LATEST POSTS FROM THE BLOG

• How Fellows Should Prepare for Tax Time at the Start of the Academic Year
  Most Americans don’t like to give any thought to their taxes between when their tax returns are due in mid-April and when their income forms arrive at the end of January. (Scratch that: they […]
• Serving as a Resident Advisor Freed this Graduate Student from Financial Stress
  This episode’s money story features an interview with Adrian Gallo, a PhD student at Oregon State University. Adrian serves as a resident advisor in a fraternity house close to campus. For most […]
• Investing Strategies to Grow Your Wealth During Your PhD Training
  The most important investment you make during graduate school or your postdoc is in your career. But alongside that primary objective, many PhDs also invest money during their training. By far the […]
• Give Yourself a Raise: Inexpensive Entertainment on or Near Campus
  With respect to entertainment and socializing, graduate students are facing a bit of a catch-22: their university affiliation affords them tons of opportunities for free and subsidized entertainment, […]
• Dual PhD Couple in Seattle Spending $20k/Year on Rent
  In this episode, I break down my own budget from 2017. My husband and I earn about $100,000 per year and live in Seattle, WA with our two small children. I detail our top five expenses (rent, […]
• Should a Graduate Student Save for Retirement in a Roth IRA?
  For graduate students with sufficient stipends, investing during graduate school is a fantastic financial goal. Counterintuitively, the long-term goal of funding retirement should be the first or one […]
• Our $100,000+ Net Worth Increase During Graduate School
  I share my personal money story, which is how my husband and I increased our net worth by over $100,000 while we were in graduate school. We carefully budgeted our two PhD student stipends to […]
• How to Embrace the Frugal Life
  Frugality is an unavoidable companion throughout PhD training due to our limited incomes. For those of us who are not naturally frugal (I confess!), it might be quite an unpleasant companion […]
• Start Investing During Graduate School
  During graduate school, you’re heavily investing in yourself and your career. You’re sacrificing significant income potential to receive super-advanced training in your field. […]
• A Graduate Student’s Balanced Money Formula
  Grad students frequently wonder how much they should spend on various expenses or even how much they should be saving. The Balanced Money Formula (BMF) answers this question for the average American, […]