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side income

This Grad Student’s Side Business Pays Twice What Her Assistantship Does

June 6, 2022 by Meryem Ok Leave a Comment

In this episode, Emily interviews Natilie Williams, a PhD candidate in communication at the University of Missouri, keynote speaker, and author. Natilie established her business prior to starting her PhD and was up front about it with the director of graduate studies from the beginning, which has been to her benefit. At times, her business has brought in double or more what her assistantship pays, which has been vital for her financial health and security during graduate school. Natilie manages her time and schedule fastidiously using a planner to excel in her graduate program and business.

Links Mentioned in this Episode

  • PF for PhDs Subscribe to Mailing List
  • PF for PhDs Show Notes for S12E2
  • Innerview: Lessons in Leadership (Book by Natalie Williams)
  • PF for PhDs Seminars
  • Dr. Emily Roberts’ E-mail
  • Nat Will, Speak! (Website)
  • @NatWillSpeak (Instagram)
  • @NatWillSpeak (Twitter)
  • PF for PhDs Podcast Hub (Show Notes/Transcripts)
S12E2 image for This Grad Student's Side Business Pays Twice What Her Assistantship Does

Teaser

00:00 Natilie: I was able to, once you added in book sales, you added in speaking, yeah, I was able, at some point, I made maybe like two and a half times my assistantship, almost three, by being able to do these things and elevate my speaking career. Expand it, so not just speaking, but then also a book.

Introduction

00:25 Emily: Welcome to the Personal Finance for PhDs Podcast: A Higher Education in Personal Finance. I’m your host, Dr. Emily Roberts, a financial educator specializing in early-career PhDs and founder of Personal Finance for PhDs. This podcast is for PhDs and PhDs-to-be who want to explore the hidden curriculum of finances to learn the best practices for money management, career advancement, and advocacy for yourself and others. This is Season 12, Episode 2, and today my guest is Natilie Williams, a PhD candidate in communication at the University of Missouri, keynote speaker, and author. Natilie established her business prior to starting her PhD and was upfront about it with the director of graduate studies from the beginning, which has benefitted her. At times, her business has brought in double or more what her assistantship pays, which has been vital for her financial health and security during graduate school. Don’t miss Natilie’s description of how she manages her time and schedule to excel in her graduate program and business.

01:35 Emily: I have a gift for you if you’re not yet subscribed to the Personal Finance for PhDs mailing list. At the end of every interview, I ask my guest to give their best financial advice for another early-career PhD. My team has collected short summaries of all the answers ever given on the podcast into a document that is updated with each new episode release. The document is even organized by topic so you can easily see which type of advice is most popular. I invite you to join the mailing list to receive access to this document through PFforPhDs.com/advice/. I hope this quick, powerful resource will help you up-level your finances this summer! You can find the show notes for this episode at PFforPhDs.com/s12e2/. Without further ado, here’s my interview with Natilie Williams.

Will You Please Introduce Yourself Further?

02:38 Emily: I am delighted to have joining me on the podcast today, Natilie Williams. She is both a PhD student and a professional public speaker and author. And so I’m really excited to learn how she’s managing her business as well as her career as a graduate student. So Natilie, welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for volunteering! And would you please tell the listeners a little bit more about yourself?

02:58 Natilie: Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me. I’m super excited. I am a fourth-year doctoral candidate. I’ll actually graduate in just two months, so I’m very excited about that. So, I’ll graduate in two months. I am at the University of Missouri in Columbia, where I am finishing up my PhD in Communication with a focus in Identity and Diversity, and also maintain an assistantship there. I actually recently accepted a professor position in the Midwest. And so I’m really excited about that. And I also have the privilege and the honor to serve as a keynote speaker across the country on student leadership, collegiate success, and academic and professional development. And then that wasn’t enough for me. I also wrote and published a book called Innerview (I N N ER): Lessons in Leadership. And so, really excited about the book. And so, it looks at how we can use moments of reflection in order to enhance ourselves as leaders.

04:00 Emily: Wow. I can already tell, I wish we had another interview to do all these other topics on like, and actually hear from you and your, you know, the main topics that you speak about because that sounds absolutely fascinating. We’re going to keep it more focused on like you as a graduate student and having this business and how you’re doing both of those things at the same time. Hopefully get some good gold nuggets for the listeners who also have businesses that they want to run as well as being graduate students or PhDs. But congratulations on your faculty position! That’s really, really exciting. And yeah.

04:29 Natilie: Thank you.

Getting Into Public Speaking

04:29 Emily: So, that’s awesome. Let’s kind of back up a little bit. And how did you start speaking professionally? Did this come like before graduate school or since you started graduate school? How did you come to that?

04:40 Natilie: Absolutely. So I started speaking professionally about three months after I received my master’s degree. So I had a really mind-blowing experience. I did my master’s thesis on a TV show called A Different World, which was a spinoff of The Cosby show. And it was a very much so like a staple in like the Black community. Like that show ended May of 1993 and it is still talked about now. People still dress up as the characters for Halloween. And so I did my thesis on that show, and I got surprised by The Steve Harvey show with actually meeting the cast because they did a reunion. I talked about my thesis and it was just like this big national, even international thing.

05:20 Natilie: And so where I went for undergrad, Central Michigan University was like, “Hey, we have this freshman orientation leadership program and we want you to come and serve as a keynote speaker. And we want you to talk about your old leadership experience you had on campus as an undergrad. And we know that you just had that really cool experience with A Different World. Do you think you could tie that in as well?” And so, I did it. I keynoted in front of about 300 plus people. And at the end of that keynote, I had lines and lines and lines of students waiting to talk to me afterwards. And that was the moment where I realized it was more than just me being good at speaking, but it was truly a part of my purpose. And then I eventually learned, maybe months after that, the business side of speaking and was able to start it as a business and turn it into a very much so awesome, successful career path.

06:13 Emily: And so, I understand from our prior conversation that you had some years in the workforce between when you finished your master’s and when you started your PhD. So that’s kind of when you were learning, as you said, the business of speaking and growing that part of it. Is that right?

06:27 Natilie: Absolutely. So with the master’s, I was working for a corporate organization part-time and then once I graduated, they actually hired me on full-time. And when they hired me on full-time, I worked there for about two and a half years. So during the time where I started my speaking career, I was working in corporate and I was actually teaching as an adjunct at night because I was still living in the same town where I got my master’s degree from where I also had had an assistantship that paid for my master’s degree. And they were like, Hey, we know you’re still here in town. You did really good work when you were teaching for us. You want to come do it at night? And so I was really able to use my corporate job to fund my speaking career to start funding the business, right? The website, the photoshoot, different things of that nature. And I had my adjunct position as well as some extra savings. And it got to a point where I was working corporate where I was like, I don’t want to do this anymore. I’m not a fan of this position. And I actually realized that I’m a geek. I love to read and write. I want to go back to school and get a PhD and still maintain and enhance my speaking career.

Speaking in the Collegiate Circuit

07:34 Emily: That’s a great thing actually about sort of side hustling or having your own business generally. It can be on the side of different full-time things. You can have transitions in your career and take your business with you as you go through this transition. So that is awesome. And so, your niche about speaking, you said you’re on the collegiate circuit. So do you speak mostly to college students? And you mentioned leadership earlier, like what are kind of the general topics that you speak about? And did it come from that initial engagement or how have you, you know, expanded since then?

08:04 Natilie: So yeah, it’s come from the initial engagement. It’s also come from my own collegiate experience that has really propelled me as a leader and have taken advantage of opportunities and so, and networking. So like mentorship, relationship building, leadership despite trauma, Greek leadership, Black and multicultural Greek leadership, first-year experience. So how do you even plan out your college career? Whereas you can take over the campus, what are some resources and opportunities that you should take advantage of as a college student? So studying abroad, pre-professional programs, networking with professors, and things of that sort. So those include some of the speaking topics, professional development, preparing yourself for your career path. What can you do in college to prepare you for post-graduation? So those are some of the speaking topics. And it’s on the collegiate circuit as well, but I also am starting to do more stuff with high schools and middle schools as well, including like that social and emotional learning component to leadership. So, it’s starting to expand greatly.

Time Management as a Grad Student and Business Owner

09:12 Emily: That’s awesome! Now I want to hear about you as a graduate student, and also as a business owner. And since you started the business back when you had a full-time job and another part-time job, you probably took some lessons from that in terms of time management and so forth. But I’d love to hear about how you’re applying them now as a graduate student. Like, how are you managing your time and your energy to make sure that you’re doing both these things well?

09:35 Natilie: Absolutely. So I believe it’s time management and also time prioritization and time stewardship. And so figuring out what’s important right now and how much time do I need to allocate to it. But for me, coming in as a graduate student, working on a PhD was really new to me because I had never done that before of course. And so my first thing was, I need to understand what’s the lay of the land. How much time do I need to dedicate to this because it was in-person and it was full-time? And so for me, I really had to figure out what I didn’t know. And I looked to upperclassmen to see how much time are you all spending on readings and coursework? What’s the writing load like? And so I actually sort of, kind of, when I first started the doctoral program, I took very few speaking engagements that first semester, because I was like, I need to focus on this program.

10:31 Natilie: And once I learned that I could balance my coursework and my speaking career, it was all she wrote after that. So it would get to a point where I knew my schedule perfectly. I knew when I had to teach. I knew when I didn’t have to teach. I knew how long it would take me to get to the nearest airport. So I was about two hours from the nearest airport and it would be sometimes I would literally get done with class as a doctoral student. I would have my suitcase packed in my car. I would drive two hours to the airport. I would fly out to go speak. That same day, when I got done off the stage speaking, I would fly right back, finish work as a doctoral student, maybe teach that morning as my assistantship, and I would do it all over again. So I really learned my schedule perfectly. And I would do my papers sometimes on the airplane, do my class readings in the back of the Uber as I was going to my hotel to speak. I would sometimes get to my hotel the night before, so I could do my coursework. And so I really got the timing down perfectly, and I always keep a planner with me. So I knew due dates for assignments as an instructor, and due dates for assignments as a graduate student as well.

Schedule Flexibility

11:47 Emily: I’m not that familiar with like your field. So like, what is the nature of the research that you’re doing? Like is a lot of thinking and writing and reading? Or do you have to like, be certain places aside from like the teaching component? Like, do you have to be certain places at certain times? Like how flexible is your schedule, I guess?

12:02 Natilie: Very flexible schedule. So, as a doctoral student, I study communication. Specifically, I’m more of an interpersonal and family communication scholar. Specifically, I look at what’s called voluntary care relationships. And so those are relationships that have no biological tie, but because we say they’re family, they’re family. So your best friend that you consider your sister friend or your childhood nextdoor neighbor that you may have considered your cousin growing up because you all have known each other for the past 20 years. Godparents and things like that. And so I look at that, but specifically within the context of Black families and Black people and the validation process of those relationships, the impact of them, and the benefits. And so, I’m also a qualitative scholar. So I spend the time interviewing people and things of that sort. So that’s my research interest. And when you’re doing the interviews, you can, you know, do them over the phone and things like that. So, I had a lot of flexibility except for the fact that my coursework was in person. So I just, I knew how much time I had to drive to the airport right after class. I knew how much time I had to board the airplane. So I really just really got it down to a science.

13:16 Emily: That’s amazing. I don’t <laugh>, I don’t think I’ve ever gotten near that degree of specificity with like my time blocking practice. But it’s because I have much fewer, I think, constraints on my life, especially prior to becoming like a parent. Like once you have like that the parenthood stuff going on, I know it’s like a thing that’s said like, you know, mothers become like the most efficient workers you’ve ever seen because they have like, so limited time to like, do their work and then they have to do these other things. So like, but even that, like, I’m not to the degree that you just described, like time blocking. So I really like admire that. It sounds like an amazing skill to have.

Speaking Engagements During COVID

13:53 Emily: And how, like, during this time that you’ve been a PhD student, you know, you mentioned that you took very few speaking engagements at first when you were kind of getting the lay of the land. But then how has your business grown over the past few years? And I’m especially wondering how things have changed with COVID, because you just mentioned you were doing in person speaking. I assume that at least changed for some amount of time for a while. So how have things been going, you know, since starting your PhD?

14:15 Natilie: So as soon as I got the understanding of my schedule and the timing, I hopped right back on that road and it, I just, I knew if I had class, if I didn’t have to teach or my own classes on a Thursday or a Friday, I knew Wednesday night I could go fly out and come right back. And so I started to just be intentional about the different conferences I would present at, in front of students. But then also too, with the decision-makers present, understanding how many decision-makers will be present during that networking piece. And that networking piece, allowing decision-makers to meet me, sit in on my sessions, get to learn more about the learning objectives with my presentations, whether it was a workshop or a keynote, that really allowed me the opportunity to continuously to grow on the speaking circuit.

15:02 Natilie: And with the topics that I speak about, leadership and student leadership on the collegiate market, it’s not as many young black women doing what I’m doing. And so, I’m standing out, right? And I’m doing very well with speaking as far as the mechanics of it. And I was able to and still am able to get my name out there. And so that allowed me to grow my speaking engagements. And you also mentioned about COVID. Well, when COVID hit, I was in my mind, I first thought that this was literally the end of my speaking career. And I said, well, you know what? I had a great run. I did a great job. If that’s it, I went out with a bang. And I actually saw my business boom, shortly after. Like months after. And my mind was blown. I’m like, wait a minute. But I realized that these schools were like, we still need people to encourage our students.

15:53 Natilie: We still need people to give our students the how to. It’s now a virtual space. And so I was able to sometimes do two engagements in one day I could do one in California, one in Florida virtually and not have to leave and not have to also invest in travel expenses. And so, 2021 was probably one of my most profitable speaking years yet. And I think this year is probably on top to beat that. It’s definitely on top to beat that. And so, yeah, I was completely blown away by it, completely blown away. And once I finished coursework for my PhD, it was <laugh>, it was all she wrote. I was able to do a lot more. So I didn’t have to be in the classroom as a student. I just had to teach. And so I was able to have even more free time to get out there and to maximize my opportunities to get in front of my target audience.

16:47 Emily: Yeah. I’m so glad that your business has grown through COVID as well. I’ve observed the same thing. My client base has expanded. It’s so much easier to set up speaking engagements without having to do all the logistics of the travel. And you know, my schedule’s a lot more open, as you were saying, because the travel’s not there. So I’m free to accept engagements that are closer in time together than they used to be. And it’s been strange because I had the same reaction like, oh I can’t travel anymore. I’ve got to pivot. <Laugh> like, what else can I do in this business aside from speaking, because I’m clearly not going to make money from speaking anymore. No, that was not at all the case. Once people kind of got their bearings, the bookings started coming in again. So it’s really been like amazing and I’m so grateful, and grateful that it’s happened the same way for you.

17:27 Natilie: Thank you!

Commercial

17:30 Emily: Emily here for a brief interlude. Would you like to learn directly from me on a personal finance topic, such as goal-setting, investing, frugality, increasing income, or student loans, each tailored specifically for graduate students and postdocs? I offer seminars and workshops on these topics and more in a variety of formats, and I’m now booking for the 2022-2023 academic year. If you would like to bring my content to your institution, would you please recommend me as a speaker to your university, graduate school, graduate student association, or postdoc office? My seminars are usually slated as professional development or personal wellness. Ask the potential host to go to PFforPhDs.com/speaking/ or simply email me at emily@PFforPhDs.com to start the process. I really appreciate these recommendations, which are the best way for me to start a conversation with a potential host. The paid work I do with universities and institutions enables me to keep producing this podcast and all my other free resources. Thank you in advance if you decide to issue a recommendation! Now back to our interview.

Business Income vs. Stipend

18:52 Emily: Let’s talk about money. So, you have an assistantship. I don’t know if you want to share how much you make through that. Feel free if you’re comfortable. But how does your, like the money that comes in through your business compare with like your stipend?

19:05 Natilie: Yeah, so with an assistantship so Hey, when I left corporate, I left corporate, I quit the job. I had saved up $15,000 over the timeframe that I had worked there. Especially when I knew I wanted to leave. I was like, well, I’m no fool. I need to, you know, I need to be able to live. And so I saved up $15,000 and then I got this assistantship. And this assistantship was paying me literally a third, one-third of what I made in corporate. And for me I’m like, I will figure it out. Like that’s one promise I’ve made to myself is that I will always be okay financially. Legally, financially, correct? And so yeah, so with the assistantship I was making like a third of what I made in corporate.

19:50 Natilie: And with speaking, I was able to, there were some times where I was literally making whatever my assistantship was, I could make double that with speaking. So I was literally making double my assistantship with speaking and still had my assistantship. And so for me that allowed me to realize like, okay, I can do both of these things well, and I’ve always been a saver and I knew that I would need, you know, I would need to live after I graduated. So I was able to prepare for life post-Graduation. And then also writing a book while I was in the doctoral program and releasing the book and also having book sales come in. So, I was able to, once you added in book sales, you added in speaking, yeah, I was able, at some point I made maybe like two and a half times my citizenship, almost three, by being able to do these things and elevate my speaking career. Expand it, so not just speaking, but then also a book. And so, yeah.

20:54 Emily: It sounds to me like, you know, going into your PhD program, it was never like a question that you would give up the speaking. Like, it’s part of your career now. But I’m just wondering like, had you come into graduate school and not had a side business, is your stipend even enough to live on? Like, are your peers living on it? Or do they all have like side stuff going on or taking out student loans or depending on family members? Or like what’s going on financially in your program, I guess?

Transparency with the Department

21:19 Natilie: Yeah. Most of them, they definitely, they hustle. When I say hustle, I don’t mean it in a bad way. But they’ll take another job. They’ll teach somewhere else. They will, some of them have maybe like a significant other, so they’re able like to split costs. But for the most part, we definitely, as part of our program, we look for other ways to bring in that additional income. And so for me, I came in as a speaker and I made sure that that was something I promised myself that I would not give up, but I wasn’t sure how the department was going to react or respond to it. Because I never wanted them to think that like I was not focused on the program. And I listened to one of your previous episodes where you were talking about that, where it’s frowned upon sometimes.

22:07 Natilie: And so, I came into the department and told the Director of Grad Studies for the department, like, Hey, I do speaking. And so there would be some Fridays where they would have, what’s called colloquium where like, it’s like a big research conversation. And I’m like, yo, I’ve got to go Denver to speak. I can’t make it to colloquium. And luckily the Director of Grad Studies was like, you know, I’m going to count you speaking as professional development since you already have your hand in your career. We’re not going to count it against you, that you aren’t at colloquium, right? Like you already have your hand in your career. We’re going to support that. And I was so happy that she was so generous because she could have been like, no, you need to be here. I can say for like some of the rest of the department more so like peers, I didn’t really let them know too much.

22:56 Natilie: I would just say like, oh, I have a leadership conference to go to. I didn’t mention to my peers that I was the keynote for the leadership conference. But once I saw that it was a comfortable space, I was able to let them know. And then once they saw that like I wrote a book and so they were like, oh, wait a minute, you really do this. Like you wrote a book like you are on a book tour, wait a minute. Like, you know, so once I felt comfortable, I didn’t mind sharing. But I had to be sure that it was a safe space because I was not going to allow anybody to sabotage this career that I had worked so hard for.

23:28 Emily: Yeah. I think this makes a ton of sense because when you have a business, a side business or whatever you might call it, that’s so like out there and public-facing, and especially it’s in higher ed <laugh> as well. Like, it’s something that’s probably impossible to conceal. Like sometimes with my podcast guests, they don’t want to let people know about it, and they can not let people know about it. They can do their side hustle on the weekends, in the evenings. It can be just a private thing. But I think it was really smart of you since you were already doing it when you came into graduate school just to be completely upfront and say, this is what’s happening. And I’m really glad too, that, you know, they worked with you on that. It also makes sense to me that what you’re doing is professional development enhancing your career. So, I’m really glad they gave you that, you know, a little bit of leeway on the attendance.

24:11 Natilie: It was difficult. Because it got to the point where like, I was so protective of my speaking career. Like I was not accepting my colleagues on social media because I didn’t want them to see that, like, you know, I’m speaking. Or if after class, as a student, I go hop on a flight to the airport and I post on social media that I’m on a flight and they’re like, oh, well, what is she doing there? Is she going to make it back in time to teach? And I would, but I never wanted people to question. I never wanted people even to have the opportunity to try and, you know, speak against or speak negatively or try to talk about what they didn’t have clarity on, you know, so. But now it’s all good.

Advice for Working on a Business in Grad School

24:47 Emily: Yeah. You proved yourself in your program and it came out that you were doing all of that with the business on the side, and being successful in both. So yeah, I’m really glad that you had that positive reaction. Is there anything else that you want to share with us about your business or your role as a graduate student before we wrap up?

25:03 Natilie: Absolutely. As a graduate student, if you come in with a business, you don’t necessarily have to lay it down by the wayside in order to focus on your doctoral studies. You can do both and you can do both well. I think it’s about coming into a department and figuring out how does this operate? And then also allowing yourself to have as much time as possible to work on your business and still be a person because doctoral programs are hard for no reason. But it’s possible to maintain both of those things. And if you are like, well, I’m a doctoral student and I want to start a business but I don’t know. Try and think about what skillset do you have that you can actually monetize, and that you can do it in a way in which you’ll have time to dedicate to it. Because you don’t want to start a business and you can’t serve your customers well. So I could not show up to my speaking engagements half-tired because I had a paper due last night that was 15, 20 pages, you know? So being able to still serve your customers in whatever capacity that you serve and try and figure out how you can monetize your skillset and do a ton of research, right? If you are interested in speaking, you can look up other speakers that may be doctoral students and figure out how did they do it. So, you never have to recreate the wheel.

How to Reach Natilie

26:22 Emily: How can the listeners find you if they want to learn more about your career or anything else?

26:27 Natilie: Absolutely. I would love for your listeners to follow me on social media and let me know that they found me from the podcast. And so, I can be found on Instagram @NatWillSpeak N A T W I L L S P E A K. And so that is @NatWillSpeak on Instagram, on Twitter, on Facebook. My website, www.natwillspeak.com. And I’m available if you know, they ever want just drop in and say, hi. And my book Innerview, I N N ER, Lessons in Leadership is available on my website, NatWillSpeak.com, and it’s also available on Amazon. And I really kind of lay out even more in the book of how I was able to start the speaking career and elevate it.

27:13 Emily: Yeah. Fascinating. I love that URL slash handle. Your name lent itself so well, that’s amazing.

27:18 Natilie: Thank you. <Laugh>.

Best Financial Advice for Another Early-Career PhD

27:20 Emily: So, the question that I ask all of my interviewees before we wrap up is what is your best financial advice for another early-career PhD? And it could be something that we’ve already touched on in the interview, or it could be something completely new.

27:33 Natilie: Know what you have coming in financially, know what you have going out paying bills. And you can do that for as in a budget. Budget, your money, so, you know, again, what you have due every month, what you have coming in, and that will really allow you to take more ownership of your finances to say, Hey, I realized that I have $800 leftover every month. I’m doing pretty good. I can start saving or investing. Or it may make you realize I need $800 more a month. I don’t have enough. Do I need to pick up another position? Do I need to try and apply for a fellowship or a scholarship or outside grants or things of that nature? So, I think that me budgeting, learning to budget my money, I budget down to the dollar. Not to the cents, but to the dollar, and me doing that, I was able to take ownership of my finances and know at all times where I stood. And checking bank accounts daily, making sure that, you know, what’s what, did this bill get taken out? So just knowing where I always stood financially gave me the knowledge to make the best-informed decisions financially as a doctoral student.

28:38 Emily: Well, Natilie, it’s been such a pleasure to meet you and thank you so much for sharing your experience and everything with the listeners! Thanks for coming on!

28:45 Natilie: Thank you so much! Thank you!

Outtro

28:52 Emily: Listeners, thank you for joining me for this episode! I have a gift for you! You know that final question I ask of all my guests regarding their best financial advice? I have collected short summaries of all the answers ever given on the podcast into a document that is updated with each new episode release. You can gain access to it by registering for my mailing list at PFforPhDs.com/advice/. Would you like to access transcripts or videos of each episode? I link the show notes for each episode from PFforPhDs.com/podcast/. 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 Podington Bear from the Free Music Archive and is shared under CC by NC. Podcast editing by Lourdes Bobbio and show notes creation by Meryem Ok.

Can I Make Extra Money as a Funded Graduate Student on an F-1 Visa?

March 29, 2021 by Lourdes Bobbio

In this episode, Emily interviews Frank Alvillar, an immigration attorney at Alvillar Law in San Antonio, Texas, and Sheena Connell, a designated school official and the assistant director of International Student and Scholar Services at the University of the Incarnate Word. International students are sometimes in a very tough financial situation in graduate school, even if they are fully funded, and may desire to increase their incomes. But what kinds of additional income are allowed on an F-1 visa if a graduate student already receives a stipend? Frank and Sheena share their frameworks for thinking through what is and is not permissible. Emily asks them how these frameworks apply to specific income-generating activities such as self-employment, working remotely for an employer outside the US, investing, rental income, credit card rewards, and more. This episode is a must-listen for any prospective or current international graduate student!

Links Mentioned in this Episode

  • Find Frank Alvillar on Twitter and Sheena Connell on LinkedIn
  • ImmigrationCases.org
  • American Immigration Lawyers Association
  • Study in the States
  • Quarterly Estimated Tax for Fellowship Recipients
  • Related Episodes
    • Can and Should an International Student, Scholar, or Worker Invest in the US?
    • What Happens When Personal Finance Education Becomes Your Hobby
    • How a Book Inspired This PhD’s Financial Turnaround
  • Personal Finance for PhDs: Resources for International Students
  • Personal Finance for PhDs: Tax Resources
  • Personal Finance for PhDs: Community
  • Personal Finance for PhDs: Podcast Hub
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Teaser

00:00 Sheena: I think there is a kind of an idea that that students can work around it. I think culturally, I find a lot of our students come from a lot more…there are a lot more countries that has a lot more ingenuity and that’s appreciated, of going outside the bounds of law, but in US immigration law, there’s just not a lot of wiggle room. And the, “I didn’t know excuse” doesn’t really work that well.

Introduction

00:33 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 eight, episode 13, and today my guests are Frank Alvillar an immigration attorney at Alvillar Law in San Antonio, Texas, and Sheena Connell, a designated school official and the assistant director of international student and scholar services at the University of the Incarnate Word.

01:00 Emily: In this episode, we discuss what kinds of income generating activities are allowed and not allowed for funded graduate students on F1 visas. I have been asked variations on this question by international students in tough financial situations for many years and I finally found two experts who are able to give us a full answer. Frank and Sheena share their frameworks for thinking through what is and is not permissible. I asked them how these frameworks apply to specific income generating activities international students have proposed to me, such as self-employment working remotely for an employer outside the US, investing, rental real estate, credit card rewards, and more. This episode is a must listen for any prospective or current international graduate student in the US. Even if you’re not in a tight financial situation right now, things may be different down the line and it’s best to be prepared.

01:53 Emily: This podcast episode kicks off a season for my business of publishing in-depth content for graduate students, post-doc and PhD workers who are in the US on visas. The three big topic areas I plan to publish content in are this podcast episode on work options, an at your own pace workshop on taxes, and at least one video course on investing. That last course will be taught by Hui-chin Chen, who we heard from in season four, episode 17. If any of these subjects sounds interesting to you, please sign up for the Personal Finance for PhDs mailing list at pfforphds.com/international to learn when the new content becomes available, which I expect to be in the next six months. I’m really pleased to be able to serve this segment of the PhD population in more depth and I hope you’ll join me on this journey.

Book Giveaway

02:42 Emily: Now it’s time for the book giveaway contest. In March, 2021 I’m giving away one copy of, I Will Teach You to Be Rich by Ramit Sethi, which is the Personal Finance for PhDs Community book club selection for May, 2021. Everyone who enters the contest during March will have a chance to win a copy of this book. I Will Teach You to Be Rich has come up in two previous podcast episodes with Dr. Amanda in season five, episode 15 and Laura Frater in season eight, episode two. In both episodes, my interviewees is say that while they were initially turned off by the books title, it eventually inspired them to execute dramatic financial turnarounds. After listening through either one of those episodes, you will definitely want to read this book and participate in the book club. If you would like to enter the giveaway contest, please rate and review this podcast on Apple podcasts, take a screenshot of your review and email it to me emily@pfforphds.com. I’ll choose a winner at the end of March, from all the entries. You can find full instructions pfforphds.com/podcast. Without further ado, here’s my interview with Frank Alvillar and Sheena Connell.

Would You Please Introduce Yourself Further?

03:59 Emily: This is a really special episode. I’m so glad that you all have joined today. I have with me Sheena Connell and Frank Alvillar. We are talking today about graduate students on F-1 visas and what their possible options are for adding to their incomes. Can they work? Can they not work? Can they get an income without working? These are the kinds of questions that we’re going to be asking today. I’m so glad to have these two experts with us. So Sheena, will you please tell us a little bit more about who you are, where you work and so forth?

04:30 Sheena: Yeah, sure. I’ve worked with international students for almost 15 years now. I’ve worked at public research institutions, at private schools, secondary schools, intensive English language programs — kind of the whole gambit of the F-1 world. I am currently serving as assistant director for international students scholar services at University of the Incarnate Word in San Antonio, Texas. And I’m also the designated school official for their F-1 program and alternative responsible officer for the J-1 program. I’ve served as the co-chair for San Antonio Forum for International Educators. And currently, just started this position, serving on the national team for NAFSA, which is the Association of International Educators as the chair elect for international student and scholar services knowledge community, and we’re kind of responsible for cutting edge international advisor resources and trends. I’m not a tax expert. I’m not a Department of Labor expert but I am a certified trainer in F-1 and J-1 advising.

05:32 Emily: Thank you so much. We are so lucky to have you on today. And will you please explain what this role DSO is? Because I know this is going to come up more later and it was not one that I was familiar with.

05:41 Sheena: Yeah. We have this acronym, designated school official, that is a designation given by Department of Homeland Security to a person or a group of people at a university who control F-1 student records and then alternative responsible officer is the equivalent on the J-1 side.

06:01 Emily: Thank you so much, Sheena. And Frank, will you please introduce yourself?

06:04 Frank: My name is Francisco Alvillar, I go by Frank. I am an immigration attorney. I have been practicing since 2007. I’m board certified in immigration nationality law. I practice in every area of immigration law and that runs the gambit from processing visas at consulates, to defending people in deportation court, to simple green cards, simple citizenship cases, as well as federal litigation, which involves suing the US government.

06:37 Emily: We are so fortunate to have you as well. And Frank, you are the one who I initially reached out to about doing this interview because you have recently started a fabulous website. And will you please tell us more about that?

06:48 Frank: Sure. It’s immigrationcases.org. A friend of mine and myself, we found that a lot of our clients had what we referred to as pain points. Those were things that individuals didn’t necessarily need legal representation for, but they were pieces of information that they couldn’t get online, that we knew because we had been through the process with our clients. Things from delays in cases, to general processes, to just little nuance things, delays in receiving receipts, what to do when you have a court case. What we’ve done is trying to find those pain points and create pages for each and every single one and that’s how we got connected because one of the pain points for F-1 international students is knowing what their options are to work because it’s expensive to go to school here in the US. We found a lot of people calling our offices asking for options where they didn’t necessarily need representation, but they just wanted to be informed before they made a mistake and jeopardized their immigration status.

08:01 Emily: Yeah, I think that’s going to be the case for a lot of people listening to this episode. I was just googling F-1 work options as I do every few months, because I had not really found a satisfying article until I did this a month or two ago, and found your website ranked on the first page of Google. Really, really wonderful article and I immediately reached out and proposed this podcast episode. That’s kind of the background for this.

Disclaimer

08:25 Emily: I know that, Frank, you had a disclaimer you had to say upfront and also just kind of explaining the different perspectives that you and Sheena come from. Let’s talk through that.

08:34 Frank: As a primary disclaimer, the information that we provide should not be construed as any type of legal or direct advice for your case. You may hear something that sounds extremely similar to your situation, but don’t take it for granted that you could have things or aspects of your situation that could make the outcome markedly different than what we’re describing here. It’s always important to get that information for your specific situation and to not rely necessarily on just what the descriptions we’re giving here. That’s number one.

09:11 Frank: Number two is that we’re going to be talking about this from two perspectives. One is the legal perspective, what the law says. We’re able to give you a description of what the regulations tell you you can and can’t do. But I think that the more important thing, which is perspective, number two is the practical application, because one of the things that you have to realize is that it’s people who are applying the law and immigration law is complicated because it’s so voluminous and you can’t expect every single immigration official to know every single regulation. It’s important to understand that the way these things are applied aren’t necessarily just based on what the regulation says. It’s based on the individuals. You want your case to make sense to individuals within the framework of the law, but you should never rely strictly on this is what the law says, and then you almost argue with an immigration official that they’re wrong. You never want to be in that situation. Think practically when we’re giving you this advice, because that’s the way — or not advice, but practically what we’re giving you this information, because that’s really, what’s most important here.

10:25 Emily: Okay. Thank you for providing that perspective, but I guess I’m still a little bit confused. Let’s say we go through the course of this episode and we’ve identified something that according to law would be a perfectly fine income generating activity for an F-1 visa student. Does that mean because this practical application other lens that they shouldn’t pursue an activity that does seem to be in accordance with the law?

10:50 Frank: Not necessarily. I think that what I would tell them to use is the Frankie five second rule. And the Frankie five second rule is that if an immigration officer can’t understand what you’re doing within five seconds, it’s probably a bad idea because anytime they’re confused or it’s unclear the activities that you engaged in, they’re going to err on the side that you did something wrong. As an example would be, let’s say, and we’ll talk about this later, but credit card rewards shows up as income on your tax returns. If they were to ask you to see your tax returns, it would look like you worked here in the US from some individual’s perspectives. You would need to be able to, let’s say, as a practical matter show, those credit card rewards statements, show the amounts, maybe even make a spreadsheet, showing that they add up to the amount that’s declared on your taxes. It’s not that you don’t want to do it. It’s just that you want to make sure that it’s clear what you’re doing. And like I said, I even use this with my clients — the five second rule, and it’s not for when the food falls on the floor, it’s for when an immigration officer gets confused, you never want to be in that situation.

Work that is Permissible with an F-1 Visa

12:01 Emily: Okay. I think that’s a super helpful rule of thumb, so thank you so much for clarifying that. I want to go over here the perspective that I’m trying to ask these questions from, which is the one that you know, I was not an international student myself, but I speak with international students on a very regular basis through the podcast, through the speaking engagements that I do through people who email me, and I hear quite often about the financial pressure that international graduate students are under because in all too many universities in the US graduate students are underpaid. International students lack the pressure release valves that some domestic students have, like being able to take out student loans without like a guarantor in the US. Maybe right away when they arrive in the US they don’t have credit scores yet, so they don’t even have the option of like consumer debt immediately. And then there’s of course the work issue, which we’re going to be talking about in much more detail.

12:53 Emily: When I hear from international students, sometimes they are in very, very dire financial straits. Some have dependents here in the US that they aren’t able to support properly, and they are looking for any kind of solution, any kind of way out of this rock and hard place that they’re in. A lot of times I get these questions about, well, what kind of income generating activities are permissible? I’m using that term very carefully, because I’m not necessarily talking about work, and we’ll try to distinguish between these two things later. That’s kind of the perspective that I’m coming from, that I’m asking these questions from. Let’s start off with what kind of work is definitely, definitely allowed on F1 visa. Like it is what they’re doing that they are in the US to be doing. What kind of work is definitely, definitely allowed?

13:36 Sheena: I would start, I guess, to preface all of that is that the F-1 visa is a student visa, so the primary purpose is to study and work is not really at the forefront, unfortunately. I also think that the US in general kind of underestimates the cost of education when students are coming. F-1 students are supposed to prove a certain amount of money to survive in the US before they’re even allowed to enter, but I think that schools could do a better job on estimating what the real cost is. Talking to students before you arrive is probably pretty helpful on that.

14:14 Sheena: As far as what’s allowed on campus, of course is naturally allowed. Now on campus can come into quite a different few forms. For graduate students, research assistant fellowship, teaching, and whole gambit. And those can be different things, hourly pay tuition, waivers, stipends, more combination. I would say anything that takes place on your institution and is paid by your institution, definitely allowed, unless it’s under federal work study or sensitive fields with specific grants that wouldn’t allow non-citizens to work there. There’s also on pick campus employment, commercial, or contracted businesses that provide direct student services. That would be your bookstore or sometimes your student cafeteria if it it’s run by a different company. What would not be is probably construction. So let’s say that there’s a company that’s contracted to do construction on campus, that definitely wouldn’t be allowed because it’s not providing that direct student services.

15:13 Sheena: Off campus, this is a tricky one, which a lot of students don’t know about, but the off-campus/on-campus employment or educational affiliate sites. You’ll see this with a lot of the researchers where maybe they’re not actually on the campus, but they’re at a place that’s contractually, I guess put together by funded research projects. They’re not on campus, but they’re at a lab somewhere, something similar to that. The practical training world — hopefully all of our F1 listeners know about CPT and OPT, so I won’t go into that too much.

15:47 Sheena: And then there’s the rare kind of off-campus authorization. And all of those require that you apply with your international advisors with the form I-765 for employment authorization document, for severe economic hardship. And that we’ve seen has been very difficult over the last few years to get approved. Usually these are unforeseen circumstances, well beyond the student’s control. That could mean like a death of a family member, or there’s a war going at home, major surgery, or the currency plummeting for some reason, which at this time it’s kind of worldwide, so I don’t know the trends right now of economic hardship, how that’s going to look in the post COVID world, but it’s worth a try, I would say if, if you feel like you’re in that situation. However, you’ll usually have to be in your program for one year before you can apply for those, because again, as an F-1 student, you had to prove that you had enough money to come here to begin with.

16:47 Sheena: And then the employment with international organizations. That’s any organization under the IO Immunities Act, meaning like International Monetary Fund or World Bank, that’s also a type of work authorization you can get to work for those companies. So those are the allowable work worlds that we see most often.

17:05 Emily: Okay, let me ask a follow-up around that, because the situation that I see most often is PhD students who are funded, like you said, through assistantships or potentially through fellowships, which in the case of fellowship technically wouldn’t be work, it’s kind of like a scholarship award sort of thing. But anyway, with assistantships, what I typically see is that the appointment is limited to 20 hours per week. And so I’m just thinking of a person who is thinking, “Okay, oh, wow, Sheena you just listed all these options for different places I could work on campus, but I already have a 20 hour week assistantship.” Is it possible to add on to a job that you already have that already is a halftime employment deal?

17:45 Sheena: I think that’s going to range per institution. Graduate students do have a little leeway at some institutions about the 20 hour work week, if it’s CPT and a research assistantship combined. Now that’s not all institution. Some institutions interpret it very strictly and say, nope, 20 hours is 20 hours. Others consider it if it’s CPT, if it’s part of your coursework, it shouldn’t be counted against the 20 hours. Now, I would say USCIS has been very strict about tallying up those numbers over the past three years that we’ve seen. We didn’t see that under the previous administration. I don’t know if we’re going to see it under this administration, Frank might be able to talk more to that, but you do have to realize that your institution’s interpretation, if it’s more lenient, you’re still at some point taking a risk if you’re going more than 20 hours. And that’s from my point of view, I’m a very conservative advisor on these types of things. But you also have to remember during spring break, you have a little bit more leeway during winter break, and then also during summer break, you can go more than that 20 hours without a lot of issue. Now, finding the job, that’s an additional pain point, as Frank was saying.

19:07 Emily: Okay, Frank, do you have anything that you want to add onto this point about the straightforwardly allowable activities?

19:13 Frank: Yeah. I think that what Sheena touched on and I think more generally from the 30,000 foot view is these DSO’s are quasi-immigration attorneys and one of the things that a lot of F-1 students don’t realize, and perhaps it’s different with PhDs because I deal more with undergrads than graduate students, but that the institutions are reliant on immigration giving them permission to accept these F-1 students and it’s a big deal to these institutions. They’re required by regulation, by law to report violations to make sure that they’re doing everything properly. One of the things that’s very important is to really go and speak to the DSO and that you understand that there are perhaps options that are institution specific. Because again, the institution is the one who has to report back to CIS. In other words, the institution going to okay, it, and then CIS is going to okay it, or immigration is going to okay it, so it’s important that you go have that conversation.

20:14 Frank: And you shouldn’t be having that conversation right before you’re in economic dire straits. You should be having it the minute that you arrive at a university. If I need to work, if something happens, what are my options? Can we talk to people? Can we figure something out? Just in case so you have it in your back pocket, because the big takeaway is that these decisions, and this is what I described it to Sheena before podcast and I think she agrees with the metaphor is that these students come and they’re in the immigration system or the US is a dark room and all they have flashlight. And so you need to light that room up as much as you can. And it starts first and foremost with the conversations with the DSO, because it’s a mutually beneficial relationship. They get to accept you as students and recruit from around the world, and you get an education from them. That’s going to be the first starting point for you, and it should happen before you need it.

21:24 Emily: Yeah. Thank you so much for saying that. I think just to pick up on a point that you made earlier Sheena. If you have spoken with other graduate students, let’s say, especially, you would be valuable as other graduate students from your same home country, and they’re telling you, “Ooh, it’s really tight on the stipend.” You know you have to have that conversation with the DSO right away. What are my options here? And not to wait, like you said, Frank, until you really get into trouble before having the conversation. Now, if students are telling you, “Oh, no, that’s no problem. Don’t worry about it.” Well, maybe you can skip out on that for the moment because you’re not really anticipating having any difficulties with the stipend.

22:02 Sheena: I would also add that DSOs, we care a lot, sometimes to a fault, but if we see a student struggling and they’ve come up to us and said, “Hey, I’m really having a hard time.” We might not have an immediate solution, but we might have a scholarship that comes in later this semester. We might have an additional grant that we find out about. And if we have those students in our mind, we know this kid’s not doing great, the student might need help — we keep that in the back of our mind, I would say the majority of DSOs that I work with.

22:32 Emily: Great, great tip. Thank you.

Consequences of Violating the Work Restrictions of an F-1 Visa

22:34 Emily: Okay, so we talked about what is like straightforwardly permissible on an F-1 visa. Before we get into like maybe more borderline or creative solutions, what is the potential consequence of violating this work aspect of your visa?

22:50 Sheena: As Frank mentioned, we definitely have a legal obligation as advisors to report violations. If we don’t report it, not only are we jeopardizing that student we’re jeopardizing every F-1 student, our ability to host it, our institution’s reputation, everything. So working beyond F-1 regulations or working within regular F-1 regulations, but without prior approval, those are the big violations I would say most DSOs see. Those have severe consequences.

22:23 Sheena: Number one, automatic termination of your F-1 status. Your SEVIS record is no longer valid, your I-20 is no longer valid, your I-94 loses validity because it’s tied to your I-20. Your visa is essentially canceled. Frank can go more into the weeds of what happens once that happens. We actually are automatically immediately notifying DHS. DHS, or Department of Homeland Security, they have access to SEVIS. We’ve worked with ICE officials that come in and educate our students about the negative consequences, and they’ll say, once that file hits my desk, it’s kind of game over, particularly for work violations. Those are the most serious violations of your F-1 visa. There’s a lot of forgiveness, I think in F-1 violations. You can apply for reinstatement, but work, that’s not one of those violations that you can apply for reinstatement.

24:20 Emily: Okay. Thank you. I was just thinking the same thing as you said, game over. What do you say, Frank?

24:25 Frank: Yeah, I think that the big thing is that anytime somebody is trying to get over, visit the US or come to the US, they’ll ask about a visitor visa first, and then I recommend, if they need to study, to find a program here, a short term program, and the reason why is that I say that the consulate officer is a lot more willing to give you an F-1 visa or a student visa because they know that that school will report you when you don’t do what you’re supposed to. To pick up on what Sheena said and talk about ICE, which is immigration and customs enforcement, which is the police arm of immigration, they have, and they will, and I’m sure continue to show up at people’s door when their SEVIS record is terminated. It doesn’t happen a hundred percent of the time. I can’t give you a percentage of what it is, but you’re playing with fire when you commit a violation. And when they come to visit you, it doesn’t necessarily indicate an arrest. They’ll normally give you, what’s called a notice to appear, which is how they initiate deportation proceedings against you. That’s one consequence.

25:33 Emily: The second one is simpler and straightforward is that if you fall out of status here and you have to go back to your home country and try to reapply. You can’t do what Sheena said, a reinstatement. They just don’t treat violators, they don’t give them a lot of latitude. What I mean by that is the immigration system, when we’re talking about everything other than a green card, is designed for you to come for a specific purpose for a specific time. They are giving you this visa with that in mind. When you violate that, you essentially lose the trust of the consulate officer or the consulate. When that happens, it’s very, very difficult to get that back. How do you prove that you’re not going to do something in the future after you’ve done it. You can’t prove a negative Just having that stain on your record, which in a lot of cases can be really unfair, why you have it, but that goes back to the, you have to talk to your DSO and be fully informed because as Sheena said, the consequences can be fairly, fairly high for mistakes that you intended to make or didn’t intend to make.

26:46 Emily: Yeah. Thank you for that. And I think, just to put a really fine point on it, if you lose your visa, I’m guessing you’re going to be kicked out of your program. I’m sure it’s going to vary by program and there’s been a lot of leniency during 2020 for people working remotely and still being in their programs, even if they’re in another country or whatever. But I would imagine that you’re going to be terminated from your program if you lose your visa for most cases.

27:09 Sheena: That’s going to depend on the institution, but I would say you’ll definitely lose your assistantship. You’ll definitely lose the ability to work on campus specifically. If your entire education is based on campus funding by an assistantship or something like that, that will no longer be an option.

27:30 Emily: Yeah. Gotcha.

27:31 Frank: Yeah. One of the things just to follow up on that is the non-immigrant visa system works based on this idea of continuity since their last entry. Violations break that continuity and so going from step to step, getting the permission or going from the student to an OPT, I taught an immigration law class and I would always talk to students or teach them this way, that when you’re talking about a change of status, you can’t go from nothing to something. If you have no status because you made a mistake or because there was a violation, then you have to do as Sheena said, a reinstatement, but you do jeopardize the ability to be able to move on in the system because it breaks that continuity.

28:14 Emily: Got it. Thank you.

Work That Is Not Allowed on an F-1 Visa

28:16 Emily: Okay, so we talked about what is straightforwardly allowed now let’s talk about what is definitely not allowed. We know for sure that these are not going to be permitted. Sheenna, this is just the negative of what we talked about earlier, but let’s go over it again. What can you not do?

28:31 Sheena: I would reiterate anything outside of the description that I had for the different work authorizations. And then anything without prior approval. I would say, this is the biggest issue.There are some things you can actually do, but if you’re not asking and getting permission or figuring out a creative way to make it work for you, either with your DSO or an immigration attorney, then you can’t do it or you shouldn’t be doing it. I would say employment not authorized by your international office, of course, is not allowed. And then we would also go so far as to saying working or any thing that generates active income. And there’s a bright line rule, which most DSOs will subscribe to. And you’ll talk to an attorney, they might have a different perspective. But for us is if you’re doing any work on us, soil for anyone or any company located anywhere on earth, you are violating your immigration status. That’s, if you are doing that work on us soil, then you are violating your immigration status. And that’s, even if you’re working in the USA online for foreign company, you’re paid in your foreign bank account, you’re paid in foreign currency, that’s still in most DSOs definition is a violation of your immigration status.

29:52 Emily: Okay. What you said there was so insightful, and I’m so glad that this came out early on in the interview, because I have been asked this question of, “okay, I get that I can’t have a second job off campus. I can’t be a W-2 employee for some American employer.” People understand that, but I have had multiple people say to me, “Oh, well, I work for such and such a foreign employer. Not a problem, right?” And I’m like, “I don’t know.” That’s why I got you guys on here. So you’re saying that your definition, your bright line is you’re in the U S you’re doing active work, doesn’t matter where the money is, who the employer is, you’re in the US you’re doing the active work — that’s not allowed. Am I hearing that correctly?

30:34 Sheena: That is probably 99.999% of DSOs interpretation because we’re beholden not just to the US government, not just to our students, but also to our institution. We’re not jeopardizing any student just for, oh, maybe there’s a little wiggle room. That’s where you go and talk to an immigration attorney and they might have a different perspective.

30:55 Emily: Okay Frank, let’s hear your perspective.

30:56 Frank: This is where the whole idea of what the law says and the practical application. I would, as the late great RBG would say, I respectfully dissent. I think that you can probably think of a situation that wouldn’t be too crazy of a hypothetical where let’s say somebody working in a foreign online, but the companies outside the US, they’ve hired them because they have work authorization in the country of origin. They’re getting paid in that bank account, whatever the case may be. I think the law probably…You’re not taking any job away from any US worker.

31:44 Frank: That said you just had a conversation with a DSO who said that there’s a problem with that. So despite what I’m telling you the law says, from a practical standpoint, you can see where this can be an issue with your institution, and that’s going to be the first stop that you make. Those are going to be the first conversations you’re going to have, because if a DSO has that perspective, the perspective that Sheena described, and they get wind of you working, they could terminate your status. Again it different. What the law says, the argument you can make, you can make that argument all day long to your DSO, but they’re worried about their status possibly to be terminated where they can’t, for a willful violation, where they wouldn’t be able to accept F-1 students anymore. When you do that, you have to realize I’m asking permission from somebody who their perspective is going to be wholly different from mine. Again, my legal perspective, I don’t think that’s unauthorized employment, but in terms of the practical application, I think a DSO would disagree, like Sheena said.

32:53 Frank: I also think that it’s likely that immigration would disagree with me. If we’re working by Frankie’s five second rule, and I can explain why I’m working in my home, in the US while I’m on an F-1, if it doesn’t make sense within five seconds, you probably don’t want to get into that legal chess match or more of a checkers match with a CBP officer or USCIS by mail or somebody else, trying to argue that, well, that’s not what the law says. That that should be, that’s only your point of last resort. I think that you’re probably going to get pinged with it, even if I disagree that that is actually unauthorized employment. My opinion only matters so much. It’s how they apply the law.

33;38 Emily: Okay. I’m so glad that we got right away to an example of this difference between the theory and the practical applications.

What if No One Finds Out About my Unauthorized Employment on an F-1 Visa?

33:46 Emily: I’m going to ask a question that I hope probably no international student would actually ask you Sheena, which is what if you never find out? What if my DSO never finds out about this online work that I’m doing for someone else? And how likely also is it that immigration would find out? I feel like we’re treading into dangerous territory here, but yeah. What if you never found out?

34:07 Sheena: We actually have whole sessions about this. I love this conversation. So that’s risk you’re going to have to take. And I would say, I am not paid by Department of Homeland Security to go knock on your door and see if you have all this nice stuff that you bought with this job that was off-campus. My job is not to hunt you down. My job is if something comes in front of me and I have evidence, I have to take action. B,ut I would also say just because I don’t catch you or I don’t know doesn’t mean you’re not going to get burned later on in line. We saw this a lot in this last administration, because the way the agencies were implementing some of the rules that had been standing for years, were all of a sudden more strict or more intense, or they scrutinized applications harder. What looked like a normal case maybe five years ago, over the last three years, they were either denied or they were asked for more information. You don’t know what you’re risking in the future. Especially for a lot of our students, they do plan to work in the United States. Some of them may plan to immigrate on down the line. And just because I’m not finding out doesn’t mean they’re not shooting themselves in the foot years from now. Frank, you probably have a lot more content for that one.

35:30 Frank: I think that one of the things that the past administration implemented was that the forms changed. The net that before had the holes that were a little bit bigger, the holes shrunk. The information that could get you in trouble that was slipping through that net, it was getting caught. I think that that’s where you see that the officials and the rules and the forms are catching up with the understanding of what people are doing. What people would say, “I did this and I didn’t get caught, or they didn’t ask about it, so I didn’t get in trouble,” that’s no longer 100% true. We see that a lot, not just with F-1 students, but just in general, because as Sheena said, an example would be your reported income on your 1040, on your tax returns. Let’s say in the future that you have to prove that you maintain status since your last entry. CIS could look closer at that if you have a green card application. As I mentioned before, if you break the continuity, there could be huge consequences. Let’s say as an example, you were present in the US for five years and you messed up in year three, and then you applied in year five for your green card and they say, you have to prove that since your last entry, you maintain status, well, that status would have been broken when you may have committed that violation in year three. And they can catch it, let’s say on the application for a green card, but maybe they didn’t catch it on the application for the student visa. As Sheena said, just because you can do it or get away with it, and I put that in air quotes, doesn’t mean that there won’t be consequences down the road.

Commercial

37:27 Emily: Emily here for a brief interlude. Taxes are weirdly, unexpectedly difficult for funded grad students and fellowship recipients at any level of PhD training. Your university might send you strange tax forms or no tax forms at all. They might not withhold your income tax from your paychecks, even though you owe it. It’s a mess. I’ve created a ton of free resources to assist you with understanding and preparing your 2020 tax return, which are available pfforphds.com/tax. I hope you’ll check them out to ease much of the stress of tax season. If you want to go deeper with the, or have a question for me. Please join one of my tax workshops, which you can find links to from pfforphds.com/tax. It would be my pleasure to help you save time and potentially money this tax season. So don’t hesitate to reach out. Now back to our interview.

Creative Solutions for Working with and F-1 Visa

38:33 Emily: Okay. So we’ve talked about, what’s definitely straightforwardly allowed, what is not allowed in each of your opinions. Getting in between those two, how do we thread the needle? What are some activities that may be permissible to generate income and Sheen I think you used a really key word before, which was active income. So now let’s think about like passive income. Is that such a thing? What are each of your perspectives on that question? Like if it’s not work, not active work, what kinds of ways can an F-1 student generate income that would not be raising any flags?

Active vs. Passive Income

39:06 Sheena: I think understanding income, understanding what employment means, understanding what working means, and understanding tax law, I think to some degree. I put that disclaimer up front, I am not a tax expert, but there are tax experts out there specifically for non-residents, which is a majority of the students that we work with. Remember that your intent is to study, that’s what the visa is for, and anything that’s passive, shouldn’t be a lot. Anything that’s passive can bring you under, but it’s worth, I think it’s $5,000, something around there, again, not a tax expert, could bring you under more scrutiny. If you’re making money in your sleep because you’re investing and all you’re doing is investing like four hours a week, not an exorbitant amount of money of time, then I, as a DSO, we don’t see any problem with that. If you want to invest, that’s great.

40:09 Sheena: But the problem is, again, like Francisco was saying, is that at some point it’s going to get noticed. And so for us passive income, isn’t that big of a deal. I would never probably know about the passive income you’re making, but you do have to arm yourself as a student and know your own boundaries or understanding tax law, understanding immigration law more than what a DSO would do, because again, your immigration status is your immigration status. We’re there to help you, we’re there to bring you along, but if you’re doing something outside of the normal DSO realm…I’ve worked a lot in this because we get a lot of these questions, but if you’re working outside of that, you need to hire somebody, in my opinion, or at least take advantage of as many free resources as possible to understand what’s really going on it when it comes to passive income.

41:04 Sheena: I think there is a kind of an idea that students can work around it. I think culturally, I find a lot of our students come from a lot more…there are a lot more countries that have a lot more ingenuity and that’s appreciated, of going outside the bounds of law, but in US immigration law, there’s just not a lot of wiggle room. And the, “I didn’t know, excuse doesn’t really work that well,” so making sure that you are becoming that mini-immigration or that mini-tax expert before you go into any of these passive income realms is really important.

41:41 Emily: Okay, Frank, I want to get your answer to this in just a moment, but especially because Sheena, you mentioned if you’re not doing that much of it, and I’m wondering if you meant time or money or both, like the income is above a certain threshold or the number of hours is above a certain threshold, but before I throw it over to you, Frank, for to get your answer, what are some other examples, Sheena, of passive income types of activities that you’ve seen that you think are permissible if they fall within this “not too much” definition that we’re trying to get to. For instance, you mentioned investing, what about being a landlord? Is that passive rental income?

42:18 Sheena: It’s going to depend on how much work you do, and again, this is my advice as a DSO, working with students in a framework that they can understand, or that I can explain, would be, if you’re doing something more than 500 hours a week (a year), it’s no longer a hobby. It’s no longer just for fun. You’re doing something that’s taking a significant amount of time. I believe that there’s actually a rule that we let our immigration attorneys explain in our workshops.

42:59 Emily: Let’s go over to Frank, then to get the definition here of what is passive.

43:04 Frank: Yeah. I think that we’re looking at what Sheena was referring to is that when the Department of Labor defines, if it’s less than 500 hours a year, then it’s considered a hobby. But passive income, I think that for simple terms is as Sheena put, it is money that you’re making while you’re asleep. You’re not getting your hands dirty doing anything. You mentioned rental properties to me, that would be fine. And I’ll tell you why in the context of F-1 by giving an example of other visas, which is for example, there are a lot of Mexican nationals. We live on the border here in Texas, and a lot of them own properties and a lot of them have somebody who manage it, and collect rent and they have income and they’re not considered to be violating their non-immigrant visa status.

43:56 Frank: I think that rental properties are probably okay, but again, I’m going to defer to, or hark back to the Frankie five-second rule, which is if somebody asks you, can you explain that income? And I mean, show a statement that says this is purely, you know, I have a management company who collects rent, here’s a letter from them that amount of collection minus the expenses is what’s reported, so I don’t really do anything. I just invested in real estate, but I’m here to study. That’s all I’m here to do. And so if you’re able to explain that within five seconds and it makes sense to the officer, then I think that you’re going to be okay.

44:34 Frank: Again, it’s the practical versus the legal. You have to realize that when you come, let’s say for example to the border that I mentioned, if you’re coming from an international flight, you have CBP officers who have been sitting there all day. You’ve been on a flight all day and they’re seeing people over and over and over again, it’s a heavy to make them sit there and listen to you meander through an explanation. So just be prepared with documentation to show that you’re really not actively getting your hands dirty to do something. You always want to err on the side of caution. So rental property probably just higher, there’s tons in every city of people who will manage the rental properties for you. You don’t have to do anything. That’s a perfect example of where you say, well, I have a rental property, but I don’t touch it. It’s a management company that handles everything. I think that would be a great example, but I think that what you need to do is you need to think in practical terms to be able to explain it to somebody who has no idea, who is you meeting you for the first time and be able to do it in a simple and straightforward way so that they’re comfortable that you’re not taking a job from a US worker.

Investment Income

45:47 Emily: Okay, I’m going to throw another idea at you Frank. So Sheena mentioned investing earlier, but also you just said, the 500 hour per year guideline — what about, what I might call day trading or active investing? How about that? How does that play?

46:03 Frank: Right. I think that I looked up what the common definition of day trading is, and it’s making four more trades a week. And I think, again, we’re getting to the practical application of this because as Sheena mentioned, a couple of times during this podcast, the administrations can strictly enforce rules. Also, people coming from different countries, and I think the way where enforcement is different. I think she mentioned flexibility or the approach is different, but I think ultimately how laws are enforced really, really matters. And for us in the US, the president or the executive branch has the exclusive authority to enforce immigration laws.

46:43 Frank: Related to that, if you have an administration that’s tightening the screws, then you probably don’t even want to be called a day trader. We have yet to see how the Biden administration is going to do it, but let’s work on the assumption that they’re going to be a little more laxed about this. I think that the approach should be that if you’re trading in a way to support yourself, that it’s almost a necessity, you’re doing it in that type of volume where you can pay your rent, your groceries, you pay all your bills with day trading, even if you don’t need to, but you’re making enough money to do all that, it’s probably not going to be okay. Say that you are buying stocks, four or less a week. You’re trading, just something dropped and you’re doing the investment, then I think that that’s probably okay.

47:33 Frank: Being able to explain it, these trading platforms will issue a form 1099 that’s fairly detailed, and as long as that matches your taxes and you say I invested when the market dropped. I don’t need it to support myself and I’m doing it in a volume that’s very low frequency, here’s the statement, you’ll probably be okay. But again, that’s my perspective. You’re going to have to ask, or you should ask your DSO and be prepared to explain it. But in terms of day trading, I think that unless you’re doing it in this high volume every day, trying to move and really just make enough money to pay for every expense here, school included, living expenses, I think that you probably okay, if you don’t do it in that type of volume.

Credit Card Rewards

48:27 Emily: I have another scenario for you, which is one you’ve already mentioned, I think at least once in the interview, which has credit card rewards, which to me seems one of the more accessible forms of generating a side income is that also considered making money while you sleep? And is it easy enough to explain to an immigration officer?

48:44 Sheena: I would chime in about documentation. So of course we’re concerned about documentation and so tax documentation, what that looks like, is what you’re going to have to pay attention to. Then also realize we’re working with the IRS, we’re working with the Department of Labor, we’re working with Department of Homeland Security. All of these are factoring into what the reality of the situation is and factoring into how they’re enforcing it at that specific time.

49:14 Frank: Yeah, that was one of the things that we talked about before the podcast, is that not only different departments, but different sub-agencies within the Department of Homeland Security, their perspectives can be different. The Department of State, when they’re processing your visa, abroad could be different than USCIS. I’ve seen it, where something is okay here and then all of a sudden it’s not okay abroad. It comes as a shock to the client because they were asking how can one sub-agency say yes, and the other one say no, and that’s why it is important to have that documentation.

49:51 Frank: You asked about credit card rewards, so let’s take just a hard example. Let’s say you made $1,000 or $2,000 in credit card rewards, which means that you’re using your credit card quite a bit, but that’s money, that’s considered income. But I think that if you’re able to know that if anybody asks you, you could have that spreadsheet, you could have those statements, you can show the totals and show that you’re not working. You’re simply getting rewarded for using American Express, Visa or MasterCard. I think you’re going to be okay, because again, the practical application of laws, you have to remember that you’re dealing with a human being, so a human being will understand if you can show them that you didn’t go and apply for a job anywhere. You’re not actively doing anything. I’m sure that almost every credit card offers some sort of reward points at this moment. Those are things that an immigration officer can understand, as long as you can show them that that’s what’s reflected in your tax forms or that’s what’s reflected in whatever official document you have to present them.

51:01 Sheena: Yeah. And we actually found a pretty good article about it talking that some rewards, if it’s per dollar you spend, it’s more like a rebate, whereas if you’re actually opening an account and that’s the incentive, then that can be considered more like income.

51:16 Emily: Oh, interesting.

51:17 Sheena: And that’s what might get you the 1099 miscellaneous.

51:20 Emily: Okay. So kind of a difference between ongoing credit card rewards and credit card churning, which is opening new accounts for the sign up bonuses. Interesting. I will have to look into that distinction further.

Self-Employment

51:30 Emily: I think we’ve probably already covered this, but I just want to throw out one last scenario, which is essentially self-employment. Again, maybe sort of not taking work maybe from an American, but how does self-employment fall into this whole framework?

51:47 Sheena: For what’s already allowable, OPT definitely go for it. It’s encouraged. It’s one of the seven allowable types of employment, as long as it’s directly related to your degree programs so it’s giving you practical experience in your, in your program.

52:04 Emily: I’m wondering how common or how practical of a solution that is for again, the people who I serve are generally PhDs, so they’re in a PhD program and that’s supposed to be taking up pretty much all of their energy, and maybe they’re only allowed a little bit of time for themselves or hobbies or whatever on the side. When I was thinking about self-employment or starting a business, again, a lot of students don’t have a lot of capital either. I’m thinking more about tutoring, freelancing, like wr,iting, like editing these kinds of services that I think would be a little bit more analogous to having a job rather than owning a business where you could outsource the work. Does that make sense? I would think that those kinds of activities would probably fall under, no, this looks too much like work.

52:46 Sheena: Yeah. If you register your company, if you obtain the license, those kind of aren’t operating the business. I think planning the business, especially depending on your major could be okay. I think who’s doing the services. Who’s controlling the money. If you’re involved in any of that process, it’s not a good thing. Using the institutional address. So if it’s part of your program, we have a lot of MBA students, if it’s using your program and it’s part of CPT, or if it’s part of, I guess, pre completion OPT is the more common, then you could possibly try that one. I think it comes down to how dirty your hands get, as far as how much are you in. I will tell you, your DSO will rarely have an exact perfect answer for this. They’re going to tell you to talk to an attorney so they can help you set it up because if you’re really interested in doing that, you’re going to have to invest some money to do it properly. It’s not just, “Oh, here are the five points and you’re fine.” It is about the documentation. It’s making sure that if all those agencies, look at it, they’re going not going to determine that you’re working.

54:03 Frank: Yeah. Self-employment is going to be the same as just having somebody hire you, if you’re just working, but only working for yourself. If it looks like that, if you could do the same thing that you’re doing for yourself for an employer, then I would tell you, even me who tries to navigate along the lines of edges of immigration law, I would say you can’t do that because they’re going to accuse you of working here or violating your status. I think what you have to remember is, as Sheena said, your F-1 is given to you to study, and so if it’s not obvious that you can do it CPT, OPT, on-campus employment, economic hardship, then you really have to understand the decisions you make sometimes will toe the line and you need to mitigate the possibility of being accused of violating your status. And the only way to do that is conversations with your DSO, conversations with an immigration attorney. A lot of attorneys offer free consultations. Even if you have to spend $100 to $200 to speak to an attorney, I know that you’re doing it because it’s already a difficult situation, but just come armed with some questions and that $200, if it saves your status, I think will be well worth it.

55:31 Emily: Yeah. Thank you so much for mentioning that as the next step, when you’re thinking about is this kind of activity okay or not. Those two resources — speak to a DSO, speak to an immigration attorney — I’m glad you threw out that number because yeah, $100-$200 is a significant amount of money, but it’s not $1,000 it’s not $10,000. I’m glad to get that sort of order of magnitude.

Additional Workarounds, Advice, and Resources

55:51 Emily: Are there any other workarounds that we have not already brought up? Because we’ve already brought up the economic hardship, which there’s different trends in that, may not be as viable as before. Sheena, you brought up CPT, OPT, maybe there’s some creative solution there. And also both of you mentioned changing visa types just away from the F-1. Any other workarounds that we haven’t mentioned so far?

56:15 Sheena: I would push for scholarships. We have a pretty extensive workshop on how to apply for scholarships. There’s so much money out there that actually doesn’t get used and I think a lot of students, especially if they’re on a full ride or like a full tuition waiver, they’re not necessarily thinking of how else can I get a scholarship or grant. There are outside ways I think to get a little bit of extra money without even touching the work world. And I think on top of that with COVID and with everything going on right now, a lot of institutions do have emergency funds. So if it really is a matter of, “Hey, I may not be able to afford rent this month” or “Hey, I, I need groceries,” I think reaching out to your institution, they are aware that students are struggling right now, particularly now, so having that conversation again with your DSO or with your financial aid office, or even your campus ministry. There’s a lot of different resources on campus that are meant to help to support students. If you find that you’re, you’re kind of on that cusp, then that’s what I would recommend.

57:23 Sheena: I also want to put a plugin for stay away from Instagram. I’ve had this question billions of times I feel like. The product placement, being a brand ambassador, getting a few things, even only fans — all of those, that free merch, a lot of times it’s not free merch. Those product placements, a lot of times if they’re mailing you something, they’re going to 1099 you later on. Just be very, very wary if you’re messing around with any of those social media platforms. Those companies that are trying to get people to be influencers, they do not care how they’re taxing you. They will burn you hard if you’re not paying attention and asking questions before you accept something free.

58:09 Emily: Okay. I’m so glad you brought that up as like a potential other, the influencer model for gaining what is normally called passive income, but there’s certainly a lot of work as well that goes into that. Are you saying it’s more of a problem on the tax front or more of a problem on the hours you spend doing it front?

58:26 Sheena: Our interpretation is on the tax front. You may be getting four bathing suits for free or something, or I don’t know, whatever anybody gets these days. But it may not actually be free. They may actually send you tax documents or their HR may be considering it, that you’re an employee or that you’re a contract worker, when in actuality you just thought you were getting free stuff for posting something. I think you really have to, again, not to make everyone go and hire an attorney, but I think in this realm, in the F-1 world, you cannot be too safe when it comes to planning ahead and doing your research before you jump into something. I think some of the students that I’ve seen gotten in trouble, haven’t asked ahead of time. They haven’t done their research. Or they trusted a friend’s advice who was very well-meaning but may have been from a different country or completely different circumstances, or maybe didn’t have as much to risk or to lose as they do.

59:31 Emily: Okay. Thank you. And Frank final workarounds, or just final other examples and thoughts?

59:36 Frank: Congress just passed a $1.9 trillion package. A lot of that money is going to local governments. The local governments don’t necessarily always make a distinction between the status of the individual. They just want to help the local economy. They’ll do a hold evictions in abeyance rent programs, local programs, and if they don’t make a distinction between it and you don’t have to do anything to obtain the money, then it’s probably okay. I would say, as Sheena mentioned, but just generally speaking, why work if you can get the money for free?

1:00:14 Emily: Yeah. I’m glad we got around to those solutions that are even outside the scope of really our conversation today.

01:00:19 Emily: Okay, so someone listening may be left with more questions than they had at the beginning of the podcast. This is just an introduction to the material. Where would each of you recommend that people go next? Obviously we’ve already talked about talk with your own DSO at your own institution. How does one find an immigration attorney, Frank? Where do people go next?

01:00:39 Frank: Right. So in finding an immigration attorney, my recommendation is to go to aila.org. That stands for American Immigration Lawyers Association. They are the largest immigration lawyer institution in the country. They have over 3000 attorneys or 2,500 members, rather. That is anyone who’s a serious immigration attorney will be a member. You can do that. That’s number one. Each state bar will have board certification lists or people who have to take exams, take classes, practice immigration law, and they’ve been certified by their state bar association. You can look for that particular to your state, wherever you are, but it’s also important to keep in mind that immigration is federal, so you can actually look at any state for a board certified immigration attorney. I would say those two would be two places. You can go to our website, immigrationcases.org. You can follow me on Twitter @alvillarlawpc, and you can post something and I’ll try to give you some general advice and see if I can answer the question. But I think that if you’re going to schedule something with an immigration attorney, aila.org, or looking for a board certified immigration attorney through the state bar website, or the state board of legal specialization would be a great place to start.

01:02:08 Emily: Yes. Thank you. And Sheena, do you have any recommendations for further resources?

01:02:11 Sheena: Yeah, so Study In The States, that’s Department of Homeland Security website. They do have a lot of nitty gritty stuff about your immigration status that your DSO is probably telling you, but just to double-check them, you’re more than welcome to. I would be very wary of forums. De COPT I think is one of the more reputable ones, but they do get some stuff wrong. Quora is absolutely terrible. Yahoo answers, absolutely terrible. Don’t trust your immigration life to that. I think avvo.com, I think it’s where attorneys answer questions, that’s pretty decent. When it comes to investment, I didn’t mention this resource, but our campus uses Sprint Tax. They actually came out with a great blog about investment income for F-1 students and how to file those on taxes. I would definitely work on that one. And immigrationcases.org, Francisco’s website actually has really great content.

01:03:10 Frank: I would also, Sheena mentioned this earlier, but go to your DSO and ask them to reach out to local attorneys or even attorneys from out of town who can do video presentations. That’s an easy marketing tool for attorneys, so a lot of them will jump at it and it can be really helpful to have that perspective because it’s a group setting where maybe there are questions that you haven’t thought of, that one of your classmates can bring up. Reaching out to your DSO to see if they can bring in an attorney or have an attorney present at your college or university.

01:03:43 Emily: Yeah. That’s a wonderful idea.

01:03:44 Sheena: There are great attorneys, as well as Francisco that lots of campuses can reach out to that are more than willing to give their time to talk about all of these topics for free to a group of students.

01:03:59 Emily: Yeah, I think that’s an awesome next step to help, not only you, the listener, but the other people on your campus. Well, this has been just an incredible interview. Thank you both so much for your time. This has been really enlightening for me. I know it has for many of the listeners. I hope it helps be well, see solutions, avoid pitfalls, and yeah. Thank you so much for joining me.

01:04:17 Sheena: Thank you, yes.

01:04:17 Frank: Thanks for having us.

Listener Q&A: Estimated Tax Payments

Question

01:04:26 Emily: Now onto the listener question and answer segment. Today’s question was asked in advance of a live webinar I gave recently for a university client so it is anonymous.

01:04:36 Emily: Here is the question: “I heard that there is a penalty for not having income tax taken automatically from fellowship paychecks. Is there any way for me to withhold some of my pay to cover taxes and avoid the penalty?”

Answer

01:04:50 Emily: Thank you anonymous for this question. It is excellent and you are exactly right. The IRS does expect to receive tax payments throughout the calendar year. And when you’re an employee that’s typically taken care of by your employer through income tax withholding. However, when you’re not an employee, like if you’re on fellowship, most universities do not offer income tax withholding as a benefit. Yet the IRS still expects those payments.

01:05:18 Emily: So what’s the best way to go about getting those payments to the IRS? So, first of all, you should check if your university offers this benefit to non-employees, to fellowship or training grant recipients. While rare, some universities do such as Duke and Johns Hopkins. This most commonly happens when fellowship paychecks are processed through payroll rather than through financial aid. So if your university does process your paychecks through payroll, you can inquire if you’re able to submit a W-4 and have them withhold income tax on your behalf. Now, like I said, that solution is simple, but it’s not that common.

01:05:56 Emily: Next consideration after that is whether you or your spouse has any W-2 income that continues throughout the entire calendar year. So for example, some graduate students have a combination of W2 income, or employee income and fellowship income, or some other kind of award on top of that. If you have that kind of combination income throughout the whole year, all you have to do is submit an updated form W-4 to payroll and request that they withhold more than they had been before out of your W-2 income. How exactly you calculate, how much more they should withhold, we’ll get back to in a moment. This strategy also works well. If you have a spouse who has W2 income, because what the IRS cares about is whether your entire household sent sufficient tax payments into the IRS throughout the year, not whether you did as an individual. So likewise, your spouse could submit an updated form W-4, that indicates a slightly higher withholding rate.

01:06:56 Emily: Now, how do you calculate what you should put on a W-4? And also what do you do if those options are not available to you? Well, really the main way that graduate students and post-docs get their income tax into the IRS if they’re on fellowship and they’re at university doesn’t offer this kind of benefit is through the estimated tax system. The estimated tax system exists to collect income tax payments throughout the year from individuals who don’t have employers withholding income tax for them, such as fellowship recipients, but also such as self-employed people or people who have passive income.

01:07:31 Emily: What you need to do is pull up form 1040-ES go to page eight, which is the estimated tax worksheet, and fill out that worksheet for your income for the entire calendar year. Basically you are going to do kind of a high level draft of your tax return in this one-page form. When you get down to the end of the form, it will tell you, this is how much income tax you can expect to owe this year and whether or not that rises to the level that the IRS requires you to make estimated tax payments.

01:08:05 Emily: My kind of rule of thumb is if you’re on fellowship and you have no W-2 withholding or anything like that, if you’re on fellowship for an entire calendar year and you’re a grad student, or post-doc, it’s pretty likely that you’re going to be required to make quarterly estimated tax payments, but the worksheet will tell you for sure. If you have fellowship income for only part of the year, like you switched funding sources mid year, then a little bit more borderline, you definitely need to fill out the worksheet to see whether or not it would be required of you.

01:08:31 Emily: If quarterly estimated tax is required of you after you fill the worksheet, it will tell you what the amount of your payment should be up to four times per year. So you can manually go right before the due dates and make those payments. They’re in mid-April, mid-June, mid-September, and mid-January. Or near the beginning of the year, you can set up automated payments for all four of those payments throughout the year, if you know, it’s going to be consistent. Form 1040-ES will give you various payment options, but personally, I think the easiest one is just to go to irs.gov/payments.

01:09:03 Emily: Now, if the worksheet tells you that you’re not required to make quarterly estimated tax payments what’s going to happen is you’re going to make the full tax payment that you owe when you file your tax return in the next year. So you do need to be prepared because you may owe quite a large lump sum at that time. The best practice for preparing to make these payments, whether once per quarter or once per year is to set aside the money that you expect to pay in tax from each one of the paychecks that you receive. I recommend using a separate, dedicated savings account.

01:09:34 Emily: Now, what if you’re looking at the estimated tax worksheet, and you’re really not clear about how to fill it out — looks pretty complicated to you, you’re not sure how to answer all the questions, you don’t know how it applies to your specific unique fellowship situation. I have a resource for you go to pfforphds.com/qetax. That page will tell you about an asynchronous workshop that I created. It’s a bunch of videos, a spreadsheet, and an opportunity to attend a live Q and A call. And I’ve included in the videos answers to a lot of the common questions I receive about fellowship income and quarterly estimate tax, such as how to handle things when you switch on or off a fellowship during the course of the year. So that resource is there for you, if you need it.

01:10:20 Emily: By the way, the last part of the question about the penalty, if you are required to pay your income tax quarterly and you do not do so, yes, the IRS might assess a penalty to you. It’s not necessarily anything to freak out about. It’s probably going to be on the order of dozens of dollars, not hundreds of dollars, but still, I think it’s best to avoid that. If you’re required to pay quarterly estimated tax, just go ahead and make those payments, even though it’s a little bit of a pain. Better to do that than to be hit with a fine, in my opinion. All right. Thank you again to anonymous for that question. If you would like to submit a question to be answered in a future episode, please go to pfforphds.com/podcast and follow the instructions you find there. I love answering questions, so please submit yours.

Outtro

01:11:04 Emily: Listeners, thank you for joining me for this episode. PFforPhDs.com/podcast is the hub for the Personal Finance for PhDs podcast. On that page are links to all the episodes show notes, which include full transcripts and videos of the interviews. There is also a form to volunteer to be interviewed on the podcast and instructions for entering the book giveaway contest, and submitting a question for the Q&A segment. 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 podcasts, Stitcher, or whatever platform you use. If you leave a review, be sure to send it to me. Two, share an episode you found particularly valuable on social media, with an email list serve, or as a link from your website. Three, recommend me as a speaker to your university or association. My seminars cover 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. Music is Stages of Awakening by Poddington Bear from the Free Music Archive and is shared under CC by NC podcast, editing and show notes creation by Lourdes Bobbio.

Best Practices in Side Hustling During Graduate School

August 31, 2020 by Lourdes Bobbio

In this episode, Emily interviews Lourdes Bobbio and Meryem Ok, two PhD students who work on this podcast as virtual assistants. Today’s conversation is all about side hustling! Lourdes and Meryem each give their perspectives on why and how they started side hustling, how they manage their time, and how they handle their self-employment income with respect to taxes and budgeting. Throughout the interview, you’ll get a behind-the-scenes perspective on how this podcast is produced. The end of the interview is a discussion of the unexpected benefits Lourdes and Meryem have experience from working on the podcast.

Links Mentioned in the Episode

  • Find Lourdes Bobbio on Twitter @lourdesb1012 and Meryem Ok on Twitter @Meryem_T_Ok
  • Related Episode: This NDSEG Fellow Prioritizes Housing and Saving for Mid- and Long-Term Goals
  • Related Episode: This PhD Student in Texas Side Hustles to Overcome Her Unique Financial Challenges 
  • Personal Finance for PhDs: Financial Coaching
  • Personal Finance for PhDs: Podcast Hub
  • Personal Finance for PhDs: Subscribe to the mailing list
side hustle grad school

Teaser

00:00 Meryem: Every once in a while, if I need to make an extra purchase or a gift, I will kind of rationalize with myself, “Okay, I was able to make some extra income this month with the side hustle so it’s okay to spend that extra money.” And essentially that’s not a super cut and dry method, but it sort of helps me at least to rationalize my additional expenses and not get too anxious about finances during grad school, which is really, really nice to have that cushion outside of my usual budget.

Introduction

00:36 Emily: Welcome to the Personal Finance for PhDs podcast and higher education in personal finance. I’m your host, Dr. Emily Roberts. This is season six, episode 18 and today my guests are Lourdes Bobbio and Meryem Ok, who are both PhD students and work with me as virtual assistants on this podcast. Today’s conversation is all things side hustling. Lourdes and Meryem each give their perspectives on why and how they started side hustling, how they manage their time, and how they handle their self employment income with respect to taxes and budgeting. Throughout the interview, you’ll get a behind the scenes perspective on how we produce this podcast. We close the interview discussing the unexpected benefits. Lourdes and Meryem have experienced from working on the podcast. Without further ado, here’s my interview with Lourdes Bobbio and Meryem Ok.

Will You Please Introduce Yourselves Further?

01:31 Emily: I’m bringing you a little bit of a different interview today. This is the first time on the PF for PhDs podcast. We have had three people on the call at once, that is two guests interviewees, and it’s really special to me because the people I’m interviewing today are my virtual assistants who work on the podcast with me, Lourdes Bobbio and Meryem Ok, and they’re both PhD students. We’re going to get into more about side hustling today, like the side hustle that they do with me and their experience with that, maybe their experiences side hustling with other people. So yeah, we’re talking side hustling today and I have my two guests with me. I’ll have you introduce yourselves, so Lourdes, why don’t you go first?

02:10 Lourdes: Hi everyone. My name Lourdes Bobbio. I’m a fifth year PhD candidate at Penn State University in the Department of Materials Science, and I work on additive manufacturing of metallic materials.

02:23 Emily: Yeah. Lourdes was actually a guest on a previous podcast episode and we will link that from the show notes. We did a budget breakdown with Lourdes, so we talked through her budget there in State College and Meryem, please introduce yourself.

02:35 Meryem: Hi, my name is Meryem. In 2016 I started the MD PhD program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill — go Heels. After completing the first two years of med school in 2018, I started my PhD in UNC-NC State’s joint Department of Biomedical Engineering. Currently I am working in the Magnus Lab, developing tools to better understand human intestinal STEM cell fate. And I’m happy to say that I’m officially a PhD candidate as of two days ago.

03:05 Emily: Yes. Congratulations! We will record and release this in August 2020, so it’ll still be fresh news by the time this episode comes out. I’m just delighted to have you both on.

Why Side Hustle In Grad School?

03:17 Emily: First question here is why did you decide to start side hustling in graduate school? Why don’t we still go with Lourdes first?

03:25 Lourdes: Financially, I was doing actually pretty okay with my stipend. As Emily mentioned, I was previously on an episode where I discussed my NDSEG fellowship, and so I generally have a somewhat higher stipend than my peers and State College has a generally low cost of living. So financially I was doing, in terms of I had enough money to live on and for extras and to save, but the reason that I got into side hustling was so that I could have money to contribute to a Roth IRA. I think Emily has done an episode on this earlier in the year, but as of this current year 2020, fellowship recipients are now eligible to contribute to a Roth IRA, but previously they were not. I started one before I was being paid on fellowship and I wanted to try to contribute at least a little bit of money monthly to that, so having that side hustle, self employment income helped me to be able to do that and continue to contribute, even though I couldn’t with my general fellowship income.

04:32 Emily: That’s so strategic. I love that. It is the advice that I was giving out for people who had multi-year fellowships, is to consider that self-employment side hustle. Meryem, why’d you decide to start that side hustling.

04:44 Meryem: For me, I guess coming into medical school, I had actually taken a gap year and was able to transfer a lot of those funds into starting an IRA, so for me, it was less of a strategic approach and more just that I’ve really always had a lot of interests in gaining new skills and collaborating with other people outside of my primary career interests. I think specifically, actually, as far as video and podcast editing, I was inspired by my dad who is always the one recording all of our family memories and making home videos. And he actually founded and produced a public access TV show called Turkish American TV. That’s been going on for 15 years, completely as a passion, volunteer project. I remember many times he’d rope me into his projects and show me how to use video and editing software, and I really just felt lucky to have his guidance. I feel like I inherited his eye for detail since that’s helped me be more confident in marketing myself as a freelancer who just really genuinely enjoys editing. I guess for me, just as someone who needs to have hobbies and tasks outside of work, I wanted to try something new and also make a little extra income in line with my career development goals.

06:03 Emily: Maybe we should say what you all actually do for me with the podcast, to give you credit where credit is due. As the listeners know, I conduct the interviews for the podcast, but kind of everything that happens after that, I hand off to you two. So you do all the video and audio editing of the interviews, and you compile the show notes, which are actually full transcripts. It’s more work than it sounds actually. We use an automated tool to generate the first transcript, but then you go through with a careful listen and make it actually readable, which I really appreciate. And you also write the social media posts that we do for each episode, and you schedule things. There’s a few other tasks in there too, but those are the major pieces of work. It’s been an amazing help for me.

How did you find your current and previous side hustles?

06:44 Emily: I know how you two landed this side hustle, which is that I reached out to my mailing list when my last VA decided to leave the position. Thankfully, she gave me a lot of notice. I reached out to my mailing list and said, “Hey, podcast listeners, do you want to work on the show?” And you two both volunteered to do a trial episode and ultimately your work was great, so I hired both of you. But I don’t know if that’s the first side hustle you’ve had in graduate school, or whether you were even particularly looking for that kind of side hustle, or really how it came about kind of from your end, so why don’t you tell us. Lourdes?

07:19 Lourdes: I had done a couple of side hustles through freelancing websites. There was actually one particular one that was captioning and transcription of usually short audio files through this company called Rev. It’s basically just pick and choose these audio files and you get paid. It’s a very low paying job, but it was something that I did just sort of in my spare time. When I heard about the opening on this podcast, I was like, “Hey, this is perfect. This is like what I was doing before, but on sort of like another level and sort of a next step up.” It seemed like a perfect fit for what I like to do in general anyway, just on a higher level.

08:07 Emily: Yeah. Meryem, how about you?

08:09 Meryem: Yeah, that’s so funny, because actually that’s the first time I’m hearing this. For those who don’t know Lourdes and I actually went to undergrad together, so the fact that we serendipitously ended up as virtual assistants for the same podcast and kind of working together was phenomenal to experience and to find out. For me, I also was trying to look into doing these things independently through similar websites, but it was not really a sustainable effort or something that was really worth the rate that they were paying. And I felt like it’s so much more useful to be able to use these skills and also benefit from all of the knowledge that I’m gaining as I’m editing these episodes, which is relevant to us as graduate students trying to better our personal finances. Really it was a no brainer when I saw that email from Emily and reached out and I’m just so glad that it worked out and that we were able to take turns, Lourdes, and still have an activity shared together despite the distance and the years since college.

09:15 Emily: Yeah, that’s why I reached out to my list first, to try to hire for this position. I hoped that there would be people who would actually be interested in the material as well as having the skill set to work on the episode, instead of going with an independent agency or something, which I could have done, maybe if it hadn’t worked out, initially. I wanted to go to people who I sort of had a relationship with, and actually it happens to be the fact that I had corresponded with both of you over the years before that — we mentioned Lourdes had been on the podcast and Meryem has been on my mailing list for a long time, so we had exchanged emails and I think had call or two in that time. It was really helpful that I knew your names at least, when it came time for people to apply for that position. Meryem you have, since we started working together, taken on another podcast editing position, why don’t you talk about how that came about?

10:08 Meryem: Yeah, that’s right. Actually, I owe it to you, Emily, for alerting me to another side hustle opportunity in podcast editing with the AcaDames podcast, which is another awesome podcast focusing on women in academia. Earlier this year, I remember Emily sent an email to us, letting us know that AcaDames was looking for help since their previous student executive producer was graduating soon, and they wanted to have somebody to overlap during that period of transition. I reached out to them about that position and thankfully we were a good fit. Now I just feel really lucky that I get to work with these two amazing podcasts. My work with them partially involves editing, but also involves a little bit more of administrative and social media management work. I’ve just learned so much from both podcasts and I’m excited to be involved. And also again, benefit from all of the career development advice that I’ve been receiving just by working with both of them.

11:09 Emily: Yeah. I think it’s kind of interesting that for these positions, this podcast virtual assisting position and the AcaDames one, it sounds like we’re looking for someone who’s going to be doing a multiplicity of different things and you come in with maybe some subset of the skills, like Lourdes, you had the transcription type experience, but then we’re asking you to learn a bunch of other stuff which expands your skillset overall, even if you’re not going to be career podcast editors. I assume you’re going to do something with your PhDs, but it’s nice to have that kind of side work, I think.

Balancing Side Hustles, Grad School, and Personal Life

11:36 Emily: Between the side hustle, your graduate work, everything else that’s going on in your life. I know you two are both in relationships — Meryem, you recently got married. Lourdes, you’re engaged. You have a lot of stuff going on in your lives. And so how do you fit in this side work that you’re doing, along with everything else? Lourdes?

11:55 Lourdes: I guess for me, what attracted me to the side hustle specifically was that it’s something that I can work on from home. I don’t have to go anywhere to do anything, and I can kind of fit it into my schedule. It’s very flexible. Emily is super nice, in that she gets us a lot of heads up time between when we get audio files and when they’re going to be released. So there’s a lot of flexibility in the position, which is definitely something that I was initially looking for in side hustles, as well, when I was doing the more freelance, low paying transcription job, it’s something I could do just in my own time, so that’s been helpful in terms of being able to work it into my schedule, work my schedule around it.

12:38 Lourdes: Also, like Emily mentioned, I’m engaged, but for the last year I’ve also been long distance, and so I’ve had a little bit more free time. It’s also been really great during this work from home time, to have something else to do. Now that you’re pretty much primarily at home, we’ve all been at home, things can get a little bit stale, but having a lot of different activities to do has been really helpful in managing my own mental health. I don’t feel like I’m only at home to do work and I get to sort of have some variety in my day, so that’s been nice.

13:22 Emily: How about you Meryem? How do you do the time management aspect?

13:25 Meryem: Yeah, I want to echo everything that Lourdes said. I think it’s really nice, even without a pandemic, but especially during a pandemic, to just have something else to turn to when you need a break from grad school or just want to use a different skill set for a bit, or just kind of escape from the world. And right now, especially because of COVID, I tend to work a later shift in lab, and my understanding is Lourdes does as well, so the rest of our work is pretty much done remotely, which makes it easier, but also I have to be a little bit more diligent about priority setting and setting boundaries, because it is so easy to kind of just switch between projects both between my main job as a grad student and then my side hustles and leaving room for my personal life.

14:07 Meryem: Usually I’ll try to do this by reserving chunks of time to work on the podcast editing, either in the mornings or late in the evenings after my shift and maybe the weekends to kind of catch up, which is very useful for particularly busy weeks. I think just like setting deadlines and trying to stay organized to prioritize all the things that are going on is helpful. I will say that I recognize that it’s probably easier for me to manage everything that I have to do given that I don’t have too many responsibilities outside of my work and extracurriculars right now. I don’t have any human babies, but I do have a fur baby named Sabine, but she’s pretty self sufficient. I think overall it is pretty much managing expectations with myself and now with my husband, but overall I think, much like Lourdes said, you get into a workflow and we do have a lot more time at home so that does help a lot.

15:06 Emily: I’m just thinking how I would answer if I asked this question of myself, of how do I manage my time? Because I do have two human babies and no childcare in a pandemic and it is definitely more challenging now than it was a few months back to be handling my schedule. But I think what Lourdes brought up initially, the fact that in our schedule we have basically a two week cycle from when I get the raw interview to you two and then we have a two week process before publication, and Ithink that really helps. I know a lot of side hustle jobs are really quick turnaround, like super short deadlines, and it’s not even really so much on your end, like I’m giving you guys a lot of time. I need a lot of time to do my part of the process as well, because I can’t necessarily jump on a response right away, because it’s just a busy long day every day right now.

Commercial

16:00 Emily: Hey, social distancers, Emily here. I hope you’re doing okay. It took a few weeks, but I think I have my bearings about me in my new normal. There is a lot of uncertainty and fear right now about our public and personal health and our economy. I would like to help you feel more secure in your personal finances and plan and prepare for whatever financial future may come. You can schedule a free 15 minute call with me at PFforPhDs.com/coaching to determine if financial coaching with me is right for you at this time, I hope you will reach out, if only to speak with someone new for a few minutes. Take care. Now back to our interview.

Budgeting Side Hustle Income

16:46 Emily: Okay, so personal financial show — let’s talk about the money that’s associated with the side hustle income. What are you doing with the money from your income? Does it have a particular job to do in your budget or how are you handling it generally? Lourdes, why don’t you go first?

17:01 Lourdes: In general, I put most of my side hustle income into savings, whether that be more long-term savings or shorter term savings, kind of depends. If I have an upcoming trip, it might go a little bit towards that. In general, how I work my budget is that, I pay myself first, in that I put money aside for savings first, and then any money leftover is my money that I get to spend for the month.

17:31 Lourdes: One of the tips I learned from the first episodes I edited was a side hustle episode, I think it was Allie Judge, and she mentioned how she holds off on paying herself her side hustle income until the month after she’s earned it. So sort of working on a delayed schedule, in terms of using the money that she’s earned. After I heard that, I’m like, that’s a great idea, so ever since then, I’ve been doing the same thing, where I count basically any money I earn in August goes towards my September monthly budget. That helps me in terms of planning and not using the money before I’ve actually earned it. That’s how I mainly handle it in terms of budgeting.

18:22 Emily: Yeah. Thank you. Meryem, how does it work in your budget?

18:26 Meryem: I’ll be totally transparent in that I don’t necessarily have a specific allocation for my side hustle income, because for me it was primarily a chance to essentially have a hobby and use a different skillset. But I kind of do try to visualize it in a way that permits me to have those extra side expenses during the course of the month that you might not otherwise be able to do. For me, it’s kind of a mental exercise, and I do have the money go straight into a savings account that I don’t really touch, but every once in a while, if I need to kind of make an extra purchase or a gift, I will kind of, I guess, rationalize with myself like, okay, I was able to make some extra income this month with the side hustle, so it’s okay to spend that extra money and think of my extra purchases outside of my needs in terms of how much of my work and effort that is worth. And essentially that’s not a super cut and dry method, but it helps me at least to rationalize my additional expenses and not get too anxious about finances during grad school, which is really, really nice to have that cushion outside of my usual budget.

19:41 Emily: Yeah. That trick, that mental framework of translating the cost of a purchase into your time, or maybe number of episodes, or however you want to structure it, is a really powerful one, a really common one for people sort of were advanced in their personal finance skills to think about really carefully, like whether they want to make a purchase and how they want to spend and so forth to translate into time. That’s a really good tip.

20:07 Emily: I’m particularly thinking about this question of how to handle your irregular income with respect to your budget because, so in August 2020, I launched a community PFforPhDs.com/community, if you want to find out more about that, but every month I’m creating new content for it. Right now I’m working on the September content, which is on how do you handle your irregular income with respect to your budget?

20:28 Emily: Lourdes, the tip that you gave is basically the first one that I’ve already put into this, which is count up your income from one month and put it towards the next month budget, that you got from Allie. It’s absolutely perfect, because you never know when something could go wrong with your side-hustle income. Like if one of you became ill, for example, maybe you need to skip an episode. That’s not a problem for us, but it would be a problem for your budget if you’d already spent the money that you expected to come in. That’s number one, baseline tip for handling side hustle income is give it a delay. Meryem, you’re doing a similar thing by putting it directly into savings, and then later on thinking about, well, how do I want to spend it, or do I want to keep it here? Different articulation, but kind of the same principle there. I’m really glad to hear that.

Side Hustle Income and Taxes

21:13 Emily: Now we come to one of my favorite subjects within personal finance, which is taxes. So you two are both self-employed, you are contractors for me, and Meryem, now you have this other contractor, essentially you’re like a real true contractor working for multiple people with the same skillset. Self employment taxes are kind of a whole other ball of wax. You’ve been doing this for a year, do you have any systems that you’ve put in place or just what are you doing with it, with respect to your taxes? Lourdes?

21:40 Lourdes: For me, it’s a little bit of two different things. I generally set aside about 30% of my self employment income for taxes. That’s taking into account the about 15% self employment tax and then income tax being around 12%. But also, I am on a fellowship that requires me to pay estimated taxes quarterly, and so at the beginning of every year, I basically estimate how much — well, I know how much I’m going to earn from my fellowship, and then I basically estimated how much I anticipate earning from doing this virtual assistant for the podcast. Basically, I have ahead of time, I know how much I have to set aside each month for both my fellowship income and this side hustle income. I immediately put that into savings and I just don’t touch that money. It’s not even money that I think about. And then I tend to over save just a little bit in terms of taxes, just because I’d rather have a cushion. Last year, I think I was off by like $150 just because of other things. I also have some investments that will change throughout the year and change my tax situation, but I do tend to oversave just so I have that little extra cushion and I don’t have to take it out of other pockets of my savings. Then if I have extra money left over, I kind of use it as my own personal tax refund. So the government isn’t giving me any, but I have some extra money left over in my tax pot. I use that and just reallocate it usually to different savings categories.

23:23 Emily: Yeah. I handle my income from my business exactly the same way, so it sounds like you’re just incorporating the self employment tax issue into your existing structure for paying quarterly estimated tax. Meryem, I want to give you a chance to answer that one as well, because I know this is shifting for you right now,

23:39 Meryem: Actually I’m absorbing all of Lourdes’ tips because for me, I just, in the month also started receiving fellowship non-W-2 income. Prior to that, I wasn’t really thinking about estimated quarterly taxes as much because I didn’t have to deal with all of that. But now moving forward for tax year 2020 into next year, I will have to kind of be thinking about that. Even though the actual amount of taxes that I’ll from the side hustle income will be less than the amount that is necessary to be able to pay estimated quarterly taxes — so my original strategy was just to collect all of the receipts that I’ll receive from PayPal and then make sure that I back calculate the amount that I have to pay for the self employment tax and pay that come tax season. That original plan is fine if you know that you’re not going to owe the amount that you would need to, to not have to pay fees for not paying estimated quarterly taxes, but I like the strategy of kind of building it in so that by the time tax season does roll around, you’ve already paid everything.

24:45 Meryem: I actually think that I’m going to adopt that policy rather than shifting it and waiting until tax season. And as for my other side hustle with AcaDames, their structure is also changing since they’re recently going through the process of incorporating and becoming an LLC. Previously, and currently during the transition, I’m being paid through W2 income because it’s very easy to me to be able to do that as a UNC student and the cohost, or at least one of the coasts now is based at UNC, so it was really easy to deal with that through payroll and not have to worry about freelancing or independent contracting. But I imagine that that will also shift within the next year as they’re making this transition into becoming an LLC. So having all of these strategies in place now will probably be really useful moving forward.

25:38 Emily: Yeah, that’s good for me to know. Interesting. I should mention also, I just brought up the Personal Finance for PhDs Community, but for the last several years, I’ve had a workshop available for individuals on quarterly estimated tax and helping them fill out their estimated tax worksheet and form 1040. That workshop is now coming under the umbrella of the community. So anyone who’s wondering about how do I file quarterly estimated tax on my fellowship, that’s where to go for that particular workshop PFforPhSs.com/community. And I just told you, I’m thinking about in September, the training that I’m going to release on handling your irregular income with respect to your budget. Later on this fall, I’m planning on doing another full workshop on the self-employment side hustle that is so common for graduate students and PhDs, and how to handle that for your taxes, so a whole other tax workshop just on this topic of self employment taxes. That’ll be available if anyone needs help with that sort of thing. I’m really excited about creating because I’ve been doing my own taxes as a self employed person for a number of years, so I have a basic familiarity with it and I’m excited to do a bit more research to figure out how it works for other kinds of businesses as well. That’s where to find out more info there.

Unexpected Benefits from Side Hustling

26:54 Emily: As a second to last question here, have there been any benefits to doing a side hustle that you didn’t anticipate when you first took on the position? Lourdes?

27:05 Lourdes: Specifically for this podcast, Emily interviews a wide range of guests and a lot of them also have social media that they promote. I’ve been able to connect with some of the different guests on social media, just as a result of sometimes promoting the episode. They’ll see that I promote it, and then we connect, we end up talking, following each other on Twitter. That’s been like something I didn’t really expect to happen, but it’s been really cool because q lot of them are fellow grad students, and then just getting into that academic sphere of Twitter has been really interesting just to see all these different graduate experiences from people all over the country and all over the world. That’s been one of the most unanticipated benefit from this particular side hustle.

27:57 Lourdes: And then also, as has been brought up multiple times, I think Meryem brought this up, just learning a different skillset that’s something very different from what I do in my normal day to day graduate work. And I, in particular, am starting to figure out what I want to do after grad school. I’m a fifth year student going into my sixth year, so I’ve been leaning towards maybe some more like alt-academic jobs, and being able to have this completely different skill set is definitely something that I think adds to my resume and adds to potential job options and sort of also gives me ideas of what other type of work is out there. Along with what I was mentioning before Emily does have so many different types of guests on the podcast, just seeing what opportunities are available to graduate students after they’ve defended and after they graduated, has been really interesting and something that I hadn’t even considered or even thought of prior to really getting to know some of these guests through the podcast.

29:04 Emily: Yeah. That’s really great for me to hear. I know that this too was an unexpected benefit for me of doing the podcast is I didn’t expect it to be such good networking. I knew some things that would happen from it, but not the networking aspect, so I’m really glad that you’ve been able to tap into that as well. So Meryem, how about you?

29:24 Meryem: Yeah, I agree completely with the networking component as this amazing side benefit of being involved with editing the podcast. And I think for me also, I just find it inspiring how relevant the episodes have been in my own personal journey as a student, often in real time. In fact, I’ll never forget that the very first trial episode that I edited was with Dr. Katie Wedemeyer-Strombel about her decision to change labs and how to prepare for the unexpected in grad school. And it just so happened that that exact same week that I was editing that episode, my former PhD advisor surprised that our lab with an announcement that she would be leaving UNC and moving across the country, and all of this was happening while I was trying to plan a wedding with my fiance, and now husband, who had just moved down to Chapel Hill to start a new job, to be with me after we’d been long distance for so many years. And anyways, it ended up working out and I was able to switch into an amazing collaborating lab and stay at UNC, but unbeknownst to Katie, her advice at that time was so timely for me and helpful for me as I was going through that transition. So I always rave about the podcast to pretty much every grad student I come across and I try to send along helpful episodes and resources to them if it sort of just happens to come across in conversation. It’s just amazing to me how many times that, that has just happened, where I’m editing an episode and realizing, wait, I really need to pay attention. This is really relevant to my life right now.

31:00 Emily: That’s really good to hear. Of course you told me at the time that that episode was striking you in that way and I’m so glad that I could help. I think that, as Lourdes, as I was saying earlier, I’ve been doing this podcast for about two years now and I have quite a few interviews under my belt and it’s not always the same type of person, as you were saying. It’s a lot of different kinds of personal finance stories coming from a lot of different sorts of people who have been in academia for a time at least. There is a good trove of episodes there, that you might find something useful to your current situation, if you do a little diving into the archives.

Best Financial Advice for Early Career PhDs

31:34 Emily: Last question here, which, you know, I ask of pretty much all the guests who come on the podcast. I’ll give you a chance to give your answers as well. What is your best financial advice for another early career PhD? And we’ll go to Lourdes first again.

31:48 Lourdes: For me, I think one of the best things for me is having a yearly budget. At the beginning of the year, and I’ve been doing this for quite a few years now, I lay out my plan for the year financially on a spreadsheet, and it really helps to be able to see a longer term plan for my money for the year. I think, especially with self employment income, side hustling, it kind of gives you an idea of…Maybe I have a trip planned later in the year, or I have some big event that I’m going to need to save up money for, and being able to more strategically allocate your money on a larger scale rather than just month to month. I think that’s been one of like a strategy that I’ve been employing for a couple of years now, and it’s just been super helpful for me, and it’s something that I will see myself doing like far into the future

32:44 Emily: That is, I think, typically a good piece of advice, but I want to know how it’s going in 2020.

32:50 Lourdes: It’s been interesting to say the least. There have been a lot of…I had some trips planned that have gotten canceled, so I have this extra money, but also different expenses that I didn’t anticipate come up. And it’s been a little bit of am eye-opener in terms of plans change as the year goes on, but I think sort of having that framework to begin with helps me realize that even if…I go back to this budget every month, it’s the same spreadsheet I use for my monthly budgeting, so it changes and updates and it’s a very fluid document, but just having that outline there to begin with has also been something that provides some structure, especially when the year got so different than what everyone anticipated.

33:43 Emily: Yeah, I also use the year as the sort of standard timeframe when I talk about irregular expenses, so expenses that come up non monthly, and you and I talked about this in our interview from a year or so ago. I think it’s a great strategy to think about what budgetarily is coming up for you — trips, as you mentioned earlier, or maybe some other kinds of irregular expenses, so you can anticipate them over the course of about a year. So yeah, I like that time frame as well. Meryem, how about you? What’s your best advice?

34:12 Meryem: Yeah, so my best advice is probably to be honest with yourself and keep an open mind about your personal finances. A wise friend once told me that disappointment happens when our expectations don’t match up with our reality, which was really helpful for me to hear at the time, as an optimist, because I used to feel a lot of guilt or disappointment if I couldn’t maintain an unrealistic budget, or if I couldn’t resist making an impulse purchase on something that maybe wasn’t necessary, but made me or someone else really happy. But I also think it’s really important for our mental and physical wellbeing to work towards a healthy relationship with money, which I know can be particularly challenging on a grad student’s stipend. So with that in mind still, I think as best as you can try to be honest with yourself and set realistic goals for yourself, not based on anybody else’s priorities or spending habits, but whatever matches your needs. That being said, if something really isn’t working for you, that’s probably a good time to have an open mind and try to adapt, effective strategies from others. I guess I would say it’s okay to experiment and even take calculated risks, while figuring out what works best for you, but being honest yourself and keeping an open mind is probably my best financial advice and general life advice as well.

35:44 Emily: I love that as well. I often think about the mismatch between expectations and reality, and how that provokes us, so I try to keep my expectations low, basically. I really love that advice and I think that’s unique. I don’t think we’ve heard that on the podcast before, but I think it’s perfect. And something that graduate students can sometimes be discouraged around their finances because they are working with such a low income, it’s for such a long period of time, and I talk a lot about investing and saving stuff and that’s just out of reach for a lot of graduate students, but they can implement your advice, Meryem. They can like learn to just figure out what’s going to work for them in managing their own finances right now and carry that skill set and that habit, whatever it is that they determined as the right system or whatever, forward into their career and post-PhD income, and hopefully have a lot of financial success at that time, having been honest with themselves and really using the time in graduate school to get to know what their preferences are with respect to managing their finances. That’s good advice for anybody, anytime. You can always implement it.

36:46 Emily: I’m so glad to have had you two on the podcast and thank you so much for volunteering to do this. Thanks for coming on.

36:53 Lourdes: Thank you, Emily.

36:54 Meryem: Thanks Emily.

Outtro

36:56 Emily: Listeners, thank you for joining me for this episode. PFforPhDs.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, please consider joining my mailing list for my behind the scenes commentary about each episode. Register at PFforPhDs.com/subscribe. 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 Archive and is shared under CC by NC. Podcast editing and show notes creation by Lourdes Bobbio.

This PhD Candidate Paid for Her Wedding with Her Research Side Hustle

August 3, 2020 by Lourdes Bobbio

In this episode, Emily interviews Rebecca Brenner Graham about side hustling to pay for her wedding while a PhD candidate in history at American University. In addition to working on her own dissertation and serving as a teaching assistant, Rebecca used her skills as a history researcher in a self-employment position assisting an economics professor at another university. Rebecca had to quickly learn how to manage her time and energy well across all her different professional roles and her personal life. If you are planning a wedding as a graduate student, you’ll also enjoy hearing wedding planning and budgeting tips from both Rebecca and Emily.

Links Mentioned

  • Find Rebecca on her website and on Twitter
  • Personal Finance for PhDs: Community
  • Personal Finance for PhDs: Podcast Hub
  • Personal Finance for PhDs: Subscribe to the mailing list
side hustle wedding

Teaser

00:00 Rebecca: The piece of advice that I’m just learning and wish I had known sooner was that unpaid opportunities are almost always not worth it. Full stop.

Introduction

00:20 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 six, episode 14, and today my guest is Rebecca Brenner Graham, a PhD candidate in history at American University. Rebecca has always side hustled to supplement her stipend, but she kicked it up a notch in her fourth year to pay for her wedding. We discuss how Rebecca balanced her time and energy among her own dissertation work, her teaching assistantship, her self employment gig as a researcher for an economics professor, wedding planning, and the rest of her life. Listen through to the end here, how Rebecca’s wedding went and some wedding planning tips from both of us. Without further ado, here’s my interview with Rebecca Brenner Graham.

Will You Please Introduce Yourself Further?

01:07 Emily: I am so delighted to have joining me on the podcast today Rebecca Brenner Graham, who is going to be discussing with me, her wedding, her recent wedding, and how she ended up paying for that on her Grad student stipend, and actually on more than just her grad student’s stipend. So Rebecca, thanks so much for joining me on the podcast today and will you please tell us a little bit more about yourself?

01:27 Rebecca: Thank you so much for having me, as I was telling you. I’m a long time listener and it just occurred to me that I might have something useful to add. I went to college at Mount Holyoke in Western, Massachusetts as a women’s college. There, I double majored in history and philosophy, and then I went straight into my history graduate school. I’m now starting my fifth year of the PhD. I was able to do the public history master’s combined with my doctoral coursework, which is one of the reasons that I love my department at American University. My dissertation, if anyone’s interested in that, is on Sunday mail delivery from 1810 through 1912 as a lens into religion, state relations. Because I got my masters in public history, I’ve also had some museum gigs on the side, on top of working as a TA in the American University Department of History. That’s about it.

Side-Hustling as a History PhD

02:27 Emily: Yeah. Is that typical for people in your department to be taking on museum jobs or outside gigs like that.

02:33 Rebecca: It’s typical in the sense that being atypical is typical. So there’s not one way to do it. There’s not one way to make it work. Like one of my classmates does a bunch of oral histories of basketball players for money. Some of them are like older and married or have houses. For me, especially brcause I came straight from undergrad, in order to have enough money to not be worrying about it constantly, I have had part time work every year on top of the TA-ing.

03:06 Emily: Okay. That’s good to know. So basically what you’re saying is the stipend that you’re receiving is not sufficient across the board. No one is doing this on just the stipend. They either have outside sources of income from a spouse or something, or maybe past savings, or they’re currently taking on side hustles. Right?

03:22 Rebecca: So I can think of two classmates who, and this is not a coincidence, they’re the two in the department that are younger than me, that haven’t had that much part time work. One of them is extremely frugal and the other one decided to take out loans on top of the stipend. I adore my department, like I am so happy to be there, at the same time we do have the second lowest stipends of all history departments in the greater DC area.

03:49 Emily: Okay. Yeah. Glad to hear that balance of like, Hey, it’s worth it, we’re doing it, but this is what it takes to get it done. Side hustling for you, other solutions for other people, but glad to hear that.

Getting Engaged During Grad School

04:01 Emily: Okay, you’ve given us a little bit of a brief career history, coming straight from college into graduate school, doing your master’s and PhD right in a row. Where does your relationship factor into this?

04:12 Rebecca: Going way back for a second, we actually met in a summer program in Washington, DC when we were 16, like for high school students. We ended up at college near each other. His name is Brandon, and Brandon went to UMass Amherst. We were together for the first half of college, and then we broke up, just seeing other people, didn’t think or know that we’d get back together. We ran into each other a couple of years later and the summer after graduation, we ended up getting back together. Then six months after that, he moved from New York to DC in order to be with me. And even before Brandon and I got back together, I had to facetiously told friends that I need to pass my dissertation proposal, even before I get an engagement proposal. And this was even before I was in a PhD program, this is when I knew I wanted to do a PhD.

05:04 Rebecca: So third year of graduate school, toward the end of the year, I was about to become all but dissertation, ABD, and we had already gone ring shopping. I thought we might be getting engaged soon. And then I ended up getting engaged a few weeks before my prospectus defense. So at the end of my third year of grad school, I was ABD and also engaged.

05:30 Emily: Yeah. I really love that you were, I know you said facetiously, but you were thoughtful about this, right? You had an idea of how you wanted your career to play out and also how your relationship, whoever that was with, how you wanted that to play out. And it’s good to hear really that, um, your husband made that sacrifice when he was your boyfriend of moving to where you were so that you could prioritize your career and he was going to figure it out and it’s not necessarily common story. I’m really glad to hear that.

06:00 Emily: I’m reminded of when I got engaged which was also during graduate school. My husband, we had sort of decided together that we were going to get married, moving towards that direction, but he wanted to wait to propose until he also achieved candidacy. So I was further away from that. That actually didn’t happen for me until my fourth year of graduate school, I think, just the way my department works. But he was like, no, I got to get, I have to get my prelims out of the way, and then I can think about the engagement. So he had the same thought process as you, but from the opposite perspective, in our case.

06:34 Rebecca: I think it’s an autonomy of time thing because even if it’s the same work across the board, you have, I think in most programs, you have more autonomy of time after that ABD mark.

06:45 Emily: Yeah. I think for my husband, it was that, but also just the stress of preparing for the prelim and writing whatever he had to write and doing whatever we had to do, like oral defense or something, I don’t remember the details for him, but just to get past that stressful thing, he wanted it off his plate, so he could enjoy the process of being engaged and planning the wedding and not having to juggle those two things simultaneously and know that, yeah, there’s going to be a few more years here until we have to repeat that process for the dissertation and ultimate defense. With respect to your actual timing of your wedding, like how long were you guys engaged for?

07:25 Rebecca: We got engaged in March, 2018. For about a month, we were actually planning with my parents, and my mom in particular is quite traditional and they were generously willing to pay for it, but it became clear, especially to me very quickly that coordinating with them and negotiating priorities was more labor, and especially more emotional labor, than actually making money myself and working towards paying for it. We also decided in between that March and April period that the things that we cared most about relating to our wedding were not that expensive. Like making the ceremony go how it was important to me was a higher priority than venue or the number of people who were coming. So eventually, I guess around April, when we started planning and paying for it ourselves, we got a date on the calendar. We got married a year and I guess two or three months, not great with numbers, I guess a year and three months later on June 30th, 2019.

08:43 Emily: Okay. So yeah, we are recording this in August, 2019, so this is really fresh for you and that’s exciting. This is definitely a tip for other people who are going into the wedding planning process of anyone who contributes gets a say. If you don’t want that party to have that say in that particular way or whatever, if there are strings attached to that gift, sometimes it is easier to simply take on all of the finances on your own. That’s the decision that you made.

Paying for the Wedding through Side-Hustling

09:12 Emily: We’ve already kind of gone over that your stipend was not really enough to live on, at least in the lifestyle that you want, and you were already side hustling. Did you have a plan for like how much more money did you need to bring in either in total or on a monthly basis to be able to pay for the wedding?

09:28 Rebecca: We looked at it a little backwards, in retrospect. It was more like however much money we have to delegate toward this, that is how much that we could pay. Brandon and I split it almost exactly evenly between us with a few exceptions. If there was something that was really important to him or really important to me. I paid for Ketubah the Jewish marriage contract. I paid for our pre rabbinical counseling. He paid for our entire rehearsal brunch because that was not something that I was tied to doing. On my end, my stipend from American when I started was $19,000 per year, and now currently thanks to our union it’s $22,000 per year, which is actually a huge difference just in the four years or whatever that I’ve been a TA. I really didn’t give it that much thought about, will I be able to afford this? It was more if I can’t afford it, then I won’t do it, and we love each other, and we want to get married, and that’s the most important thing. I have another classmate in my program who literally eloped at one, but I don’t really know the details on that. Also around this time, I was reading those books by Jen Sincero, have you ever read her books? The first one is called “You Are a Badas” and the second one is called “You Are a Badass at Making Money” and they’re —

11:00 Emily: Actually, I’ll interrupt you just for a second. I literally just finished “You’re a Badass At Making Money”, like last week. So I’m a little late to the Jen Sincero game, but I did read it and enjoyed it. I’m trying to figure out what I want to incorporate. So yeah, please go on.

11:15 Rebecca: Oh, that’s so exciting. I’m glad you liked it. In spring 2018, this was when her money book came out, the green one. She’s a little bit more, I don’t know if the word is capitalist than I am, but she’s also in line with my feminism. A central takeaway from Sincero’s work is that sometimes you have to jump and then create the net for yourself. That’s what happened when we decided to pay for our own wedding. So around the time that we had made that decision, I was reading a bunch of Jen Sincero. A major advantage of doing a history program in DC is that a lot of people email the department to offer work opportunities. So then in May, 2018, I heard about a summer job working for an economics professor at George Mason to do research on 19th and early 20th century labor history. My dissertation is on 19th century and early 20th century religion-state relations, and there was a lot of overlap with that labor history. I ended up working for her over the summer and then she offered for me to stay for the coming school year, like this past school year 2018-19. My advisor helped me negotiate a 50% salary increase for that, so that was my side gig that took a lot of time and essentially paid for my wedding. But it was also a completely pleasant experience working for this economist.

12:55 Emily: Yeah. I want to hear more about the logistics of how this side hustle worked. For you with American, because you’re a TA, does that mean that you’re not working/not being paid over the summer?

13:07 Rebecca: Oh yes.

13:09 Emily: Okay, so you’re already dealing with an academic year only stipend. So —

13:13 Rebecca: Last year I had a fellowship from my department for summer research. This year I did not, which was my why my reaction was “Oh yeah”, because that was the situation. But last summer I had a $3,500 fellowship from my department and then $5,000 from this professor George Mason.

13:35 Emily: Okay, so in your summers, at least last summer, you had a balance of working on your own dissertation and also doing this other work for this other professor, but I’m wondering, because you guys are at different universities, what was the actual relationship between you and this professor or the grant? Were you a W-2 employee or was this a self-employment situation?

13:58 Rebecca: It was a self employment situation, so I got taxed on it pretty heavily.

Researching as a Side-Hustle

14:04 Emily: Yeah. So that’s definitely a couple of things I want to talk further about with that, because I don’t really know that well, how this works. I think you’re the first person I interviewed for the podcast who has done research, like very similar skill set and everything to what you’re doing for your dissertation, and as a graduate student, but as a self employment project. Can you just talk to me a little bit more about what the differences are between that self-employment gig and maybe what you typically do as a graduate student?

14:36 Rebecca: In terms of the content itself, it was really just teaching versus researching. This past year I TA-ed class about the presidents and then I TA-ed History of Memory, and that whole time I was researching 19th century labor history. The biggest difference in terms of how much it affects me is that the side gig did not withhold any taxes. So as a graduate student, I’m cobbling together a bunch of opportunities to approach like 40[K per year, which is really great for grad school, I paid $4,000 in taxes last year, and that was most of my money.

15:23 Emily: I’ll make a couple elaborations on that for anyone who is looking into self-employment, which, if you’re going to do a side hustle, I kind of think self-employment is the way to go, because you have a lot more control over your schedule over how much you’re going to work. But the flip side of that is you have to take a lot more responsibility yourself when it comes to the financial side of things. One of the main things is that you need to pay a lot of tax and no one is withholding that tax for you, so two notes there. The first is that, with self-employment stuff, it’s not like income tax and you know that, so I’m speaking to the audience, but it’s not like income tax where you’re not taxed on the first chunk of income you take in, then you’ll have a low tax rate on the next chunk, then you’ll have a higher tax rate on the next chunk. That’s the graduated income tax system. You will still pay income tax as a self employed person, so just add that on top of whatever the rest of your income is. It’s going to be in the 12% or maybe even the 22% bracket, depending on how much money you make. But in addition, you have self employment tax, which is, I believe 15.3% on everything. The first dollar that you make as a self employed person, 15.3% of everything. So it’s not like that graduated system. It ends up feeling like you pay a lot and you do pay a lot in tax because of these two different types of tax that you end up paying income tax and self employment tax.

Emily: For anyone who is making a significant self employment income like you did, you have to set money aside for tax. You have to prepare for that. You have to do the calculations because you don’t want to be surprised at the end of the year with…I mean, you can be very pleased that you made all this money through selling employment, that’s amazing, but you have to be prepared for the tax side of things. One thing I’ll recommend actually for anyone who is either self employed or who has a fellowship who doesn’t have income tax withheld, I have resources on my website about paying quarterly estimated tax. You can go to the site and search for quarterly estimated tax. You’ll come up with like my main article on that. It’s designed for people who have fellowship income, but people with self employment income can take a lot out of that as well. And if you want a little bit further help I’ll link from the show notes, actually have a workshop on helping people pay quarterly estimated tax. Again, to not be surprised at the end of the year with a huge tax bill. It helps you estimate the amount of tax you’ll have to pay and also pay through it quarterly.

17:37 Emily: Okay, so Rebecca, that was a little bit of a diversion just because this is my wheelhouse about taxes.

17:41 Rebecca: That’s very helpful. Yeah.

17:44 Emily: I actually was a little bit for curious, because I think what I was asking, I didn’t phrase quite right earlier, was about, so the difference between your dissertation work, which you are either receiving a fellowship for, or maybe not being explicitly paid to do in your primary role as a graduate student versus the self employment relationship, this contractor relationship you have with this professor. I guess what I’m asking about is like intellectual or academic ownership over that work. Are you going to be on papers? Just because it’s an unusual way to be doing research, as a self employed person, but still in an academic setting, but it’s at a different university. So that’s why it was sort of interesting and complex.

18:24 Rebecca: I find it to be really common, particularly in Washington DC where we have a lot of federal archives. Since I started grad school in 2015, I’ve honestly lost track of the number of professors who’ve emailed the department literally from as far as Australia and asked our grad students to do work for them. Now I don’t do it unless it’s $30 per hour, but I used to do it for like $12, $15 per hour before I knew better. And as far as I know, we never get even an acknowledgement because we’re a human in the right location who has used archives before, and isn’t going to mess it up when researching.

19:12 Emily: Gotcha.

19:13 Rebecca: For my dissertation, I am the author.

19:16 Emily: Right. So it’s really just by virtue of where you’re attending graduate school and the skill set that you have,that you have access and people, as you were saying from all of the world want some access and they’ll use you, hire you to be a conduit for helping them with that work. But in terms of the academic ownership, because you’re being paid and again, as a contractor, it sounds like you sort of relinquish that. They’re going to be completely in control of the scholarship side of things. You’re not apparently even getting an acknowledgement, which I feel like it definitely deserves an acknowledgement at minimum, but okay.

19:50 Rebecca: That’s just the random people from California or whoever who can’t fly into DC.

19:54 Emily: Yeah, totally. Okay. So now I have a better idea about this.

19:57 Rebecca: It’s not even taxed sometimes, because it’s not enough money to be taxed, but I’ve done that a lot of times. And then my research gig at George Mason, I have a relationship with this person now. I don’t know when her book will be done, but I’ll be in communication with her. And I definitely felt like I was a part of the project, even though for the argument of the book, that’s entirely her argument, I’m just providing the facts that she then integrates into her analysis.

20:29 Emily: Yeah. I guess I’m also wondering like maybe you know for her situation, why wasn’t she working with a graduate student at our own institution? Like her advisee or something like that.

20:39 Rebecca: She wanted a historian. She’s in an economics department and she specifically reached out to history departments because she wanted reviews of historical literature by historians. And then also just that change over time analysis that my department trains me to do.

21:01 Emily: Gotcha. Okay. Yeah. This is really, really interesting to me.

Commercial

21:06 Emily: Emily here for a brief interlude. I am just bursting with this news. I have launched a community for personal finance for PhDs. The community is for PhDs and people pursuing PhDs who want to level up their practice of personal finance by opening and funding an IRA, starting to budget, aggressively paying off debt financially navigating a life or career transition, maximizing the income from a side hustle, preparing an accurate tax return, and much more. Inside the community, you’ll have access to a library of financial education products I’ve made in the past, and I’m going to add new trainings that library every month. There is also a discussion forum, a monthly live calls with me, a book club, and progress journaling for financial goals. Basically, the community is going to help you reach your financial goals, whatever they are. Go to PFForPhDs.com/community to find out even more. If you’re listening to this in real time, you have the opportunity to become a founding member of the community at a discount. The price is going up on August 15th, 2020, so don’t delay. Go to PFForPhDs.com/community for all the details. I can’t wait to help propel you to financial success. Now back to the interview.

Research Side-Hustles and Career Advancement

22:29 Emily: I guess the other sort of big picture question I wanted to ask you about side hustling is, so the side hustling is necessary financially — for the wedding, for living your life — do you think it’s giving you more than that? Like is this actually advancing your career in some way?

22:46 Rebecca: That’s a fantastic question and I really hadn’t thought about it. I mean, the economics people at George Mason, like their department is a completely different environment than mine, so it’s educational, just in that sense to meet more people in different places. Overall, the research work definitely was not expanding my skillset. It probably expanded my content knowledge a little bit, but it wasn’t that much more than whatever I had to be familiar with for comprehensive exams, because I did all of that time period. For the George Mason people I earned, what was it? For the whole year it was $15,000. And the previous year, before I was engaged, my side hustle, during my third year of graduate school paid $1,500, so literally take off a zero, and that was writing an exhibit for a museum. That was fantastic experience that definitely advanced my CV/resume and what I know how to do.

23:56 Emily: Gotcha. So there may be a little bit of a trade off there. This is not surprising that the things that benefit you more as an individual, there may be a trade off on the money there. You’re being paid more, but —

24:06 Rebecca: In my experience, that is correct.

24:08 Emily: Yeah, so I mean, hopefully that’s not the case. I wish for everyone to have a side hustle that pays really well and advances your career and all that, but sometimes you may have to trade off one or the other, but it sounds like at least at the very, very minimum you’ve expanded your network, right? You’ve met more people. You’ve worked closely with this one individual. So maybe that’ll come into play later on. Who knows about that.

Time Management and Side-Hustling

24:31 Emily: So I want to move now to talking about how you, how you manage your time. You’re obviously a long time side hustler, but it sounds like you really maybe stepped it up, maybe stepped up your hours to make this additional money in this past year to be able to fund the wedding that you wanted. Can you talk to me a little bit about how you balanced your dissertation work, your TA role, the side hustle, maybe multiple side hustles, if you’re still doing other ones, and then of course, just the rest of your personal life.

24:59 Rebecca: I have noticed for a while that it comes down to two things. One is time management, which I’m sure seems pretty straight forward. And the second is the kind of energy that the opportunity is giving you. I have felt for a long time, this is also just my personality, that if an opportunity is giving me a lot of positive energy and genuinely feel like I can do anything, but if it’s not, and sometimes things take away from my energy, then that becomes a real challenge. I remember at the beginning of last school year, last fall, actually around this exact time, last year, I majorly had not figured out how that balance was going to work. I was so stressed that I ended up giving up caffeine for several months, even though coffee is my favorite thing, because I was just so energized and stressed all the time that it was just miserable. And just not knowing how I was going to balance my time all year.

26:03 Rebecca: Also, the way that we ended up doing our wedding, and I’m sure we’ll talk about this later, it ended up working out great, but we accepted a lot of favors from people. Like a friend did the photography, a friend did the flowers, a family friend officiated our service. And when you rely on people, even if they’re really close friends and family, it’s just really stressful to maintain the relationships. I never wanted to feel like I was a burden on people. That created a lot of stress and the most challenges very early on, but over the course of the year, I think I just adjusted. Also second semester, I had this past TA assignment for a fantastic, really supportive enthusiastic professor. She’s Eileen Finley at American University and she was just a breath of fresh air twice a week, and that made a huge positive difference in my ability to find positive energy and manage my time well.

27:08 Emily: I think that’s an excellent, excellent point that you’re making. I wonder to make it any more applicable for the listener, can you tell in advance what kinds of activities are going to give you energy? So you can kind of filter, like I’m not gonna accept this opportunity because it seems like it’ll be draining. Have you figured out any kind of framework around that or is it just have to try it and then see?

27:31 Rebecca: I’m definitely not an expert on that in the sense that I am still figuring that out. So this is not what you asked, but I could break down what an average week was like. I think both semesters my TA at AU, that was Tuesday and Friday, so then I would often go to George Mason where they gave me a desk, which was nice. And that way I felt like I had community there. I almost always went once a week. I didn’t go more than once a week, very often, but it was typically on a Monday, Wednesday or a Thursday really. And then one or two days I would actually get to do my own work on my own dissertation. And I ended up, um, drafting one chapter out of six first semester and one chapter out of six second semester, but I really have much higher hopes for this coming academic year when I’m not planning and paying for a wedding. I hope to be able to draft more than one chapter each semester.

28:31 Emily: That actually does sound like really good progress to me. I take it you are going to take the side hustle down some. You’re not trying to make as much money in the upcoming year as you did last year.

28:41 Rebecca: I ended working for George Mason at the end of the school year, because it was an academic school year position, but also during second semester, I allocated some time toward applying for fellowships just because everyone told me that that’s what you do when you’re going into fifth year. I actually got three out of four of the ones that I applied for. One of them is through the same people at George Mason, so that ties into what you said about like making connections helps. One is from Mount Holyoke College where I did my undergrad work. It’s specifically from the history department. There that’s the biggest fellowship. They’re basically paying my rent for the coming year. And that will hopefully really allow me to focus on my actual dissertation work. Then the third is a research grant from my department at American. I’m really trying not to take on side hustle work like I did last year. Though, I did have a potentially paid opportunity fall into my lap for this coming year, but it hasn’t fully developed yet and I need to prioritize my dissertation because I wasn’t always able to work on it as much as I wanted to this past year.

29:58 Emily: Yeah. Congratulations on winning those three fellowships. Are you continuing to TA in addition to accepting those fellowships?

30:05 Rebecca: This coming year is my last year of TA-ing.

30:08 Emily: Yeah, it’s a great point for anyone who is looking to side hustling during graduate school and especially for you where your progress on your dissertation is up to you. You’re ABD, it’s at your own speed. There is a danger of devoting too much time to making money on the side and not enough time to actually progressing through your current career stage so that you can get a full time job and have an actual salary.

30:33 Rebecca: It’s a balance to strike for a few reasons. One is I get the most work done when I can take myself out to the pizza place next to my apartment and buy my favorite pizza, or get coffee and a bunch of different coffee shops, or buy a nice new planner for myself to organize my life. You have to have some cash flow, at least in my experience in order to be your best student.

31:00 Emily: Gotcha.

31:01 Rebecca: And I think the other reason is that I actually want to go into public history and museum work rather than academia. So in order to get more relevant job experience, that’s also a balance to strike for me.

The Financial Side of Wedding Planning

31:15 Emily: For sure. Yeah. Thanks for pointing that out. So we’ve been talking about the side hustles and the wedding you added, you know, $15,000 to your wedding fund. It sounds like more or less for this past year and it just was a month or so ago. So how was it, how did the wedding go?

31:30 Rebecca: We got married at the Hamilton Restaurant in downtown Washington, DC. It’s around the corner from the White House and it’s both a restaurant and a concert venue. And I would highly recommend to anyone looking to have a great wedding at a minimal cost to get married at a restaurant that has a concert venue because under one contract we had our venue, the food, they provided the cupcakes, they included the open bar. There was a guy that was — so, I thought we had a lights guy and then a sound guy, and I just realized when I was telling my husband about this interview, that those were actually the same person. So it came with a lights guy and the sound guy. The venue was really great.

32:18 Rebecca: I was really happy with my dress. I found it for $130, which I’m really proud of. One of my bridesmaids asked me what I was envisioning and I described sort of a shorter dress, but also a sun dress, but also beautiful. And she pulled up one on Pinterest and was like, “do you mean like this?” And I was like, “yes, that’s exactly what I’m looking for.” Then, a few days later she texted me that it was 75% off online. So that’s how I got my dress from $130. A different bridesmaid took me veil shopping and I got one for $30. I would say for any brides out there, don’t spend a lot of money on the veil because you’re only going to wear it once. One of my aunts bought my shoes for me at Macy’s or something as a gift.

33:09 Rebecca: The most important part of the whole wedding experience to me was the ceremony and it’s hard to describe why that is. I guess, I mean, it’s a Jewish life cycle event and I did not have the traditional bat mitzvah, but I identify very strongly with Judaism, and my husband’s one of his parents is Jewish, but he didn’t grow up with a lot of religion, so I would describe it as Jewish with an interfaith twist. The way I think back on our ceremony is that there are a few events in life that are really deeply, very important, and for one of those to go so well, I appreciate that it went flawlessly so much. I think the ceremony itself, which we have a link to the video, actually that I can send you if you’re interested, I’m just so happy with how it went. We had a family friend officiate and play guitar and sing. My cousin, who is also a bridesmaid, did the Hebrew. An aunt and uncle made our chuppah for us as a gift to us. My dad sang a song during it, actually. It was like everything I could have imagined, and I’m so grateful for that, and we made it happen ourselves.

34:31 Emily: Yeah, that’s something to be really, really proud of, obviously. What I’m hearing, as someone who has also planning a wedding, is that it sounds like you DIY-ed, in terms of accessing your community and asking people to contribute, the parts of the whole experience that were most meaningful to you, but also the ones that their contribution was particularly, again, meaningful or personal, like singing a song, for example. And also not particularly a ton of work, versus your choice of venue, where you combined the restaurant and the venue and all the staff is there and everything is, as you said, under one contract. That was a way that you made a really simple decision that made the planning a lot, lot easier. I did the opposite thing with my wedding, so I know that it’s a lot of work and a lot of money to do things the other way. So anyone who’s thinking about planning a wedding, I think that you went about this in a very positive and thoughtful and way that paid off, it sounds like, really well.

35:34 Rebecca: What was your wedding venue, if you don’t mind me asking?

35:36 Emily: Yeah. So we had two, first of all, because one, we got married in the church and two the reception was at a different location. So it’s already dealing with two different locations, right? We actually had our reception at a museum of natural history in Raleigh, North Carolina, which was awesome.

35:52 Rebecca: I’ve been there, actually.

35:55 Emily: Yes, it’s a fantastic museum. I was so excited. I grew up outside DC, so I’ve been in love with the natural history museum as part of the Smithsonian forever, so to have a chance to do that in a similar museum in Raleigh was so much fun. The venue was really, really fun, but it was an outside caterer. It’s a lot of work. Rentals were a whole separate thing. Getting it all done in one place, I think, was really smart. It saves a lot of time, saves a lot of money. And as I said, then you chose to DIY the parts where people could actually really contribute instead of, for example, asking for people to contribute on the food or, you know, there’s other ways to do this kind of thing that could be a little bit more work for everyone rather than just, oh, I’m giving you this wonderful gift of a song or the shoes or whatever it turns out to be. I appreciate hearing that. And it sounds like you had a wonderful time and I’m happy that everything worked out with the side hustle and everything. Any final comments on the wedding and the side hustle?

36:50 Rebecca: Just a quick, funny thing that came to mind is that one of my closest friends who did our flowers, she was literally a few days away from getting her doctorate. Her name’s Arlisha and she got her doctorate in history a few days after my wedding. Her final year of dissertating, she literally texted me and was like, I’m taking up flower arrangement as a hobby while I finished my dissertation, can I do this for your wedding? And I had not previously cared about the flowers, but I was like, yes, if you want to, go for it. She did an amazing job. Just the aesthetics of the room, I think looked so much better because Arlisha’s dissertation side hobby was flower arrangement.

37:34 Emily: Yeah. I think in the academic space, we talk a lot about mental health and self care and so forth, and that’s a really fun, healing, stress-relieving thing to potentially do that, hey, can also help out a friend or even become a side hustle , if you want to. I had an interview recently with someone who decided to turn her baking hobby, as a graduate student, into a business. So it’s the same kind of thing, right? You have something you enjoy doing, it’s a stress reliever for you, why not turn it into something a little bit bigger?

Final Words of Advice

38:02 Emily: Final question here, Rebecca, which is, what is your best financial advice for another early career?

38:08 Rebecca: The piece of advice that I’m just learning and wish I had known sooner was that unpaid opportunities are almost always not worth it. Full stop.

38:20 Emily: Yup.

38:20 Rebecca: Also, as a PhD student, you have to do your doctoral requirements and dissertation, but there’s really nothing else that you have to do. And if you have different wedding preferences from your parents, just do it your own way. And if some customs from your religion are meaningful, just stick to those. If others aren’t…our wedding was really a growth opportunity for me and I’m proud and thankful for how it went.

38:50 Emily: Wonderful. No need to elaborate any further on that, Rebecca. Thank you so much for sharing the story on the podcast with me.

38:56 Rebecca: Thank you so much.

Outtro

38:58 Emily: Listeners, thank you for joining me for this episode. PFforPhDs.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, please consider joining my mailing list for my behind the scenes commentary about each episode. Register at PFforPhDs.com/subscribe. 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 Archive and is shared under CC by NC. Podcast editing and show notes creation by Lourdes Bobbio.

This Grad Student Didn’t Let a $1,000 Per Month Stipend Stop Her from Investing

March 23, 2020 by Meryem Ok

In this episode, Emily interviews Dr. Rachel Blackburn, an assistant professor at Columbus State University. Rachel’s PhD stipend at the University of Kansas was approximately $1,000 per month and her rent claimed half of that, but she resolved to do more than scrape by financially. Emily and Rachel discuss in detail how Rachel optimized her pay rate in her side hustles, generated extra income through credit card churning, and travel hacked her personal and professional trips. By combining these techniques, Rachel not only contributed to her Roth IRA during grad school but also paid down student loan debt. You won’t want to miss the excellent insight she shares at the end of the interview.

Links Mentioned in the Episode

  • VIPKid Website
  • Personal Finance for PhDs Interview with Aubrey Jones
  • Rover (Pet Sitting App)
  • TaskRabbit (Neighborhood Services App)
  • Turo (Personal Car Rental App)
  • Fat Llama (Personal Item/Electronics Rental App)
  • Instacart (Grocery Delivery App)
  • Personal Finance for PhDs Interview with Dr. Shana Green
  • Personal Finance for PhDs Article: Perfect Use of a Credit Card
  • Personal Finance for PhDs: Tax Center
  • STA Travel Website
  • Hostelworld Website
  • Personal Finance for PhDs: Podcast Hub
  • Personal Finance for PhDs: Subscribe to Mailing List

Teaser

00:00 Rachel: Don’t underestimate your own creativity. One of your strengths and skills as a PhD student is researching, so why not take that same skill and apply it to your financial life?

Intro

00:18 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 five, episode 12, and today my guest is Dr. Rachel Blackburn, an assistant professor at Columbus State University. Rachel’s PhD stipend at the University of Kansas was approximately $1,000 per month, and her rent claimed half of that. But, she resolved to do more than just scrape by financially. We discuss in detail how Rachel optimized her pay rate in her side hustles, generated extra income through credit card churning, and travel-hacked her personal and professional trips. By combining these techniques, Rachel not only contributed to her Roth IRA during grad school, but also paid down student loan debt. You won’t want to miss the excellent insight she shares at the end of the interview. Without further ado, here’s my interview with Dr. Rachel Blackburn.

Will You Please Introduce Yourself Further?

01:17 Emily: I have with me on the podcast today, Dr. Rachel Blackburn, and she has a really exciting story to tell us from back when she was in graduate school, how she managed to generate extra income so that she was able to start a Roth IRA which is just an amazing goal and I’m so excited to hear more about the story. So, Rachel, thank you so much for joining me today, and would you please introduce yourself to our listeners?

01:40 Rachel: Yeah, thank you so much for having me. So, I am Dr. Rachel Blackburn, and I am currently an assistant professor at Columbus State University, which is in Columbus, Georgia.

01:51 Emily: Great. And where were you in graduate school?

01:55 Rachel: So, I did a Master of Fine Arts degree at Virginia Commonwealth University, and then I did my PhD at the University of Kansas.

02:04 Emily: Excellent. So, you’ve moved around quite a bit, it sounds like.

02:08 Rachel: Yeah, I have.

02:11 Emily: Tell me about your stipend during graduate school and why you needed to look outside of that–why you ended up generating extra income.

Grad School Stipend at the University of Kansas

02:20 Rachel: Yeah, absolutely. So, during my MFA program, it was all student loans. That’s all it was. And when I got to my PhD at KU, I was really determined to not take out any more loans no matter what my stipend was. And my stipend was basically $1,000 a month, and my rent was of course about half that. And so, I realized that if I ever found myself in a situation where–it was okay to scrape by, like if I budgeted really carefully, I knew I’d be okay. But I was worried about unforeseen elements like a car breaking down, a major hospital visit. You know, something that would really require me to come up with a lot of money at once. And that’s what I was concerned about.

Balanced Money Formula: Necessary Expenses = 50% of Pay

03:08 Emily: A couple of points in there that I just want to follow up on it because I think it’s a great example for anyone who’s maybe looking at a stipend offer letter or maybe you’ve just started graduate school and you’re kind of still figuring out what your budget’s going to be. So, you just mentioned your rent was about 50% of your pay, which is sort of widely considered to be too high. Right? So, according to the balanced money formula, which to me is a good reference point, all of your necessary expenses should be about 50% of your pay. So, not only rent but also utilities and paying any contracts that you’re in and your transportation and your basic food–all of that stuff is supposed to be within 50%, which is actually a high bar for many graduate students to reach, but it’s just kind of a good reference point.

03:53 Emily: So, you knew seeing rent at 50%, this is going to be pretty challenging. And like you said, you also were anticipating having occasional large, hard to cashflow expenses, which is so, so common. Anyone who lives for about a year or longer, you’re going to realize you have these large expenses sometimes. So, that’s why you turned to generating extra income outside of your stipend. So, did you start that right from the beginning of graduate school–or, rather at the beginning of your PhD program–and I’m wondering, was this a common thing among your peers? Did your advisor know about it? Was this a thing that people did and they were open about or was it more kept quiet?

Side Hustles and Financial Situation Often Kept Quiet

04:34 Rachel: You know, it was really kind of kept quiet. I don’t know how many students revealed to faculty that we were all taking on side hustles. I think maybe later on it did when push really came to shove and things like my advisor saying, “I think we need to look to defend your dissertation in the following semester instead of this one.” And me being like, “I literally cannot afford another semester of tuition. You’re going to have to help me get this done now.” So, things like that. I think when push came to shove, we probably revealed a little bit more about our financial situation, but really the only people that were doing okay in grad school and didn’t need to side hustle were frankly people that had two-income households. So, most often married couples. Yeah.

05:25 Emily: Yup. Super common there. I mean, really, paying $1,000 a month. The faculty should be aware–I mean also living in the same city, right? And presumably having a much higher income. They should be aware that that is not enough to live on without either taking out student loans, which as you said, people have enough experience with student loans to know that they should avoid them if at all possible. No, it’s really not enough to live on. So, it should be no surprise to anyone that this is going on. Yet, as you said, most of the time, it’s not really something that is talked about very openly, at least between students and their advisors or students and the administration. Maybe students, among themselves, talk to each other. Okay. So, thanks for giving us kind of the picture for being on the ground there. So, just give me a quick overview. What were your methods of generating extra income that we’ll then dive into?

Primary Side Hustles: House and Pet Sitting

06:15 Rachel: I would say, primarily, my side hustles were housesitting and pet sitting. Those were easy to do, and what was great about them is that if you did a decent job with one, that professor would recommend you to other professors. And professors are always going out of town for guest lectures and conferences. A lot of them have pets. If you have a halfway decent sense of compassion as a human being, you’ll be fine taking care of a pet. Some just want their plants watered or some just want their home to look lived in while they’re away. So, falling into that circle is a really great thing. And that was a lot for me. Also, I did some teaching online and there are various ways to do this. So, I actually taught online for a community college in just outside of Lawrence (KS). And also, another hack about this is that if you’re interested in possibly teaching English online, for whatever reason, there are a lot of companies specifically for Chinese and Korean and Japanese students who will advertise their online teaching English programs, but they will do so on the New York City Craigslist. At the end of the day, you only need be online. You don’t have to live in New York City, but they’re targeting those bigger markets because they’re just expecting to have more people that they can interview. And so, I honestly went on to New York City’s Craigslist a number of times and found online teaching that way as well.

Secondary Side Hustles: Online Teaching and Waiting Tables

07:43 Emily: Just to jump in there, I have another interview where another grad student is currently side hustling with VIPKid, which is one of the companies that you just described that offer that kind of work. So, if anyone’s specifically looking for a company that’s going on right now and we’re recording this in July, 2019, check out VIPKid and check out that other interview. Yeah. Any other online teaching besides that, that you did?

08:08 Rachel: Those mainly comprised what I did online. Now, some people are a fan of waiting tables. This is also something I did. And, really, the only hack there is that if waiting tables is something that really takes it out of you, energy-wise–and it can, you’re on your feet the whole time–I recommend if you can only do it like once a week, do it on a Friday or Saturday night when the restaurant is busiest, that’s when you’re going to make the most tips. Doing a Wednesday lunch is not going to help you out. Doing a Friday night dinner might actually cover your groceries that week, or what have you. So, that’s the hack there. Try and get signed up for the busiest times.

08:48 Emily: Get that hourly rate up as high as you possibly can so you can minimize the number of hours you actually have to do it. Okay.

Side Hustling Apps

08:56 Rachel: I will just add really quickly that there are a few apps out there that can help you generate income as a side hustle. I made a list of some that I’ve used. So, Rover is a pet sitting app, so sign up to petsit. TaskRabbit is basically anything. So, somebody in the neighborhood needs help painting a fence. That’s TaskRabbit. Turo, you can rent your own car out to other people. That’s T U R O. Fat Llama is where you rent out your own possessions. So, say you have a Nintendo Wii sitting around not being used. You could rent out your Nintendo Wii for a weekend to some kids. So, there’s that. Also, Instacart is where you shop for other people. So, anyway, those are some of the ones that I’ve tried.

09:44 Emily: That’s awesome. Thank you so much for adding those specifics. In fact, I guess I talk about side hustling a lot on this podcast because in fact we have another interview where someone’s talking about using Rover and another interview where someone is discussing Instacart. That’s season three, episode two with Shana Green. That one’s already out. So yeah, to follow up on any of those, but thank you so much for giving those specifics. That’s a really great next step for anyone looking to those side hustles. And we also wanted today to talk about credit card churning and travel hacking. So, the listeners may not be very familiar at all with what credit card churning is, what travel hacking is. So, can you start with some basic definitions here for, let’s say, credit card churning first?

Credit Card Churning Fundamentals

10:29 Rachel: Yeah. So, credit card churning is the idea that you take advantage of credit card signups who are offering major big signup bonuses for when you sign up for that credit card. Now, let me preface and say that I’m really just a beginning level churner, like beginner-level churner. Some people are really sophisticated with how they’re tackling this. And I’ve seen spreadsheets of multiple cards when you’re signing up, when you’re canceling the card and things like that. In a nutshell, that’s credit card churning.

11:10 Emily: There’s suddenly a huge subculture within personal finance that is specifically about credit card churning and maximizing credit card rewards. So, if people want to dive, dive, dive into this, that is available. We are fine with the beginner level here. So, whatever you’ve been doing is great. I want to specifically point out that there’s a difference between credit card churning and having credit cards on a longterm basis that give you ongoing reward. So, what we’re specifically discussing today is getting, as you said, those signup bonuses. And so signing up for new cards fairly frequently, doing whatever you need to do to get the signup bonus. And then usually either moving on–keeping the card open, but not using it anymore–moving onto the next card in your churn list, or, potentially closing it pretty quickly. So, just wanted to clarify that for the listeners. So, can you tell us how you got started with this? What was the first credit card you opened for this purpose, for example?

12:06 Rachel: Yeah, absolutely. So, my first year in my PhD program, I was friends with a guy who was an entrepreneur and he was opening his own business. And he fell into the credit card turning scene because he was starting to try and figure out, “How can me and my business partner fly around the US? Because we anticipate that we’re going to fly a lot. So, how are we going to cover all of those tickets?” And so, he really introduced me to the world of credit card turning. So, I should say from the very top that if you’re someone who has trouble paying off your credit cards every month, if you have not so good credit, it’s not the best thing. It’s really ideal for someone who’s really good at paying off the full amount every month, who’s really good at not spending a credit card on things that either you don’t need or things that may be superfluous to your daily life. And so, the one that I opened was Chase.

Disclaimer: Use Credit Card Churning Wisely

13:10 Emily: I want to jump in a second and just emphasize that point because credit card churning and using credit card rewards is really a fairly advanced strategy. I would not recommend this for anyone who is new to using credit cards. My personal rule on this would be use credit cards in your life, in your regular budgeting for at least one year before you even attempt something like this. Because you need to have a lot of confidence in yourself, as you were just saying, that you’re going to be paying off that card in full every month, that you’re not going to be spending any extra money just for convenience factor or whatever it is because you’re excited about the rewards. You need to be a super, super good budgeter and super, super organized before you jump into this world. And it can be really lucrative, as we’ll get into in a moment. So, it’s very tempting, but show restraint. Hold back. Be sure you have your budget totally aligned before you try to attempt it. I’ll link in the show notes, I have an article that I wrote previously called, “Perfect Use of a Credit Card.” So, that will outline what you need to master in terms of using a credit card before you jump into what we’re talking about now. So, thank you so much for emphasizing that. Now, you were just mentioning that you opened a Chase card, first.

14:18 Rachel: Yeah. So, when I first started to get into this–now, like I said, I just wanted to take baby steps. I have used credit cards for most of my adult life, and I feel pretty confident with my use of credit cards that I don’t really have an addictive personality. I don’t go gambling or drink alcohol very much. I’m just kind of pretty unattached that way. So, I felt confident starting to do a baby churn with just one card. I should also mention by the way, that if you open too many cards within the space of 12 months or 24 months, some credit card companies will take note of that and they’ll say, “Okay, don’t give them any more cards.” And it can damage your credit that way. So, that’s just something to be aware of.

15:03 Rachel: So, I recommend, personally speaking, I would probably top out at three in the space of one year. I think that’s plenty to keep up with. So, Chase, for example, had a credit card, and often what they are is that there’s a signup bonus and in order to achieve that signup bonus, which is usually in the value of points and then those points can be exchanged for either travel points, like they can translate to air miles. They can translate to gift cards. Sometimes they can translate to cash back. With Chase–and I did this a few years ago, so I can’t speak to what it is now, but–when I took the Chase card a few years ago, I crunched the numbers and I basically found that gift cards was my biggest bang for my buck. So, I exchanged my signup points all for gift cards for things that I would spend money on regardless, like grocery stores, gas stations, things like that, Walmart, those kinds of things.

Credit Card Churning: Timing is Everything

16:05 Rachel: A lot of these signup points are dependent on you spending a certain amount of money within the first three months, that’s often the typical amount of time. So, I would time my opening a credit card with an event in my life where I knew that I’d be spending more money than I typically do. So, say for example, I think mine was $1,000. I had to spend $1,000 within the first three months of opening this card. And if I did, I was given a reward of 50,000 points, which ultimately translated to my plane ticket to a conference I was presenting at. So, I timed this for when I had been to the doctor and I’d had a hospital visit and I knew I was going to be paying off a lot of doctor’s bills. So, I knew I’d be spending that money anyway. So, that’s how I timed it.

16:53 Emily: We use the exact same strategy–I wouldn’t say we were credit card churning, but signing up for signup bonuses from time to time–doing the exact same thing as you did, like looking at our upcoming six months or a year, whatever, and identifying a few points in the year where, “Okay, we are going to pay our car insurance once every six months.” So, that’s like a pretty big bill, we can put that on the card. “Oh, we’re going to have to buy a flight to here or there. We can put that on the card.” All within a window that was the window that we needed for achieving the signup bonus. So, we did the exact same thing. I think that meeting those minimum spending requirements can be, very typically, a challenge for someone who lives on a lower income, right?

17:31 Emily: Because you don’t have a lot of spending that goes on in a given month, let’s say. Most people will not be paying their rent with a credit card. Usually you have to pay a fee or something to do that. So, if you’re going to exclude rent from this calculation, then there are not that many other things, maybe, that will help you achieve this minimum spend. So, definitely looking your calendar and anticipating upcoming expenses, signing up for a card that’ll give you the right window when you’re going to have to pay those expenses. There’s a little bit of a trick to it when you have a lower-spending lifestyle.

18:00 Rachel: Absolutely. Timing is everything. I also didn’t realize, even for myself, how much I spent cash on lots of things. When I started really concentrating and focusing and saying, “Okay, I could pay cash for this, but I could pay a credit card. Let me just pay with a credit card.” I’m starting to realize that there are very few instances in which it benefits me to use cash, to be honest. Now, I do keep cash on me at all times, just in emergencies. Who knows. But I did start using a credit card for a lot more things than I had. And I find that the rewards do come back to me. Yeah. But no, that’s a fair point. Timing is everything with the credit card churning. When you open the card, when you decide to cancel the card, that kind of thing. Yeah.

Credit Card Points for Gift Cards and Air Miles

18:50 Emily: So, you said that for you, you probably max out at about three cards per year. That’s what you’ve decided you can handle in your personal spending and tracking everything. Other people do a lot more, but that’s what works for you. And that, when you first started doing this, you would trade these points you generated for gift cards because that was what you figured was going to be maximizing those points. Has that continued to be the case? So, do you always do gift cards, or have you redeemed for other types of rewards?

19:18 Rachel: At one point, I did redeem for travel points because, like I said, I was paying for a plane ticket. So, it was easy to translate those to air miles and to do that. What I have found, in my experience–what’s helpful is letting life happen and determining, “Oh, okay, you know what? This month, I have a lot of unexpected expenses. So, actually what I could do to save myself some money this month is go ahead and redeem some points for, say, a grocery store gift card or a gas station gift card. Because that helps offset the unexpected expenses that I’m having.” However, later on down the year, I might find like, “Oh, I really need to take a trip to this conference,” or, “I need to go on this research trip.” And at that point, maybe the air miles are more helpful.

20:10 Rachel: So, it just depends. The nice thing about gift cards too is that if you want to, dare I say, splurge, and get yourself a gift card to like AMC Theatres so you can see a movie, or something that’s like a small, not too expensive luxury. Later on, when you go use that gift card to go see that movie, you don’t really feel as guilty about it because you’re not spending your own money. You’re actually just spending the rewards that you’ve already incurred from paying on your credit card. So, that’s kind of a nice thing that I feel like is a guilt-free way of treating yourself to the occasional movie, or what have you. Because, as we all know, grad school is so stressful. Yeah.

Credit Card Churning: Spreadsheets Are Your Friends

20:53 Emily: I really like that strategy that you’re using the points or whatever that you build up as almost kind of a piggy bank that you can then deploy as needed in the future. And of course, using it for lifestyle upgrades, like going to the occasional movie or whatever you want. When you have your stipend paying your baseline expenses, then you can use your side hustle money, the credit card rewards, whatever it is, for big expenses as they come up to ease your stress or just more of life’s pleasures. So, I really like that strategy. Any other things you want to share with us regarding credit card churning?

21:27 Rachel: I really do recommend keeping a spreadsheet with all of your information, just to make sure that you’re keeping track of what you’re spending, you’re keeping track of, “Is this really for sure financially benefiting me? Am I getting rewards?” Versus, “Am I tempted to spend more money just because I’m trying to meet some kind of signup reward, or something.” Also, don’t be afraid to cancel credit cards. A lot of these cards start off free the first year, but then have an annual fee that they’ll charge you. And sometimes those annual fees hit you and you go, “Oh no, I didn’t realize I was already a year out from when I started this card.” So, you know, make sure that you keep a tally of dates of like, “Okay, I need to make sure I cancel this card by this date,” and so on and so forth. Just to keep yourself on the straight and narrow with the churn.

22:18 Emily: Totally. Totally agree. I have to admit myself, just last month I had an annual fee for one of my cards hit, and I was kind of like, “Oh I guess I’m keeping that card another year.” I mean, I could probably still call and get out of it, but I was kind of debating, “Should I cancel it before the year is up or should I keep it?” And then the year was up before I had my bearings about it. So, I’m going to start a spreadsheet and put that in because I’m definitely canceling it by the end of the second year. In fact, it’s already on my calendar as a reminder to do that. So yes, being very organized, super, super crucial with this strategy.

Commercial

22:57 Emily: Emily here for a brief interlude. Tax season is upon us, and while no one loves this time of year, it’s particularly difficult for post-bac fellows, funded grad students, and postdoc fellows. Even professional tax preparers are often thrown for a loop by our unique tax situation. And don’t get me started on tax software. I provide tons of support at this time of year for PhD trainees preparing their tax returns, from free articles and videos, to paid at-your-own-pace workshops, to live seminars and webinars for universities and research institutes. The best place to go to check out all of this material is pfforphds.com/tax. That’s P F F O R P H D S.com/T A X. Don’t struggle through tax season on your own. Visit my website for the exact information you need in the most efficient form available. Now, back to the interview.

Let’s Talk More About Travel Hacking

24:01 Emily: So, let’s talk more about travel hacking. And you already mentioned using the credit card signups to then generate points that can be translated to different airlines depending on the card and who their partners are. So, that’s definitely one way to go about travel hacking. But you said you had a few other travel hacks that you like to use.

24:19 Rachel: Yeah, I do. So, okay. So, some of these are really simple and kind of a onetime thing. Some of these are a little bit more “shady,” if you will. Not shady, I’m not going to recommend anything illegal, but a little sneaky. So, one of the sneaky things that I did, and I’m sure I can’t be the first person to do this or come up with this, but I would be very careful about timing my applications for funding within the university, because some funding applications will say, “Are you receiving funding for many other source?” And I want to be able to say, “No, I’m not.” And that’s true if I have not yet received official funding from another source. So, I was very careful to time my applications in such a manner that allowed me to always be able to say, “No, I’m not receiving funding from another source.” And if I then applied to another source after I submitted that application, well you know, who could have foreseen that I would do that. So, that’s one. Yeah. Another smaller hack is that a lot of us, I think, forget that as grad students, we’re still entitled to student discounts. So, things like STA Travel, which is the Student Travel Association. They have a website where you can look up airfares and all kinds of things. That’s something to take advantage of in addition to all of the sort of usual suspects like couchsurfing and Airbnb, and things like that.

25:52 Emily: I don’t know about Student Travel Association. Can you say more about that?

STA Travel and Hostelworld

25:56 Rachel: Oh yeah, sure. Student Travel Association. I discovered them when I was in college, actually, because I was studying abroad and I was looking into airfares and things and wondering if, “Is there a way I can hack my way into traveling more beyond my study abroad semester?” So, that’s when I discovered STA Travel. STA Travel covers a lot of things. They also, and I could be wrong on this, but I believe they are the same company that issues international student identification cards. That’s the ISIC card, International Student Identity Card. And that has some benefits to it. In fact, recently they’ve started making them like a credit card so you can even add money onto them and use them as a form of payment. But yeah, STA Travel has a lot of different options. And some of the airfares might be, the stipulation is merely just that you’re a student. Some of them might be, you need to be 35 years and younger. So it kind of depends. You have to check it out. But it’s at least another source.

27:00 Emily: This reminds me, and maybe this is part of that association, but just about hostels–like some of them are only open to students or maybe people of a certain age; not super common in the US. But abroad, much more. So, is that kind of the same idea?

27:14 Rachel: Yeah, absolutely. And actually when it comes to hostels, if you haven’t discovered Hostelworld–hostel W O R LD.com–they’re a great source for housing. And I’ve used them abroad a lot. But in the bigger cities in the U S you’ll find Hostelworld locations, too. And it’s amazing how cheap you can get. A lot of people say, “Well, I don’t feel comfortable sleeping in a room with 10 other people that I don’t know for $10 a night.” A lot of properties on hostelworld.com do offer private rooms, and they’re still cheaper than what you would find on Airbnb.

27:54 Emily: I actually used Hostelworld–I think it was through Hostelworld–when I traveled to Chicago one time when I was in graduate school. And my husband and I, who had no interest in staying in separate rooms with many other people, were able to book a private room together at the hostel, which worked out really well for us. It was very inexpensive. So yeah, thanks so much for mentioning that. And also STA Travel. I spent 10 years in college and graduate school and I’m really kicking myself that I did not know about this. So, thank you so much for mentioning it. What’s the next travel hack on your list?

Budget Airlines, Driving, and Incognito Browsing

28:26 Rachel: Yeah. Okay. So, some of those websites also worth mentioning briefly if you ever are traveling abroad. Ryanair and EasyJet are budget airlines and they’re really inexpensive. That’s helpful to know. But unfortunately, those seem to be limited to Europe. Okay. So, I’ve also crunched the numbers on this, and if it’s possible to drive and if you are receiving funding for say a conference or a research trip, driving actually optimizes the money that you’re spending because you might actually get more back. A lot of universities have a really nice high mileage reimbursement for driving. And so if you can drive but you were thinking of just taking a plane just because, it might actually be worth your while financially to drive. Another thing is, I don’t know if this is widely known, but browsing “incognito” on your browser when you’re looking at flights and hotel rooms and things like that.

29:27 Rachel: So, with most browsers, you just go to the settings. I use Google Chrome. So, for Google Chrome, it’s the upper right-hand corner, and you pull down the dropdown menu and you just say that you want to browse incognito. And what that does is it sort of erases all of the memory and cookies that are stored in your browser. And for whatever reason, say like Orbitz for example, if they know that, “Oh, Rachel Blackburn comes to us and she buys plane tickets through Orbitz a lot, we can probably charge her just a little bit more because she’s likely not going to look at any other sites for fares.” And so browsing incognito takes away their ability to do that.

30:12 Emily: Yeah, really good tip. Anything else in that travel hacking list?

For the Bold and the Brave: Motel Pricing Negotiation

30:18 Rachel: Okay. So, one thing I’ve done–and this might be a little on the riskier side, and I certainly would never, ever blame anybody for not wanting to do this–but, let’s say I’m driving long distance and I know that I’m going to have to crash somewhere. If you feel comfortable, and especially as a single woman, maybe you feel more comfortable doing this if you have a friend with you or something like that. A lot of hotels that are these kinds of like motels that you see on the side of the highway when you’re driving long distance and you’re kind of in the middle of nowhere. They will lower their fares quite a bit if you show up late at night and you’re like, “Hey, I need a room.” And they’ve only got like maybe 10 other people in the hotel and they’ll say, “Okay, it’s $99 for the night.” And I’ll say, “Oh, you know what? I’m sorry. That’s a little bit more than I was wanting to spend. So, I’m just going to go on.” And then they’ll say, “No, no, no, no, wait.” Because who else is going to drop by late at night to stay? So, a lot of them will actually negotiate fare with you, and they’ll drop it down, say like, “Okay, well can you do 75?” “Yeah, that’s better.” Okay. Now, that does mean that you’re not making a reservation ahead of time. You also run the risk that they may not negotiate with you. That can happen too. So, if I’m taking this route, I try to always stop off in a town that’s large enough to have at least three or four off-the-highway motels where I can try that tactic.

31:52 Emily: I’m really glad you mentioned that because we have so few opportunities for negotiation in the US for these types of sales. So, yeah, that never occurred to me, but I really like this strategy. I can’t say I’ll necessarily do it, but I like the idea.

32:08 Rachel: Yeah, it’s for the bold and the brave for sure.

32:11 Emily: I mean, if there is a town where there are two, three, four of these, then they know that you can just walk down the street and try the same tactic. It’s not going to cost you hardly any more time. So, why not? How late is late at night by the way, for you, after what time?

32:25 Rachel: Hmm, that’s a great question. Most people, especially thinking of highway driving, a lot of people like to be in a motel before it gets dark, especially people with families and stuff like that. So, I would say any time after sunset you’re good to negotiate. Yeah.

32:44 Emily: Yeah. Sounds good. Any more travel hacks?

Inviting (non-PhD) Friends to Conferences

32:49 Rachel: One thing I have done, and I wouldn’t exactly call this a hack, and anytime I have done this, I’ve been totally upfront with my friends about it. If I’m going to, say, a research conference or a research trip or something. I’m going somewhere, I can anticipate I’m going to need a hotel room or an Airbnb. I will often invite my friends along, and not friends who are PhD students, but just friends of mine. And I’ll be upfront and I’ll say, “Listen, would you want to come hang out with me in this city for a weekend? We can split an Airbnb, and when I’m at my conference, you can do your own thing. And when I’m not at my conference, we can hang out together.” And I’ve done that before and it’s great. It’s a double benefit of getting to see friends that you wouldn’t otherwise see. But also, you have someone to share the conference with who’s not necessarily associated with the conference. So, I did a research trip to LA at one point and I invited two of my girlfriends along, and I said, “Hey, I’m going to be in LA for a long weekend. Come hang out with me. There’s going to be times when I’ll have to be at this conference, but most of the time I’ll be free to hang out.” And so they shared an Airbnb with me and immediately split my Airbnb three ways instead of one way. So yeah, that’s another hack, sort.

34:06 Emily: Yeah, why not? If you’re going to a desirable location and you like your friends and like to hang out with them, no harm in suggesting it, certainly.

34:13 Rachel: Yeah. I mean, I know so many people that go, “Oh no one else is going to this conference. I guess I’m footing the bill for the whole hotel room by myself.” And it’s like, “No, you might have some friends who like to travel and who would love the excuse to just get away for a weekend.” So, yeah.

34:33 Emily: Yeah. I like that idea.

Prefixes: To Doctor, or Not To Doctor

34:35 Rachel: Okay. Last one. This is the last hack. I often, when I’m booking a hotel or a plane, I have read that specifying your prefix as doctor can make a difference. Even if you’re not a doctor yet, what are they going to do? They’re going to go find your transcripts? Probably not. I don’t think American Airlines has time for that. So yeah, start using doctor as a prefix. It couldn’t hurt.

35:03 Emily: So, when you say that it can help, what do you mean? Would that actually change the rate that you’re paying, or what difference would it make?

35:13 Rachel: Yeah, well I’ve read stories of people saying that they got a better seat or they got a better rate. Sometimes it might just be like, “Oh, you’re a doctor? Continental breakfast is free for you,” or whatever. Or maybe it’s just a few dollars off your bill, or something. But my guess is that this only leads to really minute differences, but again, every little bit helps. Why not? Worst-case scenario, somebody calls you Doctor?

35:44 Emily: Yeah, I think I may try this out. I’m trying to remember. I think in most cases when I travel, I don’t use doctor as a prefix because I don’t want to be approached with a medical situation on a plane. Of course, I’ve never even seen that happen. So, the chances that it would are really, really, really tiny. But I think that’s been my reason to shy away from using my proper title. But now that I know that I may actually get something out of it, I might try using it consistently going forward. Okay. So, we’ve talked about your side hustling. We’ve talked about how you’ve generated other extra income and how you’ve reduced expenses with your associated travel and so forth. And you told me when we started preparing this episode that all this allowed you to open a Roth IRA during graduate school, which, if you told me I’m being paid $1,000 a month and I’m going to be living in Lawrence, Kansas, I’d be like, “Good luck with that.”

36:46 Emily: You know, who would ever think that that would be possible? Yet, it sounds like through these different mechanisms that you were able to. So, tell me more about why you decided to start saving for retirement while you were in graduate school and why in particular you used a Roth IRA?

Why Start a Roth IRA in Graduate School?

37:00 Rachel: Yeah, absolutely. So, I’m in the humanities. I was a theater professional, theater artist for many, many years professionally before I decided to go back to school, years later. And because of that, I was a freelance contractor for a lot of my life–a lot of my working adult life. So, I was never hired on a permanent full-time basis. I was often hired on a full-time basis for the next three months, you know? And then I was again hired somewhere else for the next three months. And I think in the back of my mind, I kept hoping, one of these days, surely, I will get a job that will offer me benefits and savings plans and things like that. And after a few years, I realized, that’s not going to happen. And then when I went back to school, I didn’t know what my options would be there, either.

37:54 Rachel: I knew it was going to be a tight budgeting situation. I was not under any illusion that I would be–I mean, the idea of like saving for an IRA was completely out of my mind. But somewhere during the PhD–and at this point in my life, I’m like early thirties, 32, 33–and I thought, “If I don’t make this happen for myself, it might never happen.” We all know the statistics about finding a tenure-track job after you graduate. And I just thought I can’t keep telling myself, “Don’t worry. One day you’ll get that job. Don’t worry, one day you’ll get those benefits.” I thought, “Okay, it’s up me. It’s up to me to do it. So, I just need to really be creative and smart about how I’m saving money.”

Know Yourself to Choose Which IRA Works For You

38:42 Rachel: I was able to open a Roth IRA with Vanguard. Now, there again–and for those listening, PhD students who are great at research–just research around, figure it out. One thing I liked about Vanguard was that they seem to have, I believe–and I don’t want to misspeak because I could always be wrong. There could be information I don’t have–they seem to have kept their nose clean, relatively, through the recession. And that was one thing that really attracted me to them. I also spoke to friends and family that were involved in business and they all said, “Oh yeah, Vanguard’s a great company.” So, that’s how I chose them. I also just researched financial products and I said, “Okay, what makes the most sense to me?” I wanted something that would hold onto my money and wouldn’t let me at it. Because if I could pull it out without penalty, I probably would. And that’s just a personality assessment on myself. So, I wanted a financial product that I could put money into anytime. I wasn’t worried about being taxed on it. So, that’s why I chose the Roth IRA that I did. And, it would give me incentive to not take the money back out. So, yeah.

39:53 Emily: That sounds perfect. I think you had great insight there. If you don’t make this happen for yourself, it may not happen. Now, we know that you now have that tenure-track position. You’re one of the lucky few, right? But so many people, so many people currently in grad school or maybe in a postdoc or something–yeah, you don’t know what your job is going to be in the future. And kind of the way things are trending is, not only are pensions in many cases a thing of the past, even having what would be full-time benefits, like having access to a 403(b) or 401(k) or whatever, that is disappearing too as more and more people are entering the freelance market, as you said, or doing contract work. So, really, at some point, as you just said, you just need to make it happen for yourself because you can’t necessarily rely on an employer to do this for you anymore.

40:50 Emily: So, it’s a hard realization, but it’s one that if you do have it early on, like you did prior to graduate school or maybe during graduate school or during a postdoc for other people you know what, go ahead and get started. Because now is always kind of the best time to do it, right? Like best time to start saving for retirement. Well, that was 10 years ago, but the second best time is right now. So, go ahead and get started and don’t let, “Oh in the future things will be different hold you back from that.” So, I really love having the story from you of, “Yeah, my stipend was very small, not really sufficient for even a relatively low cost of living area. Yet, this is what I did to change this. I hustled in this way. I was super smart about deploying my credit score in this other way. I kept my travel expenses down in this way, and look at that. I was able to start saving for retirement based on all those strategies.”

Best Financial Advice for Early-Career PhDs

41:39 Emily: And now of course you have the full-time job and things are working out very well, it sounds like. So, love this story and thank you so much for this interview. And as we kind of sign off here, I just wanted to ask you, what is your best financial advice for another early-career PhD?

41:55 Rachel: Don’t underestimate your own creativity. One of your strengths and skills as a PhD student is researching. So, why not take that same skill and apply it to your financial life? If you had told me when I was in my MFA program, “Hey, guess what? In a few years, you’re going to make up your mind that you’re bound and determined to open an IRA.” I would’ve said, “That’s crazy. How am I ever going to save for an IRA on a stipend that I have?” And my other best piece of advice, I decided that because your loans are deferred while you’re in school, if you can pay on your loans while you’re in school, you’re only paying principal. So, that was my other goal throughout grad school. Financially speaking, I was bound and determined, even if it was $10 a month, that was still $120 less on my principal at the end of the year. So, however small it is, just chipping away at those student loans while you’re in school will really help you by the time you’re out of school.

43:01 Emily: I love both pieces of advice. Deploying your creativity and your research skills to your finances as well as your academic interests. And then, just because your student loans are deferred doesn’t mean you have to ignore them. Go ahead and start paying on them to whatever degree you can or are interested in. And/or do this retirement investing. Both of them are going to greatly benefit you by the time you finish up with graduate school and start having to make payments on the student loans. So, Rachel, thank you so much for this interview. This is really, really insightful and I enjoyed speaking with you.

43:34 Rachel: Yeah. Thank you so much for having me. It was great talking to you.

Outtro

43:38 Emily: Listeners, thank you for joining me for this episode. Pfforphds.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 cover 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 Podington Bear from the free music archive and is shared under CC by NC. Podcast editing and show notes creation by Meryem Ok.

This Grad Student Is on the Lowest Rung of the Pay Ladder and Side Hustles to Compensate

February 10, 2020 by Meryem Ok

In this episode, Emily interviews Sarah ‘Frankie’ Frank, a grad student in sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Frankie describes the hierarchy of grad student positions at UW; the positions she’s primarily held over her years in grad school, teaching assistantships, are on the lowest level in terms of hourly pay. To make ends meet, Frankie side hustles doing activities that she truly loves, chiefly tutoring and baking. She concludes the interview with excellent advice for a grad student who wants and needs to do it all.

Links Mentioned in the Episode

  • PhD Stipends Database
  • Before Admission Season Starts, Determine what Standard Offer in Your Field Is
  • @frankies.cupcakes (Instagram)
  • https://frankies-cupcakes.com/ (Website)
  • https://www.facebook.com/frankies.cupcakes.yum/ (Facebook)
  • Personal Finance for PhDs: Podcast Hub
  • Personal Finance for PhDs: Subscribe to Mailing List

Teaser

00:00 Frankie: You feel so subjected to whatever the institution tells you you’re worth–what you can do, what you can’t do–and the honest truth is that you have a little bit of bartering that you can negotiate. If you are in a position that you can make that kind of offer, you should because it’s possible that they find that money somewhere.

Intro

00:22 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 five, episode six, and today my guest is Sarah Frank who goes by Frankie, a grad student in sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Throughout most of grad school, Frankie has been a teaching assistant, a position that receives the lowest hourly pay rate at her university. We discuss the various types of positions a grad student might have and the advantages of being paid through a fellowship or research assistantship. Frankie’s $15,000 per year stipend isn’t enough to make ends meet, so she is engaged in many side hustles, the best of which were tutoring NCAA student athletes and her cake business. You won’t want to miss the advice Frankie gives at the end of the interview to grad students who are juggling a lot of responsibilities and activities at once. Without further ado, here’s my interview with Frankie.

Will You Please Introduce Yourself Further?

01:22 Emily: I’m delighted to be joined today on the podcast by Sarah Frank who goes by Frankie. And we’re going to be talking today about TA-ing, having a teaching assistantship and how that compares to other jobs you might have on campus as a graduate student. So, Frankie, thank you so much for joining me today.

01:38 Frankie: Thank you, Emily. I really am excited to be here. I feel honored.

01:42 Emily: Oh, well that’s lovely to hear. Would you please tell us a little bit more about yourself, you know, where you go to school and so forth?

01:48 Frankie: Yeah. So, my name is Frankie. I am a PhD candidate and a lecturer now at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the Department of Sociology and in the Department of Legal Studies. I’ve previously spent three years as a teaching assistant and lecturer. I’ve also worked for athletics. And yeah, I think I have about two years to go before I have a job somewhere, hopefully.

02:10 Emily: Sounds good. So, you’ve already mentioned you’ve had a few different positions, so let’s talk about what your current position is and what your pay is right now.

02:20 Frankie: Yeah, so current position for lecturers, right now it depends on how many students will be enrolled in the course, but at a 33% appointmentship for one course in the fall, I’ll make about $7,000. So, over the whole course of the year, that can fluctuate to about a $15,000 baseline salary. And then adding in other jobs thereafter, I don’t make more than about $22,000 a year.

Level of Pay Variation at UW-Madison

02:45 Emily: Okay. So, that gives us a good idea of the range. So at a 33% appointment, if you did that approximately for the whole year, it would be about $15 K. Plus, your side hustle and such, have other jobs on top of that, of course, to make that work, naturally. Okay. And how has that level of pay varied over your time in graduate school?

03:06 Frankie: Yeah. So, when I first came as a TA in 2016, University of Wisconsin had one of the lowest pay rates for TAs. So, in our tiers of graduate studentship, being a teaching assistant was at the very lowest, at about 15 and a half thousand dollars per year at a 50% appointmentship. And then the union here, there’s a teaching assistant union that put a lot of pressure on our administration to raise that salary. So, we have gotten substantial raises. And then just this year, lecturers also got another bit of a raise. So, it has increased a little bit as we’ve gone on. But we still pay student fees. So, we pay segregated student fees that go into like student clubs and student rec centers that are mostly undergraduate. So, we lose a little bit of our salary there to the tune of six or $700 each semester that you’re taking full load.

03:55 Emily: Yeah, that is a huge bite. Okay. So, I just want to add in like a couple of notes there for the listener. So, if you want to see what other people are being paid at Wisconsin or in other places, one of the websites I run is phdstipends.com. So, go there and check out what TAs and RAs and other types of grad students, fellows are being paid in various places and enter your own data. So, there are a couple of things you mentioned I want to follow up on. You mentioned that TA pay was the lowest among the different sort of options, the way graduate students might be paid. So, what are those other options at Wisconsin?

04:31 Frankie: So, typically the lowest tier would be teaching assistants. The next tier up would be research assistant, and the tier after that would be project assistant. And then the top tier is obviously fellowship. So, if you’re on fellowship, you make the most. After the raise, teaching assistant and research assistant are more in line with one another. So, this is the first year that they’re really in line.

04:54 Emily: Yeah. That was something curious that you said that I wasn’t really sure about, that TAs and RAs had been paid differently. Now you mentioned that the union was just a TAs union, or does it also cover RAs?

05:09 Frankie: Right, so it’s strange. It’s called the Teaching Assistant Association, so it would sound like it’s just for TA’s, but it’s actually for all graduate student workers. So, it includes RAs, PAs, and it includes people on fellowship actually as well. So, graduate student workers generally.

What is a Project Assistant?

05:23 Emily: Okay. That’s really interesting to hear. I would love to follow up more on that actually with you, but I actually have multiple episodes scheduled with other people talking specifically about unionization movements at their own university. So, I’m excited to dive into that more in other episodes. But I’ve never heard of this job title, project assistant before. Can you tell me what that is?

05:43 Frankie: So, there are research assistants and project assistants, and it depends wholly on the grant that a supervising faculty applied for or the amount of responsibility or ownership that the student is taking over the project. In the mix, there is something called a traineeship, which seems to be blended with both project assistant and research assistant. I think it’s a matter of just titles, honestly. Because I’ve heard very different projects, very different gamuts, it depends on the department, what they call a traineeship versus a research assistant or project assistant. To me it sounds like, as far as hours worked, I know that teaching assistants have the most, and then research assistants have the second most followed by project assistants and trainees, and then fellows should have the least amount of work. They’re not required to do any specific work activities.

06:34 Emily: Okay. So, you mentioned a 50% appointment for a TA position, so that’s ostensibly 20 hours per week, is that right?

06:42 Frankie: Yeah, it’s supposed to be 20 hours a week. Yeah.

06:43 Emily: Yeah. Well, we all know how that really goes. So, what is it for RAs and PAs then? Do you know?

06:49 Frankie: They’re supposed to be 20 hours a week as well.

06:52 Emily: But in reality…

06:54 Frankie: Yeah, so the common thread is people know that RAs and PAs don’t work that much. They usually do closer to like 10 or 15 hours a week, if that.

RA-ing Does Not Always = Dissertation Work

07:04 Emily: Okay. So, this is something that I and other people get a little bit confused or conflate together. So, are you talking about for an RA position, a research assistantship, is that distinct from the student’s dissertation work?

07:22 Frankie: So, this is a really good question. It can be. It may be that’s the way you are earning your income, working on a supervising professor’s work and using their data. And depending on your relationship with that professor or what you want to do for your dissertation, their data might be your dissertation. And in some cases it is, but in other cases it’s not. So, the way that those things help you out in the long run dissertation-wise varies. The variation is incredibly wide.

07:52 Emily: Yeah. Because it’s always seemed to me–so, I come from a STEM field, biomedical engineering. And so what was common in my field and others that I observed in STEM is that most of the time most people had RA positions, and their RA work was the same as their dissertation work. So, it was like, really, once your classes were done and so forth, your full-time efforts could go towards your dissertation. And, you were also being paid off of the grant to do that work. Now, that means you don’t have as much freedom in what you do because it depends on what the grant is, of course. And so it’s all worked out between you and your advisor. I do think that it was more rare in my observation to see someone have an RA position that was different from their dissertation work. But it sounds like that is maybe more common where you are. And I’m sure this is very like field-dependent, right?

08:40 Frankie: So, in sociology, because someone might be working on some specific project long-term, or like a demographic project that takes many years of data collection, people might use some part of a dataset. Or you know, they’re becoming really familiar with the general science survey through their research assistantship, and then they use another element for their dissertation. Or, they end up meeting their professor who will chair their dissertation based on that project or find out who shouldn’t be their advisor via those kinds of projects. But I mean it does vary incredibly widely. I have heard that sociology is one of the few disciplines where it’s not a direct relationship, like you are working on what you will dissertate on. But I know very few people who are earning their income on exactly what they’re dissertating on. They’re usually right next to it somehow. Particularly, in sociology here we have demography. So, you have a lot of quantitative people working together. As far as qualitative researchers, not one of them have I heard is working on the same data set that they will use in their dissertation unless they get some sort of fellowship or specialty grant or something or have access to a professor’s previously collected research.

Perspective on Assistantship Tiers

09:51 Emily: I see. This is really interesting for me to hear because it’s such a different field than where I’m coming from. So, it’s good for me to learn about this. So, what I’ve always found as the important distinction, let’s say as a prospective graduate student, when you’re looking at different offers and different programs, I’ve always found an important distinction to be what percentage of your time is going to be available for you to work on your dissertation versus doing some other thing. You know, classes, TA-ing, RA-ing not for your dissertation, whatever that might be. And I would think that the advantage would be going towards programs where you can put a higher percentage of your time towards your own dissertation work. Now, that’s not to say you can’t find value from these other activities, but I don’t know, that’s kind of what my thought has been. Do you agree with that or what’s your perspective on that?

10:40 Frankie: So, for me and where I’ve been located, the more lucrative offers coming into graduate school are the ones that have more money or the fellowships. So, it’s sort of like you have to be higher ranked I suppose, or like at a higher admit level. So, then you have to take classes, right? But you can only take so many classes if you’re a teaching assistant, especially for the first time. And you know you have the highest workload, but you have the lowest pay, so you have to take on more classes or you just have to stay in graduate school longer. So, the system seemed really backwards to me when I first got here. Like, why would TAs be your lower tier? Or like, you know, not your highest admit student. Not that the people who teach are necessarily not as smart or anything, but the grant money is really in that quantitative data that the demographers are collecting.

11:33 Frankie: But then you have to work really hard, possibly more years while you’re taking classes. And at the same time, the expectation to publish is exactly the same across the board. And some people are given data from professors or they have quantitative data, but then you have qualitative people who have to conduct their own studies from the ground. So, IRB approval, to recruitment, to interviewing. And so, the people who are teaching have to do far more hours, far more work, but they’re also the least paid, so they may also have to take on these outside jobs. So, I think that those are the people who I see being the most stressed out. I think that they have the highest turnover as far as dropout rates as well. I think it’s just incredibly stressful to have little money and not enough time to accomplish every single thing you’re supposed to accomplish. At the same time, you’re supposed to be applying for every grant in the book while you’re doing all of this.

12:20 Emily: Yeah, it does sound to me like we’re on the same page. If you can land a fellowship, either an outside fellowship or something that’s provided by your university or whatever, that’s going to free you from these other responsibilities, it’s going to pay you better and as many years as you can do that for, that’s amazing. Minimize your TA responsibilities. If that is the thing that has the highest workload at your university, it sounds like it’s the case for you. Not to say that teaching experience isn’t valuable. Maybe you need to have that for moving onto your next stage, but you don’t necessarily want to do that every single semester. That’s a lot of teaching. Anyway, so really glad to hear your perspective on those things. So, it’s a very complex issue, especially for prospective graduate students who may not be that familiar with the academic system.

Determine the Standard Offer in Your Field Ahead of Time

13:01 Emily: I mean, I’ve been through graduate school and I’m still struggling to understand the structure that you’re talking about, you know, in the fields that you come from. So, this is just kind of a plug to do as much field-specific research as you possibly can. Well, I actually wrote an article about this a little while ago. It was titled something like “before admission season starts, determine what a standard offer in your field is.” So, is a standard offer going to be, “Okay, you’re going to TA the entire time”? Or is a standard offer, “Well, you’ll TA a couple semesters and then you’ll be an RA and if you want a fellowship that’s cool”? Like, what is that standard? So, then you can know if any individual offer you receive is at the standard, a good offer, a really not good offer. It’s just something you have to do your homework on before you even start like looking at those offers, and it’s very difficult. It’s very field-specific. So, I’m really glad to hear from you about that.

13:50 Frankie: I was going to say I feel really lucky, actually. So, for two reasons. One, my program decided to fully fund five years. So, students who come to sociology at UW Madison will be funded for at least five years. After that, they cannot guarantee you funding. But the second piece is I came here to teach. I’m becoming a professor to teach, which is not always common at an R1. I have been discouraged from teaching multiple times, but I think I would have left graduate school without it. So, I feel really lucky that it’s in my heart because it makes it worth it. It’s still very challenging, but I feel luckier in some ways than I know other folks in other universities.

A Deep Dive into Frankie’s Side Hustles

14:24 Emily: Yeah, well it totally makes sense. If it’s part of your career path and you want to go that direction, it’s great to have that experience and for you to get better at your own craft before you move on to that next stage. So, totally valuable in that sense. For people who don’t want to stay in teaching, it’s something probably to be minimized. Yeah. So, are you ready to talk about your side hustles that you have to put on top of this graduate student stipend to make it?

Tutoring for the Department of Athletics

14:49 Frankie: Yeah. So, the first one I did was I worked for the NCAA, the Department of Athletics at UW Madison. Of course, this is a big school for athletics, so you might think that we’re the only place with money, but I actually did this in undergrad, too. And the money tends to be excellent, particularly if you already have your undergraduate degree, they can pay you more. And so this is to the tune of about $20 an hour for group tutoring, closer to $18 for single tutoring sessions. And you make your own schedule. It’s very flexible. You only tutor what you want to. It was really fun. I loved my students. Student-athletes are highly exploited by universities like Wisconsin. And so it was awesome to build relationships with them. And I mean, I absolutely loved that job. When I gave it up to finish my Masters, I was very sad. But that was probably my favorite side gig, and I recommend it to literally everyone. If you want to pick up extra tutoring hours, the Department of Athletics wherever you are has money. And they have a need for sure.

15:48 Emily: That is a great tip. I’m always really curious when people talk about having side gigs on campus. How does that play with your stipend? Were you actually a W2 employee or was it like an independent contractor position?

Self-Employment: Frankie’s Cupcakes

16:01 Frankie: Great question. So, it’s still a W2. So, you can only work 75%. That means that I had a cap on how many hours I could work at the same time as being a TA. So, then comes in my other side hustle. In the last 18 months or so, I’ve started a cupcake company. So, I now sell cupcakes and cakes to everyone in the Madison or surrounding area here in Wisconsin. It started as a self-care hobby and then I got good enough that people would start paying me. So, now that’s my side hustle and also my hobby and self-care at the same time.

16:35 Emily: That is so much fun. What is your business name? Do you have an Instagram?

16:39 Frankie: I do have an Instagram. You can find us @frankies.cupcakes, which is the name, as well. We just went to the state fair yesterday to find out that I won a bunch of first place ribbons. So, that’s feeling good. Wisconsin state fair representing. But so yeah, you can find me. It’s Frankie’s Cupcakes. We have a Facebook and an Instagram.

16:57 Emily: That’s awesome. And so that, of course, is your own business. That’s total independent, not even a contractor. It’s just self-employment kind of stuff. So, I have this framework for side hustles that I like to talk about, which is one type advances your career. That could be like the teaching or tutoring for you, for example. Another type is just something you really enjoy doing that you can monetize. That is exactly this cupcake thing. And then there’s stuff you don’t like to do so much, but it gives you money. So, you do it. That’s a third category. And then the fourth one is passive income, which is a whole other can of worms. So, I love to hear that the cupcake thing sort of hits different satisfaction areas in your life for you. So, that’s awesome to hear. Have you pursued any other side hustles besides those two?

Arbitrage via Poshmark

17:42 Frankie: Well, so as far as passive income, actually, there’s an application called Poshmark, which lots of young people are using and they’re installing themselves on college campuses. And I’ve made a couple of thousand dollars selling stuff on Poshmark. Homewares, jewelry, designer bags, whatever. I’ll go to Goodwill, buy something designer that someone donated and then sell it on Poshmark and keep the profit. Or if I grow out of something or gain or lose weight, which you do in graduate school, it’s a great way to replace/cycle out your clothing. But also make some good money, especially if you come across anything valuable.

18:16 Emily: So, that’s a cool side hustle. Anything else you’ve done?

GRE Tutoring and College Application Assistance

18:20 Frankie: I know that I’ve done like tutoring on the side. Or like, unofficial tutoring for entrance exams, GREs, college application essays, things like that. For sure.

18:29 Emily: Yeah, that’s another really accessible one for graduate students because presumably, you got into graduate school, so you’re probably good at taking tests. You may be able to help other people with that.

Commercial

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Prioritizing Valuable Side Hustles

19:46 Emily: When you are looking for a side hustle, what’s something that has really brought value to your life? In terms of like, what’s a really good pro of one of your side hustles? Where you’re like, “Yeah, this was a really great reason to be pursuing this particular one.” Or maybe, another one, “Hey, I stopped pursuing this side hustle because it turns out it wasn’t serving me that well for this reason.”

20:05 Frankie: Yeah. When I started with Poshmark, it was working really well for a while, but then it ended up being really time-consuming, and it’s not going to add anything to my resume. But tutoring for athletics–and then I ended up becoming a sociology and psychology tutor trainer, so I would help train other people–that’s going to look great on my resume. I ended up getting tutor-certified, and they pay for your training. So, they’re paying you to put lines on your resume. So, that ended up being wonderful. I wrote a couple of pieces about athletes and education. I ended up meeting some amazing people. It was great to meet people outside of my department. Not that I don’t love the people in my department, but it is nice to meet people who are not in the same building all the time with you who are also in graduate school. So, it was both personal and professional.

20:49 Frankie: Like what is it that you’re spending your time on that is good for you, your resume or your CV? But also, whether it’s because it’s something that you enjoy personally and the people you really like, or because you’re like, “Well this is a good way to make money that doesn’t like break my heart or soul somehow,” or like isn’t drawing you emotionally. The emotional drainage or some of the side hustles can be extreme. So, I knew that and needed to keep my emotional energy spent kind of low because I was spending so much of it teaching. I spend so much of it teaching. So, the cake thing is pretty much something I do by myself. And so it’s really nice because it’s something I pretty much do alone. You know, listen to a podcast or something on the radio and make cakes and it’s really good for my introverted side.

Managing Work-Life Balance

21:32 Emily: Yeah, I think that’s one really important thing. Just recognize about the whole, you know, work-life balance thing–like, the graduate school-“other things you do”-balance–is that it’s sometimes really, really wonderful to have an escape from research. I know for example, for me, if research was not going well, which it didn’t for like three years, it was great to have some things going on outside of that that I could find some success in or some satisfaction. So, how do you manage your actual dissertation work, your main job, your grad student job and all these side hustles and you know, taking time for yourself. Like, how do you make all that work?

22:11 Frankie: It’s a really good question. And I answer this question so many different ways and have answered it so many different ways. So, I think today my best response to you is that my work-life balance is less of a work-life balance. Just because my work is my life, and my life is much of my work and I have to be in love with everything I’m doing for it to be possible that way. So, I’m running these different organizations. I’m also committed to teaching. I’m deeply invested. I interview people about menstruation. And so, I have to love all of those things because I do them all the time or they’re always on my mind. So, I think for me, my work-life balance ends up being calming my mind or like finding good headspace. And for me, actually, it ends up being that my partner is not an academic.

22:57 Frankie: He is not part of academia at all. And that ends up being a blessing. And I put a lot of time into–we have wonderful cats and I do cat-sitting–finding peace in both cakes and cats. And also taking the time and being okay with not doing work for a minute or two. Not always having to do something–I have such productivity anxiety–convincing myself that it is okay to go see a movie, to just sit on Instagram for an hour and be okay with it and not judge myself. And so the first couple of years of graduate school, I had to learn to do that and know that that was actually self-care and healthy. I cannot recommend enough that anyone in graduate school go to therapy. Even if you don’t think you need it or if you’re like, “Well, I don’t need that yet.”

Benefits of Therapy in Graduate School

23:49 Frankie: It’s great to establish the tools you do need for when you need them. And I wouldn’t have made it, I don’t think this far, without having great support both at the university health system and in our own–I have this wonderful woman who I see in Madison–and sometimes it’s when I need it, and sometimes it’s when I don’t. And it’s a great tool that, like I said, I recommend to everyone in academia or any stressful life situation. It really is wonderful to have someone outside your department who won’t affect your resume, your hiring decisions, your teaching appointments, someone who you can really talk to. And you know, it’s hard to build friendships in graduate school. It’s hard to build really like noncompetitive community sometimes. And I recommend that people find spaces that they feel like they’re part of a community or they feel like they have friendship. And not that my therapist is my friend, but it’s someone who I can talk to candidly and not worry about anything. So, I definitely recommend that as a resource to anyone.

Best Financial Advice for Early-Career PhDs

24:46 Emily: You know, you put that so well. I really don’t have anything to add to that. I hope that everyone listening just kind of rewinds a couple of minutes and listens through all that again because I think what you said is so, so valuable. What really resonated with me was when you said that you have to love everything that you do. And I think that it’s something that we sometimes forget about in academia and in graduate school that, ultimately, you’re there by choice and presumably at some point there was some reason why you chose the field you did and the advisor that you did. And there’s something that you love about it, and you might be going through a really hard period. It might be a long period, but it should be something that you’re passionate about, right? Or else why are you doing it? And hey, go ahead and leave your program if it’s not your passion anymore. But it’s so refreshing to hear you say that you do love all these different aspects of what you do, even though it’s not paid that well and you have to string all these different things together. It’s something that you find great joy and satisfaction in in all these different areas. I’m really, really happy to hear that. And as we wrap up here, Frankie, what is the best financial advice that you have for another early-career PhD?

Save for Unexpected Expenses (E.g., Medical Emergencies)

25:52 Frankie: That’s also a great question. I have a little experience running into medical emergencies. I had two surgeries my first year of graduate school. That’s something I don’t recommend. If you can avoid it, don’t do that until the summer of any school year. I don’t recommend doing it over Christmas. And then again over spring break. That’s–don’t recommend. So, I was hit with some medical bills in a harsh way. And I wish that I had budgeted a little bit better, like my moving expenses my first year, and not spent money on cat trees and whatever else that I thought was necessary at the time. Because I was like, “Oh, I still have more money,” or, “Oh, I still have more money. I could spend a little bit more.” Or, “Oh, you know, I can make this $50, $100, $200 go a little bit further.”

26:37 Frankie: I wish that I had saved it and thought to myself, “If something does happen, I’m at a low enough income that I need to be collecting what I do have, even the pennies, so that if something bad does happen to me or if I do end up needing to take, I don’t know, a semester off, a summer off, something like that–which is totally normal–that I would be able to.” And I wish that I had prepared a little bit better for that because I spent the better half of my second year paying off medical debt from surgeries that, I mean my insurance plan “covered” so to speak, but I needed to more carefully plan that out my first year. I think I spent more money out of stress or thinking, “Oh, if I spend more money, I’ll feel better.” And then when I did need to have surgery and pay that off later, you know how medical bills work, they send you the bill after the whole thing’s over.

Own Your Negotiating Power (Yes, Even in Grad School)

27:25 Frankie: So it’s not like I could have avoided it. And I did fight the insurance companies. I did fight the doctors to get things lower. And then the other thing I would say is that I did end up going to my department one point and asking for more money for a certain job that I was being pushed to do. You can do that, and if you are a graduate student and you feel like you’re between a rock and a hard place, you can negotiate or ask for help or ask your university for help and put yourself in a place where you can say, “I need a little bit more for this semester or in advance or something.” And do try to work with the people around you just in case it does help you.

28:01 Emily: Two really amazing pieces of advice there. And thank you so much for those. On the first one, I totally agree. I mean, I think especially for someone who’s like a young adult, maybe you haven’t been navigating insurance on your own before. Maybe you’re new to budgeting, maybe you’re newly independent from your parents. These irregular events, these unusual events are not something that you necessarily budget in from the beginning. The thing is that, you know, maybe you didn’t know in particular you were going to have these surgeries or what the bills are going to be. Right? There is no way, really, as you said, that you can know that in advance. But the thing is that something’s going to come up in some category in some way at some time. You’re guaranteed that something’s going to happen like that.

28:40 Emily: So, as you said, just saving up in advance a bit as best you can. Obviously, it’s going to be challenging, but saving up in advance can really save you a lot. Both financially and stress-wise, like on the backend of whatever that emergency happens to be. So, thank you so much for sharing your story about that. And I am curious to hear a tiny bit more about your negotiation because it’s not something that I usually hear about, let’s say after the admissions process is done. So, can you say like what was the job that you’re being pushed to do?

Know Your Worth, and Advocate for Yourself

29:08 Frankie: Yeah, that’s a really good question. So, I was actually sort of between departments where one department had offered me a better-paying a job and one department really needed me to teach a job. Like, they were lower on teaching faculty and they needed someone to step in. And if they don’t admit enough people to teach each cohort year, then eventually they run into these issues where they don’t have enough people to lecture or people who have experience in the field. So, it was just this past year, and I had accepted this job in another department which would’ve been a lot more work, but they were going to pay me more. And I was excited about the opportunity. But then I had also said, “If I could work both jobs.” Well, UW intervened, the Dean’s office said, “You can’t work two lectureship jobs before you officially have dissertation status.”

30:00 Frankie: And I said, “Okay, so I have to choose one.” And so I was like, I’m going to choose the one that pays me more. And then basically I positioned to the other department and said, “This is less work for me. If you can match that salary and raise mine to meet the salary that this other department is going to pay me, I’ll take your job. And I’ll tell them that I’ll defer their job until next year.” And that’s exactly what happened. And people were like, “Well, I don’t think we can do that.” And I said, “Well, I don’t think I can take your job then.” So, I felt really lucky that I could sort of position that way. And it sounds very corporate, but the truth is that you feel so subjected to whatever the institution tells you you’re worth–what you can do, what you can’t do–and the honest truth is that if you have a little bit of bartering after a year or two that you’ve been part of a lab, part of a TA-ship, part of a union of some kind, to say, “I’m willing to do this for you. I’m willing to help out this department in whatever way.” You have a little bit of bartering that you can negotiate. If the department asks you to lecture and you can say, “Hey, I need about a thousand more dollars to really make that work or I can’t.” If you are in a position that you can make that kind of offer, you should because it’s possible that they find that money somewhere. Or they do this thing where they give you a top out scholarship where the department will just add on another thousand dollars in a scholarship fund to your tuition account and then you can refund, check it back to yourself. And that stuff happens and is possible. They can offer you greater hours. Like, they find little ways around the bureaucracy to help you. And I really recommend that students understand all of those different positions and also have those conversations.

Ask for Help: Get to Know Your Administrative Staff

31:33 Frankie: And if, if anything else, the administrative staff of your department are the people you need to know almost better than your advisor. Those are the people who have changed my life at the University of Wisconsin in every way. They know the system, they know the money, they know how I can get through the bureaucracy or challenges I’m facing. So, hats off to the administration at my university and my department and particularly in legal studies and sociology. They’re amazing people and they’ve made my life much, much easier on the financial end.

32:02 Emily: Yeah. Thank you so much for making that point. And I totally agree that they are the people to know. And it’s really good to hear that, you know, sometimes bureaucracy seems like this total juggernaut. It is what it is. It can’t be changed. It can’t be gotten around, whatever. But no, there are creative solutions. You just have to talk to the people who are familiar with their bureaucracy, who know all the tricks, who are going to be really advocating for you and working on your behalf to make whatever you need to have happen, happen. So, I’m really glad to hear that example of what was basically two competing job offers. Hey, you would have taken both of them if the bureaucracy had told you that it was possible. That wasn’t possible, but you were able to negotiate. That’s a perfect story, and I’m really glad that you shared that.

32:41 Emily: I’m glad to have another negotiation story that’s not right from during admissions season because that’s a really unusual one. So, Frankie, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast day. This is a wonderful interview.

32:52 Frankie: Yeah, Emily, thank you so much for having me. I feel really honored that I was able to talk to you and get to meet you. I recommend that everybody follow the advice given by other people who’ve spoken here. It really is valuable and it makes it so that everyone else’s life can be easier and everyone doesn’t have to experience it for the first time.

Outtro

33:08 Emily: Listeners, thank you for joining me for this episode. Pfforphds.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 cover 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 Podington Bear from the free music archive and is shared under CC by NC. Podcast editing and show notes creation by Meryem Ok.

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