These are the people who provide examples for most of what you do and know. Thankfully, both of my parents were gifted with money. Unfortunately, they were not even close to wealthy. We relied on sound financial management.
I started my first job, which was not really “speech/language” related. Rather it focused more on helping the elderly/medically fragile in the nursing home setting with cognitive issues and swallowing disorders.
I attended a private Catholic university for graduate school, so tuition was much more expensive. Throw in that scholarship options are much sparser for graduate school, and you're looking at heavy loans.
I decided to change my job and gain more clinical experience. This meant moving 30-40 minutes south. We decided to purchase a house to build equity. We chose an area with low taxes that was relatively close to the new job.