make sure you have a suit you would be willing to wear on national TV while shaking hands with the President, because you never know).
Source: I live on about this amount in DC, though I crash with women near and sometimes help with their rent instead of doing AirBnB as above.
For general lifestyle, bike, motorcycle, or cheap car bought in cash. DO NOT GET A CAR PAYMENT. SLC is great for outdoorsy stuff, and exercise outdoors is better than indoors because of the vitamin D, so a decent bike could be a lot of fun, or if you're more of a road guy, there's some great motorcycling out there.
Don't skimp on groceries, gym time, or other health-related investments. Have cheap or free hobbies like gym, avoid alcohol, travel unrelated to education, chasing the next shiny electronic thing, and status purchases (but do make sure you have a suit you would be willing to wear on national TV while shaking hands with the President, because you never know).
Source: I live on about this amount in DC, though I crash with women near and sometimes help with their rent instead of doing AirBnB as above.