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This Behavioral Finance Expert Gives Incredible Career and Financial Advice to PhDs

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In this episode, Emily interviews Dr. Daniel Crosby, an author and expert in behavioral finance. Upon completing his PhD in clinical psychology, Daniel realized for the first time that an academic salary would not afford him the lifestyle he wanted. He instead pivoted to translating the academic research in behavioral finance for working financial advisors, and he currently serves as the Chief Behavioral Officer for Brinker Capital. Daniel shares how he’s applied the principles of behavioral finance in his own life and specific career and financial advice for early-career PhDs, particularly those exiting PhD training.

Links Mentioned in This Episode

PhD behavioral finance

Teaser

00:00 Daniel: And rather than saying, “Oh, I’m a PhD in psychology, so let me do PhD in psychology things”, I thought, well, I know to have great conversations with people. I know how to run a training. I know how to read human emotion and human behavior and all of these things, when you conceive of them as building blocks, you can repurpose those building blocks in different ways and create a host of opportunities for yourself.

Introduction

00:34 Emily: Welcome to the Personal Finance for PhDs podcast, a higher education in personal finance. I’m your host, Dr. Emily Roberts. This is season four, episode eleven and today my guest is Dr. Daniel Crosby, an author and expert in behavioral finance. Upon completing his PhD in clinical psychology, Daniel realized, for the first time, that an academic salary would not afford him the lifestyle he wanted, so he pivoted to translating the academic research in payroll finance for working financial advisors. Daniel shares how he’s applied the principles of behavioral finance in his own life and gives specific career and financial advice and encouragement for early career PhDs, particularly those about to finish their PhD training. Without further ado, here’s my interview with Dr. Daniel Crosby.

Will You Please Introduce Yourself Further?

01:23 Emily: I have the pleasure today of hosting Dr. Daniel Crosby on the podcast. He is a certified expert in behavioral finance. I’m really, really pleased that he agreed to come on. And Daniel, will you please introduce yourself a little bit further and tell the listeners about the fantastic career you’ve had?

01:41 Daniel: Great to be here. Thank you for having me. I am the chief behavioral officer at Brinker Capital, which is a multibillion dollar asset manager based outside of Philly. There’s not many chief behavioral officers in the world, I guess, so by way of explanation, what I do is I create training, tools, and technology that help people make better decisions with their money. I am a clinical psychologist by education, but really haven’t spent any of my professional career in a clinical setting. I quickly learned in grad school that I loved thinking deeply about why people do the things they do, but I didn’t love working in a medical setting. I’ve looked for business applications of the thing that I studied, and I know you know what it’s like to pivot, so my career has been wild and crazy, but it’s been a great one.

Going from Psychology PhD to Chief Behavioral Officer

02:39 Emily: Can you take us back? Tell us more about your education and at what point you decided that you weren’t actually going to go that traditional, clinical route with your degrees?

02:50 Daniel: My undergrad was in psychology. Loved it. I’m the son of a financial advisor, so I went into school thinking I would study finance and be a financial advisor. Took some general ed courses in psychology and just absolutely fell in love, knew that that’s what I wanted to do, started my PhD three days after I finished my bachelor’s. I was really just on a good path to get going with this. But about three years into my doctoral program, I had just kind of had enough. I don’t think I’m wired to listen to 40 hours a week of heavy stuff. It’s hard to be that empathetic. It’s hard to not let that bleed into your own life and your own wellness, and I was just really taking my client’s problems home with me, candidly. And I said, you know, this is just a lot. The final nail in the coffin for me though, I was still sort of on the fence as I was wrapping up my PhD, I had an inkling that I would like to apply this in a business setting, but wasn’t quite sure how, so I interviewed for a dual appointment position at a local university, which would have been half teaching, half counseling and the pay was so bad. I got offered the job and the pay was just so ridiculously bad that when I sat down and did the math with my wife, I was just, there’s no way this can work. I think it’s instructive that I, as the son of a financial advisor, someone who is interested in finance, finished an entire PhD, kind of never doing the math on how the thing I was studying would put food on my table. That’s sort of an embarrassing, but true story, is to get to the end of this road that I was passionate about and then go, “Oh, well geez, what am I going to do with this?” So then I was sort of left scrambling with how can I actually make a living at this thing I’ve just spent eight years studying.

05:05 Emily: I think that’s going to be a very relatable story to a lot of people in the audience of hearing that advice, follow your passion and doing it, and doing it at a high level, and getting to the end of it and saying, “well, now what do I do?” In your case, it was because the dual position that you applied for was not attractive, financially. That could be the reason, certainly for people in the audience, why they don’t continue on the expected career path. But for many people who want to go into academia, it’s just that the jobs aren’t there. That’s the main problem is that there’s just no jobs to be had or very, very few, and so they end up having to look elsewhere. So super, super relatable story there. Would you mind me asking, was your graduate degree, did you go into debt for that or was that paid for, was it a combination?

05:52 Daniel: It was paid for. PhD programs in psychology are very selective, they’re very small, so there were only like five people in my cohort. If you get in, it’s paid for through assistantships. Then, through nothing but luck, I had parents who were in a position to support me in other ways. My parents kept the food on the table and a roof over my head, and the tuition itself was paid for, so I came out with no debt.

06:26 Emily: I see. So when you were sitting down to do that salary calculation, it wasn’t debt that was necessarily causing your initial needed number to rise, but rather just simply the cost of living and supporting your family and so forth.

06:39 Daniel: Yeah. It wasn’t debt. It was just like, “wow, I’m going to work forever.” It was crazy because it paid less than a kindergarten teacher. You go teach at a high level, at a college, go to all this school and you should have just taught first grade. The pay was much better, if you can believe it, and I think you probably can. That was just a shock to me. I had never really put pen to paper about how the jobs that were available to me would coincide with the kind of life I wanted to live. Then the other thing is, as you said, so many of the jobs — I was lucky to get a job offer in my hometown — but you know, many, many times you’re forced to move to someplace you don’t want to live or somewhere very out of the way to start your career. And that’s its own set of trade-offs, certainly.

07:34 Emily: When you decided, “okay, that’s not a viable route over there, I have to pivot and do something else,” ten or so years later, you’ve come to this point where you’re the chief behavioral officer somewhere.

What is Behavior Finance?

Emily: I want to hear more about what behavioral finance is and did that exist as a field when you came out or have you been part of developing that? What’s been the transition both for your career and also for that field over that time?

08:00 Daniel: Great question. I got out and I said, “look, I need to pivot to something that is a little better for my sanity and is also a little better paying.” I began to explore jobs in organizational behavior, organizational psychology, behavioral economics, behavioral finance, and really, no one would take a chance on me because this is 2008 and the economy’s not exactly fantastic. I’m out there, 29 years old looking, looking for a job and I’m applying for jobs in fields where I candidly have no experience, because I have this PhD in clinical psychology and they go, “well, this is, you know, industrial psychology or organizational psychology.” And so I got a lot of doors slammed in my face. And really it was just luck. I applied at an organizational behavior firm where the boss, the founder of this firm had a clinical background and had sort of made his way in the world. My story resonated with him and he saw enough potential there to take a chance. Again, I think anyone who has any modicum of career success can point to times in their career where they just got lucky. That was certainly one for me, where he saw himself in me, took a chance on me and knew what it was like to be in my position, because I just wasn’t getting a look at most places because I didn’t have the right sort of psychology background.

09:47 Daniel: In terms of the field of behavioral finance, behavioral finance is just sort of the study of finance that incorporates the messiness of human beings. A lot of standard financial and econometric models are based on simplifications of human behavior that make humans look more rational than they really are. Behavioral finance is just finance with human irrationality factored in and talking about the way that we make quirky decisions with our money. This was a field that was around. Not too many years later they gave out a couple of Nobel prizes for it. The good thing for me, sort of the niche that I found, was there were people out there charging $200,000 an appearance. These Nobel prize winning folks were out there charging a $100,000 to $200,000 every time they gave a speech and multimillion dollar contracts for consulting, but there was no one that was more affordable and there was no one that was more applied. There just weren’t many people doing more reasonable applied behavioral finance work and taking these great ideas that these folks had come up with and taking them out of the ivory tower and putting them on the desks of everyday people or everyday financial advisers. That’s sort of where my niche — my niche became being the more affordable, more practical options.

11:23 Emily: But it sounds like what you were doing was really taking academic research and translating into what can be then used on the ground by, as you said, advisors and perhaps other people, is that right?

11:35 Daniel: Yeah, that’s right. I mean that’s been sort of the trajectory of my whole career is as an intermediary between people who are much smarter than me and people who haven’t been exposed to these ideas. I sort of view myself as a translator to take these ideas, this research, and make it speak to the lives of everyday people.

11:57 Emily: This actually reminds me, from what you were saying, of my physics training, which is what I did my undergraduate degree in, where you basically assume that everything is a sphere, so the calculations are actually manageable because if you actually look at what things are, real shapes and so forth, it’s just the math is completely beyond what’s possible. Of course, not everything is a sphere, but you have to assume they are to make the math work. It reminds me of that.

12:23 Emily: I am curious if anything in your personal history — going through the PhD process and then, and then coming out as an early career PhD, and this job search and so forth — has any of that informed the work that you’re doing now within behavioral finance? Any of that personal stuff informing that?

12:41 Daniel: I don’t think so, really. I don’t think that really informs a ton of what I do from day to day. It probably informs my parenting more than my work. I have three young children and my wife and I talked, that as we raise them, I’m just trying to give them a more expansive look at the world of work and maybe a more detailed look at finding the sweet spot between following your passion and doing work that gives you the kind of life that you want. Because one thing that my studies have shown me is that we all measure what normal is on a relative basis. This is true of everything from mental health to wealth. Normal for you is financially is just kind of what you grew up with, so I think you need to be candid with your children about how they grew up and what normal is and what normal isn’t. So yeah, it probably impacts the way that I parent more than more than anything else.

13:51 Emily: Gotcha. What about the reverse ways, from taking what you’ve been learning about personal finance and behavioral finance since you pivoted into that field? Have you taken any of what you learned and applied it in your personal life or were you already kinda there with what you grew up with your particular parents?

14:09 Daniel: Yeah. What’s interesting is I have applied a lot of what I’ve learned from behavioral finance into my own life. But one of the primary ways that I’ve done this is by knowing what I don’t know. I remember, and I think every PhD has this experience, I remember I started my program when I was 23 years old. I start this PhD in psychology, 23 years old, thinking I know everything, get out a couple of years later and I’m like, did I learn anything? I feel like I know less than I did before. I think I have more questions than answers now. Especially when what you’re studying is something as hard to get your arms around as human behavior, you never quite get good at it. One of the primary things that I’ve learned from my years of study of finance is that nobody really knows anything and that knowledge is a weak predictor of behavior. I work with a financial advisor myself. And not to toot my own horn here, but I think when it comes to knowledge of markets and things, I probably know more than my advisor, but that’s not why I pay him. I pay him to keep me out of my own way. I pay him to be a barrier between me and the sort of bad behaviors I study because I know that simple knowledge of the sort of biased, irrational poor behavior that I study is a weak predictor of doing the opposite. I know I’m no better than the next person, no matter how many books I write on the subject. I take pains to diversify, to keep my fees low and to work with someone who will keep me out of my own way.

16:01 Emily: Yeah. I think this is something that’s maybe not well understood by the public. That you may be paying an advisor for expertise — you are not necessarily, but someone else may be — but an even more important role is, as you just said, to kind of talk you off the ledge from carrying out bad behaviors that you’re inclined to do as any human naturally would. You’re specifically talking right now within the realm of investing, is that right? Or does your advisor help you with other decisions as well?

16:31 Daniel: He does help me with things around, you know, the purchase of a home. He’s sort of a sounding board for things like college savings for my kids, the purchase of a home. But I’m primarily focused on investing and investing professionally is my primary focus.

Commercial

16:53 Emily: Emily here for a brief interlude. As a listener of this podcast, every week you hear strategies that another PhD has used to improve their financial picture. But listening and learning does not automatically translate into action in your own financial life. If you are ready to change how you think about and handle your money, but need some help getting started, I can be of service. There are two main ways you can work with me to create and implement a financial plan tailored for you. First, I offer one-on-one financial coaching, either as a single session or a series, as you make changes over the long term. You can find out more at PFforPhDs.com/coaching. Second, I offer a group program called The Wealthy PhD that is part coaching, part course, and part community. You can find out more and join the wait list for the next time I open the program at PFforPhDs.com/wealthyPhD. I believe it’s possible to succeed with your finances at every stage of PhD training and throughout your career. Let’s figure out together how to make that happen for you. Now, back to the interview.

Human Emotions and Financial Decisions

18:08 Emily: Is there anything else that you have learned, and then applied in your own life, aside from putting a bit of distance between yourself and being able to make a fast decision?

18:18 Daniel: Well, one of the hallmarks of behavioral finances talks about overcoming emotion. A lot of what we talk about is how do we keep people from making these emotionally laden decisions, but one of the other things you learn when you’re studying human behavior is that it’s always easier to roll with a behavioral tendency than to push against it. There’s cool research that shows that people who look at a picture of their children for five seconds before making a financial decision save more, are more likely to stay the course, et cetera. Similarly, we find that people who invest in ways that are aligned with their own personal preferences around the world that they want, in terms of social issues, environmental issues, tend to be better behaved. So I’ve tried to build some emotion into my process. I’ve tried to keep the things and the people that I love at the front of my mind and central in the planning and investing process, and I’ve tried to invest in a way that’s consistent with my values, because I think that it makes it a little stickier than say owning the S&P 500. It just personalizes it a bit. I think that those are both powerful ways to make investing a little more fun, to make the investing and planning process a little more personal and to bring about some good behavior in the end as well.

19:51 Emily: I really love those suggestions. I think I’ve also, maybe in the similar vein of looking at a picture of your children, I’ve heard that if you look at a picture of yourself aged up, you make different decisions. Is that right?

20:04 Daniel: That is right. Yeah. One of the things you learn a lot about in behavioral finance is salience and salience is just the ease with which you can sort of imagine or tap into a situation. As I sit here, I’ll be 40 next week, so as I sit here at nearly 40 years of age, it’s hard for me to imagine 80 year old Daniel, right? The idea of a guy who walks with a cane and has gray hair and stuff, it feels a little remote. People have found that if you age your face, you’re basically making it a more visceral experience to imagine yourself as this 80 year old version of yourself, it brings about better behavior. Again, that’s an imperfect example of how you imbue the process with a little emotion to help you make the right decision.

20:56 Emily: I actually had a client asked me recently what I thought about the particular RoboAdvisor Ellevest and she followed that up with, well, I’m really passionate about women and empowering women and all these things that were sort of in line with Ellevest’s mission. And I said to her, well, it sounds like you’re really excited about that, so I think they’re fine and go for it. Because, as you were saying earlier, if it it lines with her values, that particular manner of investing, she’ll probably be more likely to throw more money at it, engage with it more, and have a better outcome. Is that right?

21:27 Daniel: Yeah, that is. Without speaking to the particulars of Ellevest, I don’t know all the ins and outs of it enough to say one way or the other, I have a lot of respect for Sallie Krawcheck who heads up a Ellevest. But in general, you’re more likely to contribute to, and stay the course in your women’s leadership fund than you are your S&P 500 fund because it’s personalized, it’s tailored to you and your values and, not making any promises here, but there is also research to suggest that the kind of companies folks like Ellevest seek out, companies that have better female representation on boards and things, there’s historical research to suggest that those companies have outperformed the broad market, at least historically. I think there’s every reason to try and personalize your investing to your own preferences, feel like you’re doing a little good in the world, and if that helps to animate you to stay the course or to set aside a little money, both of which are very psychologically difficult, more power.

Behavioral Finance Strategies for the PhD

22:35 Emily: Absolutely. Yeah. Another question here. We’ve started to get some insights into this behavioral finance stuff, maybe for the general population, but I’m wondering if you see that there are any personal finance pitfalls that you think PhDs might be particularly susceptible to falling into, and then what strategies might there be to not do that?

22:59 Daniel: I’ve observed — I’ll speak to psychologists, doctors of psychology in particular, but I think that this probably applies to PhDs broadly — a lot of times we get a PhD because we want deep domain-specific knowledge, right? We get into this because we love it. We want to be the best in the world at it, but almost every position needs a bit of business savvy, and I think that we have more power than we realize. I think this power takes a couple of forms. I think first of all, you need the power to negotiate a salary. That first job you get is more predictive of your ultimate wealth than just about anything else, because it benchmarks every subsequent salary conversation. Being comfortable negotiating that first salary — I remember that first job, you feel lucky just to be there. You beat out 20 other talented people to get the offer, but don’t be afraid to know your worth and to negotiate that salary. I would say PhDs need a little business training, because we have this deep domain-specific knowledge, but we don’t know, sometimes I feel like, how to do more practical things. I think get a little bit of business knowledge.

Daniel: Then a third thing and I would say the thing that has probably served me best in my career, financially, is to just think creatively about your role. If I had stayed on the prescribed path of being a dual-appointed college counselor, I would make a fraction of what I make now. Because I thought expansively about the things that I learned in school, and rather than saying, “Oh, I’m a PhD in psychology, so let me do PhD in psychology things” I thought, well, I know to have great conversations with people. I know how to run a training. I know how to read human emotion and human behavior and all of these things, when you conceive of them as building blocks, you can repurpose those building blocks in different ways and create a host of opportunities for yourself. Rather than thinking about one prescribed path, think about your education as a series of building blocks, a series of competencies that you can repurpose in any number of ways to do a host of different things. Finally, I would say don’t be scared to get out of academia. Because when I was in academia, you’re a face in the crowd, you’re one PhD among many. But when you get out in the real world, when you get out in the business world, you’re special and people respect your expertise in a way that they might not necessarily in a university setting. Lots to be said for a university setting of course, but I think don’t be scared to get out there to try something new and to know your worth.

Dealing With an Income Increase Post-PhD

26:20 Emily: Such wonderful advice and you put that so well. Thank you. I’m wondering if you have any advice for a person in this situation, which is something that you went through, which is a person who is about to come on a large income increase? They’ve been in training, grad school, postdoc, whatever it might be, and now they’re going out there and doubling or tripling, or more, their salary, potentially in industry, or similar. What behavioral finance concept should that person know about and be applying in that situation?

26:50 Daniel: This is a great question. The concept to know here is what’s called the hedonic treadmill, which says that, as our earning increases, our consumption or spending tends to increase in ways that are commensurate with the increase in earning. And then you never feel richer. You never feel better off because your lifestyle has risen as fast as your income. My number one piece of advice here would be to not let your lifestyle rise faster than your income and to make sure that as your income increases, so does the amount you’re setting aside, because lifestyle creep is a really, really big problem. What’s fascinating is, and I’ve been certainly bitten by some of this and haven’t followed my own advice here in certain instances, but the things that seem so extraordinary to you — I think about my house; when we bought this house it was the most beautiful house I had ever seen and soon it’s just where you throw your dirty socks — it just quickly becomes the backdrop against which you live your life. So really watch out for lifestyle creep. Make sure that if your income increases 50%, that your spending only increases 25%. Have a little fun, but make sure that they don’t increase in lockstep because that’s not where happiness is.

28:26 Emily: Yeah. I guess, I think I would add onto that — you put it very well about how the hedonic treadmill operates — I think that for some PhDs, when they get out of training and they finally have that larger salary, there’s some pent up demand. There’s some pent up wanting to spend behavior because they have been on this constrained income for so long. My advice to that person, in addition to what you said, would be to splurge on something that’s a one time expense, like a grand vacation or something, and not upgrade your housing this high degree, not upgrade your transportation to a high degree, not upgrade those fixed or recurring expenses in your life, but rather have this one wonderful, pleasurable experience and then get back to a lifestyle that is, as you were saying, far below what you could actually “afford” with your new salary, just so you aren’t stuck on that treadmill over the long term.

29:15 Daniel: I love that advice and I think it’s also consistent with understanding how you can spend money in ways that make you happy. When you look at the research on how to spend in ways that makes you happy, giving money away makes us happy, spending on experiences makes us happy and spending on getting rid of stuff we hate doing makes us happy. Having someone mow your lawn for example, makes happy. Buying time, buying experiences, and giving for goodwill — these are the things that make us happy. Don’t go buy a fancy car. Don’t go buy a big house that’s going to lock you into this recurring expense trap and it’s not even going to make you feel any better. It’s a trap.

Last Words of Advice and Where to Find Dr. Daniel Crosby Online

30:01 Emily: It’s great insight. Thank you. Do you have any final pieces of advice? We’ve already heard so much, but anything more for that early career PhD in terms of personal finance or behavioral finance advice?

30:11 Daniel: Again, just really to know your worth. I felt like when I broke out of my swim lane and got out of the cattle call that was sort of herding me towards this very prescribed life and once I sort of broke out and got into the world, I found that people had a lot more enthusiasm and respect for my ideas than they might have in a more constrained academic setting. So know your worth, don’t be afraid to ask for what you’re worth and go get ’em.

30:46 Emily: Wonderful. And if listeners want to follow up more with you, want to learn more from you, read your books, listen to you, where should they go?

30:54 Daniel: Yeah, I’d encourage folks to check out my books. The Laws of Wealth* is probably the place to start, The Behavioral Investor* is next. I’m super active on LinkedIn and Twitter, @danielcrosby.

[* This is an affiliate link. Thank you for supporting PF for PhDs!]

31:07 Emily: Thank you so much, Daniel, for this interview.

31:10 Daniel: My pleasure.

Outtro

31:11 Emily: Listeners, thank you for joining me for this episode. PFforPphDs.com/podcast is the hub for the Personal Finance for PhDs podcast. There, you can find links to all the episode show notes and a form to volunteer to be interviewed. I’d love for you to check it out and get more involved. If you’ve been enjoying the podcast, here are four ways you can help it grow. One, subscribe to the podcast and rate and review it on Apple podcast, Stitcher, or whatever platform you use. Two, share an episode you found particularly valuable on social media or with your PhD peers. Three, recommend me as a speaker to your university or association. My seminars covered the personal finance topics PhDs are most interested in, like investing, debt repayment, and taxes. Four, subscribe to my mailing list at PFforPhDs.com/subscribe. Through that list, you’ll keep up with all the new content and special opportunities for Personal Finance for PhDs. See you in the next episode, and remember, you don’t have to have a PhD to succeed with personal finance, but it helps. The music is Stages of Awakening by Poddington Bear from the Free Music Achive and is shared under CC by NC. Podcast editing and show notes creation by Lourdes Bobbio.

How Finances During Grad School Affected This PhD’s Career Path

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In this episode, Emily interviews Dr. Scott Kennedy, a bioengineering PhD who now works at a start-up in a data science position. During the course of his PhD, Scott got married and had two children. While he hadn’t considered personal finance of great importance when he started grad school, he certainly did by the end. Scott considered pursuing a tenure-track faculty position, but ultimately took an industry position because the salary and location better supported his young family. This conversation around Scott’s reflection on his financial path during grad school is excellent food for thought for an early-career PhD considering different career and family formation options.

Links mentioned in episode

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0:00 Introduction

1:20 Please Introduce Yourself

Dr. Scott Kennedy has an undergraduate degree in Mechanical Engineering. He became interested in neuroscience of motor control and the neural basis of body movement. He went to the University of Pittsburgh and received a PhD in Bioengineering. His adviser was in the neuroscience department.

As Scott neared the end of graduate school, he began to explore options outside of academia that made use of his skillset. He took a job as a machine learning engineer at a startup in St. Louis, Missouri. He is enjoying the transition out of academia and into startup culture. Scott adds that you have to be creative about how your skills apply outside of academia, because graduate school training typically funnels you into academic careers.

6:25 Tell us about your family.

Scott got married in 2013, during his third year of graduate school. He says they knew they didn’t want to wait until after graduate school to start their family. They had two daughters while Scott was a PhD student. He says his adviser was supportive and he had examples of other parents in the lab.

8:40 What does your wife do? What was her job while you were in graduate school?

Scott says he met his wife in Pittsburgh when she was finishing her physical therapy degree. His wife started working as a pediatric physical therapist before they got married. Their combined income was enough for them to live comfortably. After they had children, Scott’s wife wanted to stay home but his graduate stipend was not enough money to support the family. His wife started working part time but they had to be very conscious about their finances.

10:11 When you started graduate school, what was your interest in personal finance?

Scott says he was fairly naive but he had interest. He says at the end of undergrad, he developed a spreadsheet to track his spending. Although he kept a budget, he didn’t have any financial goals. He wasn’t thinking about saving for retirement. He had some savings tucked away but for no reason. He was focused on simple living.

Emily shares that she was in a similar place when she was in graduate school. However, she had this sense of “doing the right thing” with her money and that motivated her to learn. Scott shares a story about his friend who was shocked that he didn’t have a Roth IRA yet. Scott thought investing was for people with money, then he learned that he should start during graduate school.

14:40 What was your transformation process into someone who cares about personal finance?

Scott says his first step was saving for retirement. Then, he wanted to purchase an engagement ring and pay for a wedding. He saw that his savings, his safety net, was being drained. He realized that he had to become more serious about budgeting and manage finances in partnership with his wife. He says personal finance is a balance between living your life, having goals, and having security. He adds that childcare was another big factor. Cost of childcare is about the same cost as rent.

17:27 What frugal strategies did you put in place to adjust to the new expenses?

Scott emphasizes that they leaned on their families a lot. They were fortunate to have families willing to support them and help them travel, but their vacations were to go home to see family. At home, they spent time at friends’ houses and chose very low cost entertainment options. They stopped going out to eat and would go for a run instead of having a gym memberships. Scott says that taking little steps adds up in savings in the long run.

20:34 How did finances during graduate school affect your career path?

Scott says two years before he graduated he thought carefully about what he wanted to do. Before he started graduate school, he thought he wanted to work in engineering and rehabilitation. He fell in love with science and could see himself being an academic and working as a professor. He felt like he wanted to go that route until he saw one of the graduate students from his lab defend, work as a postdoc, and apply to jobs while also having a family. He said there was a research faculty member in the lab as well who had a family and was having a hard time getting a faculty job. Scott says there were also stories of professors who got divorces during the tenure process.

Scott says he didn’t feel like he was able to support a family through a postdoc and a search for a faculty position. He says that even if everything worked out for him, his kids would have been in high school by the time he got tenure. He shares that this was difficult for him to comes to term with. After he realized this, he started to look for jobs outside of academia.

25:49 Are you happy in the startup job you have now?

Scott says he’s happy in his position now because he has freedom, flexibility, and autonomy in his work. He feels he works on interesting problems. He can work with leadership and have a more say in the work than you can as a graduate student. The location in St. Louis is closer to his family.

26:54 If you could go back and give yourself financial advice, what would that be?

Scott says he would tell himself to have goals in mind. He would tell himself to have an emergency fund and build it up. He says he would build savings for housing and consider buying a house to build equity. Scott says thinking ahead for childcare options, if at all possible, would have been a gamechanger for them.

Scott admits that as an early graduate student, it’s hard to know what your goals are. He advises that to the extent you can, think a couple years ahead. He says have saving goals and investment goals.

Emily advises that people at least consider buying a house if you’re in a place with a housing market that makes sense for graduate student budgets. She also says that it’s a reasonable assumption that anyone’s financial responsibilities will increase over time. Graduate school is a fairly long period of time and chances are that you will have more responsibilities.

32:17 Final Comments

Scott shares that he didn’t expect the number of weddings and the cost of going to them. He says that he regrets not being able to go to some weddings. Scott advises to find balance between living your life and having savings so that you can have buffers and cushions so you have money for unexpected expenses.

34:45 Conclusion

This Online Entrepreneur Turned His PhD Research into a Thriving Business

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In this episode, Emily interviews Dr. Chris Cloney, an engineering PhD turned online entrepreneur. Chris blogged about his research during graduate school, became recognized as an expert in his field, and subsequently launched his research company. Through Gradblogger, Chris now leverages his vast knowledge of online business practices to help other PhDs start their own blogs and businesses.

Links mentioned in episode

PhD online entrepreneur

0:00 Introduction

1:01 Please Introduce Yourself

Dr. Chris Cloney has two businesses, Dust Safety Science and Gradblogger. Chris did his undergraduate degree in Mechanical Engineering in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He did his PhD in Chemical Engineering and Applied Science, but his focus was Industrial Safety within the subfield of Process Engineering. He worked nearly full time in an engineering company while he was working on his PhD. He left the job to focus full time on getting his PhD.

Chris calls himself a personal development geek, as well as a personal finance geek. When he left his job, he was intending to switch careers. His job was focused on military and explosions, and he wanted to switch to paths to industrial safety.

5:27 Can you give us an overview of your primary business, Dust Safety Science?

Chris says his thesis was on Industrial Safety, specifically fire and explosion safety in industries. He only deals with solid particle fires and explosions. He points to Apple MacBooks, for example, which are coated in aluminum polish. He explains that thousands are made each day in factories and the process generates tons of aluminum dust. The aluminum dust is a fire and explosion hazard if it is not managed properly.

He started blogging in this area at “My Dust Explosion Research” but after a couple years, he changed names to “Dust Safety Science” because it is a little easier to say. The business is online and they have four key pillars: awareness, education, connection, and change. One big motivator is to keep people from being injured, so awareness and education of safety science is important. The goal of Dust Safety Science is zero fatalities over twenty years, so they advocate at an industrial and governmental level worldwide.

7:41 What is the structure of Dust Safety Science?

Chris says Dust Safety Science started as just him, as most online businesses start with just one person. They have a website as a platform to bring people back to. They have an incident database where they track fire and explosions around the world. This is how they create material as a research company to publish on and present on at conferences. They conduct independent research as well. He has a podcast for Dust Safety Science.

Chris brought on his first help in 2017 at one hour a week. The team today is four core members. There is a content manager, virtual research assistant, technical writer, and website designer. Chris says it is a big transition from learning everything about personal branding and business to managing a team. They publish 500 blog posts a year, and this requires a healthy structure to run this research business.

Chris works from home and his businesses are his sole source of income. His team is virtual. He shares that he has a seven month old and his wife is home on maternity leave. He has his office at home.

11:44 Why did your blog turn into your business?

Chris says creating a personal brand, building online business, and being seen as the expert in an area is actually quite available to people who have higher degrees. He says one of the first steps for online marketing is to niche down really small, and Chris says that’s the definition of thesis research. He says six people read your thesis and three might actually care.

Chris was blogging about his PhD research. He says the academics in his field weren’t online and didn’t care for his blog, but industry people were interested so he started to make content for that audience. After six or nine months of blogging, he realized he had a good platform built. He was being invited to speak and he was seen as the expert in this topic. He got several job offers just from blogging about his topic. His goal was to switch careers and that was a success. He decided to focus on his online platform and build an independent research company.

14:13 How do you make money?

Chris says step one is to ask people for money. He says he had a newsletter with 250 people on it. The first time he made money online was by emailing a company and asking them if they’d like to put their logo and description in the newsletter in a sponsor block. He said he sent the email to the company, and he got a quick reply saying yes. He’d forgot to mention there was a fee of $200 per month, so he added that in the next email. The company representative said they’d take a year of sponsorship, and Chris realized that his price was too low.

He says his newsletter is now up to 1500 to 1600 people. Every month they take on a new sponsor. Now the sponsor block space in the newsletter is $600 per month.

Chris says if you have an audience, even if it seems small, there’s a way to monetize that. They have advertising on several outputs, and they have member companies. They are also working on courses for under-served portions of their audience, like firefighters and researchers. They can also make money from consulting and speaking. Ways to monetize start becoming available once you are the biggest source of information on your topic.

18:41 Why do you think that launching a business out of your PhD research is something that should be considered?

Chris acknowledges that it can be scary to put yourself out there. But people should consider blogging because it builds your reputation in your space. It leads to job offers. Chris says he had a lot of contacts just after six months of blogging and bringing on guest posts from experts in his field. He says you build your business by putting out content and being seen as an expert, then people contact you with opportunities. Another option is advertising when others want access to your audience. Chris says he wants people to install the correct safety equipment, so he is happy to work with advertisers.

If you have an entrepreneurial spirit, Chris says this slow process of putting out content and being seen as an expert is way easier than the startup route. Startups seek funding first to get started more quickly. He emphasizes that his business transition was simply asking for sponsors on the newsletter and slowly being recognized as an expert.

22:29 Are there any other business models accessible to PhDs?

Chris says the first model is consulting. Being an academic consultant is usually very lucrative. He also lists speaking, freelance editing and writing, and building courses as other business models. Emily mentions that professors often work as consultants on the side.

25:33 What is Gradblogger?

Chris says Gradblogger is a platform to tell his story of starting an independent research company. Gradblogger is a website, podcast, and online resources. He says the tagline is helping PhDs build their businesses so they can change the world through research and experiences. He wants to have a role in creating superstar academics who make a big difference in their fields but are not tied to a university.

Chris says that through Dust Safety Science, he has independence and security. They will fund a Masters student. He calls himself “self tenured” because he can make his own decisions through his independent research company. Chris presents this as an example of what other PhDs could do if they start blogging to create their own business.

28:48 Do you have any advice for a PhD interested in being seen as an expert by a wider community or in starting their own business?

Chris says getting started now is important. He says getting exposed to different ideas by joining relevant communities is helpful. He recommends taking an accounting class.

Chris recommends creating a virtual mentorship group, or Master Mind group. This idea comes from the book Think and Grow Rich* by Napoleon Hill. For his virtual mentorship group, Chris says he picks people who have already done what he wants to do and he learns everything he can about them. When he’s making a decision, he thinks about what his virtual mentor might tell him to do in the next step.

[* This is an affiliate link. Thank you for supporting PF for PhDs!]

Emily summarizes this as exposure. Being exposed to more ideas and different ways that people do things helps you break out of your silo.

34:06 Conclusion

How the Promise of Public Service Loan Forgiveness Has Impacted This Prof’s Career and Family Decisions

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In this episode, Emily interviews Dr. Jill Hoffman, an assistant professor at a university in Portland, OR. Decisions around finances, family, and career are bound tightly together for Jill because of her family’s student loan debt. Jill and her husband Mike are aggressively paying down his student loans while counting on Public Service Loan Forgiveness for hers. Required minimum payments also factored into their decision for Mike to become a stay-at-home parent to their toddler after they moved for her tenure track position. Emily and Jill discuss the rationale behind these decisions and how Jill is documenting her life as an assistant professor and mother on her website, Toddler on the Tenure Track.

Links Mentioned in the Episode

PSLF Professor

Will You Please Introduce Yourself and Your Family’s Finances?

Jill is an assistant professor at a university in Portland, Oregon. She has a PhD and master’s in social work and a bachelor’s in psychology. She has a husband, Mike, and a daughter, Ellie, who is almost three years old. Mike is currently a stay-at-home dad, but his background is in counseling psychology (master’s). When they moved to Portland for her job, it made more financial sense for him to stay home with their daughter than to get a job due to the high cost of childcare and cost of living overall.

Jill and Mike both still have one loan each from their undergrad degrees (2.5%-ish interest). Jill’s loan balance is $8300, and M’s loan balance is $6800. The bulk of their student loan debt from their master’s degrees. Jill has $16,000 remaining on one loan and $38,000 on another loan, both at 7.0% interest. Mike has $5,900 remaining on one loan and $6,300 remaining on another loan, both at 6.5% interest. Their student loan balance totals just under $82,000 as of April 2019.

Their recent focus has been on paying Mike’s student loans. In December 2018 they re-evaluated their debt and had a balance of just over $100,000, and they used some savings and cash flow to pay down the debt to its current balance.

Why Are You Attacking Mike’s Debt and Paying the Minimums on Jill’s Debt?

They are paying the minimum payments on the 2.5% undergrad loans. They are low priority due to the low interest rate.

Jill is enrolled in Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF). Theoretically, after 10 years in the program her master’s degree loans will be forgiven, so they are paying the minimum for now. They are crossing their fingers that it will work out. The minimum payment doesn’t cover even the accruing interest fully or pay down principal at all. (This is because Jill is enrolled in an income-driven repayment plan with a repayment period of greater than 25 years.)

They are paying the minimum on one of Mike’s loans and attacking the higher-interest loan with all extra money each month.

Jill’s undergrad loans do not qualify for PSLF because they were taken out before 2007 (if she recalls correctly). At least for her, just her master’s degree loans qualify for PSLF. She was in undergrad between 2002 and 2006.

How Does Public Service Loan Forgiveness Work?

PSLF is for people who are in certain career types: non-profit and/or government employer may qualify. As Jill works for a public university, she is a state employee and her institution qualifies. Her job post-master’s also qualified for PSLF.

The applicant will make 120 payments perfectly while enrolled in one of the income-driven repayment plans (20-25-year repayment period). At the end the remaining balance will be forgiven. The forgiven balance is not taxed for PSLF, though it is for the income-driven repayment plans.

This is sort of a game because you are supposed to stick to making only the minimum payments even if you could pay more. often, and the payments often don’t even cover the full interest so the loan balance may be growing throughout that time. You have to do everything letter-perfect and hope that your loan balance is forgiven

The first crop of people became eligible for forgiveness in 2017, but the reported rate of actual forgiveness is quite low (1%). Many people who thought they were doing everything right for PSLF have been denied forgiveness.

Further reading:

Given the Low Rate of Actual Forgiveness Occurring, How Does Jill Feel About It?

It’s a daily struggle deciding which loan to prioritize because Jill’s loans are at a higher interest rate.

Mike has loans and is staying home right now. He might qualify for PSLF if he got a job, but it would still take 10 more years of repayment before he would qualify for forgiveness. That time frame was not appealing for them.

If Mike’s 6.5% interest loans are paid before Jill’s four remaining years in the PSLF program are up, they might consider repaying more of Jill’s loans. However, she doesn’t project that to happen within that timeframe. Since they will have to pay for more than 4 years, they’ll wait and see what happens with PSLF and hope for the best.

Emily likes that Jill and Mike are not resting on their laurels and going for the lowest possible minimum payment by both enrolling in income-driven repayment programs and only paying the minimums. Instead, they are attacking the debt in a strategic way. They are being proactive instead of just signing up for everything available to minimize payments.

What Else is Going on for You Financially Aside from Student Loan Repayment?

Jill’s employer contributes to her retirement funds. She is in a pension plan calculated based on years of service and highest gross salary upon retirement eligibility. In addition, they contribute 6% of her salary into a targeted retirement account (doesn’t come out of her paycheck). Jill doesn’t add anything to this for retirement for the time being. This does make her nervous.

Jill and Mike both have retirement funds from previous jobs, but they are not adding to them.

They recently started thinking about contributing to a Roth IRA given their lower current tax bracket vs. their likely higher future tax bracket. They are 34 years old and would like to be doing more on retirement, but they aren’t doing much for that right now.

Once they have the debt paid off, they will have much more cash flow to direct toward retirement or another goal.

How Did You Decide for Mike to Be a SAHD and Did Finances Play a Role?

When they moved to Portland for Jill’s job, Mike didn’t have a job lined up. Their plan was to move and find childcare, and then Mike would get a job. Infant care is really hard to come by and it’s very expensive. They were on a lot of waiting lists and had to pass the time until a spot became available. During that time, they were figuring out finances.

When a spot became available, it was $1,500/mo for full-time infant care at a childcare center. They enrolled and Mike started looking for a job. Jill set up her FSA to pay for the childcare. Ellie was enrolled for about a week when they really delved into their finances if Mike got a job. Their loan payments would go up to at least $1,000/mo, they would be paying $1,500/mo for childcare, plus they would have higher transit expenses and higher income taxes. Then they would be all the time spent at the job and commuting! To them, it didn’t make sense time-wise and financially for Mike to work given his employment prospects. In Ohio, he was making about $45,000/year, and the cost of living was much less. In Oregon, his salary wouldn’t be as much as Jill was making, and his salary would go largely toward loans and childcare. They thought, why not stay home? He was excited to stay home as well.

Emily thinks that what you want for your family doesn’t come into play as much as it should. There are financial arguments for one parent to stay home and financial arguments for both parents to work. But what about what the parents want individually and as a family? Personal finance is not just about numbers and money! In Jill and Mike’s case, there wasn’t a huge financial hit for Mike to become a stay-at-home dad.

Before Mike and Jill had Ellie, they joked about Jill working and Mike being a SAHD without thinking that was a real possibility. It’s kind of cool that it worked out.

What Financial Advice Would You Give Your Past Self?

Jill could have done a few things differently. She would have ended up with significant loans anyway, but could have reduced them by a lot. She went out of state for both her undergrad and master’s degrees, which adds a lot to the debt! Staying in state for the tuition reduction would have been a good idea. For her master’s degree, she could have worked in Pennsylvania first to establish residency and even asked her employer to pay for her master’s degree in part or in full. She didn’t need to go straight from undergrad to master’s. This would have reduced financial burden in the long run.

Out of state vs. in state designation doesn’t matter much to funded PhD students though it does to their departments at public universities. However, for a master’s degree being paid out of pocket, this matters a lot! Employers do fund master’s degrees, especially part-time. Doing the PhD was always Jill’s plan so doing the master’s slower would have been fine.

Mike’s master’s degree was helpful for him to get a better job in Ohio. However, he also chose to go to a private university for his master’s instead of an in-state university, so the costs were a lot higher. Now he thinks he should have gone to the state school he got into and reduce his debt. Once Ellie is in school, having the master’s will help him get another job.

Emily also went to private college and it was a huge price tag that her parents paid. Now, she wants to make public in-state university seem very attractive to her children!

What Is Toddler on the Tenure Track?

Jill started Toddler on the Tenure Track in December 2018 and is still figuring out what it’s about. She wanted to create a space to talk about how she’s doing her junior faculty job with young kids, such as how to be a whole person in a job that’s trying to consume 100% of your energy. It’s her way to document the process of being a whole person in academia and not be sucked into working 24/7 and to document her path through the tenure process. She writes about what’s worked for her and not worked in terms of planning and organization of being a faculty member. That’s a huge part of her job that’s not widely discussed. Some of the strategies she writes about might work for others.

Jill has written some logistical pieces, such as on the process of becoming a tenure-track faculty. She moved cross-country for the job! As a grad student, she would have wanted to know what being a faculty looks like on a daily basis. Educational debt is also a huge part of the lives of people who work in academia, she so also shares about her finances and loan repayment journey.

Go check out Toddler on the Tenure Track if you are a faculty member and parent or aspire to be!

This Prof Used Geographic Arbitrage to Design Her Ideal Career and Personal Life

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In this episode, Emily interviews Dr. Amanda, a tenure-track professor at a small college in the Midwest. While a postdoc, Amanda listened to career advice from R1 university faculty, but ultimately decided their path was not for her. Instead, she employed geographic arbitrage to maximize her academic salary while minimizing her cost of living. This choice enabled her to quickly pay off her student loans, and now she is considering buying a house. Amanda gives great career and financial advice and encouragement to current graduate students and postdocs, particularly emphasizing the importance of deciding for yourself what your career and personal priorities are. Amanda writes about personal finance at Frugal PhD.

Links mentioned in episode

geographic arbitrage PhD

0:00 Introduction

1:25 Please Introduce Yourself

Amanda has a PhD in Digital Media. She does research on digital media and learning, and digital equity. She teaches courses on these topics, and on research, writing, and information literacy. She completed her PhD in 2015 at a large research university in the midwest. She did a two year postdoc at a large private university in California. She got married during her postdoc to another PhD who she met during graduate school. Now, she is a faculty member at a small liberal arts college in the midwest.

3:07 What is geographic arbitrage?

Geographic arbitrage is a concept promoted within the Financial Independence / Early Retirement (FIRE) community. Arbitrage is the practice of taking advantage of different prices in different markets. Geographic arbitrage is taking the cost of living of different places into account and taking advantage of the fact that your dollars can go farther in a place with a lower cost of living. If you’re still working, you can see if you can find a higher salary or work remotely to live in a place with a lower cost of living. If you’re financially independent, you would move to the place with the lower cost of living to stretch your dollars.

4:34 How did you use geographic arbitrage in your job search?

During her postdoc, Amanda and her husband lived in a large city in California with one of the highest costs of living in the U.S. They considered what their finances would have to be to live comfortably there, including what the downpayment on a house would be and what it would take to pay back student loans. When she was on the job market, she started to pay attention to how salaries compared to the cost of living. Although people expect salaries to be higher in more expensive places, she realized that this pattern was not consistent for academic jobs.

Amanda had an interview for a job in a city with a high cost of living, but the salary was less than what she received as an editor with only an undergraduate degree. Then she interviewed for another position in a small city with a low cost of living. The institution offered her a salary comparable to what a first year faculty member would have been making in her current location in California without adjusting for cost of living. This discrepancy in salaries and cost of living caught her attention.

Both Amanda and her husband had a campus interview in a city on the West Coast, but it was one of the most expensive zip codes in the U.S. They realized that even with spousal hire, they still wouldn’t make enough money to afford a house. They decided to move to a semi-rural part of the midwest for Amanda’s job offer, even though her husband didn’t have an offer in that location. Amanda accepted a tenure track position in a location where they could both live on only Amanda’s salary.

Emily shares her experience, which contrasts to Amanda’s experience. Emily lives in Seattle with her husband. Seattle has a high cost of living, which Emily believes is associated with the opportunity of getting tech jobs from Amazon, Microsoft, and many other places. However, faculty jobs are distributed across many locations, so there may not be correlation of place with salary. Amanda shares that she considered jobs in Seattle, but being near family mattered to her. Amanda’s family lives in the midwest, where she lives now. Emily shares this value, but Emily wants to move to Southern California to be close to family and is willing to put up with higher cost of living to be near them.

12:13 What did you hear from other academics? How did you take or filter that advice?

PhDs from research institutions receive a lot of advice about landing tenure track jobs and getting positions at R1 universities. Amanda says many people assumed she wanted a tenure track position at an R1 university. However, because Amanda attended a small liberal arts college for undergrad, she felt like her goal was to work at an small college. She felt like she couldn’t be transparent about her goal. She got a lot of advice about how to get a position at a big research university, how to negotiate spousal hire, and how she should be willing to go anywhere for the R1 position. She felt like a big university wasn’t the best fit for her.

Amanda and her husband felt like they could be happy in the academy as well as outside of it. Amanda felt pressure to be in academia, and academy was the only trajectory she could speak about with her mentors. She struggled with how she could talk about what she wanted. Amanda and her husband have important personal goals, and they want work-life balance. They decided to accept Amanda’s job offer in the midwest even though they both had more interviews planned. This gave Amanda’s husband more time to explore job options and say yes to the right thing.

Amanda and her husband’s financial situation allowed them to make these decisions. They have a solid emergency fund, live on a portion of their income, and work in a place with a low cost of living. Money gives you the flexibility to pursue what you want professionally and personally. Emily discusses the financial strategy for two-income households to budget off of only one income, so the other income is free for financial goals.

19:30 How has your choice to live in a low cost of living location affected your finances?

Amanda’s husband accepted a new job last year. Since then, they both made major progress on paying off their student loans. They have paid their loans off completely. They accomplished this goal by deciding to keep living off only one income. Amanda’s husband’s income went toward their student loan payments.

Amanda says that academic life is inconsistent and can make budgeting challenging. She attends conferences and travels often, but it’s made easier when she’s not worried about when reimbursements are going to come in. Budgeting for travel and reimbursements is hard for graduate students, and it is hard for faculty members too.

22:35 What are your next financial goals?

Amanda and her husband are figuring out their plan for home ownership. Navigating the career stages of graduate student, postdoc, faculty as a pair can be very challenging. Many partners spend time living apart. People with PhDs seem to delay home ownership more than other groups of people. They are considering buying a single family home, but a duplex or triplex appeals to them so they can bring in extra income from renting the other units. They are still considering if purchasing property makes sense for them at this time and in this location.

Another one of their goals is to get caught up by saving, investing, and building retirement funds. She needs to balance buying a house with saving for retirement. Amanda and Emily discuss that common retirement savings benchmarks, like retirement fund of one year’s salary by age 30, are challenging for PhDs to meet. Many people don’t start saving for retirement until their 30s, not just in the PhD community. Amanda says that finance benchmarks can be very demoralizing, and she wants people to know that it’s never too late to care about your finances.

27:44 Advice for setting personal finance goals.

Amanda emphasizes that she didn’t learn about personal finance until she was in her postdoc. As a graduate student, she was not financially savvy. Once she was a postdoc and her husband was working full time, they started learning about personal finance. Amanda says she used her graduate student situation as an excuse to put off thinking about finances. She used to think money was something that could work itself out later. Now, she knows it’s never going to work itself out later. Amanda wishes she hadn’t used being in graduate school as an excuse to not know about personal finance.

A common roadblock is figuring out where you are financially, because it’s uncomfortable. Becoming aware of your finances is the first step to set goals and make progress. The beginning is the hardest part, bud don’t give up. Amanda used the Personal Capital tool to track her net-worth and visualize her finances. In just a few years, Amanda has changed her financial situation. Now she makes intentional decisions and has seen big changes in her finances in a short period of time.

Amanda connects her career decisions to her new attitude towards finances. When Amanda felt trapped in the R1 career trajectory, she avoided thinking about personal finance. She realized she needed to be assertive about the career she wanted and finances, because this was related to her quality of life. As she opened up to other career trajectories, she realized that being in a good place financially is deeply connected to her goals. Emily shares that sometimes personal and professional aspects of decision-making in our lives collide, and maybe personal life holds sway, but it’s not easy to talk about in a professional setting.

33:10 What is your advice for someone finishing their PhD training and looking for job?

Amanda tells other PhDs looking for a job, “you have options!” Amanda accepted the narrative about tenure track jobs at R1 universities, but she felt it was so empowering to realize it was her life. She says do everything you need to do to figure out what will fulfill you and make you happy. Make sure you are true to you and what you want.

The online community Beyond the Professoriate helps PhDs explore non-academic positions. Amanda took an online class, and it was great to have community and resources. She learned how to make use of LinkedIn, how to make CV into a resume, how to network, and how academic skills are useful in industry. Beyond the Professoriate has an online conference every year. Additionally, there are resources for understanding your finances at Emily’s site Personal Finance for PhDs.

37:57 Conclusion

How This Grad Student Had a Baby, Landed a TT Job, and Defended Her PhD within Six Months

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In the last half-year of her PhD, Dr. Heather birthed her first child, completed and defended her dissertation, and landed a tenure-track job… all while caring for her infant alongside her visiting professor husband without any outside help. During the episode, we discuss many of the logistics that go into having a child during grad school, from arranging parental leave to conducting experiments around a nursing schedule. Heather shares how she learned to ask for the accommodations she needed and her advice for new academic parents.

Links mentioned in episode

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grad student baby

0:00 Introduction

1:26 Please Introduce Yourself

Dr. Heather works at a small undergraduate institution in the Midwest U.S. She and her husband both work as professors. She has a PhD in Chemical Engineering in the southeast U.S. Her husband’s background is in math and computer science.

They had her first child while Heather was finishing her PhD and on the job market. Heather was four years and one semester into her PhD when she had her baby. Her husband was a visiting assistant professor at the institution where she was getting her PhD. Both of them were looking for tenure track positions while Heather was pregnant. They found jobs at the same institution, and have been in their current position for four years. They had a second child and are expecting their third. They value commitment to family, so they don’t let their professional life deter them. Their jobs and finances are in services to their values.

5:10 What was your income when your first child was born?

In total, they earned around $60,000 per year from their primary jobs. Because her husband had a visiting assistant professor position, her husband’s salary was around $40,000 per year. Heather’s income was around $18,000 per year. In addition, they both had earned income from summer internships in private industry. They each made $16,000 to $18,000 for three months of work. Much of this money remained in their accounts at the time their daughter was born at the end of the calendar year. Their household income was lower the next year, because Heather took unpaid leave after having her baby and neither took another summer job for extra income.

8:55 How did you arrange your parental leave?

Heather did not find a formal university policy on parental leave for any type of employee, whether tenured faculty or staff or graduate research assistant. Without a university policy to go by, Heather looked to the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) that guaranteed she would get her job back if she took off six weeks unpaid. She was paid by her research advisor’s grant, so she came to an agreement directly with her research advisor to take six weeks unpaid.

Because she gave birth during winter break, Heather had two weeks break in addition to six weeks unpaid, for a total of eight weeks off. Nevertheless, when her baby was one month old, Heather returned to work in the lab one hour each day. At six weeks, Heather worked four hours in the lab and worked on writing manuscripts. She did not work a typical 40 hour work week. Some weeks she’d work 12 to 30 hours, and others she’d work more than 50 hours on writing her dissertation. She had set her defense date, so she felt that her own progress was at stake if she delayed returning to work.

14:58 Did your partner take parental leave?

Heather’s husband did not take any official parental leave. He was teaching three courses in the fall while Heather was pregnant. During the spring, When they had their newborn child, he was teaching three courses. He had two or three afternoons each week when he was teaching class. However, he had every morning of the week unscheduled and two days a week unscheduled. Heather was able to work in the lab in the mornings while her husband stayed with the baby. Two days a week, Heather had the option of working a full day in the lab.

16:20 How did you use your health insurance?

Heather remembers she had the option to add her baby to her health insurance or to her husband’s health insurance. She had out-of-pocket costs and co-pays. In one case, she chose a medication that was significantly cheaper. Overall, she did not feel overwhelmed by the financial stress, but she found it confusing to plan for medical expenses. She used her savings from her summer internship to cover prenatal care.

21:39 What was your childcare arrangement and how was it different than other approaches?

Her husband’s schedule was fixed with class times, but Heather’s schedule was very flexible. They considered the baby’s needs and developed routines around the baby’s sleeping and feeding schedule. Heather would leave the house at 6am and try to be home by 10am because the baby consistently slept for this four hour time block. She used this plan to get her lab work done. Once the baby could use a bottle, Heather started to extend her time away from the baby and get more work done in the lab.

Heather and her husband were primary caretakers of their baby. Even after the first four to six weeks, they did not put their child in daycare or have other outside help.

25:20 How did the childcare arrangement change when the baby was older?

At the end of the spring semester, Heather’s baby was five to six months old. This was a stressful time for Heather and her husband. They set morning time to be “baby with dad,” and afternoon time was “baby with mom.” However, there were times when Heather’s husband would call to ask her to come home to help calm down the baby. Heather felt that if she kept pushing lab work off until the next day, she would not finish by her defense date.

During the summer, Heather’s baby was six to eight months old. Heather switched her focused to writing her dissertation, and stopped doing lab work. Heather’s husband did not teach during the summer, so he took the leading role to care for the baby. They approached childcare as a team.

28:05 What was your motivation to take on full childcare responsibilities?

Heather and her husband were eager to learn to be parents. They felt that having a baby was an exciting challenge that they could take on together. They were excited to be part of the baby’s life as much as possible. By caring for the baby themselves, they learned how to care for an infant. They valued the learning experience and they were wiling to make sacrifices for it. They now look back on that time fondly.

Heather and her husband had friends that also took on childcare while in graduate school. Seeing another graduate student parent couple made them hope they could do it too. When more people tell their stories of parenting while in graduate school, it helps others understand what it’s like to make this decision. Emily mentioned that in U.S. society, parental leave policies could be a deterrent to having a baby and detrimental to women. Because there is no mandate at the federal level, policies are inconsistent across the country. They often only allow for maternal leave and no paternal leave. Heather explained that she has an egalitarian relationship with her husband. They are a team, so it was their understanding that they’d take care of the baby together. They chose to balance childcare responsibilities in ways that made sense, not following gender norms. Heather and her husband both wanted to spend time with their kids.

35:02 What was your experience being on the job market with a baby?

Heather was applying to jobs while she was pregnant. She applied to jobs with deadlines in November and early December, then planned to take a break after having her baby and apply to more in the spring if needed. Heather was worried about having job interviews when she was pregnant. She sought advice from faculty who had also applied to jobs while they were pregnant. Heather was advised to tell her interviewers about her pregnancy, because the response would be a major indicator of her potential employer’s values. Heather found this advice to be very reassuring and useful.

Heather got a job interview when she was 8 months pregnant. She couldn’t fly to do the interview in person. She told her point of contact that she was expecting a baby, and she received congratulations and willingness to accommodate. They arranged a remote interview with every person she needed to talk to, and she got the job. Heather wanted to visit the institution before she accepted the job, so they gave her extra time to make her decision. Her husband got an interview at the same institution, so they visited together with their baby in the winter. When her husband got his offer letter from the institution, they both accepted their positions.

By choosing to disclose her pregnancy during the job application process, Heather had the power to reframe her pregnancy as a way to determine if the potential employer shares her values. In making her decision, Heather considered how family-friendly was her point of contact and the rest of the institution. Heather was accepted for the position at her top choice. She applied to a few and select positions, and coincidentally her top choice had an earlier timeline. Heather and her husband were also looking at industry jobs.

43:00 What advice do you have for other first time parents in the PhD process? How did you keep startup costs low?

Heather advises to keep it simple. She said they asked for clothes and gift certificates. They did not want big items as hand me downs or gifts. Because they lived far away from family, they avoided inheriting too much stuff. They had no nursery and no changing table. They used cloth diapers instead of disposable diapers. Heather breastfed her baby, so they didn’t buy formula or lots of bottles. Babies need very little when they’re very young, so it’s easy to keep costs low and buy only the basics.

Heather also says to surround yourself with people who have been through this before. She reached out to women who had babies in grad school. Also, she reached out to women in the community to get recommendations for doctors, caretakers, and prenatal classes. This is how she found what was available in the community. You also have to ask for what you need. For example, Heather was riding her bike to the only place on campus where she could pump. But when she asked for a private space in the building that she worked in, a space was arranged for her. She encourages young parents to get the confidence to ask questions and get information. Kind of like talking about finances, talking about parenting can feel taboo, but so many people have similar experiences and knowledge to share.

50:59 Final Comments

Heather was considering if graduate school was the right time to have children. She realized that there’s never a perfect time, but it’s always a good time. Finishing her PhD and having her first child was a big mental and emotional transition time in her life. It was a transition in family life and financial situation. Her life had major uncertainties, like what if they didn’t get those jobs? Being comfortable with uncertainty is hard, but it helps to know that plans you make are just guides. Uncertainty comes with any change in your life, but you can prepare the best you can and embrace it with excitement.

54:00 Conclusion