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Bargaining for BU’s First Grad Student Union Contract as a DMA Student

October 26, 2026 by Jill Hoffman Leave a Comment

In this episode, Emily interviews Dr. Sophie Lewis, who recently completed her DMA in Music Education at Boston University. Sophie served on the bargaining committee for the BU grad student union through their first contract negotiation, which included a nearly 7-month-long strike. She shares the incredible accomplishments of the union over that period as well as what didn’t make it into the contract and how the strike finally ended. Sophie’s own pay rate and personal finances radically changed for the better through that same period, both because of the union’s efforts and her personal actions.

Links mentioned in the Episode

Bargaining for BU's First Grad Student Union Contract as a DMA Student

Teaser

Sophie (00:00): Our argument the entire time we were in bargaining was that you should be able to afford to attend the institution that you’re working for based on only the job that you do for the institution that you attend. Um, and I think we’ve gotten a lot closer to that. Obviously, Boston is an expensive city, but it’s nice to know that we played a part in making it a little bit more affordable for people at BU.

Introduction

Emily (00:31): Welcome to the Personal Finance for PhDs Podcast: A Higher Education in Personal Finance. 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. I’m your host, Dr. Emily Roberts, a financial educator specializing in early-career PhDs and founder of Personal Finance for PhDs.

Emily (01:00): This is Season 25, Episode 5, and today my guest is Dr. Sophie Lewis, who recently completed her DMA in Music Education at Boston University. Sophie served on the bargaining committee for the BU grad student union through their first contract negotiation, which included a nearly 7-month-long strike. She shares the incredible accomplishments of the union over that period as well as what didn’t make it into the contract and how the strike finally ended. Sophie’s own pay rate and personal finances radically changed for the better through that same period, both because of the union’s efforts and her personal actions.

Emily (01:41): I’m looking for interviewees for Season 26 of this podcast! This is your official invitation to volunteer to be interviewed. I love that on this podcast I get to feature PhDs and PhDs-to-be who are almost exclusively regular people and learn and share their real-life stories and strategies. If it’s been in the back of your mind to volunteer, please go to PFforPhDs.com/podcastvolunteer/ and fill out the quick form, and I’ll be in touch over email. I look forward to interviewing you this fall! You can find the show notes for this episode at PFforPhDs.com/s25e5/. Without further ado, here’s my interview with Dr. Sophie Lewis.

Will You Please Introduce Yourself Further?

Emily (02:38): I am delighted to have joining me on the podcast today, Dr. Sophie Lewis. She recently completed her doctorate in music education at Boston University, and we actually met a few months ago. We’re recording this in September 2026. We met over the summer at the Graduate Career Consortium annual meeting, and I was just so taken with Sophie and the way she spoke about finances and specifically her experience with the union, the Grad Student Union and unionization movement at BU. And so I invited her on the podcast to tell us much, much more about that. So, Sophie, thank you so much for agreeing to come on, and would you please introduce yourself a little bit further?

Sophie (03:16): Yeah, absolutely. Uh, so nice to be back. My name’s Sophie. I just graduated in August with my doctorate in music education, technically a DMA. I’m one of those, uh, professional doctorates, as they like to call us in higher ed. Um, and I researched, uh, career preparation for music students in higher education and how, uh, post-secondary policy shapes the way that students feel prepared for careers after they graduate, and how they understand the value of the work that they do. Uh, unionization was a really big part of how I came to understand the value of what I do, and so it was really cool to bring those two things together. I also worked as a graduate assistant for the graduate and postdoctoral success department at Boston University, which is how we met at GCC. Uh, and my role was to help to administer the professional development micro-credential series online that Boston University runs. Um, happy to be graduated and, uh, speaking about my experiences at BU as someone who’s no longer at BU.

A $5,100 Annual Stipend as an International Student at BU

Emily (04:28): Absolutely. And so we’re kinda in this interview gonna go through your journey in graduate school and kind of parallel that with how the union changed or what shifted and what you learned and so forth over the course of that time. So let’s start with your arrival at BU. What was going on with, you know, your own employment and what was going on with the union when you first arrived?

Sophie (04:50): Yeah. So I came to BU in September of 2022, and I remember vividly right across… I played the cello, and I had a instrument locker in the basement of the music department. And across the hall from where my cello locker was, there was this poster about BU Grad Workers Union, and I was so excited, uh, because I’m from the UK where unionization is super common, and I was entering BU as a graduate research assistant in the College of Fine Arts on a salary of about $5,100 for the year for a 10-hour position. So I was like, any opportunity to get involved with a union that might help me to advocate for better pay was really, really welcome. You know, you’re used to low pay in the arts, but, uh, I was paying rent with loans for my first year of my doctoral studies. It was, it was a fun time.

Emily (05:57): Pause on that for a moment because… So were you an international student that’s – Like were you on an F1 visa?

Sophie (06:03): I sure was.

Emily (06:05): So to come to the US as an international student, my understanding is that you have to show that you can provide for yourself financially. Um, so did this… Did you arrange the student loans beforehand or like how did your funding in particular work with respect to being an international student?

Sophie (06:22): Yeah. Uh, I had organized the loans in advance of coming to BU. Uh, I’m really lucky to have an aunt and uncle who are US citizens, uh, who were able to co-sign loans for me for that first year. Um, and a lot of, like, what proves that you have the money is just that you have access to it. It doesn’t need to be liquid. Uh, so my family were able to show that we had access to that money, but they weren’t willing to pay my rent, uh, because I’m 27 and was paying my own rent. Uh, so <laugh> that was kind of how that balanced out, was we were able to use a combination of loans and family money to get my visa. Um, and I just ended up paying my rent with loans once I got to BU.

Emily (07:15): So you just told me a shockingly low number for your stipend. And tell me, was that just, like, strict, like, hourly pay for that 10-hour week position? Did it come with any benefits like tuition waiver or, like, how did that part of it work?

Sophie (07:28): Uh, it did not come with any other benefits. So part of being a professional doctoral student at Boston University means that you are not eligible for the five-year funding package like a regular PhD student is. Um, and this was really one of the main reasons why I wanted to get involved in unionization, was that we were doing the same jobs as our peers and PhD programs, uh, and those students were receiving tuition waivers and health insurance benefits and vastly higher pay than we were receiving in the music department. Uh, this was common for all of my colleagues in the music education doctoral program. Uh, so I actually was also paying for my health insurance and paying tuition, uh, for my doctoral program, um, which is uncommon and, uh, not something I would do again. <laugh>

Emily (08:26): Well, what was, like, the plan? Like, coming into this, you didn’t know about the union yet, right? Or what changes might be coming. So was your plan like, “Yep, I’m gonna keep this assistantship position 10 hours per week, this is my pay, and everything else is on loans?” Like you were comfortable with that for the duration of your program?

Sophie (08:42): I wasn’t super comfortable about it for the duration of my program. My plan was always to be applying for more scholarships and fellowships and see what I could do to kind of increase my funding package. I was planning to appeal my financial aid. That’s something that I’d done, uh, in my master’s program, which I did at the University of Denver. And I’d managed to increase my funding package to cover my tuition for that. So I kind of knew that that was an option to negotiate with the university for my funding. So I’d kind of gone in with a plan to, to take on a second job, uh, and to do some negotiation alongside applying for fellowships and scholarships and other sources of financial aid.

Emily (09:26): Okay. You just mentioned a second job, but how does that work with the visa situation?

Sophie (09:30): As long as you’re under 20 hours a week, you can have on-campus –

Emily (09:33): So it’s like an on-campus job.

Sophie (09:34): Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

The Formation of the Boston University Graduate Workers Union

Emily (09:36): Gotcha. So that’s so interesting that you came in with a plan of obviously finding another job to get up to 20 hours a week, and then also an individual negotiation plan. But this obviously morphed into… Or maybe you did, still did that, but it obviously also became a collective negotiation, uh, plan. So we understand what your status was when you started. <laugh> What was the status of the union? When did it form? What contract were you in?

Sophie (09:59): So we, uh, had not yet voted to be recognized as an official union yet when I arrived. Um, the union students had been organizing things for a long time before I arrived at BU, and I kind of arrived just at the right time as we were getting ready in the spring of 2023 to vote on whether we wanted to start bargaining for a contract. So I connected with some members of the union in advance and asked how I could become involved, what it would look like in my department. Um, and through that, I participated in the vote to, uh, recognize the union officially. Uh, and then I was elected to represent the College of Fine Arts on the bargaining team. So I got very heavily involved pretty quickly in, uh, writing the contract and organizing my department and speaking on behalf of my department at the bargaining table, uh, which kind of started in the summer of 2023 and went through to 25, might have been the end of 2024, 25.

Emily (11:18): What kind of mandate was the vote? Like, at what percentage did it pass? And, like, what were the key issues that were motivating graduate students to take that step?

Sophie (11:26): Yeah. Uh, I, I’m pretty sure we were a really high percentage that voted to form the union. Like, I think it was, um… I’m sure I could find this information somewhere on Instagram, but, uh, as far as I remember, we voted in the high 80%s to form the union. And then, um, most of the issues we were organizing around was a cost of living adjustment and tying wages to the cost of rent in Boston. Um, so our, our main priority was to alleviate all graduate workers from rent burden, which is around, you should be spending less than a third of your income on rent, I think, was the number. Um, and so that was the main things we were organizing around, because I think at that time, the lowest paid PhD student was getting around $23,000 a year, um, which in Boston is not, not really enough to, to pay rent in Boston. Um –

Emily (12:35): Yeah, you, you could pay rent.

Sophie (12:37): And nothing else.

Emily (12:37): And nothing, nothing else. <laugh>

Sophie (12:39): Um, so I think it was primarily the, the movement was centered around that cost of living adjustment, and we were also campaigning for better childcare provisions for, uh, working parents, uh, and just other supports for international students and students with disabilities as well. That was a big part of the movement.

Emily (13:03): All right. So you’re on the bargaining committee. <laugh> Tell us about a view that not many people get to have directly, right? So, like, just tell us about that experience.

Sophie (13:13): Yeah. Uh, so I worked really closely with a lot of the non-PhD students, so people like master students who held hourly jobs on campus, people in other professional doctoral programs like I was in, that includes, like, the doctor of physical therapy and ed students, um, a lot of the programs that make up a lot of the student body but aren’t covered by a five-year funding program. Um, and we did a lot of research into how much would the hourly wage have to be in order for us to be non-rent burdened in Boston University dorms, because that’s, that’s where I was living at the time. I was, like, living in a campus dorm. Um, and so we did the math on how much money we’d have to make in order to afford a BU dorm, and we ended up with an hourly wage of around $45 an hour. So that was kind of where we entered into our negotiations, was everybody on an hourly job needs, uh, this much an hour.

Emily (14:24): Our – But sorry, going back to the, the rest of your funding package. Was that considering how much would be paid towards tuition, et cetera?

Sophie (14:31): No, that was purely looking at how much would it cost to live in Boston and attend the institute, like, to, to live in the city where you go to school. Um, we had a separate group working on tuition remission, uh, which was the biggest, uh, from my perspective, the biggest sticking point, uh, when we went into negotiations with the institution, um, mostly because we thought that if you were working for the institution, you should receive the same benefits as anyone else, uh, but the institution argued back that it would be too difficult to track master’s students who, like, came in and out, um, and that that tuition remission was too high of a benefit. So that was one of the things that we kept putting back into the, the contract, and the university kept asking us to take it out, um, and it ended up not making it to the, to the final contract, um, which is still one of my, like, my bugbears if I was on the, if I was on the union again, I’d go back and really fight even harder for that tuition remission, especially for professional doctorates who are doing, you know, research the same as any other PhD student. Um, it’s kind of tough to, to be paying to write your dissertation. Um –

Emily (15:58): Something that I hear often and, and, and say from time to time is, like, the university, you know, they view these student workers… It’s a, it’s a dual thing, right? When it’s convenient to the university the student worker is a student, and when it’s convenient to the university, the student worker is a worker, and they kinda get to dictate how the relationship is viewed. Um, so it sounds like they were really trying to keep, um, those of you outside the PhD programs still students um, as more of a worker and… But a part-time worker. Not like a full-time worker who gets full-time type benefits, which would include things like tuition reductions. But rather this, like, part-time worker, but really just a worker kind of status, and really viewing you in a different category from the PhD students. That is what I’m hearing.

Sophie (16:47): Yeah. And I, I would say that that’s how it felt as well. Like, I gradually, throughout my time at BU, transitioned away from working as a research assistant at CFA to being employed, uh, full-time per international student regulations at the GPS office. Um, and those two worlds were completely separate for me. Like, my job at GPS had absolutely nothing to do on paper with my, my status as a student at the CFA, um, the College of Fine Arts. And a lot of the time, those two things never crossed paths. Um, so what I was doing in the provost office was completely separate from what I was doing as a student in the music education department. Um, and certainly, like, I, I left and went to GPS because there was more opportunity for better pay and better opportunities for progression in that position than working as a research assistant. Um, but it, it really did feel like I was doing a second job on top of writing my dissertation because there was no overlap. It wasn’t like I was, you know, doing research for my dissertation that got paid. I was doing a dissertation and working 20 hours a week for a different position.

Emily (18:14): I think that’s a really important thing, especially for prospective graduate students to understand about how money <laugh> works in graduate school. It’s like having a research assistant type of position when, as you just said, your research goes into your dissertation, it’s very holistic. You get to spend your 40 hours a week or whatever, you know, however much you’re trying to do, um, on all things that are furthering your own professional development and progression towards, you know, graduation. Whereas if you have… Like what I would say, like, I would put a umbrella term over your position as like a graduate assistantship, like it’s more administrative type work, um, and also to some extent teaching assistantships. Those are things that you have to spend time on that don’t directly contribute to your research. Now, maybe if you’re lucky with the teaching especially, there could be some degree of overlap, but for those kinds of positions, you really have to be more like looking that you’ve found something that is furthering your own professional development so that it’s helping you in that next stage of your career, even if it’s not directly helping you write your dissertation.That’s the way that I think about it. Is that also similar to how you think about it?

Sophie (19:18): Yeah. I think I developed a completely different set of skills working for GPS. Like, I, I got to speak at conferences about graduate student professional development. I helped to initiate completely new systems at the university that are now being, you know, used after I’m gone. And I got to see how administrative positions work in higher education, which was worth way more than anything I was doing in a research assistant capacity, um, because I got to be in the room where those conversations were taking place. Um, so that… Like I don’t regret having that job, but it… There’s nothing I did there that I could then take into my dissertation. Um, and it’s, it’s a different set of skills that I can put on my resume and my CV now, and I’m looking for jobs in administrative positions. Um, but it also isn’t like I can show a university a teaching role and say I taught undergrads this position. Like, I’ve definitely got to work harder to communicate how those skills transfer into what traditional faculty positions are looking for.

Emily (20:33): Well, let’s go back to the, the bargaining, um, table, the bargaining experience. So you shared what didn’t make it into the final contract that was most relevant for you and your peers. Um, can you share with us some things that did change, um, through that bargaining process, and also maybe some other things that ended up not making it in that you were attempting?

Sophie (20:52): Yeah. Uh, so I think our biggest win overall, something that I’m so proud of and have got to see really make a difference to a lot of my colleagues’ lives was that we raised the minimum PhD stipend from, as I said earlier, like $23,000 for the lowest paid to the mid – 40s. I think it’s around $45,000 now. So we’ve effectively doubled the lowest paid PhDs salary, um, which made a huge difference. I have friends who were like, “Oh, I can breathe now and I don’t have to work an additional job outside of my PhD. And like, I can afford to maybe go home and see my family every now and then.” Um, and that was, that’s made a huge difference, uh, across our student body, I would say. And I think that’s something I’m really proud of, is that we managed to get that, that quality of life improvement for so many students.

Commercial

Emily (21:55): Emily here for a brief interlude! I’m hard at work behind the scenes updating my suite of tax return preparation workshops for tax year 2026. These educational workshops guide you in identifying, calculating, and reporting your higher education-related income and expenses on your federal tax return. For the 2026 tax season starting in January 2027, I’m offering live and asynchronous workshops for US citizen/resident graduate students, postdocs, and postbacs and non-resident graduate students and postdocs. Would you please reach out to your graduate school, graduate student government, postdoc office, international house, fellowship coordinator, etc. to request that they host one or more of these workshops for you and your peers? I’d love to receive a warm introduction to a potential sponsor this fall so we can hit the ground running in January serving those early bird filers. You can find more information about hosting these workshops at P F f o r P h D s dot com slash tax dash workshops. Please pass that page on to the potential sponsor. Now back to our interview.

Unionizing and Striking for Higher Stipends

Emily (23:16): I happened to interview, um, a PhD student at Boston University a few months ago. It came out in season 24, episode 3. Richard Coca’s my guest. And I believe he was in like a neuroscience type field. And he shared that, um, his stipend didn’t change too much. It went up, I think, a little bit, um, but his program was already paying close to that, um, what became the new minimum. Um, so I just wanted to point out, like, it wasn’t like everybody across the whole university was being paid at that 23. There was a huge disparity um, in the stipends. And I think that, you know, absent a unionization push, like, I don’t really see universities, you know, equalizing their stipends or, or setting a higher minimum, like, across the board. Um, I, I’ve seen it happen very successfully under the unionization conditions or the, or the threat of unionization, um, but not without it. So yeah, what, what’s your insight about that? Like, was there any motivation for those programs to raise their stipends, like, absent y’all’s efforts?

Sophie (24:17): I don’t think so. And it, it actually became a little bit of a sticking point within the university was that, like, people whose departments were already paying above that minimum, uh, were not as incentivized to keep going for the students and workers who were below that minimum. Uh, so one of the areas of pushback we got when continuing to hold the strike on was that, you know, a lot of students were not, were happy with the concessions that had already been made, and so they didn’t wanna be on strike anymore, whereas we had some people in lower paid programs who were like, “No, this, this is still a big difference in my quality of life if we keep the… If we don’t push to get the minimum raised.” Um, so it’s certainly, like, it’s not all sunshine on the union side of things either where, like, the membership was in such a diverse space where you’re trying to convince people who already have a relatively good salary to hold out until the people who are far- farther behind can catch up to them. Um –

Emily (25:28): But it did happen. So tell us more about, um, the strike and how you all motivated the students to, you know, see it through.

Sophie (25:36): Uh, it was tough. That was a really long strike. And I, I think we might still be the longest grad worker strike in US labor history, which is, uh, something to be both proud of and a little bit, like, sad about, uh, because it was tough. I think everyone missed their jobs. Like, a lot of our people were teaching and they loved to teach. Um, and it was kinda sad, but we actually got a lot of good buy-in from the undergrads. Like, when, uh, when undergrads told their parents that, like, we were on strike and this is what the university was doing to try and, like… There was a, there was a moment where they tried to replace us with AI. The university encouraged, uh, professors to use AI to lead discussion groups instead of the grad students. Uh, and when that got out to parents, there was a lot of backlash. Um –

Emily (26:35): Boy, I can imagine. <laugh>

Sophie (26:37): It was, like, that was maybe not the best move that the university made. It was a really special moment for me to see people from all over the institution and our alumni network come together to support us and recognize that a rising tide lifts all boats. Like, the, the lecturer’s union was there to support us. We had local politicians and, uh, Ayanna Pressley, our member of Congress, came out as a BU alum to support the strike. Um, we had a, um, like a GoFundMe situation that we were using to, uh, support s – workers who were losing wages, uh, and that raised a lot of money. A lot of people in our alumni network, and, again, parents of current BU undergrads were really supportive, and other graduate workers’ unions from across the country donated to our strike fund to help to support students who needed to pay rent, even while they were on strike. Um, and SEIU were great as well with that. They had a strike fund as well, so as long as you came to the picket, um, or participated in other strike-related activities, like phone banking or, um, other kind of online… We had online opportunities as well, you were eligible for strike pay, um, which was another great way to just support people while they were engaging in the strike. So, um, it was long, it was tense. Uh, I think a lot of people, um, felt a little bit betrayed by the university just with all of the tactics that went on to try and figure out who was on strike and how they, they could dock wages for being on strike. Um, but I think it was effective, and we really… I felt really heartened to see how people came together to support one another, and all of the big community cooking sessions, and, um, being together through a really cold March. It was really, really cold, uh, every day to pick it outside on the campus. It was just, uh, a really unique experience.

Emily (28:58): So tell me a little bit more details about the strike. I don’t think I’ve interviewed anyone who’s participated in one as a graduate student. Um, h- how long did it go on for overall?

Sophie (29:07): Uh, nine months, I think.

Emily (29:09): Nine months. Yeah. That’s what I was… I was thinking it was, like, most of an academic year or something around that. So were people then, some graduate students, not being paid during that period of time? So, you know, you’re just mentioning other sources of funding. And how does that work for people who are… Do they still get to progress in their programs? Or, like, how, how does it functionally work maybe for, you know, you mentioned TAs, that’s, like, obvious thing of not participating in your TA activities. How would that work for, like, a research assistant?

Sophie (29:38): Uh, it was kinda complicated because we definitely encouraged people to keep working if they were… If it would s – if it would affect their progress to a degree. Uh, so a lot of the people that were on strike were people in TA positions, uh, administrative positions. Um, there was a distinction between what was considered like service and non-service, um, which I can’t honestly remember the exact detailing of, but it was, that was kind of how the distinction was drawn both in the contract and within the union. So if your job was considered, uh, service, then you would strike. And if you were non-service, uh, which like my position within graduate and postdoctoral affairs, as we used to be known, uh, was non-service because it wasn’t related to my degree. Um, so I was on strike as a research assistant at CFA, but not from my position within GPS, um, because those two were considered different types of positions. It was really weird and complicated. And, uh, it was complicated as someone in the union that kind of played into a lot of people’s favor because the university also couldn’t tell between who was service and who was non-service. And so a lot of people didn’t have their wages withheld because they couldn’t tell who was service and non-service and it just, uh, it became quite messy. Uh, yeah.

Emily (31:22): That is so interesting. And did you also, was there also support coming from the faculty, either like overtly or subtly?

Sophie (31:31): Um, sometimes it depended a lot on the department. Um, so like in my department, none of the faculty are tenured either. So there was, uh, covert support, but not anything as vocal as some of the other departments who had like tenure behind them, who had unionization behind them. Um, and certainly a lot of what we were doing was working with supportive faculty to kind of understand how administration were communicating, what was happening to them, um, how we could communicate what we wanted more accurately to faculty too was really important because a lot of, uh, what was happening in the news was that our, our demands were being taken out of context. Um, and so we tried to keep an open line of communication with faculty too to, to help understand that like if we get better working conditions, you get better working conditions too, because we can better support you. Um, and hopefully that will encourage better treat-, like better pay for faculty members in future as well. Um –

Emily (32:48): Good point. As you said, rising tide lifts all boats, not just across the grad student population, but you can’t have faculty who are making only 10% more than, you know, the graduate students or whatever it might be. Um, okay, so you in the bargaining committee as the strike is going on, are there still conversations happening? Are there breakdowns and, and going back and forth? And what seemed to be, I guess, from your point of view, the university’s reaction to all of this and kind of how it came to a conclusion?

Sophie (33:18): Um, it, it kind of got to a point where we were both at a bit of a stalemate where it was like the university were like, “This is our best and final offer.” We were still, uh, unhappy with a lot of that, especially in terms of like hourly pay. I think we ended up with a minimum pay of $20 an hour where we really wanted 25. I think what eventually ended the strike was that enough of our members saw a significant enough increase to their quality of life that the majority then voted to end the strike. So every time we came back with a new, uh, offer from the university, it was presented to our union members to vote on whether we wanted to accept the offer or not. Um, and it just, I think after nine months being on strike, everyone kind of just wanted to, to get on with life again. Um, and I think there was a lot of really great stuff in the contract. There’s certainly room for growth as they’re currently negotiating the new contract. This was a three-year contract. So they should be negotiating in the next year for the next contract cycle. I haven’t been involved with the union very much since we kind of got that contract through. I was like, “Okay, I have to write my dissertation <laugh> now.” Um, and so I kind of took a step back from union life. I told everybody I’m Weingarten right trained, uh, so I was still very involved within my department as like a union member and if you need anyone to come and help you in any disputes, you know, I’m, I’m around and happy to help out. I’ll be excited to see what the new contract looks like. Like there’s a lot of connections with other schools in the area. I know Boston College, uh, they got a pay raise because of what we were doing at BU. I have a friend who is doing their PhD over at Boston College, and he was like, “Hey, when you guys went on strike and we threatened to unionize, they bumped our pay too, so thanks.” Like it’s nice to know that kind of there’s that, uh, knock-on effect of what’s happening in the community around us.

Emily (35:33): Not just that community. Like it, it ripples out nationally too. I mean, it’s more salient when you can do a comparable, you know, cost of living comparison. Having seen so many graduate student unions formed over the last five, six year, eight years, it’s bolstered everybody’s case that comes after that. And the comparisons with peer institutions doesn’t just have to be local, right? It’s national as well.

Sophie (35:54): Yeah, absolutely. It was huge for us to get those wins, and I’m incredibly proud of what we’ve done in terms of making life better for students at BU. I think our argument the entire time we were in bargaining was that you should be able to afford to attend the institution that you’re working for based on only the job that you do for the institution that you attend. Um, and I think we’ve gotten a lot closer to that. Obviously, Boston is an expensive city, but it’s nice to know that we played a part in making it a little bit more affordable for people at BU.

How Dr. Lewis’s Personal Finances Were Impacted by Unionization

Emily (36:37): Let’s… We, we started the interview talking about your funding situation, how, how you were affording your program. So post, you know, contract goes into place, you’ve already shared you had switched positions, you were working 20 hours a week. Like how were your personal finances impacted or your loan amounts or whatever it is?

Sophie (36:55): Uh, so I was able to negotiate myself into a salaried position at GPS, um, as the contract went on. It… I mean, I, I have a very unique case where, like, a lot of my advisors and supervisors at the GPS office were also people who were on the bargaining team on the university side of the table. And so they kind of saw both sides and, and we learned to, you know, keep unionization at the table and keep my work at work. Um, but they were really gracious in, uh, helping to set up a more sustainable work environment for me at BU. And so, uh, at the end of the summer of 2024, which I think as the contract resolved, uh, I became a salaried worker. So I didn’t have benefits or anything else, but I was making an equivalent salary to a PhD student on the contract, um, which meant that I was, uh, no longer paying tuition because I was down to just paying for continuing education credits to, as I wrote my dissertation. I’d also gotten into, uh, subsidized housing through the university, which was like a competitive scholarship situation, but my rent went down to, like, $500 a month, <laugh> which was insane. <laugh> Um, and my pay doubled, basically. Um, so that change kind of meant I didn’t need to take out any more loans. I was able to save, which has made huge difference, uh, to my financial wellbeing. Um, and I got to keep a job that I really enjoyed doing, um, without needing to, like, find something else to do at BU. So I’m lucky I was able to advocate for myself and have supportive supervisors who were willing to push that through, so.

Emily (39:09): I like presenting that, um, sort of story of hope for other graduate students who come in with a funding package that they’re not… <laugh> It’s like, “Well, I guess I could do this for the duration of the program, but I’m not thrilled about it.” Um, that, you know, once you make those connections at the university and you demonstrate your value, that you can move into different positions and it it can have a better outlook over time. Yeah. Um, so I’m, I’m really heartened to hear that. Sophie, this has been such a lovely interview, and thank you so much for, you know, sharing your experience with this. Um, is there anything you wanna add more about the unionization process?

Sophie (39:43): Talk to your colleagues. That’s, like, the best piece of advice I could have to people, and especially as unionization picks up around the country. Like, talk to your colleagues, understand what’s happening in your department, and know how your pay compares to your colleagues, uh, because knowing that difference makes life a lot easier when you are able to point to someone else and say, “Well, they’re making this. Why am I not making this for the same work?”

Emily (40:12): Totally agree. Salary transparency is one of my, um, big, uh, areas of, of work and promotion within my business. Um, to that end, my website, PhDStipends, is where you can go to anonymously share your stipend information, but it is more powerful if you can do it with the person down the hall or in the next office, um, because like you said, then you can take that as your case to your higher ups.

Best Financial Advice for Another Early-Career PhD

Emily (40:37): Well, Sophie, as we come to the end of our interview here, I’ll ask you the question that I ask of all my guests, which is what is your best financial advice for an early career doctoral, um, recipient? And it can be something that we’ve touched on in the interview already, or it can be something completely new.

Sophie (40:53): I would recommend that everyone know when to expect your pay and who to contact if and when that pay does not come. Uh, one of the things that gets really messy with unionization is just, like, knowing who’s gonna get paid what and when they’re supposed to get paid, and just knowing when to expect it to hit your bank account means that you can fix problems a lot more quickly if and when they come up. And just knowing who to talk to about that stuff is really helpful in a very messy university system.

Emily (41:25): Yeah, it’s actually good advice more broadly for everyone of just, like, know who to go to if you had a certain type of emergency come up, like, “My pay didn’t arrive on time or was the wrong amount or, um, that tuition waiver didn’t post and my bill is due.” You know, just when it’s an urgent situation, already having done the research of knowing who to reach out to, super, super helpful um, if and when that moment arrives. Okay, Sophie, thank you so much again for giving this interview. It was wonderful to see you again.

Sophie (41:55): It was so lovely to see you too, and thanks for having me.

Outro

Emily (41:57): 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? We 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 view transcripts or videos of each episode? We 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! Nothing you hear on this podcast should be taken as financial, tax, or legal advice for any individual. Podcast editing by me and show notes creation by Dr. Jill Hoffman.

How This Grad Student Budgets with YNAB

October 12, 2026 by Jill Hoffman Leave a Comment

In this episode, Emily interviews Elle Rathbun, a rising 7th-year PhD candidate in neuroscience at UCLA and repeat podcast guest. Elle explains the budgeting principles of giving every dollar a job, getting a month ahead, and sinking funds, which are bundled together in the software You Need a Budget or YNAB. She shares how she has used YNAB since she started graduate school and how it has benefited both her net worth and anxiety about money. Elle is now planning on a career transition into an MBA program and career in venture capital, a pivot that would not be possible without the nest egg she built during grad school.

Links mentioned in the Episode

Teaser

Elle (00:00): I am very cheap. I pay for almost nothing. Um, and, uh, $109 for anything else to me is just so expensive. Um, but I know that it’s really helped me keep on track for all of my savings. I know for a fact, like, I would not have the savings that I have and my investment accounts would not be where they are if I didn’t have a really good tracking system for it.

Introduction

Emily (00:31): Welcome to the Personal Finance for PhDs Podcast: A Higher Education in Personal Finance. 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. I’m your host, Dr. Emily Roberts, a financial educator specializing in early-career PhDs and founder of Personal Finance for PhDs.

Emily (01:01): This is Season 25, Episode 4, and today my guest is Elle Rathbun, a rising 7th-year PhD candidate in neuroscience at UCLA and repeat podcast guest. Elle explains the budgeting principles of giving every dollar a job, getting a month ahead, and sinking funds, which are bundled together in the software You Need a Budget or YNAB. She shares how she has used YNAB since she started graduate school and how it has benefited both her net worth and anxiety about money. Elle is now planning a career transition into an MBA program and career in venture capital, a pivot that would not be possible without the nest egg she built during grad school. By the way, Elle shared with me a one-pager on how to get 13 months of YNAB for free, which includes her referral link, and you can find a link to that resource in the show notes.

Emily (01:53): This fall, I’m presenting four virtual seminars on personal finance topics for prospective and current funded graduate students in the US. The first two are practice rounds for presentations I’m giving at ABRCMS in November, titled The Grad Student Financial Checkup and Will the Stipend Be Enough?. The second two are chapter topics from my book, titled Increase Your Income Inside or Outside of Academia and The Most Effective Frugal Strategies for Grad Students. I invite you to participate in these seminars for free in exchange for your feedback on the material. The seminars will be on four consecutive Fridays between October 23rd and November 13, 2026. I’m unlikely to ever offer this content again in this format, so grab your spot now! Go to PFforPhDs.com/FreeSeminars/ to register. You can find the show notes for this episode at PFforPhDs.com/s25e4/.
Without further ado, here’s my interview with Elle Rathbun.

Will You Please Introduce Yourself Further?

Emily (03:08): I am delighted to have back on the podcast today, Elle Rathbun, repeat podcast guest from season 19, episodes five and six. Um, Elle is a rising seventh year PhD candidate in neuroscience at UCLA. And in our prior episodes, just a couple of years ago, we talked about how enthusiastic she was about budgeting and personal finance, um, so much so that she had a coaching position, uh, on campus helping other graduate students with their personal finances. That’s the subject of the prior episodes. Today, we’re gonna still be talking about budgeting, but more about Elle’s own personal practice and use of YNAB. So Elle, welcome back on the podcast. Um, you don’t need to go through everything we went through in the previous episode, but would you just please give a little bit more detail about yourself for the audience?

Elle (03:56): Yes, absolutely. I am entering my seventh year, as you said, of my PhD in neuroscience at UCLA, and I got into personal finance, especially in the context of graduate school, uh, mainly through this podcast. I was listening to a lot of podcasts as, uh, a technician, which, uh, uh, I took two years to do before grad school. Um, and I really took that time to learn about this whole world that I had no idea about. Um, and so, uh, I am applying to business schools, uh, right now and, um, previously pivoting from a, uh, an academic track. And, um, so currently, I’m thinking a lot about, uh, where I want my finances to be, but also what does that look like if I am planning on going back to school or continuing school.

What Does Giving Every Dollar a Job Mean?

Emily (04:48): So we’re gonna talk about YNAB in a moment, but first we’re gonna talk about an even more foundational budgeting principle, which is giving every dollar a job. And I know I practiced budgeting this way when I was in graduate school as well, but I wanna hear what that, uh, means, first of all, and then we’ll talk about how you do that.

Elle (05:06): Definitely. Yes, that phrase giving every dollar a job definitely comes from YNAB and the YNAB principles. So YNAB, yes, stands for You Need a Budget. Um, it is a website that I use, um, and you can get it for free as a student for a year. And to give every dollar a job means that you know exactly what that dollar is going to eventually be used for. And so one principle is that there’s no such thing as general savings, um, but you know what that saving is for, whether that’s emergency savings for job loss or savings for a home down payment that you’re probably not even going to, um, use for another 10, 20 years, who knows? Um, but still knowing what every dollar is purpose to do, um, and eventually being okay with spending that money. And we’ll talk about that a little bit later, but for me, giving out every job, dollar a job means, um, that I am able to spend the money that I’ve already allocated for a certain something, a certain budget line item, et cetera, um, sort of letting go of this guilt of like, “Oh, but what if, should I, should I go to this concert or should I have this incredible experience even if it means that, like, that’s less money in my bank account?” Um, I think feeling secure, for instance, if you have emergency savings already, then, then you can just have a little bit more flexibility. But it also means if you give a dollar a job and now you want to use that dollar for something else, that is okay. I give myself flexibility to do that, but at least I know what I’m pulling from, right? If I decide to go to a concert instead of saving up for a travel fund to, for an international trip, sometimes, like, that is okay, but I know what I’m doing when I, when I make that sacrifice.

Emily (06:59): So you took that pretty immediately to, like, savings and having a purpose for savings, but I actually think about, I mean, I do think about it that way, but I also think about it in terms of the monthly cash flow, right? Like, your paycheck comes in and it’s whatever amount it is, but you have in advance through your budgeting practice assigned every dollar a job. So, you know, this chunk of dollars is going to your rent, this, you know, all the fixed payments, they have to happen. And then you also make an assignment for your variable expenses that you can expect to have every single month, right? Can you talk a little bit more about what, how it works on the monthly basis before we even talk about accessing savings? Or maybe YNAB is such different system. Maybe I’m thinking about it in a different way than, than YNAB presents it.

Elle (07:40): Yeah, that’s actually a fascinating difference, I think, in thinking, just because another aspect of YNAB is to get a month ahead. So everything I think of, it, I think of money as something for later, um, because I’ve already saved for the current month, ideally. So there have been a couple times where I just moved all my money towards investments and sort of started fresh. Um, and so, but for the monthly expenses, for instance, the income I have from June, I typically allocate for July expenses. Um, so my June paycheck goes towards my July rent, for instance. Um, and I, I, yeah, I have target amounts. Again, there’s flexibility required in that. And in spending that money, um, especially the, the more variable expenses, um, one thing I do is I check how much do I have in this budget line item, or budget line in order to spend this money. Like when I go grocery shopping, um, do I, have I set aside enough to, for like a full blast, like, meal prep, um, or am I going to try to challenge myself to really use the things that I have at home and, and make the grocery run a little shorter or cheaper? Um, and so I think, I think one aspect of giving every dollar a job beyond giving every dollar a job is also don’t give future dollars a job, um, right? Just focus on what you have available to you in your bank account. I think especially as graduate students, um, UCLA has had this issue where, uh, sometimes we’re not paid on time or, uh, there might be hiccups or, you know, maybe too much of your health insurance got taken out because, you know, on the backend, they forgot to allocate your stipend for it, et cetera. Um, and so, so I think giving every dollar a job means only giving all the dollars that you already have available, um, a job and not worrying about the forecasting.

“Getting a Month Ahead” or “Living on Time”

Emily (09:43): I wanna go even deeper on something that you just mentioned, which is getting a month ahead. And I think this is maybe… Although I also teach this, I call it living on time. So I don’t even say it’s ahead. I say it’s on time to live on money you already have in your bank account. Um, and in fact, I, I do the same, uh, setup that you just mentioned. All the money you receive in the course of one month, June, goes towards funding your spending in July and maybe following if you’re able to push some of it even more forward. So it doesn’t matter. Like to me, a lot of people budget by paycheck if they’re paid, you know, biweekly or bimonthly or what have you. But I’m like, no, every paycheck you receive in the course of one month, doesn’t matter if it’s one, two, three, however many, goes towards funding your subsequent month spending. Um, so I guess what I’m underst – because I don’t use YNAB myself, um, although I have read the book. Um, so what I’m understanding is that it’s almost like every dollar becomes saving first, becomes savings, and then you spend it in those fu- like it’s already in your bank account and then you spend it in the future. Is that, am I interpreting that correctly?

Elle (10:45): Yeah. Yes. For, I think for the most part, I, for instance, I don’t know how much I spend per month. I have no idea. I would be, I think I could get close to the estimation, but, um, I don’t necessarily think of I think I think of allocating money as spending it. Because I’m giving myself permission to spend it, I can spend up to that. If I spend more than that, I can move it around. Um, and so, um, so I have what’s called, like, sinking funds, for instance, and this is another YNAB term, um, where, for instance, like, car, any car maintenance things, like, I budget for that every single month, um, and, and then I just pull from it when I need to get an oil change or when something else happens. And so, um, I… And that’s, and that’s just pre, like, already allocated at the time where I am looking at that month of a monthly target. Um, and so I think my s – the actual, like, output of spending is much less known to me. I enter every single transaction in manually, so I’m familiar with about how much I’m spending per, um, per month per line item, but that total per month, it’s just so variable that I sort of just embrace the variability and not really worry about it.

Emily (12:04): And that makes sense when you have escaped the paycheck to paycheck cycle, right? Like, if you do live paycheck to paycheck, if, as long as you’re not accumulating, like, credit card debt or something, like, you know, you’re spending the full paycheck. You can’t spend more, you’re probably not spending less either, um, but that’s what this cycle is that you’re in. But since you’re, again, I’m sort of framing it as, like, you’re, like, saving first, you just have pools of money that you pull from. Did that money come in from your most recent paycheck? Did it come in from an earlier paycheck? It doesn’t really matter. Well, I know YNAB tracks that, but it’s all been pulled together. But I’m curious about something… So I have taught many times on this podcast, and I know you, you probably listened to them about what I call target savings, what YNAB calls sinking funds, same, uh, concept. Um, but what I’m wondering about are your variable expenses that occur on a monthly basis, and groceries is a perfect example of that. So do you, I guess, have an amount of money that you’re trying to keep your spending within on a, that’s sort of the same on a monthly basis, or are you just like, “This is my grocery pool of money, and it kind of waxes and wanes, and I just spend whatever’s available in that if I want to”?

Accounting for Variable Expenses Using YNAB Principles

Elle (13:15): Yes. The way I tend to do it is I have a set amount, or I decide as I’m building a budget for the month, um, of money that I can give a job, or give a job for that month. Like these are all the monies for this month. Um, and so for those variable expenses, I allocate per target line item, et cetera. Um, and I’m pretty bad at guessing how much I’m going to spend. I would love to spend less on dining out, and every month I spend more than I intend to. Um, but what ends up happening is I then end up just borrowing from other, uh, other budget lines, essentially. So if I dine out more, I’m probably eating fewer groceries anyway, and so I just sort of take that money, put it down. Um, if it was part of my, like, if I go out to dinner with a bunch of friends, um, in particular, and that put me over, then I’ll borrow from, like, my fun money category. Um, and so that’s, that’s sort of my approach. And then sometimes I do… I try to have a scarcity mindset as well. Like, I, uh, I make it so that I don’t ever have too much money to play with that is within my budget, um, because I just try to invest as much as I can. And so that helps with the scarcity mindset of I only have this much money. Maybe I booked a trip, for instance, or I had to book a hotel. Um, there were a lot of weddings this spring, uh, where I didn’t necessarily save up for all of them. And then I borrow from my larger sinking funds, knowing that eventually, like, over the months, I would sort of pay them back. So I did borrow from my, my car, car maintenance budget, um, to, to fund some of the, the trips I took this spring. Um, but I also know that I, like, I gave myself permission to do that. I know fundamentally I have actual savings that can be for that. Um, I have, like, a, a saving fund for, like, my vehicle. So if something actually happened to my car, I still have a backup. Um, and so… Which is not necessarily recommended, but it has helped me save because it forces the scarcity mindset.

Emily (15:31): Yeah, I totally understand. So it sounds like with the YNAB system, and I know YNAB has this reputation of, like, oh, there’s such a learning curve. And I can see from our conversation already, like, you have to have a different mindset, and then you mechanically have to do a lot of, like, adjustments and playing around with numbers. So it sounds to me like you, at least once per month, are doing this projection of what, you know, the dollars are getting jobs, like, for the subsequent month. And then also, as you go along, there’s probably some corrections and, and so forth that need to made because things didn’t go exactly according to the plan. Uh, is, is that correct?

Elle (16:05): Yes, very much so. Spot on. Yeah, I budget… I go in and update absolutely everything about every two weeks, and that’s how often I pay off all my credit cards as well. Um, and so I… So that’s when I enter all my transactions manually, if I forgot to do it on the app, which I have just become really bad about. Um, and, uh, and then I go through every transaction, I see if they, um, match, like, my memory. Sometimes, very rarely, but sometimes there is a charge where I’m like, “That wasn’t me. That wasn’t my authorized user.” I think that that’s fraud. And so, um, but I also just… I think it’s a good way to engage with where my money is going, um, and to sort of root myself in how I’m spending my time in general. Um, if I am eating out at, uh, you know, if nice restaurants in LA, like, that’s incredibly expensive, but it also gives me a chance to reflect, like, was that worth it? Like, was that experience worth it with my friends? And sometimes a, a lot of the time, the answer is yes, but then it also comes with, like, “Okay, well, how am I going to do that better next month?” Um, and so, uh, there is, like, an optional, uh, import, automatic import from banks. Like they have, they have their own system to just import all that data. Um, and I think that’s valuable, but I, I always think that it’s time well spent doing all of that manually.

Emily (17:31): The phrase I use for that when you have a, a significant degree of manual manipulation going on with your numbers is that… I, I call it staying intimate with your finances and not just having it all going on in the background. Um, but I am wondering what you do have going on in the background. Like, given that you are quite attentive to these numbers and all the transactions, are you doing, like, manual, manually paying your credit cards, for example, or do you have those things on autopay? What about your other bills? Is that manual or automa – or automatic?

Elle (17:59): Uh, good question. So all my utilities are automatic, um, and those are the only bills that are automatic, because, like, wifi, water, gas. Um, rent is manual. All my credit cards have always been manual payments, um, and partially because I’m a little bit scared of overdraft fees, even though my bank doesn’t charge overdraft fees, if I rack up 14 of them because I have 14 credit cards, um, then, uh, then that could be a problem because, you know, there’s a limit. Um, and so I think because I am very into utilizing and maximizing the utility of the, my credit cards, and because I have so many, doing it manually is just better for me, especially because I can line the… It doesn’t… I don’t really care when my credit card statements are due. I know I’m going to pay them ahead of time. That’s been really useful in keeping my credit score down, um, because I never have that much utilization bec – uh, if I pay it off before it gets reported. And so, um, yeah, my approach has always just been do everything manually.

Emily (19:10): If listeners didn’t follow <laugh> along with what we just said about credit cards, I have a… It’s an article on the website, or maybe it’s a podcast episode, but it’s called Perfect Use of a Credit Card. So check that out if you’re confused about credit cards and utilization ratios and how it affects your score and all those kinds of things. Um, now, when we had our last interview, one of the subjects we spoke about was how you were, um, because you took on this additional coaching job at UCLA, you actually increased your stipend, but that also meant that you needed to increase your spending because you were spending more time working and had less time to do other things. And so I’m wondering how, like, were you using YNAB at the time, and how did YNAB help you with those decisions about actually it makes more sense to spend more on occasion in certain areas, um, and making those decisions and also, like, not feeling guilty about it? Like you kind of mentioned that earlier, like, reducing guilt because you’re, I guess, following the plan, but can you expand on that, please?

How Meeting Your Savings Goals Encourages Intentional Spending

Elle (20:05): Yeah, absolutely. I think, especially during that time, and now, I have another part-time position on campus now, um, that sort of went into the same calculation. Um, a lot of it just is based on my savings goal. I have a certain savings goal per month, um, and that is pretty solidified. Um, and I am typically able to make it, but the sacri – in terms of scarcity mindset, again, what do I have to do in order to make the savings goal. Um, and so when my income increases, uh, then, and my savings goal stays the same, then the budget automatically, I can have a little bit more flexibility in, and that number that I go into the budget thinking of, um, I just ended up raising, right? So if I had a certain number in mind pre-part-time job, um, then I would bump it by, like, $200 a month, it’s, uh, for instance, uh, and a lot of that would just kind of go into that dining out fund, um, or prepared foods fund. And so, it’s really… And I think that’s been really helpful, is to just really ground it in the savings capability, because at the end of the day, like, that’s, that’s where I want a lot of my money to go. I want it to go towards retirement and, and home planning, um, or at least a way to make more money, um, and, uh, and build wealth that way. So I really just root it in, in my savings goals and then build off of that. And I increased my savings… I ended up increasing my savings as well, um, and so that worked.

Emily (21:39): I think I had a similar experience when I first started using a budget because, because I was, you know, setting and meeting some savings goals, I then knew that I could do whatever with the rest of the money. And so instead of having, like, a question of, like, is it okay if I spend over here, um, is it gonna mess up something else? Am I then not gonna be able to pay my rent or, like, not be able to, you know, do something else that’s really necessary because I made this elective spending decision somewhere else? The whole budget process and knowing that I was reaching savings goals gave me permission to spend in those areas, like, yeah, okay, I didn’t strictly need to buy that, you know, item of clothing or whatever I could’ve done without it, but it was okay because I’m doing all these other things. It’s all planned out. Like, every dollar has a job, like you were saying earlier. Um, I know my dollars are doing their job with the rent and all the necessary expenses, so these dollars have the ability to do their job with discretionary spending. Um, so it just was a confidence booster to know that there was a plan, um, and that everything was being fulfilled within the plan. And yeah, kind of at the end of the day, like, money, we ideally do wanna put a chunk of it towards our future because that’s how our society works. We need to provide for ourselves, um, in our, um, elder years or when we’re not able to work. Um, but then after that, you get to have experiences of whatever type. You make purchases, you have services, whatever they are, um, and so it’s, it’s really up to you to, to spend it how you want to, and you don’t need to feel guilty about it, right, especially if you’re meeting those savings goals, because that’s providing for yourself over there.

Elle (23:13): Exactly. I think that that’s such a huge part of financial, what we call financial wellness, which is, you know, sometimes I’ll be talking to my friend and they’re like, “Okay, don’t, don’t say anything. I know you want me to save, but I, like, did this.” And I’m like, “No, that was a good experience. Use your money for things that you like and that you want to do.” Um, and so I think I just… Yeah, I’m a big advocate for intentional spending, um, but I’m not really a big advocate for less spending, if that makes sense. Um, and so… And I think the two often get conflated, and really, they’re not. Um, I think you can spend a lot of money, um, unintentionally, and that’s what I personally want to avoid. And you can spend a lot of money intentionally, which is great if you have that money and you’ve taken into account these other factors in your life. Um, and so, absolutely, I think giving every dollar job, and then knowing what job you’re pulling from when you’re being flexible is just incredibly important in being intentional.

Emily (24:14): I also take that same principle, and I apply it to the term, um, lifestyle inflat – lifestyle inflation, right? So, like, this is a big boogeyman in, like, the personal finance space lifestyle inflation. Oh, no. When you get a raise, like, you’re just gonna inflate more and spend more mindlessly. And that does happen, um, for sure. And it’s not good because it doesn’t necessarily align with your values, but, like, I’m definitely in favor of, in favor of what I call lifestyle increases. So, like, yes, when you go from grad student to postdoc or postdoc to, you know, permanent full-time position, like, those are significant jumps in your income, and you should have a difference in your spending and your savings levels. Um, but it should come with some, like, reflection and intentionality and not just, “Oh, whoops, I don’t know where the money went,” right? So, like, it absolutely… Money helps you have experiences you want, it helps you fulfill your values and so forth, but, like, only if we do it with some intention.

Elle (25:05): Absolutely. I think, especially as someone who moved to LA during the pandemic, I started grad school in 2020, um, and something happened that year where, <laugh> um, right, I, I wasn’t going out to eat, and I didn’t have a car then because I moved from Chicago and I just didn’t have a car there. Now, my spending looks incredibly different now with a car, with friends through, throughout the city, um, as it did, you know, my first month in LA. And abs – that was a lifestyle increase. Like, I am enjoying my life, and I give myself permission to enjoy my life, but I also just take in mind, “Okay, what am I sacrificing?” Um, and when I’m sacrificing just, like, gains in a taxable brokerage, that’s fine. I’m fine with sacrificing at least some of that in order to enjoy my life now.

Commercial

Emily (25:53): Emily here for a brief interlude. Would you like to learn directly from me on a personal finance topic, such as taxes, goal-setting, investing, budgeting, or designing your financial life, each tailored specifically for graduate students and postdocs? I offer live workshops, asynchronous online courses, and cohort-based programs on these topics, and I’m now booking for the 2026-2027 academic year. If you would like to bring my content to your institution, would you please recommend me as a speaker or facilitator to your university, graduate school, graduate student association, medical school, postdoc office, or postdoc association? My workshops are usually slated as professional development or personal wellness. Ask the potential host to go to PFforPhDs.com/financial-education/ or simply email me at [email protected] 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.

How YNAB Differs From Other Budgeting Systems

Emily (27:22): So we talked quite a bit about how YNAB requires a mindset shift <laugh> as well as learning, you know, how to use a, a new piece of software. Um, so is there anything else that you want to elaborate on when it comes to how you use YNAB specifically, or how YNAB is different from other, like, systems that you might use for budgeting or cashflow management?

Elle (27:41): Definitely. I, I previously used Mint, and Mint is no longer RIP. And, uh, for Mint, that did involve primarily expense tracking, so what you’ve already done with your money and forecasting, what do you want to do with the money that you’re expecting? Um, and YNAB does, you can use it for expense tracking, um, but you can’t really use it for forecasting. Like, is it in your bank account? No, you do not have it. Um, and so it sort of boils down to w – uh, the envelope, the analog envelope, uh, method, which is, okay, one envelope is for rent. That money, you have it, you put it in the rent envelope, groceries, et cetera. And, um, and if you don’t have that money, you can’t put it in an envelope. And so, there is this idea of expense tracking versus budgeting, um, which is, again, a s – the budgeting aspect is assigning jobs to those dollars, um, whereas expense tracking is like, “Oh, whoops, I overspent again.” And to some degree, I use it for expense tracking because, like, I don’t update my budget all the time. Um, and, uh, but as someone who was just starting out using YNAB in 2020, um, I, I did use it, like, every day because it was sort of a game to me. I s – I, I liked doing it, but also I was using it for its purpose, uh, where I was checking my budget, seeing how much I already spent, and seeing how much I had for the rest of the month to spend. The other aspect of YNAB that I like a lot is it has, uh, a tracking, uh, component to it. So you have your budget and you have your tracking. And once you move money from budget to tracking within YNAB, it doesn’t necessarily need to be a physical, like, different account. I use, like, Ally Buckets, for instance, but if you have an account in tracking, that is outside your budget. So when I invest, that goes from my budget, like, long-term savings line, and it spends it as a transfer to my, uh, my brokerage. And so that’s been a really great, great way for me to figure out how much am I actually contributing and investing, um, and it makes calculations for, uh, splits of how much I’m sort of assigning in my head of like, okay, this is for vehicle, this is for retirement, this is for home. Um, it, it, it gives me like a nice pie chart essentially. Um, and so I can see sort of the percentages because it’s also different when I actually look at the value of those investment accounts because of the gains from those accounts. And so that’s something that I, I don’t know if other, uh, other budgeting software mechanisms do that, but it’s something that I really appreciate.

Emily (30:29): Yes, I was a Mint user for many, many years until it went away. And Mint is absolutely on that like template budget system, like you were saying. Um, and one of the reasons why I never really used Mint fully, like I’ve always used my own system in addition to something that aggregates and tracks things for me. Um, I find that part of it very helpful. So something that I’ve come to learn about myself through doing this podcast and talking with people about how they do their budgeting, um, is that I really like having like separate accounts or separate sub-buckets, like you were just mentioning, um, for different purposes. But it sounds to me like YNAB is doing that. Like you could probably literally have all this money in your checking account. I mean, it wouldn’t be a good idea, but mechanically it could all reside in the checking account and then YNAB does all the differentiating and all the things for you.

Emily (31:15): So I’m just wondering, like you did mention you have Ally, for example, but like how many actual different accounts are you using and how much are you relying on YNAB for that, um, the splits and the differentiation?

Elle (31:26): Good question. So I really only have one checking account, one savings account, and then I I do have like a CD for my emergency savings, um, which is not part of my budget, um, which is another component. I’m not even tempted to do that because I’m like, ugh, then I have to move it back into the budget and that’ll look like income, et cetera. Um, and so, um, but that’s really, that’s all I have, uh, for, for actual cash money that is available to me. And then, um, ex- exactly, like, YNAB makes all those splits themselves. And it’s also the reason why I can keep up with all of my credit cards scattered throughout different banks, is I just go down the, the YNAB list, see, you know, go to that account, look at my statement, put in my transactions, pay it next. Um, and so it actually doesn’t take that long. And, um, but yeah, the YNAB definitely helps differentiate between jobs for those dollars without requiring a bunch of different accounts or even buckets. The buckets are wildly necessary, and I really only use them for, uh, for, for instance, my, like, Roth IRA for next year, um, is, is its own bucket.

Emily (32:36): Yeah, it definitely seems like a lot of the systems that I teach, YNAB was just like, shoot, we just do it all in this software. And as you mentioned, grad students can get this for free for one year with their student status. After that, I think it’s something like 100 or 120 a year, is that right?

Elle (32:50): It’s 109 a year, yes.

Emily (32:52): Okay. So just going into it, if you fall in love with the software, <laugh> you’re gonna be paying, um, a little bit more for it after that first year. Bringing it back around to how we started this conversation, like, all this effort, you know, that you put into budgeting, it does sound like a significant amount of time to stay this intimate with your finances and use the software. Like, how has this helped you throughout your grad school journey with, that could be, like, literally with, “Okay, I saved all these dollars, like, amazing,” or it could be, um, about stress or any, any way you wanna take this.

How YNAB Can Reduce Your Money Stress

Elle (33:20): Definitely. I, I come from a very low income background, and so saving money was always, like, a game for me and my mom. Like, I would collect coupons, we would go through them together, et cetera. And so, um, how that manifested as a young adult, especially someone who just graduated college, um, and through the first year or two of grad school, is I then had a lot of anxiety around spending money, um, especially if I noticed that I could have gotten the same thing that I got in one place for cheaper somewhere else. And so, um, and that was not healthy. Like, it was to an unhealthy degree where I would get, like, actually pretty upset about it. And, um, to the point where I was like, “This, th- that 50 cents does not matter. Like, let it go.” Um, and so YNAB was actually really helpful in me letting that go, me saying, “Okay, no, I’m good. I have my emergency fund. I have put aside the savings that will allow my money to grow, and this money has already been allocated for this. If I don’t spend it on this, I will spend it on something similar anyway.” Um, and it also kind of helped… It aligned with me taking on a bunch of, like, side gigs where I was just like, “No, my money or my time is worth money now, um, and real money now. It’s not just like a, you know, a high school throwaway job for, for a couple hours. It’s something where I’m like, no, I can actually build wealth if, but I can’t build wealth and I can’t work well, um, if I have this mental weight on me that is just so completely unnecessary.” Um, and so just having that number, having that green number in YNAB saying, like, “Hey, you still got $70 for groceries? You’re good. Just buy the groceries.” Um, and so that’s been, yeah, a huge, hu – uh, progress in t- terms of mental wellness, uh, in my, in my respect, or in respect to, to finances. Um, it all, honestly, the, I pa – I am very cheap. I pay for almost nothing. Um, and, uh, $109 for anything else to me is just so expensive. Um, but I know that it’s really helped me keep on track for all of my savings. I know for a fact, like, I would not have the savings that I have and my investment accounts would not be where they are if I didn’t have a really good tracking system for it. Um, but also, I’m so motivated, and I’m sure a lot of this audience could relate, I’m so motivated by data, um, and YNAB is just really good at presenting a lot of your own data. So now I can go back six years and see that progress, and I’m still motivated to continue the scarcity mindset, right? Like, of course, we’re grad students, like, we only are making so much money, um, but it’s not necessarily the amount you put in, uh, the, the investment account or the, the savings account. It’s really the momentum and the habits you build. And YNAB has just been a really good habit that, you know, looking at one month, okay, fine, but looking at the progress, um, has been really helpful.

Emily (36:39): I’m gonna ask you about this career pivot again in a moment. But before I do that, I’m thinking of an audience member who’s listening to us and you’re six years into using YNAB. I’m a lot of years into caring about my personal finances, and they might be like, “These people are not speaking to me where I am,” because maybe we’re speaking to a graduate student who is not living on time, is not a month ahead, is in fact behind every single month, living paycheck to paycheck, accumulating debt, maybe paying it down sometimes. Like, can, even if you don’t have personal experience with this, or maybe you do have some from when you started your journey, um, can you speak to how the software might be able to help a person who is, like, really drowning and not managing their cashflow and definitely not ahead and definitely does not have savings?

Elle (37:21): I used to coach students who were in these types of situations, and I’m not completely unfamiliar with that situation myself. Um, ignoring a problem will not help solve the problem, and that’s what a lot of people do tend to do. They’ll at least ignore a part of it. With something like YNAB, again, I’m not sponsoring YNAB in any way, shape or form. Use whatever. Yeah. Um, and so, but with YNAB in particular, um, or any budgeting system and tracking system, it really forces you to confront the reality. Um, maybe you do have to spend more than you are making per month. Maybe all of those line items are completely necessary and you’ve already shaved down everything. Then hiding from that is not going to help. Um, but knowing how much more you need to make per month in order to make it work is incredibly empowering information so you know, okay, I gotta go tutor, or I have to get a part-time job, or this program is not going to be sustainable for me. Um, and so I think it, the sooner you can start a good habit, um, and the sooner you can identify the things that need to change, then the better you’re going to be. Um, and so, so YNAB, any other budgeting system, really makes the reality sink in, I think. Um, because you’re giving every dollar a job, and if there just aren’t enough dollars, then, then you need more, frankly. Um, and so, but you don’t wanna take on too much either. And so, so I, yeah, I, I believe in the power of, of personal data, um, and s – and knowing, knowing how sustainable something like grad school, something like a long-term commitment that grad school is, is going to be. Um, it can be, it can be helpful. And if you don’t like it, then that’s, that’s okay. If it doesn’t work for you, that’s okay. But I think it’s a good first step in finding out what does work.

Emily (39:26): And you have that first year free. So, like, you’ll be investing some time into it, but at least you don’t have to pay the fee until you know that it’s working for you. And it can be really chaotic and confusing with, like, well, I have a pocket of money here and a pocket of money here, but I also have these credit cards and everything’s just flowing around. And, like, at what point do I even take a snapshot and look? And I’m sure the software or any software that you might engage with would, like, help you, um, feel more organized around that. And like you said, just actually, like, kind of face up to the situation. Um, like you said, it doesn’t, it doesn’t help to just keep feeling stressed and terrible, but not, but also frozen and not able to take any action to really change either the income or the expenses, uh, or both, uh, sides of the equation.

Elle (40:09): Definitely. I think I also just, I have, I have, I think maybe 20, over 20 different accounts, if you include all the credit card accounts, all the savings accounts, brokerages, et cetera, across, like, at least 10 different banks, just organize it. I think building that good habit is really gonna come down to organization. And so any, again, any way you can organize that and, and face it is going to be incredibly useful in addressing it.

Emily (40:37): And I do think this concept, even if you weren’t using the software specifically, but the being a month ahead, the living on time, as I call it, like, this concept is actually really unfamiliar, I think, to most people, but it’s so, so, so helpful that, yes, you only spend money that you have already actually received. You’re not putting something on a credit card that you don’t have the money to already pay. Like, um, again, living on time to me is like using credit cards like debit cards. Sounds like it’s exactly how you use it as well, but the money has to already be in the account before you spend it, even though technically you don’t have to pay off the credit card for, you know, some weeks into the future. That can just really trip people up and become very confusing.

Elle (41:15): Definitely. And I understand that sometimes you just have to put something on a credit card and you don’t have the money to pay it. And that is, if that’s what needs to happen, okay. But then having a plan to pay off that credit card is more important than putting it on the credit card without that money in the bank account. And so, um, don’t, yeah, don’t lose the, the forest for the trees.

How Budgeting, Saving, and Investing During Grad School Allowed for a Career Pivot

Emily (41:38): So you mentioned earlier that you’re now gonna pursue an MBA, um, instead of the, you know, more traditional academic track that you had expected to be on at this point. Um, how has your budgeting, your saving, your investing, all those efforts that you’ve been doing during graduate school, um, contributed to or enabled the possibility of this career shift?

Elle (41:59): In a podcast years ago, someone referred to money as freedom units, and I think that, that really stuck with me. Um, and money, I think, is just flexibility in life. Like, the end goal for me is not to have a certain dollar amount, um, although that is kinda nice. Um, but it’s really what, what can I do and what more can I do if I have this money, if I have this flexibility? And so I think going into something like an MBA where I would have to pay for at least some aspect of school or living expenses, um, would not be possible if I was in the same situation that I was in when I was a technician, right? I just did not have savings and I needed a job and I had nothing to fall back on and no retirement savings, et cetera, right? I could not delay that for even two years. Um, whereas now, I can really take a step back, figure out what’s, what I would enjoy as a next step, what would be good for my career as the next step, um, and really find where they intersect without having the pressure of, like, I need to take out student loans, but I need to take out private student loans because of this new cap. Um, and, you know, I can, I can now see the system a little bit better, um, and even play the system a little bit better. And, and just having that flexibility has been almost everything in terms of figuring out what, what to do next. Even if I decide to do a postdoc at the end of all this, I think doing a postdoc where we’re not, postdocs are just in academia are just not paid as well as industry positions, um, even doing a postdoc is something that I can really only consider because of the savings that I have, um, if I decide to move to, like, a high cost of living area. And so it, it has definitely impacted my career in just giving me flexibility and being able to pursue what I want to pursue.

Emily (44:05): Beautiful. I’m so happy that… And maybe you have the same experience, but, like, I also came to a similar point by the end of graduate school that I realized that the saving and the investing and the nest egg that I, that my husband and I had at that point enabled both of us to pursue careers that were very meaningful to us, although more uncertain in terms of income and cash flow. So at that stage, that was, like, so crucial that I had that money to be able to make that shift. But I had no idea when I started my postbac and I read my first book about personal finance and first started saving that that would be the end result just seven or eight years later. It was actually not, like, that long of a period of time. So I just, I guess, uh, le – we’ll leave the listeners with kind of a final exhortation of, like, you don’t know how having savings or having these mindsets or having these practices is going to benefit you in the future. You don’t know exactly how, but it for sure is going to <laugh> in some way. And so it’s worth it even as an early on graduate student or even as a later stage graduate, or whatever point you find this, it’s worth it to start putting in that effort and learning about this aspect of your own personal wellness because it is gonna pay off in, in some way and probably sooner than you think.

Elle (45:14): Absolutely. I 100% agree.

Best Financial Advice for Another Early-Career PhD

Emily (45:18): Well, Elle, it’s been so delightful to speak with you again. Um, and I want you to leave us with your current best financial advice for another early career PhD, and it can be something that we’ve touched on in the interview already, or it can be something completely new.

Elle (45:35): Definitely. So something that we did touch on a little bit was the idea of an emergency fund. And one thing that I’ve been a huge proponent for, um, for a while now, but now I am listing it as, like, my best financial advice, is to identify what that emergency fund is, what you will grant yourself permission to use it for, and how much you will need for each item that you are considering an emergency. Um, and I think that that’s one of the most foundational aspects of financial wellness, is that sense of security even before investing, right? Maybe you can start investing a little bit, but once that emergency fund is set, it is such a load off that it really allows you to make decisions without having to worry about very key foundational aspects of just your life. Um, and it’ll give you the, the flexibility needed in, in case of one of those emergencies.

Emily (46:36): So I’ll ask you to expand just a tiny bit on that, which is that a lot of classic personal finance advice says, “Okay, uh, save a certain number of months of expenses as your emergency fund.” Sometimes it’s three or six or nine different numbers get thrown around. But you’re saying, “Okay, think about the possible uses of this emergency fund.” And I think that classic advice comes from job loss. Like, if you were to lose your entire income and you have to fund your entire life from your savings, how long is it gonna take you to find another position? Three, six, nine, 12 months? What is it? So that’s kind of the logic there, but you’re, you’re using a different justification, so I wonder if you could expand on that a little bit.

Elle (47:10): Job loss is going to be a huge part of an emergency fund, I think, in any, in any position. Um, and so I think especially for graduate students, we have somewhat typically uh, job stability, and so that job loss might be a little bit, um, less in terms of how much you save for that job loss, especially-

Emily (47:31): And Elle is speaking as someone who lost her funding recently – <laugh>… And ha – some behind the scenes pivots had to happen. So even in that, you’re still speaking to this is typically secure.

Elle (47:41): Typically secure. At least there will be signs when it becomes less secure, I think, especially if you have a program that is typically very supportive of their graduate students. And so job loss, again, but also how long will it take you to find a job after your PhD? It depends on how close you are to finishing your PhD. And so that should always, I think, be the first line item, and that’s the bulk of my emergency fund, that’s a bulk of a lot of people’s emergency funds. But I think a problem that I’ve seen people run into, students, professionals, et cetera, is that they sort of know how much is in their bank account, and it’s all emergency fund slush money. And it’s not quite clear how much of that they can reach into for something fun, for something necessary, and for something absolutely critical. And so I just think having a number of… no, like, I am considering my car breaking down as an emergency because that is something I would have to fix immediately, and I don’t necessarily foresee it, but it is a possibility, like, that would be something that could go into an emergency fund. Whereas for me, like, I have an emergency fund for my car, but I also have a car maintenance sinking fund, right? So registration, I don’t consider an emergency, but sometimes it creeps up on people. And so, um, things like, okay, if, say, I need to… Say I have a family member in Taiwan who passes away, and I need to book a last minute flight to see them, like, that would be an emergency for me, so I allocate a certain amount of money for that emergency. And so, just kind of going through different scenarios, again, because I don’t want to be stressed in an emergency about my finances, having that ability to be like, “No, I’m good. I saved for that. Maybe I didn’t save quite enough, but I saved a decent amount for it,” um, is incredibly empowering in and of itself.

Emily (49:35): I, I’m glad you answered in that way because th- this is very similar, almost identical to what I teach when I talk about, okay, we have an emergency fund, and then also this concept of targeted savings and sinking funds, because there is an interplay between the two. Like, if you have no other savings, a lot of things are emergencies, but at some point when you have, like, a basic emergency fund in place, then you can start to think about some of these would be emergencies as inevitabilities or, like, likelihoods where you can save in kind of a different bucket for it. And when I teach about targeted savings, one of the prompts that I use is what do you fear will happen in the upcoming year? So it’s not like a completely out of left field, “Oh, I had no idea this medical event, it was… nothing could have, you know, forecast that this would happen.” That would be a real true emergency, but, like, yeah, your car needing some kind of repair at some point, like, y- y- you know, like, that’s a little bit more foreseeable, or like you mentioned, that maybe you have an ailing family member, things like this are like, “Well, it’s kind of coming up on the horizon.” So, again, the, the emergency fund is the basis of that, but then once you are building more on that, you can start to think about these other possibilities in a way that overlaps kind of between emergency and also sinking funds/targeted savings. Okay, now we really have to <laugh> end this interview. It’s been so wonderful to speak you, with you again, Elle. Thank you so much for explaining YNAB and your use of YNAB and what it’s done for you, um, for the audience. And good luck with finishing your PhD and your next endeavor.

Elle (51:03): Thank you so much. Always a pleasure to be on the show, and thank you. I’m obviously a huge fan, um, so thank you for all you do, Emily.

Outro

Emily (51:14): 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? We 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 view transcripts or videos of each episode? We 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! Nothing you hear on this podcast should be taken as financial, tax, or legal advice for any individual. Podcast editing by me and show notes creation by Dr. Jill Hoffman.

How You and Your Higher-Earning Partner Manage Your Money Affects Relationship Satisfaction

September 28, 2026 by Jill Hoffman Leave a Comment

In this episode, Emily interviews Dr. Emily Garbinsky, an associate professor of marketing at Cornell who studies how couples behave with their money. Emily first reviews the common models for structuring money within couples and the surprising effect the choice has on relationship satisfaction. Emily and Emily then discuss income disparities, such as those between a PhD trainee and a higher-earning partner, and how power dynamics can affect how couples choose to split expenses. Finally, Emily shares her thoughts about how to adapt when an income disparity shrinks or even flips and the unique career challenge facing academics and their partners.

Links mentioned in the Episode

How You and Your Higher-Earning Partner Manage Your Money Affects Relationship Satisfaction

Teaser

Emily G (00:00): Based on the science that’s out there, I don’t think we can make a claim that joint finances lead to objectively better financial decisions, but we do know that it helps to get couples on the same page, so it at least helps with more transparency and can help them achieve their goals.

Introduction

Emily (00:18): Welcome to the Personal Finance for PhDs Podcast: A Higher Education in Personal Finance. 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. I’m your host, Dr. Emily Roberts, a financial educator specializing in early-career PhDs and founder of Personal Finance for PhDs.

Emily (00:50): This is Season 25, Episode 3, and today my guest is Dr. Emily Garbinsky, an associate professor of marketing at Cornell who studies how couples behave with their money. Emily first reviews the common models for structuring money within couples and the surprising effect the choice has on relationship satisfaction. Emily and I then discuss income disparities, such as those between a PhD trainee and a higher-earning partner, and how power dynamics can affect how couples choose to split expenses. Finally, Emily shares her thoughts about how to adapt when an income disparity shrinks or even flips and the unique career challenge facing academics and their partners.

Emily (01:34): This fall, I’m presenting four virtual seminars on personal finance topics for prospective and current funded graduate students in the US. The first two are practice rounds for presentations I’m giving at ABRCMS in November, titled The Grad Student Financial Checkup and Will the Stipend Be Enough?. The second two are chapter topics from my book, titled Increase Your Income Inside or Outside of Academia and The Most Effective Frugal Strategies for Grad Students. I invite you to participate in these seminars for free in exchange for your feedback on the material. The seminars will be on four consecutive Fridays between October 23rd and November 13, 2026. I’m unlikely to ever offer this content again in this format, so grab your spot now! Go to PFforPhDs.com/FreeSeminars/ to register. You can find the show notes for this episode at PFforPhDs.com/s25e3/. Without further ado, here’s my interview with Dr. Emily Garbinsky.

Will You Please Introduce Yourself Further?

Emily R (02:47): I am delighted to have joining me on the podcast today Dr. Emily Garbinski, who is an associate professor of marketing at Cornell in the SC Johnson College of Business. I actually heard Emily on an episode of So Money, which is one of my favorite podcasts. It was published back in February of 2026, if you wanna go back and listen to that episode. Farnoosh Torabi is the host of that podcast. It’s an excellent episode and it just got me thinking about how we could leverage Emily’s expertise for the topics that I and you care about as funded graduate students and postdocs and early career PhDs. And specifically, we’re gonna be talking about couples and money and how couples handle finances. And specifically, we’re gonna get down to when there are income disparities, as you might be experiencing in your own relationship if you’re in one, and even what happens when those income disparities flip polarity. So we’ll get to that by the end of the interview. Emily, I’m so excited that you agreed to join me on the podcast. Would you please introduce yourself a little bit further for the listeners?

Emily G (03:45): Yes. Thank you so much for having me. I’m really excited to be on the show. So as mentioned, my name’s Emily Garbinski. I’m an associate professor of marketing at Cornell. Just some background on me. So I did my undergraduate education, Carnegie Mellon University, and I got a bachelor’s in decision science. From there, I moved to west coast best coast and spent five years getting my PhD in marketing from Stanford. My first academic job was at the University of Notre Dame. I spent six years on the faculty there, and then I moved to Cornell, and I’ve been here for five years.

From Decision Science to How Couples Manage Their Finances

Emily R (04:22): Excellent. Thank you so much for elaborating there. Just based on what you’ve mentioned so far, decision science and marketing, I’m not hearing personal finance, I’m not hearing relationships in that yet. Like how did you specifically come to this research topic? And what exactly is your research topic?

Emily G (04:37): Yes. So when I was working on my PhD, at that time I was really interested in consumer financial decision making. And so I was really focusing on questions like how can we help people save more money for the future and how can we make sure that people are prepared for retirement? And to my surprise, a lot of work in the space focused on individual decision making, right? So how can we help individuals make better choices with their own money? But as we all know, our relationship partners play a really big role in the extent to which we decide to spend versus save our money. And I kind of noticed that there was this, this gap in the literature. There wasn’t a ton of people doing research in this space. And so I started working on one project, looking at how couples manage finances and just realized that it was my favorite project that I was working on and then another project followed and another. And now I would say it’s my primary focus and where I feel like my biggest contributions have been in personal finance literature.

Three Models for Structuring Your Financial Accounts as a Couple

Emily R (05:45): Very exciting and one of the reasons I’m so excited to have you on the show today. So when I was first becoming interested in personal finance, and this might have been back around 2010, something like that, I remember reading a few papers on how couples structured their money and the papers were probably even older than that. And I remember there being like three basic models, and you can tell me if there’s any updates to this, of fully joint finances, we pool everything together, fully separate, nothing is pooled whatsoever, and a hybrid model, a yours, mine and ours model where there’s some joint, some pooling, and some separation. And at the time that I was reading about that, again, probably 15 plus years ago, it was very much the most common model to have a complete pooling. And so I’m wondering what are the updates on this? Are those the models that are still being used? And specifically for my audience, which is likely Gen Z or younger millennials, how are young couples today structuring their finances on a population level?

Emily G (06:45): Sure. I’ll answer this sort of in two parts. With your first part about sort of account structure, you’re absolutely right that this is a three-part model, pool everything, have a partial pooling approach, keep everything separate. And so this is also where I started when I began investigating how couples manage finances. So the first question I had is like, how should we be pooling our finances, if at all? And perhaps most importantly, are there consequences to how you pool your finances with your partner? And so I’ve looked at this from, I would say two different angles. And so the first angle or the first question that I wanted to tackle is how does the decision to pool or not affect how you decide to spend your money or the types of things that you’re spending your money on? As you can imagine, since I’m in marketing, I was very interested in consumption related consequences. And so what my co-author and I found is that when you spend money from a joint bank account, you experience a much higher need to be able to justify how you spend that money to your partner. And because we experience a higher need to justify, we’re more likely to buy products that we consider to be responsible or utilitarian, and we’re much less likely to buy products that are associated with sort of happiness or what we call hedonic products. And so we see this very consistently over and over again, that people are purchasing or leaning towards purchasing different types of things depending on the account from which they’re spending from. And so that sort of led me to this question of how does account pooling affect how satisfied you are with your relationship overall? And so something that both I found and another wonderful co-author, Jenny Olson, has an amazing paper where she actually randomly assigns newlywed couples to either merge their finances or keep all of their finances completely separate. And she followed them over a two-year period and found that over the course of the two years, couples that had their finances completely pooled experienced much higher satisfaction in their relationship than couples that kept everything completely separate.

Emily R (09:10): That is fascinating. And how rarely do you get to do an experiment like that where you actually get to assign people randomly to groups? Amazing. I’m curious, were there any follow-on questions about not only relationship satisfaction, but maybe life satisfaction overall or perhaps net worth growth? Like how did it actually not just affect their feelings, but their, yeah, their wealth?

Emily G (09:33): So it’s very difficult actually to look at objective net worth differences just because there’s so many different factors that would affect that over time. But if you think about something like life satisfaction, we know, for example, that relationship satisfaction is a really big part of. And so I would imagine we would see increases in life satisfaction through one satisfaction with their relationship. But I think based on the science that’s out there, I don’t think we can make a claim that joint finances lead to objectively better financial decisions, but we do know that it helps to get couples on the same page, so it at least helps with more transparency and can help them achieve their goals.

Emily R (10:18): I guess I just had that question because when you were phrasing it of buying more utilitarian type products from a joint account and not so much the hedonic products or services, I was just thinking that like some people need that accountability to meet their financial goals, for example, and so that actually might result in more savings or higher net worth. But maybe by buying fewer of those hedonic products, they might not have as much life satisfaction. Maybe they do it, but they’re not happy about it, even if they’re happy in their relationship. But I understand it’s very difficult to study those kinds of things and you answered the questions that you’re able to.

Emily G (10:54): My intuition is actually the same as yours. I thought we were gonna find opposite. <laugh> So I though people that are buying these products associated with happiness and using separate accounts might actually be happier and even more satisfied in their relationship because they feel like they’re purchasing whatever they want. But it actually seems that overall, a greater input into our relationship satisfaction is just feeling like we’re a team, right? So these hedonic products can increase short-term happiness, but if we think more about long-term happiness and life satisfaction is very much a proxy for long-term happiness, it seems that we see the flip such that joint accounts lead to greater relationship satisfaction and potentially life satisfaction.

Emily R (11:38): Yeah. And I just wanted to note, I think you said for that particular study, this was married couples, newly married couples. So they had already made that decision. They’d come to that point of that legal commitment, right? And so we’re not necessarily talking. We don’t know if we would see the same results for a, a couple at a different stage in their relationship.

Emily G (11:55): Yes. The study that was done looked specifically at newlyweds.

To Pool or Not to Pool? How Life Events Influence Shared Finances

Emily R (11:59): Yes. And then I guess to take it back to, that was a study done relatively recently, presumably on newlyweds. Do we know overall statistics about how younger couples are choosing to pool or not pool?

Emily G (12:11): Yes. So younger couples are actually much more likely to keep their money separate and they decide to merge when there’s some sort of big life event that necessitates. And so when I say big life event, this could of course be getting married as, as was done in the study, but it could also be something like just deciding to move in together and thinking about how you’re going to pay for your joint rent in your new apartment or your new place together. And so when that happens, what we see is that these couples tend to engage in this partial pooling practice where they’ll open, for example, a joint account where they can put money for their rent, for their groceries, for any shared expenses that they have together.

Emily R (12:56): And you just said that younger couples are much more likely to keep their money separate. Are you saying that’s relative to older generations or absolutely they are keeping things separate, perhaps with some exceptions of these life events? And then if those life events occur, what’s kind of the balance between people who stay fully separate and who do partial pooling or full pooling?

Emily G (13:17): Yeah. So this is relative to older couples that tend to be more likely to be married. And so once you marry, this is when people start to just merge more of their finances over time. But we are starting to see some shifts because couples are putting marriage off later and later, and so people are coming into a marriage with more assets than they had before compared to couples that were getting married young where it kind of made sense just to pool everything together when you had less.

Emily R (13:47): And I wonder, is the arrival of children one of those big life events that pushes couples more towards pooling?

Emily G (13:54): Absolutely.

Commercial

Emily (13:57): Emily here for a brief interlude. Would you like to learn directly from me on a personal finance topic, such as taxes, goal-setting, investing, budgeting, or designing your financial life, each tailored specifically for graduate students and postdocs? I offer live workshops, asynchronous online courses, and cohort-based programs on these topics, and I’m now booking for the 2026-2027 academic year. If you would like to bring my content to your institution, would you please recommend me as a speaker or facilitator to your university, graduate school, graduate student association, medical school, postdoc office, or postdoc association? My workshops are usually slated as professional development or personal wellness. Ask the potential host to go to PFforPhDs.com/financial-education/ or simply email me at [email protected] 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.

Advice for Couples With Significant Income Disparities

Emily R (15:26): Now I wanna think specifically about a situation that a lot of PhD trainees may be in, which is that they are in a relationship, but there is a significant income disparity. Maybe a grad student partnered with someone who has a full-time permanent job, same thing for postdocs. What does the research show or what advice would you have for a person, the lower earning person in that situation? Are there any best practices that you’ve uncovered?

Emily G (15:52): Yeah, so I can tell you first what I see in the data, and then I can talk a little bit about just some insights or some advice that I have from it. So with one of my PhD students, she’s specifically interested in heterosexual couples with an income disparity. And so one of the things that we’re looking at together is how do couples that have an income disparity choose to split shared expenses? And so as you can imagine, there are two common ways in which couples can split shared expenses. So they can either pay for something proportionally to income, which means that the higher earner would pay more because they make more, or they can split something equally, right? Split it right down the middle, fifty fifty split. And so one of the things that we find over and over again in our data is that the way in which couples choose to split shared expenses seems to be driven by the gender of the higher earner. And so what we find is that when the higher earner is the man, couples are much more likely to split proportionally the income. But when the higher earner is the woman, couples are much more likely to split equally. And so the question, of course, that we’re asking ourselves is, okay, why? Why do we see this over and over again? And it seems to come down to the idea of power and financial decision-making power. And so what seems to be happening is in relationships with income discrepancies, the higher earner sort of by default has more financial decision-making power, right? They are earning more of the money, and so they kind of feel like if there’s a shared expense, they should have more say because they’re bringing in more money to the relationship. And so what we see is that because men on average just tend to be more agentic, they really struggle with this idea of having their power be reduced. And so they’re trying to reclaim some of their decision-making power by offering to pay their fair share, which some would argue would be the fifty fifty split.

Emily G (18:06): But women, on the other hand, because women are much more communal, they don’t really mind as much if they have less decision-making power. And so they’re perfectly happy to just let the man pay for more and go with the proportional split if the man earns more. What does this mean for couples with income discrepancies? What, what advice would I give? I think what I would say is that just to be cognizant of the fact that if you are splitting a shared expense in which the higher earner does tend to have more weight, I think it’s important to realize that the shared expense is gonna be used by both of you. And so I think even if you are the lower earning PhD student, you should feel free to speak up and voice your preference, right? It’s your apartment too. It’s your car too. It’s your vacation too. And there’s no real reason why you shouldn’t have as much of a say in something that you are in fact contributing your own money to help, right?

Emily R (19:02): So I like that extension of your observation about this because you’re not really coming down on, “Oh, it’s better to do fifty fifty. It’s better to do proportional split.” You’re just saying, “These are the tendencies that people have. Let’s take a step back from that and understand the motivations.” And if you just use your voice as the lower earning person, you could be in either situation and you’re still trying to be heard equitably in your relationship. So that’s an amazing observation. Thank you.

Emily G (19:29): Yes. We don’t have, from the data, a clear finding of, “Oh, couples should split this way or they should split this way.” But what we do know is that people are upset if they feel like they don’t have a voice and they feel like they’re not being heard. And so this is a case where, I guess it’s different from what we found with the joint account data where it’s very clear pooling finances increases relationship satisfaction. Here, it’s just we see these descriptive differences between couples and we’re trying to wonder or ask ourselves why this is happening. And what we do know from decades of research at this point on power is that when people feel powerless, that’s a really aversive state. And so making sure that people feel power in their relationship is gonna be really important. And oftentimes we link power to money, and that doesn’t always necessarily have to be the way it’s done or handled in the relationship.

Emily R (20:23): And I guess I’ll also note for listeners wondering about this, the, the practice of pooling, like if you’re listening and saying, “Oh, I want greater relationship satisfaction, maybe I’ll bring up pooling with my partner.” The pooling can be fifty fifty. It can be proportional income. You can do it either way. That’s. Or somewhere in between. It’s not prescriptive in that way you can still pool in either one of those scenarios.

Emily G (20:43): Yes. And I think another thing that’s important for me to communicate is the fact that what does pooling do? It essentially increases transparency and it forces couples to get on the same page and have conversations about where they are with their finances. And this is something that you can do even without pooling, right? Pooling is just one way to facilitate that, but there’s a lot of apps and a lot of tools out there like Monarch, for example, or Honey Do is another app that’s specifically made for couples that can increase financial transparency and help you get on the same page. So if you’re someone that’s not fully comfortable with the idea of merging accounts or opening a joint bank account with your partner, you can still achieve higher financial transparency or financial intimacy just by being open about your financial status.

The Complexities of Academic Life: Major Income Changes and Relocation

Emily R (21:38): Yeah. Thank you for adding that. That’s another great observation. Um, okay. Let’s think about a further evolution of the scenario we just talked about, which is we have a couple with income disparity, one person is in PhD training, maybe one person’s in that full permanent job, and then things switch. The PhD comes out of training, they receive a massive income increase. Woo-hoo, everybody’s so excited about that. But then what changes in their relationship and the power dynamics that you were just talking about? Has this been studied at all? And again, are there best practices around this?

Emily G (22:10): Yes. To the best of my knowledge, this hasn’t been studied specifically in the literature, but I am happy to talk about what I think would happen and also just give some anecdotal observations. And what we know is that change is hard, and it’s also really difficult to prioritize two careers equally. And so I think what happens in a lot of couples is that people just naturally tend to prioritize the career of the person who makes more. And so if there is some sort of flip in the relationship, it’s gonna be quite difficult for the person who was once the breadwinner and no longer is to maybe take a back seat. And I think PhDs in particular, and especially PhDs that go into academia, have a really difficult time because not only might the breadwinner within the relationship flip, but oftentimes we don’t have a lot of say in where we have a job or where we have to move. And I think it’s really hard for the partner that has to suddenly pick up and relocate and move potentially to a location where they don’t wanna move, but it might be the only academic job that their partner got. And so this is really, really complicated relationship dynamics.

Emily G (23:28): And so I’ve seen this go both ways. I’ve seen examples where couples thrive and they have a partner that says, “You go out and you get the best academic job you can get and I’ll make it work.” I’ve also seen couples where they’ve fallen apart because the partner doesn’t wanna move where the spouse got a job. And so now they’re doing long distance because the other spouse just didn’t wanna make it work or couldn’t, or to some extent couldn’t make it work. Maybe it wasn’t their fault. And so one thing that I think is really important for PhDs in particular is just to be super open with your partner about your career trajectory, your career plans. If your partner’s not able to accommodate a move to anywhere in the country, I think targeted job searches are really important. One thing that drives me crazy in both jobs I’ve had in Ithaca at Cornell and in South Bend at the University of Notre Dame is you interview people and you get excited and you make them an offer and then they say, “Oh, my spouse can’t move here.” When it’s like, I feel like you should have had that conversation before you applied to the job about would it even be realistic for them to pick up and move here? And so I think sort of the general theme of all of this is just that conversations around your job and your career plans are also financial conversations. I don’t know if we always think of them that way, but salary and salary transparency in your career goals and your hopes for the future are all things that you should be talking about. And yeah, so I think just being open and honest about the fact that you might not have a say in where you move and it’s just a very different career and lifestyle, I think is something that is really important for your partner to be aware of.

Emily R (25:19): Yes, I totally agree. And I’m thinking now even about specifically because you mentioned an academic, a PhD who’s continuing on in academia, that may not result in being the higher earning partner. The person who was earning more before may still be the breadwinner in that relationship, and then you really have more power dynamics to deal with if it, we have to move for this job, but it’s not gonna even increase my salary as much as yours is. That is really tough. And obviously within academia, we- There’s a lot of ink spilled about the two-body problem and so forth. And so we have ways of handling that if it’s two academic partners, but not so much if it’s one person in academia and one person not, and certainly not if it’s two people outside of the academic system who are trying to navigate this. So I totally agree. Really?

Emily G (26:02): Yeah. The two-body problem is real. And there, once again, there’s no right answer, right? You can’t say, “Oh, you should clearly do this or you should clearly do that.” Each couple has to have the conversation and figure it out for themselves. And I think the conversation also needs to be ongoing, because I also know instances where maybe a spouse agreed to one thing, and then they move and they start their respective jobs, and then they realize that it’s just not working for them. And I think, once again, just being open and honest about these things is really important.

Emily R (26:31): Yeah. I’m so glad you brought up the particular difficulties of having a career in academia, or we might say overall, just a very specialized career where there might be very limited number of places that you could live in the US or around the world to do your particular unique niche thing that you do. Absolutely.

Emily G (26:48): And I’ve mentioned this a few times, but really excited to be on this podcast for PhDs because it always blows my mind to how people outside of academia don’t really realize, for example, that if you are denied tenure, you have to move. And just having gone through the tenure process recently and telling people like, “Oh, I hope I get it. I hope I get to stay.” And they’re like, “What do you mean?” <laugh> And yeah, these are things that I think are very idiosyncratic to our careers.

Emily R (27:16): And I know I was just mentioning geographical limitations, but academics are spread out, let’s say, across the US. You might land in a town that doesn’t have an industry that’s compatible with your partner’s career track. And thankfully, there is so much more opportunity for remote work now. My husband and I both work remotely and are very happy about that, but not every job is- lends itself to that kind of arrangement. Emily, this has been so insightful. Thank you so much for coming on sharing your research and what you’ve learned from the literature and the studies that you’ve done about couples and money and this income disparity. So fascinating.

Best Financial Advice for Another Early-Career PhD

Emily R (27:50): I want to wrap up with the final question that I ask of all my guests, which is what is your best financial advice for an early career PhD? And this can be something we’ve touched on in the interview already, or it can be something completely new.

Emily G (28:02): Okay, great. So I think my best advice is if I think back to my early career as a PhD, and we’re talking about sort of these, these income disparities and these changes in income, I just remember thinking basically overnight, you go from getting used to making a relatively small amount of money for five to six years, and then you wake up the next day and you’re doing much better, right? You get your first job out of the PhD and you’re making a lot more money. And I, I remember feeling like I could just buy whatever I wanted. Like I had so much money now, and it was so much more than, than I had been used to. What we know from the literature is that when income goes up, spending also tends to go up as well. And this is a finding that’s referred to as lifestyle creep.

Emily G (28:53): And so I think my best advice would be to think about maybe some ways to avoid lifestyle creep, and your spending doesn’t have to go up in everything. And so one of the things that I like to do is think about what types of things bring me the most joy, and then I increase my spending on those things. But then other things, I held my spending constant, and I still spend similarly to when I was a PhD student. And so if you think about, for example, other books that are out there, like Cassie Mogilner’s book on Happier Hour teaches us to think about what things help you find the most joy, or Ramit Sethi’s book on Money for Couples and finding your rich life, right? What is your rich life? And so I think that when you get these big boosts to your income, I guess my advice would be to increase spending on things that bring you the most joy, but it’s okay not to splurge on other things.

Emily R (29:54): Absolutely. The way that I phrase that when I teach on this topic, and it’ such an important one for being mindful in those career transition points is that, yeah, we should avoid lifestyle creep or lifestyle inflation, but you absolutely should indulge in intentional lifestyle increases in those areas that matter most to you, as you were saying. And as a follow-on, let’s be real careful about those fixed expenses, okay? Let’s be careful about the housing that we commit to, the car that we commit to, because those are a little harder to change once you’ve made that initial decision and you might have been riding high and not realizing, “Oh, there’s a lot of taxes I have to pay, and oh, there’s a lot of other increases.” So love that advice, very relevant for this audience. Thank you so much. Emily, again, this is a wonderful interview. Thank you very much for coming on.

Emily G (30:39): Thank you so much for having me. It was a real pleasure.

Outro

Emily (30:44): 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? We 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 view transcripts or videos of each episode? We 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! Nothing you hear on this podcast should be taken as financial, tax, or legal advice for any individual. Podcast editing by me and show notes creation by Dr. Jill Hoffman.

This PhD Candidate-Parent Draws Financial Support from Her State, Her Union, and More

September 14, 2026 by Jill Hoffman Leave a Comment

In this episode, Emily interviews Madeline Hebert, a 5th-year PhD candidate at the University of Connecticut and married mother of a toddler and newborn. Madeline shares how her money mindset has changed over the last several years, from poring over every last expense in her budget to investing in frugal strategies and increasing her income through fellowships and paid projects. She also details the systems from which she has drawn financial support, chiefly through state childcare benefits and her grad student union. The total value of these benefits is so high that Madeline chose not to pursue a $100k one-year fellowship because it would have negatively impacted her family’s bottom line.

Links mentioned in the Episode

This PhD Candidate-Parent Draws Financial Support from Her State, Her Union, and More

Teaser

Madeline (00:00): I found myself applying for like every single award, grant, um, scholarship. And before I would let imposter syndrome affect it a lot more being like, oh, like I’m not qualified or I don’t fit that or whatnot. But instead now I’m like, I need money. I’m taking every single opportunity I can get.

Introduction

Emily (00:21): Welcome to the Personal Finance for PhDs Podcast: A Higher Education in Personal Finance. 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. I’m your host, Dr. Emily Roberts, a financial educator specializing in early-career PhDs and founder of Personal Finance for PhDs.

Emily (00:51): This is Season 25, Episode 2, and today my guest is Madeline Hebert, a 5th-year PhD candidate at the University of Connecticut and married mother of a toddler and newborn. Madeline shares how her money mindset has changed over the last several years, from poring over every last expense in her budget to investing in frugal strategies and increasing her income through fellowships and paid projects. She also details the systems from which she has drawn financial support, chiefly through state childcare benefits and her grad student union. The total value of these benefits is so high that Madeline chose not to pursue a $100k one-year fellowship because it would have negatively impacted her family’s bottom line.

Emily (01:41): Let’s talk fellowship taxes for a minute here. These action items are for you if you recently switched or will soon switch onto non-W-2 fellowship income as a grad student, postdoc, or postbac; you are a US citizen, resident, or resident for tax purposes; and you are not having income tax withheld from your stipend or salary. Action item #1: Fill out the Estimated Tax Worksheet on p. 12 of IRS Form 1040-ES. This worksheet will estimate how much income tax you will owe in 2026 and tell you whether you are required to make manual tax payments on a quarterly basis. The next quarterly estimated tax due date is September 15, 2026. Action item #2: Whether you are required to make estimated tax payments or pay a lump sum at time tax, open a separate, named savings account for your future tax payments. Calculate the fraction of each paycheck that will ultimately go toward tax and set up an automated recurring transfer from your checking account to your tax savings account to prepare for that bill. This is what I call a system of self-withholding, and I suggest putting it in place starting with your very first fellowship paycheck so that you don’t get into a financial bind when the payment deadline arrives. If you need some help with the Estimated Tax Worksheet or want to ask me a question, please consider joining my workshop, Quarterly Estimated Tax for Fellowship Recipients. It explains every line of the worksheet and answers the common questions that PhD trainees have about estimated tax. The workshop includes video content, a spreadsheet, and invitations to at least one live Q&A call each quarter this tax year. The last live Q&A call for this quarter is today, Monday, September 14, 2026. If you want to purchase this workshop as an individual, go to PFforPhDs.com/QEtax/. You can find the show notes for this episode at PFforPhDs.com/s25e2/. Without further ado, here’s my interview with Madeline Hebert.

Will You Please Introduce Yourself Further?

Emily (04:08): I am delighted to have joining me on the podcast today a repeat podcast guest, Madeline Hebert. She is a rising fifth year PhD candidate at the University of Connecticut and was last on the podcast in season 16, episode one, talking about having her first child very early on in graduate school and how she budgeted for all of that and figured out childcare. And we’re gonna be revisiting some of those same topics, but in, you know, a few years further along in this episode because Madeline has now had her second child during graduate school, um, and has, you know, that’s really changed her thinking about, um, things related to money. So Madeline, thank you so much for coming back on the podcast. Will you please introduce yourself a little bit further for the audience?

Madeline (04:50): Thanks. Yes. Um, my name is Madeline Hebert. I am a fifth year graduate student at the University of Connecticut, and I have two children now. One who is two and a half, will be three in August and the other one was born on, in February. So I’m really excited to be back here. I study LGBTQ youth, um, and interested in public policy, intervention prevention for them. And then my husband, he’s a telemetry worker. He’s also now a student himself and he has been working an hourly rate and now is about to go down to, um, about like per diem, what they call, is what they call it.

Emily (05:28): And what’s he studying?

Madeline (05:29): He is, um, he just got entered, uh, accepted into a dental hygienist program. It’s at the local community college and we’re really excited about that because yeah, he’s really excited to get to change career um, transitions basically.

Parenthood and Its Impact on Your Money Mindset

Emily (05:43): Awesome. Well, let’s get into it. Our last interview fell at a really like interesting stage because you, at the time of the art interview, you were pregnant, um, with the first baby. And obviously, you know, that, that stage is what it is and you’re a parent already, but now you’re a parent in a much different way <laugh> having two babies out in the world in childcare, you know, you have to balance everything with your, your work and all that. So just, you know, give us your thoughts now about how your view of money has changed, you know, in the past few years, um, with these life stages.

Madeline (06:15): I think that like at the beginning, I used to be super really anxious about money and I was doing like a l – I was following like a lot of the budgeting and itemization and looking back behind and, um, and that was really useful for the time. But now with like two children, it’s much more difficult and stressful, I think, to do like all the item line by line and to take the time and have the time to be budgeting like that. So I find that instead thinking about money in a very global sense, being like, okay, I know how much I’m generally going to be making this month and we try to stick to that expenditure within the month and we kind of more so like maybe once a week I’ll look at my app and be like, okay, like we are either above or below what I think that we should be for having spent for that month. But that has also reduced a lot of financial anxiety and has also helped a lot with being able to manage like, okay, are we able to spend what we need?

Madeline (07:10): Also thinking about money as like, okay, I have to buy things in a very cost effective way. So we signed up for a Costco membership, which at the upfront is a bit more expensive and we’re very fortunate to be able to cover that cost because in the end we’re ending up saving a lot on buying in bulk and buying shelf stable foods and buying, um, things like freezer, large amounts of meat that we can freeze and use throughout the month kind of thing. So we kind of now shop monthly. So that’s also kind of affected my, the way that I think about money. And then like literally just finding every single way to make money, um, from a kind, not from a side hustle perspective, because again, like when you have kids, your time becomes very precious and very limited I have found, but at the same time it’s much more intentional. And so instead it’s more kind of like, not even passive income, but making use of a high yield savings account and taking advantage of entry, um, entry modes for the fact that I travel at least twice a year for conferences, I invested in a travel, um, the, a travel credit card that is a little bit, again, pricey at the upfront, but then I essentially am being paid to have it because of how much I’m using it and the benefits that it’s giving me and the, um, travel credits that it’s given me. And so things like that, um, I’ve been taking advantage of. Um, I’m also been trying to find, I found myself applying for like every single award, grant, um, scholarship. And before I would let imposter syndrome affect it a lot more being like, oh, like I’m not qualified or I don’t fit that or whatnot. But instead now I’m like, I need money. <laugh> I’m taking every single opportunity I can get. I’m trying to, I find myself having to try to hop onto every single like project that I have the capacity for and I have to be much more intentional about which projects I sign up for because again, that time’s limited and I’ve had to turn down some opportunities in fact because they were not paid. I have to be like very upfront and being like, I’m sorry, but I’m looking for a paid summer, um, project to work on and to help with. But that’s also led to me reaching out to other faculty who I might not have reached out to before because I knew that they had funding and I tried to find ways that, in which my own research could fit into their project. So this way I could also be of hireable help in the, in other words.

Madeline (09:34): So that’s been kind of interesting because that relationship with money I’ve found has also affected my relationship with my research in trying to be like, okay, I need a project and a research interest that helps me also create a path forward in careers that are more popular in the higher paying industry. So moving towards a public policy research prevention intervention space has allowed me to be looking into more government type jobs and looking into public policy related jobs, public health jobs. So that’s something that was also kind of a, I am interested in it, but also because the way of my relationship with money now I’m moving towards that as well.

Emily (10:17): I think all of those shifts that you just mentioned are really positive and ones that probably other grad students, whether they’re parents or not, probably need to be moving in those directions. I mean, understanding that like your work and research has to have some market value, like yeah, of course it does, like especially moving out of graduate school or out of academia. I wanna take some of the things that you just mentioned piece by piece, um, because again, I do think these are all like really positive evolutions, um, maybe for you motivated by becoming a parent, but also again, something that other people can learn from whether they’re in that situation or not. And the first one you mentioned was about like sort of getting out of the weeds of, um, super detailed tracking or like daily basis kind of tracking and getting up into the, um, how can I have a longer term view of my money and of frugality so that you are, as you were kind of saying, like it’s okay if something costs more upfront if it’s able to help you spend less over time. And that is something that I think maybe can take some time for people to make that leap because they do need to get out of the like s- serious paycheck to paycheck cycle to be able to do something like purchase a Costco membership or, you know, pay the upfront annual fee for a travel credit card. But it is possible for a lot of people who to start taking that longer view. So I’m really, um, glad that you mentioned that. Do you think, because I have also made the shift dur – I also made the shift during graduate school. Do you think it was necessary to be in the weeds for a period of time before making that jump? Or do you think, mm, I could have just taken this like higher level view from the beginning and that would’ve been better?

Madeline (11:58): I think that was really beneficial. I’m not entirely sure if it was necessary per se, but I do think that for me it was really beneficial because it helped me get a good grip of like, okay, this is how much I can spend. I tend to think of very black and white thinking. So saying, okay, I have $20 to spend this week on snacks really makes me aware of like, okay, how much have I gone to Starbucks this week? But then it also gives me this freedom to say, oh, if I want Starbucks, I have like X amount of money still to set aside to spend on myself. Whereas now I’m like, okay, like I know that I want to go and spend money on myself, but now I’m a little bit more like, okay, like, well, where are we a little bit and want to check in with my husband about it? And then, but because I have a husband to also kind of like talk about finances with, it has made it to where we do have to talk about like, okay, like, do we want to set aside a little bit of money or make sure that we have spent roughly an allocation of particular amount of that monthly bu – higher budget? But because he works an hourly job, so some months he’s only worked like a full three weeks instead of four weeks or we travel for two weeks, like that is a constantly shifting number. So it helps us to not be like, oh, well, this week we don’t have this much or it reduces a lot of the anxiety around there by not having that, um, minutia or minute, um, examination of the numbers.

Emily (13:24): I think probably you’ve also most likely dialed in your larger necessary expenses, um, and you’ve become very familiar with them over the time that you’ve been in graduate school so that, um, you don’t have to pay as much attention to those really, really tiny expenses if the, if the large ones are dialed in appropriately. I know we’re gonna talk about childcare a little bit later on, but can you share with us how, like, your housing has changed over that period of time?

Changes In Fixed Expenses: Housing, Food, Internet, & Streaming Services

Madeline (13:51): It’s funny that you mentioned it because the housing changed after the childcare changed. So originally we were living in a one bedroom, um, apartment and it was about 1,400 starting off in every year it would increase about $50. So that was a pretty, like, manageable increase. And, um, that has now actually increased to an apartment that is about 1,800 now, now 1,900, just recently, 1,945 for our two bedroom apartment, two bathroom apartment, which, which has honestly been, like, much higher quality of life for us though. Um, but that changed. Our food has been still roughly around 300, some months 400 to 500, but we don’t go out very- I find that we swapped going out to, like, a nice restaurant for more Taco Bell and McDonald’s kind of restaurants, and maybe once a month we’ll actually go out to a real restaurant. Um, and so those kind of expenditures have changed. They, but it still feels like we’re going out to eat. It still feels like, oh, we’re not, like, cooking every single night. Um, but my husband makes a very good point that very often we do cook, probably more so than a lot of our peers that he finds. Um, and so, like, just about every night he cooks or we have a, like, leftovers. Um, and so that, um, has gone down. Trying to bundle, like, expenses for, like, streaming services usually. He’s got, like, for example, Disney through his phone bill. I realized that our internet service was doing, like, another deal. It had increased after, like, that two-year promotional contract, but then I found out that I’ve, every now and then I check. And so by doing that, I found out, “Oh, wait, they’re doing a new promotion that’s actually cheaper than what I’m currently paying. Let me get in on that, and now I pay less again for my internet.” So s- some small things like that. Those are our biggest expenses, that electricity, water. We don’t really spend much on, on other things. Those are kind of the big bucket spending things I find.

Emily (15:52): Yeah, it’s really good that you’re paying attention to those fixed expenses, like, you know, phone bill, internet bill, these kinds of things. Like you said, you just have to touch base, like, maybe once a quarter, you know, one, once every, you know, twice a year, something like that. And then you can find those opportunities. And it doesn’t have to be the daily checking in, right, like you sometimes would do with your variable expenses. Now, there was another, um, sort of big category you mentioned earlier in your answer, which is about, um, increasing your income has become much more of a priority for you, um, having the children. And again, I think this makes a lot of sense that the general grad student evolution, and of course, thinking forward to your next stage in your career. I really like that you mentioned that you used to feel some, um, imposter phenomenon and now you’re just like, “I have to get through it because I just need the money. I just have to apply anyway.” Um, can you expand on that a little bit more, like, maybe how you look for opportunities?

Finding Opportunities to Earn Extra Income During Grad School

Madeline (16:44): My department, they tend to do, like, a little weekly announcement being like, “So-and-so, congrats. They got some sort of award.” Um, it’s been making me, like, they, we also get these, like, daily digests that are super annoying, honestly, but they also offer, like, a rewards and fellowship, scholarship opportunities. And I, every single day now, I s – just scan it being like, “Hmm, is there anything that looks like it might be worth my while to go look into?” Um, if I hear that so-and-so got, like, an assistantship with a professor, I’m like, “Hey, um, can, I was wondering if you think that they might have a little bit, if they might be still looking for people or, um, is there, like, anything that might need assistance on?” Um, just, also just remembering, okay, like, every single time I’m reminded that there’s yearly of scholarship awards, I apply for every single one that I can. And I try not to get in my head by being like, “Oh, well, like, do I deserve to apply for, like, the financial need-based scholarship? Do I, um, is it bad that I’m asking for government assistance?” So, like, I know that my state offers, um, financial assistance for winter heating, even if your heating is included in your rent. It offers assistance for diapers, it offers assistance. My university has, like, a parent resource event once a semester, and I go attend that and I make sure I grab some diapers and some, and some wipes and stuff. So, like, not trying to get the shame and the guilt and all that encumbered, and instead being like, “Okay, like, these are things that I need to take advantage of so that this way, like, I don’t have to spend these expenditures later on.”

Emily (18:16): I’m so glad you brought that up, because it’s actually a theme I’ve been exploring in some other podcast interviews recently, and also in the writing that I’m doing about kind of getting past the mental blocks that might tell you this assistance being offered is not for me, or I do not deserve to avail myself of these resources. Um, and just, like, from an outside perspective, like, you haven’t even mentioned how much money you make or anything, but, like, you’re a PhD student, your husband’s now, like, working part-time and going to school. Like, you all are investing in yourselves, in your education, in your professional development right now, and that’s something that our society should support. And for goodness sakes, you got two children too. So, like, let’s support this family as you’re all growing and developing, and that will make you so much more successful and able to, you know, contribute so much to society, both of you, all four of you, um, in the future. And so, it just makes sense to me that, like, that people make these resources available and that you should take advantage of them, um, and as much as possible, get out of your feelings about it. Like you’ve said, that you’ve really been trying to, like, push past. So, like.

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Emily (19:25): Emily here for a brief interlude. Would you like to learn directly from me on a personal finance topic, such as taxes, goal-setting, investing, budgeting, or designing your financial life, each tailored specifically for graduate students and postdocs? I offer live workshops, asynchronous online courses, and cohort-based programs on these topics, and I’m now booking for the 2026-2027 academic year. If you would like to bring my content to your institution, would you please recommend me as a speaker or facilitator to your university, graduate school, graduate student association, medical school, postdoc office, or postdoc association? My workshops are usually slated as professional development or personal wellness. Ask the potential host to go to PFforPhDs.com/financial-education/ or simply email me at [email protected] 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.

Connecticut’s Government Assistant Program: Care 4 Kids

Emily (20:54): Let’s move on to then talking about, like, what are the sort of helps and, and systems and resources that you have noticed around you, especially since becoming a parent, um, and just go through them, like, one by one, because other people may, you know, see similar things in their own surroundings.

Madeline (21:10): Perhaps the biggest number one support, um, system besides my family itself is probably, um, this, honestly, the state government assistance and that exists within Connecticut. So the Connecticut, um, offers a, what they call Care 4 Kids program, which is a state subsidy program for childcare that the, the kind of effect that it’s had, it has reduced a childcare that normally is, like, around at least 1400 up to $2,000 per kid down to, like, $200 for our family. Um, and so, like, you can hear, like, just how enormous of a difference and shift of financial, um, freedom that that allows, and financial flexibility that that kind of assistance allows. Um, so that has been just monumentally incredible for allowing us to be able to move into our two bedroom apartment, to be able to continue buying healthy foods for ourselves, to make sure that we’re able to sustain ourselves, not only in just not, to where we’re not just surviving, but we’re actually being able to still thrive to some degree. And so –

Emily (22:14): May I ask, um, because on the last interview that you gave, I, I believe you were talking about how you had chosen, like, a campus affiliated daycare. That I think maybe was sliding scale, if I’m remembering correctly. Um, did you not know about the state system at that point? Or, like, when did that s- When did you kinda, like, plug into that?

Madeline (22:31): That’s a good question, because I don’t remember if I didn’t know about the state assistance back then or not. I don’t think I did. I think that I learned about it a couple of months in, and that’s actually been a really tricky thing, because the state system requires you. They, they prioritize parents who are working, they prioritize parents who are working, and students. So, PhD student, um, parent, really great candidate. Um, but it also has income caps where you have to make, um, to get in, you have to make around, like, 65% of the state median income, and then once you’re in, you can make up to 85% of the state median income to remain in the program. And so, but they base it off of either what you make yearly or what you make monthly. And so what I make monthly, because I’m a student with a stipend amount monthly, it looks much higher, even though yearly I’m not being paid for three months. So in reality, I have to essentially save away a portion of my income for, to cover this summer month. So what I ended up doing is I applied it as an annual income, and I indicate that I’m being paid essentially annually because that would reduce how much I’m being shown to be m- making for the monthly expense, which allowed us to be able to enter into the program. But that’s really tricky because if you don’t realize that you can and need to do that as a graduate student, especially on this kind of contract system, then you look like you’re making too much and you don’t qualify. Literally, when it first happened, it looked like I was like, “You’re, like, $20 over. You don’t qualify.” And so for actually, like, up until probably in January, maybe even March of the first year, we were paying, like, $900 every single month. And that’s only because I divided what is a 10-month tuition rate, um, across a 12-month, um, span.

Emily (24:22): So at the time that you first applied, you had to be at 65% of the median income for the state or lower. Um, and it sounds like, you know, y- you figured out a way to present your income accurately, um, but so that it showed that. And then after that point, you would be permitted to increase your income. So when you’ve talked about, like, applying for more fellowships or, like, applying to, you know, have additional assistantships or, or what have you, that has not bumped you above that 85%, it sounds like.

Madeline (24:47): Correct. Correct.

Emily (24:48): So it’s a little bit of a game of, like, we wanna increase the income, but we know there’s a ceiling at some point.

Madeline (24:53): Yes. And that part of that was when we were like, “You know what? Now’s a great time for my husband to drop down from being full-time to part-time and so, and become a student, so this way our income cannot go above that threshold.” So that- He had already been planning on becoming a student, but the original idea was that he would go after my PhD, but then we were like, “Actually, it’s really beneficial for us to be able to, um, have you go now, so this way we don’t go above that threshold.” So it’s being cognizant of, like, okay, how much are we making now to fit into all these, like, little pieces? It’s like a puzzle game.

A $200 per Month Childcare Bill That Gets Reimbursed

Emily (25:28): I don’t know if your second child has already entered into, um, daycare, but when you have the two in, what’s the total cost gonna be for the household?

Madeline (25:36): So they do what’s called a family fee. And at first, I wasn’t sure about how that would work because the family fee is supposed to be like a percentage of your total income. And it turns out that no matter how many ch – well, at least for our case, having two children in it, it’s still basing upon the family fee itself. So one child now we pay for, and the other child is essentially free, actually. I don’t know what that’s going to look like because every single summer they change daycares because the current, the school affiliated daycare is only open until June, and I still got work in the summer, so they switch daycares and then back, they return back in the fall. And those daycares have different rates, so that’s a little bit complicated. But, um, essentially, we only pay $200, and we were paying $200, and now we still pay $200. So that’s been really incredible.

Emily (26:26): That is incredible. I, I think about, like, you know, when people talk about how, like, you know, the US is one of the only developed countries that doesn’t have, like, early childhood education and all of that. It’s like, wow, Connecticut is doing it at least for these, like, low income, like, residents like you all are. So, again, that’s really, really encouraging that that’s available to you. And, um, something that, you know, people who aspire to become parents during graduate school, if you know that beforehand, you can really look carefully at, you know, the individual universities and the states that they’re in to see what kind of support is gonna be available to you from those different, like, levels. Okay, so you said the main big time support is this childcare program through the state, that’s amazing, but what else has helped you financially?

Madeline (27:08): My union’s been really great as well because they offer also a childcare reimbursement program, or not program, but they have a childcare reimbursement fund. And so, they actually calculate a per kid rate, and because our, um, childcare costs are so low now, we essentially get reimbursed fully for the childcare costs from that funding as well. So, that’s another little bump up that we get, um, from the union every semester.

Emily (27:35): Okay. My mind is, like, blown right now. Like, <laugh> like, okay, childcare, number one, like, I think we talked last time, like, there are several big costs going into, you know, having a child. Childcare, top of the list, leaves also up there, insurance also up there, medical bills, of course, feeding and, and diapering and so forth. But, like, the childcare is, like, the main. Once you get through the whole birth and, and, you know, newborn phase, like, the childcare is the main, main, main big expense. And so, ugh, I’m just so pleased that those resources were available for you, um, because, yeah, you, you wouldn’t have to, you know, take such a huge financial hit for this decision to become a parent during graduate school, so that’s amazing.

Madeline (28:15): The fact of the way that the childcare subsidy program works, the way that my union works is actually a reason that I declined, like, the. Well, I almost had the opportunity. I was, um, in the process of getting interviewed for a job that would pay, like, 100K, honestly, but it had no health insurance, no contracts for any sort of assistance like that. And because it paid so much on paper, I would essentially make myself in, um, ineligible for remaining in the subsidy program. And when I did the math, I came out making less per month, essentially, because of all the additional costs compared to just staying as essentially the idea of the poor graduate student, right? And so that was kind of ironic to me to see, like, the- just the. We don’t talk about it as much, I think, the financial relief that, like, just having certain systems in place, because it doesn’t come on paper that I’m making a lot, but I essentially am receiving the benefit of a much more higher cost than, than what I would be making if I were making much more money.

Madeline (29:21): Especially, especially being pregnant and then expecting to deliver that baby and such. Um, I though about that too. I was like, “What’s the cost of paying marketplace health insurance compared to what my union subsidizes through our employment and everything and what that covers too, because we don’t, we didn’t pay, we don’t pay anything for hospitalizations or anything that comes from hospitalization. Um, and I know that people can pay, like, a couple thousand dollars for having a baby, just like most basic way of having a baby. Um, and we’re really fortunate because our baby ended up in the PICU center right after birth, and it was such a relief to know that we wouldn’t have to really worry about being hit with a extremely high medical bill after that.

Emily (30:05): Oh my goodness. Yes.

Madeline (30:07): Yeah, I, I think that people don’t realize like, oh, like looking at the benefits that a place offers you is, is almost just as important as looking, well, probably just as important as looking at the actual numbers that the place is offering you. That’s what I’ve learned. <laugh>

Emily (30:21): And when you were looking at that job offer, the 100K job offer, would that be like you would’ve left your PhD program and that would’ve been your full-time thing?

Madeline (30:29): Yes. I would’ve taken. I was planning on, um, considering an academic leave of absence because it’s a one-year fellowship to work as like a state governor’s, um, fellow. So I didn’t have the job offer officially, but it was, um, I was in the second round of interviews and then I found out I was pregnant and then I was like, “Oh dear, I need to figure out this before I make serious adjustments.” Um, and part of that was because with all the budget cuts and everything, my department and a lot of departments across, um, the university have been limiting the graduate assistantship hours from a full-time to a 75%. So that was something that I was trying to navigate. And that goes back to that value of money, prioritizing, making sure that my family is cared for and making sure that we’re making enough money versus being like, okay, like not necessarily being like, oh, is this necessarily the best trying to get out of my degree as fast as I can or trying to go on every single project I can. I have to think a little bit differently than I think than I would’ve if I weren’t in this position as a grad student.

Emily (31:26): Mm-hmm. And is that because of basically your limited work hours, like because of the amount of childcare/how much time of course you want to spend with your children? Um, is that the limiting factor is at the time?

Madeline (31:37): I don’t find it’s the time actually. It’s, it really is just making like at 20% we’re able to afford life. It really, and then at 75% we would be going into debt more. And so it’s, it was a waiting game of figuring out like, would I be able to secure a 20-hour assistantship? Would my husband, what is my husband going to be paid at? How many hours is he going to get? How many hours do I need? Just all of the, those small, that’s where my new money calculation into the weeds has gotten into, is to looking at like those kind of things being like, what do we need to be able to afford life at not even like high quality, I would say, but just like being able to be like, okay, we don’t have to fear like going into debt really, um, for just like daily living. And so that was what I was really considering. I was like, oh, like 100K looks really good to be able to know like, oh, I, I’m pretty sure we can, we can survive off of that kind of thing. Um, and how is that gonna look with my husband going to school and having to drop hours potentially because of schooling and stuff? Um, ironically, I find myself to be even more focused and more, working more because of daycare. I’m like, oh, I only have nine to five. I gotta get some work done in this hour. Whereas before I was like, it’s three o’clock. I wanna go nap. I can work later in the evening. And then, and not actually work probably.

Emily (33:02): Yeah. I definitely saw that in graduate school with like the postdocs in my lab who were parents, like who kept very rigid hours but were very efficient when they were there. Any other sort of, um, sources of support that you’ve relied on?

Creating a Village During Grad School

Madeline (33:15): Yes. Um, a lot in the parenting community I find you talk about like creating a village. And so I have found the village through having, finding friends through my daycare, finding friends through literally just seeing people at like the farmer’s market with a kid and being like, “Hey, you have a baby. I have a baby. Let’s be friends.” Um, just finding different ways of support. And so that’s been emotionally, that’s been sometimes even financially, not necessarily that they’re paying us, but for example, when our baby was in the hospital, our friends picked up our oldest. Our friends helped us by, we do family dinner nights now. And so we share in the cost of like eating together, sometimes getting groceries. We go to Costco together. So like sharing in purchases like that sometimes financially has been really beneficial.

Emily (34:01): I think the intangible support though, like, not intangible, the, the tangible support that doesn’t have a dollar sign associated with it, um, is really, really important. And I know you’re long distance from your family and your husband’s family, right? Um, and similarly, when I had my children, we were long distance from all of our family members. And I also created a village with other parents in a similar situation. Uh, there were a lot around. Um, and so actually this has come up in recent interviews as well of like, in that case, my interviewees were talking about how it’s so beneficial to have roommates because you have a built-in support system that’s different than having just friends who you don’t live with. Like yeah, that person’s gonna give you a ride to the airport or like you can share food or what have you. And so you’ve created a similar thing among like the community of parents around you. Makes total sense. And it does, it does boil down to your bottom line eventually because maybe you get those favors, you know, that you would’ve had to pay a babysitter to do, um, otherwise. Or like you’re saying, the time that you would spend like cooking, maybe you only have to do that, you know, half as much as you used to because you’re able to share with your community. Um, it has both a positive like emotional effect as well as ultimately a financial effect.

Madeline (35:11): Yes, it definitely. The babysitting part’s big time because we’ve babysit for each other now and I’m like, that saves like easily 100, $200 because babysitting is not cheap.

Emily (35:21): My, uh, parent, community of parents near me now, uh, our kids are a little bit older, but we’re always like, “It’s easier when there’s other kids over because they just entertain each other and we can, you know, go cook or whatever needs to happen.”

Madeline (35:33): That’s exactly our thinking behind those family nights.

Emily (35:36): Yeah. So we’ve gone through, um, the, the state system and the childcare, the union, um, your, the village you’ve created. Any other sources of support that you’ve leaned on?

Additional Supports: Home Visitors and a Buy Nothing Group

Madeline (35:47): The other systems I can think of would be like the, um, home visitors, uh, which is part of the state systems that exist. And then also our Buy Nothing group, ironically, even though, like, it’s not the same as any other system that I have, to be honest. It’s been very interesting in that I can just say like, “Hey, like, we are looking for some help with, for maternity photos. We would love to have some, but we can’t afford them. Would someone be willing to come take our photos?” Just something like that, having neighbors who we can say, “Hey, um, can you help us move into our new apartment?” Um, they’ve been really, really helpful just to be like, “Hey, I need somebody who can drive my husband because my kids are all asleep. Can you take him to the doctors for us?” So those are other kind of little systems just like that we’ve created that’s kind of part of that village, but it’s not quite the same relationship as like a friendship, I would argue.

Emily (36:38): Mm-hmm. That’s interesting that your buy nothing community extends to like favors. I, I haven’t noticed that in mine. It’s more just like things, like take these things, have these things, you know, um, which I certainly use now. And honestly, for children who are growing very quickly, it’s very, very useful to have a pipeline of, you know, hand-me-downs coming your way and a place to get, you know, cheaper free equipment or car seats or just anything in that, um, line. So yeah, I can totally see how buy nothing would, um, help in that way.

Madeline (37:07): It was a, it was actually the suggestion of our home visitor. She’s like, “Why don’t you just ask that group that you always go to because it can’t hurt to ask and stuff.” And so we, that’s another way that I supplement like that itch for shopping. Like there’s like that you wanna doom spend or you feel stressed and you want some retail therapy and you’re like, “I don’t really have money to do that kind of stuff.” So instead I just go on my buy nothing group and I’m like, “Hmm, what, what’s popping up there?” And you get that thrill of dopamine being like, “Oh, I got selected,” or, “Oh, I got to it first and stuff.” So that’s kind of another psychological way of like kind of handling the stress of like not having a whole lot of disposable income I find. Um, it’s just kind of shopping on Facebook like that.

Emily (37:46): I love that idea. And again, it applies to non-parents as well. If like the thrill of the shopping is what you’re looking for, then put that extra layer of challenge of it’s gotta be free. <laugh>

Madeline (37:57): Yeah, 100%.

Emily (37:59): Well, I’m so thankful for all the insights that you’ve shared in this interview. I mean, especially about, you know, looking at that fellowship offer, or not offer, but like the interview process you were going through for that fellowship and realizing, oh wow, that number is high, but the benefit, the lack of benefits is completely offset and like what the situation you’re currently in is actually pretty good, especially that you wouldn’t be delayed another year for finishing your PhD and, and getting out into the, you know, permanent workforce and all that. So there’s so many insights that you’ve shared. Thank you so much, Madeline.

Best Financial Advice for Another Early-Career PhD

Emily (38:28): Um, I will end our interview by asking you the question that I ask all of my guests, which is what is your best financial advice for another early career PhD? And it could be something that we touched on already in the interview or it could be something completely new.

Madeline (38:41): Best thing that I have to say for an early career PhD student, um, would be just to really consider like what do you need and not be afraid to try to go for it. So if that means that you need financial assistance, try to get out of your head about that. If you need, um, if you need help with childcare, looking to see like what are creative ways to work through that. Be willing to ask friends, be willing to ask and find a neighbor that you feel you can trust, be willing to look into what government state assistances there are. And also just recognize like the power of systematic effects, like making sure like, oh, do, is there good health insurance available? Is there, um, are there other good benefits available? Not just looking at that bottom number, um, that bottom line.

Emily (39:28): Of course. Thank you so much for illustrating that for us during the interview today.

Madeline (39:32): Thank you. I’m so happy to have gotten to talk with you for this. So thank you for having me back.

Emily (39:37): Absolutely.

Outro

Emily (39:40): 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? We 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 view transcripts or videos of each episode? We 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! Nothing you hear on this podcast should be taken as financial, tax, or legal advice for any individual. Podcast editing by me and show notes creation by Dr. Jill Hoffman.

This Graduate Student Keeps a Zero-Based Budget in a High Cost-of-Living Area

August 31, 2026 by Jill Hoffman Leave a Comment

In this episode, Emily interviews Quinn Nguyen, a 4th-year PhD student in chemistry at UC Irvine. Quinn has been highly intentional with her finances during graduate school. She maintains a zero-based budget, uses targeted savings accounts for her cat and annual trips to Vietnam, keeps emergency savings, and pays herself first into a Roth IRA. She also lives in subsidized graduate student housing and drives an electric bike in addition to a car. Quinn and Emily discuss the advantages of these practices, specifically the Roth IRA, and how Quinn has developed confidence that she can make her finances work no matter what life throws at her post-graduate school.

Links mentioned in the Episode

PFforPhDs Quarterly Estimated Tax for Fellowship Recipients (Individual Purchase)
PFforPhDs Quarterly Estimated Tax for Fellowship Recipients (University Sponsored)
Host a PF for PhDs Seminar at Your Institution
Emily’s E-mail Address
PF for PhDs Subscribe to Mailing List
PF for PhDs Podcast Hub

Teaser

Quinn (00:00): Because I’m a computational student, a computational chemist student, chemistry student, I do simulation all the time. So to motivate it myself, I actually plug in the number, um, let’s say pretend that I contribute $200 a month, uh, to my Roth account. I want to see how much I have when I turn 60. When I see the number, I was like, I was so motivated.

Introduction

Emily (00:25): Welcome to the Personal Finance for PhDs Podcast: A Higher Education in Personal Finance. 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. I’m your host, Dr. Emily Roberts, a financial educator specializing in early-career PhDs and founder of Personal Finance for PhDs.

Emily (00:53): This is Season 25, Episode 1, and today my guest is Quinn Nguyen, a 4th-year PhD student in chemistry at UC Irvine. Quinn has been highly intentional with her finances during graduate school. She maintains a zero-based budget, uses targeted savings accounts for her cat and annual trips to Vietnam, keeps emergency savings, and pays herself first into a Roth IRA. She also lives in subsidized graduate student housing and drives an electric bike in addition to a car. Quinn and I discuss the advantages of these practices, specifically the Roth IRA, and how she has developed confidence that she can make her finances work no matter what life throws at her post-graduate school.

Emily (01:36): Let’s talk fellowship taxes for a minute here. These action items are for you if you recently switched or will soon switch onto non-W-2 fellowship income as a grad student, postdoc, or postbac; you are a US citizen, permanent resident, or resident for tax purposes; and you are not having income tax withheld from your stipend or salary. Action item #1: Fill out the Estimated Tax Worksheet on p. 12 of IRS Form 1040-ES. This worksheet will estimate how much income tax you will owe in 2026 and tell you whether you are required to make manual tax payments on a quarterly basis. The next quarterly estimated tax due date is September 15, 2026. Action item #2: Whether you are required to make estimated tax payments or pay a lump sum at time tax, open a separate, named savings account for your future tax payments. Calculate the fraction of each paycheck that will ultimately go toward tax and set up an automated recurring transfer from your checking account to your tax savings account to prepare for that bill. This is what I call a system of self-withholding, and I suggest putting it in place starting with your very first fellowship paycheck so that you don’t get into a financial bind when the payment deadline arrives.

Emily (03:01): If you need some help with the Estimated Tax Worksheet or want to ask me a question, please consider joining my workshop, Quarterly Estimated Tax for Fellowship Recipients. It explains every line of the worksheet and answers the common questions that PhD trainees have about estimated tax. The workshop includes video content, a spreadsheet, and invitations to at least one live Q&A call each quarter this tax year. The next live Q&A call is on Tuesday, September 8, 2026. If you want to purchase this workshop as an individual, go to PFforPhDs.com/QEtax/. If you’d like to request sponsorship of this workshop for you and your peers from your department, graduate school, postdoc office, etc., send the potential host to PFforPhDs.com/sponsorQEtax/. You can find the show notes for this episode at PFforPhDs.com/s25e1/. Without further ado, here’s my interview with Quinn Nguyen.

Will You Please Introduce Yourself Further?

Emily (04:13): I am delighted to have joining me on the podcast today, Quinn Nguyen, who is a fourth year PhD student in chemistry at UC Irvine, and we are going to talk about how she has made her finances work during graduate school and what it takes to do that and what kind of financial goals she’s been able to work towards. So Quinn, thank you so much for volunteering to come on the podcast. Would you please introduce yourself a little bit further?

Quinn (04:35): My name is Quinn Nguyen. I’m from, originally from Vietnam. I went to the United States, um, nine years ago for college. Uh, went to college in, um, Ohio, uh, for four years and then I work a year and then I moved to California, Southern California to start my graduate school. Um, so for, throughout college, uh, I have my scholarship, my parents and my part-time job that cover pretty much all my expenses, uh, tuition. So I graduated without any student loan. Um, I worked for a year, saved up a little bit, and that helped me with the cross country moved. Um, I started graduate school with about $3,000. That’s, that’s all my saving and, um, that’s how I started graduate school. So no debt, $3,000.

Emily (05:20): Yeah. Amazing, like, really solid, I would say for, you know, it, it could have been a lot worse and having even just that little bit of savings I’m sure helped so much at the beginning. Um, may I ask, are you still considered an international student or have you changed your status?

Quinn (05:34): Yes, so I’m still on my student visa, so I’m still considered international student. Um, yes.

A $35,000 Stipend at UC Irvine: How Far Does It Go?

Emily (05:39): Okay. Wonderful. Big question right off the bat, which is how have you made your finances work during graduate school? And so we need to start by talking about what is your income, what’s your stipend?

Quinn (05:50): Um, so I started graduate school with about $35,000 in stipend. Um, that has changed a little bit because we have the, uh, strike and we have, um, the union negotiate our stipend, but has been roughly amount to the same. And also the st- stipend also increased a little bit every year due to the increa – the increase in experience, but yeah, roughly 35,000. Um, so after tax every month I get about, uh, 2,600 to about 3,000. Um, my first year was about 2,600.

Emily (06:24): And do you have any other sources of income aside from the stipend?

Quinn (06:29): No, I don’t have any other source of income. That’s, that’s all the income I have.

Emily (06:33): Okay, wonderful. So let’s move to talking about expenses then. Um, just give us kind of a broad overview, like what are some of your expenses and then in, in this vein of how have you made it work, um, yeah, how does it fit in with your expenses overall, your budget overall?

Quinn (06:51): Um, so I have, uh, fixed expense like housing. Um, I’m very fortunate because UCI have graduate housing, um, and that cover, my rent cover every utility, so the rent is about 1,000. So after rent, I have about 1,600, um, dollars to work with every month.

Emily (07:09): Actually, let me ask about that first of all, because I, we have had previous, um, interviewees from UC Irvine who have mentioned subsidized graduate student housing. So would you consider this to be subsidized?

Quinn (07:19): Yes, this is a subsidized graduate housing. Um, it’s so much better than the market rate housing.

Emily (07:25): And do you have, like, what’s the housing setup? Do you have, like, a flatmate? Like, how many people live in a unit?

Quinn (07:32): Um, so I pay thou – one, 1,000, and I live in a two bedroom, one bath apartment. Um, there are cheaper options, but when you, uh, when I go, when I went to the school and started out, uh, I did not get to choose and they placed us into different communities and this is the only choice that I have. Um, so yeah, I have one other roommate. Uh, I have a cat living with me, so that also a part of the expense as well, uh, with the, the vet bill and the vet basic. So yeah, uh, so for 1600, I, uh, pay for my, I pay a I pay for my grocery, uh, eating out, friend, um, gas, which is a big part here in Southern California. Um, I also, um, contribute a little bit to my saving account, uh, my Roth IRA. Um, I want to go back to Vietnam once a year, so I also have a sinking fund set up for international travel and domestic travel. Um, yeah.

Emily (08:35): Okay. Let me ask about a couple of those items. So you mentioned gas, so tell me about your car and how you use it. Like, do you use it for daily commutes or what?

Quinn (08:44): Um, so I have a car, but I, because I live in graduate housing, um, I’m just about a mile or two mile away from my office. So I, um, use, I invested in an electric bike that I bike to school every day. My car is just used for the, in the weekend when I want to go to grocery or when I want to go out with friend.

Emily (09:03): How do you charge your bike?

Quinn (09:07): Um, so I charge my bike in my apartment, uh, or sometime when I drive to my office, I can charge it there in my office.

Emily (09:14): And it sounds like, you said your utilities were a part of your rental cost, right? So like no marginal cost to charging it it sounds like.

Quinn (09:22): No. Yeah.

Emily (09:23): Amazing. A good deal. <laugh>

Quinn (09:25): Yes, it’s, it’s a very good deal here and at least in Irvine. Um, I get to have my own bedroom. Uh, a bedroom here in Irvine can cost about 1500. Um, so having a bedroom for just a thousand is such a steal.

Emily (09:38): And has that housing cost gone up yearly? Is it fixed to a certain percentage that it can go up? How do they calculate it?

Quinn (09:45): Um, I think it’s, it has been increasing, uh, every year since I first lived here. So I have been in the same apartment since I first came, so that was four years ago. Every year’s increase by about 5%.

Emily (09:59): Okay. Not insignificant, but glad to hear it’s not more than that. <laugh>

Quinn (10:04): Yes. Yeah.

Sinking Funds and Roth IRA Contributions

Emily (10:05): Okay. You also mentioned traveling home at least, or once per year, and then also some other travel. Do you have any. I mean, I know you mentioned using a sinking fund. So for the listeners, sinking funds, targeted savings accounts, we’ve talked about this a few times in the past. Basically, you save a small amount of money every single month for each of those types of expenses that you would, uh, use a sinking fund or a targeted savings account for. So specifically on the travel front, um, do you have any, like, strategies around travel to help reduce the cost?

Quinn (10:34): Um, so I, um, beside the, beside the sinking fund, uh, that I send, like, I send at least about 100 a month, uh, into a sinking fund, I, because I know roughly the, the cost of a ticket back, back home and back. Um, I usually book the ticket as soon as I can, uh, just to save on the, the price of the ticket. Um, I started using a credit card with some points, so that help a little bit with that. But yeah, usually a sinking fund is very helpful for me. Uh, I, the tickets usually cost less than the, the amount that I saved up, but I also have some extra money that can buy gift for people at home or prepay for the trip.

Emily (11:15): That sounds great. You mentioned that you, um, contribute to your Roth IRA. I don’t know if you’re also saving up cash, um, or, or have been in the past, but, like, how much would you say that you save? Is it a consistent monthly amount? Does, does it fluctuate?

Quinn (11:29): Um, so I, whenever I get my stipend, I set up an autonomous system that basically, um, automatically transfer my money from my checking account to my Roth IRA account, and it’s also buy the index fund every month. So roughly every month I send, uh, 250 to my Roth IRA account, uh, that I came to that number after, um, doing the math, taking out, uh, subtracting my rent, all the necessary expense, and so that was, uh, 250 what I, uh, I feel comfortable contributing to a Roth IRA account.

Emily (12:03): That’s great. And that’s almost 10% of your net income, so that’s a very significant amount for graduate students. So great job. Um, do you still have $3,000 in cash or, like, how much with your sinking funds? I don’t know if you also have a separate emergency fund. Have you built that up over the years as well?

Quinn (12:20): Yes. So, um, I started contributing to the Roth I – to Roth IRA, um, about a year into my graduate school. Uh, before that, I only contribute to a, uh, I only have an emergency fund that I send about 400 into that emergency fund. Uh, after the first year, I found out about Roth IRA, and I decided to split that by half, so I send about 250 to my Roth IRA and 200 into my emergency saving fund.

Using Zero-Based Budgeting as a Grad Student

Emily (12:48): Is there anything else you’d like to share about how you make your finances work in graduate school? Actually, we haven’t talked yet about your maybe financial, um, habits in terms of, like, do you budget? I mean, you already mentioned the strategy of pay yourself first, you know, for the Roth IRA, that’s amazing. The sinking funds, those are strategies. Do you use any other kinds of strategies for, like, your variable expenses?

Quinn (13:09): I use a budgeting method called an zero dollar base method. Um, I, I use an app, uh, it’s very easy to use called Every Dollar. So, uh, after I get my paycheck, I send all the money to the saving account, I pay my rent. I only have about $700 to $800 in my various expense. Uh, so I put that into different bucket, um, grocery, uh, eating out, gas, um, yeah. And, um, the rest is, I owe in the sinking fund, my saving and my rent.

Emily (13:44): Sounds perfect. How, how often are you checking in with the app? Like, how often are you using that tool to help you make spending decisions?

Quinn (13:52): Um, yeah, so because with a zero-based, um, budgeting method, you kind of have a purpose for every dollar you spend. Um, so let’s say I usually put about 200 into grocery and 200 into eating out with friends. Um, so every time I go to grocery store, I basically pull out the app, put in what I spend, and then it automatically subtract that amount. Um, whenever I, you know, need, want to buy something, I open the app to see, oh, how much money I have. Uh, and, and by the end of. I try to spend all the money by the end of the month because, um, because that’s, I want to have every dollar I have a purpose. So, uh, that’s really helpful because I’m naturally a very frugal person. Um, I just try to save, save, save all the time, but now having an app and see that, oh, I actually have this much money just to go out and eat with friend, I try to enjoy as much, um, get as much joy out of those my those dollars as possible.

Emily (14:49): I love that philosophy of budgeting, and it’s actually one that I experienced as well. So I’m actually not a natural saver. I’m not naturally frugal. Um, I grew up more of like a spender, but when I started receiving a stipend, it was like, “Whoa.” <laugh> Like I gotta shut everything down, you know? So I, I really went hard the other way into any spending that I did really made me feel like anxious and like, was I like messing something up by like, you know, going out to eat or whatever it was. And so I really found budgeting to be helpful in the way that you just mentioned of like, “Oh no, I know I have confidence that I’m allowed, I’m allowing myself to spend up to this amount of money on this purpose every single month, and I know that it all balances out and like it’s gonna be okay.” So it really was giving myself like permission to spend that helped me feel much less anxious about each one of those decisions because when you don’t have a budget and you have a, you know, a tight income to work with, then if you’re just flying by the seat of your pants, like I don’t even know how you make those decisions of like yes to this, no to that. So the budget is really helpful in that way. It can both help you like know when you have to reign it in and it can also help you, like you’re talking about, know that you’re, um, permitting yourself to spend those dollars in a joyful manner that you know is gonna be really meaningful to you. Um, and it gives you like a goal to like spend like up to this amount on eating out, as you mentioned, or whatever else you’ve budgeted for. Well, I, I love that you shared that. Um, one question though, because like with the every dollar method, with the zero-based budgeting method, every dollar is accounted for, so what do you do when you have an unexpected expense come up or when you just really do come in under budget, you didn’t manage to spend everything in a category, like how do you, um, balance the books?

Quinn (16:31): So, um, that’s when, um, the sinking fund came in because let’s, uh, I have various type sinking fund, um, and for, so I have the saving account that kind of is called piggy, smarty pigs kind you have, it’s like you have different piggy bank for every purpose. So for, um, because I have a cat, I try to put in a few, about $20 a month, uh, contribute to that sinking fund so that if my cat needs to go to the vet, I have some money that I can use, uh, travel, that of, you know, when you buy a international travel ticket that basically wipe out all my stipend for the month. So that’s really helpful. Um, and if I, you know, if I use up all the sinking fund, I, you know, and there’s no room for my budget, uh, then I use my emergency saving fund that I have, um, a few thousand dollar in. So yeah, that’s how I account for those, um, emergency situation. But luckily I never had that situation, never experienced that situation.

Emily (17:35): It’s there as backup though if you need it. Um, that’s great because it sounds like then you’ve anticipated all the. I mean, I, I’m saying unexpected expenses, you’ve expected them. You’ve racked your brain, you know, though about your pet, thought about all the things that are like the likely unexpected or emergency type expenses that would come your way and you’ve just decided to save and advance them. It’s an absolute textbook application of targeted savings accounts, so I’m really delighted to hear about that. Um, anything else you wanna add around how have you made finances work as a graduate student?

Quinn (18:09): Yeah, so, um, I think of m- my finance as like three layers. So I have my budget that I deal with every day, um, and then I have my sinking fund, uh, that once in a while I have to pull the money out from that sinking fund. I also have the saving layer. So the saving, if I need money right now, like very emergent, I pull out from the emergency fund, and then I have the Roth IRA. Um, a lot of people don’t know that you can actually use the Roth IRAs as kind of an emergency fund as well because you can withdraw the, the Roth IRA, the contribution, uh, tax-free and penalty-free, um, your contribution only, tax-free and penalty-free. So that’s another layer of, um, emergency fund that I could, uh, use as well. So yeah, that’s, uh, I contrib, I approach my finances with multiple layers.

Emily (18:59): Very smart. And I, I can exactly see how it would play out that way.

Commercial

Emily (19:05): Emily here for a brief interlude. Would you like to learn directly from me on a personal finance topic, such as taxes, goal-setting, investing, budgeting, or designing your financial life, each tailored specifically for graduate students and postdocs? I offer live workshops, asynchronous online courses, and cohort-based programs on these topics, and I’m now booking for the 2026-2027 academic year. If you would like to bring my content to your institution, would you please recommend me as a speaker or facilitator to your university, graduate school, graduate student association, medical school, postdoc office, or postdoc association? My workshops are usually slated as professional development or personal wellness. Ask the potential host to go to PFforPhDs.com/financial-education/ or simply email me at [email protected] 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.

Discovering Roth IRAs as a First-Year Grad Student: The Potential for Life-Changing Money

Emily (20:33): Let’s talk a little bit more about the Roth IRA, actually. So you shared with us so far that about a year into graduate school, you found out about Roth IRAs and decided to start using one, and also some of the advantages, like you said, um, a Roth IRA can technically be used as, let’s say, the emergency fund behind the emergency fund, right? I wouldn’t say it should be the first layer, but as a backup, backup, backup, yes, you can withdraw the contributions without, um, too much fuss. Uh, so yeah, maybe start with, like, how you found out about Roth IRAs and then why you decided, um, that it was the right tool for you.

Quinn (21:08): Yeah. So, um, I found out about Roth IRA in my first year of graduate school. Um, I, you know, first time in my life, I have a salary, uh, have my own money, so I, I deci – I wanted to something, do something with it. Um, so I, you know, ma- many of my friends, um, have a brokerage account and they pick some stock, they sell when they buy. Um, uh, but then I found, I found out that it takes, it took so much, so much money, uh, so much time, um, and sometime you don’t, and you don’t, you cannot, it’s hard to beat the market, um, picking stock. Um, and so I, I look into various account and then look at various strat – various strategy, um, and I found out about Roth IRA. Uh, if Roth IRA is a good, uh, retirement account to have in graduate school, because for many STEM graduate student, um, graduates pro – who have much higher earning potential after they graduate, um, graduate school may be the only, uh, direct, the only years in their life that they are eligible for, uh, Roth IRA contributions, you know, after that, they can still contribute to Roth IRA, but with many more, uh, convolutions. Um, so graduate school is a very good time to start contributing to Roth IRA. Uh, another reason is also because when you’re in your 20s, you have a lot of years ahead of you, and all the, uh, gain that you have, that, that you have from your contribution in your 20 have much longer time to accumulate, uh, and then when you’re retired, you can withdraw all that tax-free and that such, sound like such a sweet deal to me. Um, I’m, uh, because I’m a computational student, a computational chemist student, chemistry student, I do simulation all the time. So to motivate it myself, I actually plug in the number, um, let’s say pretend that I contribute $200 a month, uh, to my Roth I account. I want to see how much I have when I turn 60. When I see the number, I was like, I was so motivated. Um, yeah. So I, I, if you pretend that you contribute $200 a month, every month in your graduate school, uh, you do that for five years, after graduate school, you end up with about 15,000, and then you wait until 30 years after that, you end up with more than 200,000. It’s, yeah, it’s not life-changing money, uh, but it’s still a big amount. Maybe by the time I turn 60, I have grandchild, child and grandchildren that could contribute to the, their, um, college educations. That’s how I think about it. That how I decided that, um, I want to open a Roth IRA account.

Emily (23:45): I have to disagree with you. I think it is life-changing money. Um, and I, I think you’ll agree with me, like, just the fact of getting started with saving and investing, getting compound interest working for you as, as you said, it’s exponential growth. Like once you, if you’re a math type-minded person, once you see the power of exponential growth in one area and then you realize that your money can do that too, oh my goodness. Um, even if the absolute dollar amounts are not that high, let’s say the year, you know, when you finish graduate school or five years out of graduate school, I do think having those habits in place and the confidence that it gives you, um, that you have some amount of money that you could access if you really, really needed to, and also it’s growing on your behalf and it’ll turn into hundreds of thousands of dollars, um, by the time you retire. Or I’ve done an exercise where just the same as you set it up, if you wait, let’s say two more decades till like you’re 80, 85, it’s a million dollars by then. Like it really, really does make a huge difference, uh, the longer the time you give it to compound. And as you were saying, getting started earlier, um, gets that compounding working on your side. So it’s incredible. I’m so glad that you have, like, chosen to use this tool and that you’re sharing that with us now. One question that I get from other international graduate students is about, “Well, should I use a Roth IRA because I’m not sure if I’m gonna stay in the US long term?” And so I want to know your thoughts about that specifically from your perspective as an international student.

Quinn (25:13): Yeah. So I, I though about that too, because I still don’t know if I will stay in the United States after graduate, considering all those things going on. Uh, but then a great thing is you can still access that money when you’re not in the United States. Um, and here, two thou – 200,000 is not, not as huge as, you know, um, not that big of a deal for many people. Uh, but back. I’m from Vietnam. In Vietnam, 200,000 is so, so, so much money, uh, considered that the living expanse in Vietnam. So that even motivates me more to contribute to my Roth IRA.

Emily (25:49): So you’re seeing it actually as like a geoarbitrage play, like I’m being paid in US dollars, I can invest in index funds, you know, based largely in the US. It can grow at these US rates. I don’t have to pay US taxes on it because it’s a Roth. And then it’s, if you end up leaving the country, well, the upside is the money goes a lot further in the country that you would likely be living in. I actually haven’t heard that argument before, but I really like it.

Quinn (26:12): Yeah. So that’s, that’s how I think about, um, contributing to a Roth IRA as an international s – international student. Yeah, for many of us who have a PhD, um, they can also do a green card application, um, for many programs. So if you end up staying in the country having some money in a retirement account already, uh, when you enter the workforce, it still advance you toward your retirement goal much faster, um, without, if you don’t have that retirement saving.

Emily (26:41): Absolutely. Actually, this brings me to another question I’ve, I’ve discussed with other international students about the green card application process. Is that one of your sinking funds? Like have you started saving money or are you already spending money on that process?

Quinn (26:53): No, I actually haven’t started that process. Um, I kind of put it in the back of my mind for now, uh, because it’s, it’s hard to plan now for the futures and I don’t even know if I want to stay because of the, of the change in the funding for science. Uh, so yeah.

Checking Investment Account Balances

Emily (27:09): Yeah, that makes sense. Okay. Anything else you wanna share about your choice to use a Roth IRA or how you feel about it? Actually, I’ll, I’ll share something and then you can answer as well. But when I was, um, investing during graduate school, and you mentioned using index funds, totally on board with that approach, absolutely. Um, I was investing at a really fun time, which was about from the trough of the great recession, um, in the growth years afterwards. And so it was like a bright spot in my finances to like, you know, every so often check my balance and be like, “Oh, it went up by more than my contributions over the past few months.” Of course, if you check it really, really often, then you’re gonna see volatility, but on the order of, you know, six months or a year or something, generally speaking, during that period of time, it was going up. Um, we’ve had some more volatility in recent years than I was experiencing at that time, so do you find it, like, fun to be watching the balance, like, go up sometimes and down sometimes, or is it like a source of stress? How do you feel about it?

Quinn (28:05): Honestly, the way I deal with it is I just don’t check my account at all. Um, I believe in the compound interest that happened over time that went over a long time. Um, and I also contribute every month, so dollar cost averaging method. Um, so I, I, I just basically just make it as autonomous as possible, uh, and I don’t have to think about it so that I can focus on my work and finishing my PhD. Uh, yeah, so basically I just block out all the noise, just let the market do whatever it wants, because I believe in the cycle and the market, of the market, it move and then it go up and then it go down eventually, it go up over time. Um –

Emily (28:46): Yeah, absolutely. That’s my same approach as well. Um, I check my investment account balances about once per month now because I record my net worth on the first day of every month, so I end up checking it then. So sometimes it’s down, but most of the time it’s gone up by some degree, at least, you know, contributions. So that’s fun. I remember when I was in graduate school and, like, in times when it was kind of volatile, I told myself I would only check the balance if I had heard, like, I listened to news at that time where, like, it would share stock market news or whatever. If I had heard that the market went up by at least 1% that day, then I would check it. And other than that, I wouldn’t check it at all. <laugh> So, like, I only got good news, right?

Quinn (29:25): Yeah, yeah. Yeah, the, the way I think about my Roth IRA is, is a long-term investment account. So as the day-to-day step, I have my budget, uh, I have my rent, everything covered by my budget, uh, and my emergency funds. So I rarely think about my Roth I, I just withdraw money, cont – invest every month, and once in a while, I, I, I remember that I have this investment account and open it up. I just look at the gain and was like, “Oh, that’s amazing.” And then I close it and then I move on. <laugh>

Emily (29:56): If it’s not too frequent, <laugh> it’ll usually be good news. Um, Okay. So when you, um, volunteered to be interviewed on the podcast, you said something in your application like, um, “Whatever life throws at me in the future, I’m confident that I can make it work,” based on your experience with your finances in graduate school. So can you elaborate on why you feel that way?

“Whatever Life Throws at Me in the Future, I’m Confident That I Can Make It Work”

Quinn (30:18): Yeah. So, um, Orange County is a very expensive place to live. Um, I us-, I usually joke with my friend that if I would not go to graduate school here at UCI, I would never be able to afford to live in Orange County, um, because it’s, it’s so, so, so expensive. Um, my stipend is 35,000, um, and I think 35,000 is considered, um, like acutely poverty, acutely low, um, income for one person household, household. Um, and yet I don’t feel like I’m missing, I’m missing out on anything. Um, I’m still having fun, a lot of fun. I still go out, uh, to a restaurant once a week or twice a week. I still have able to afford a cat, a car. Um, so I, yeah, and I, I, I don’t feel like I’m missing out anything at all and I still able to save about 20% of my, uh, income every month. So yeah, I don’t think, I hope that in the future I would not be, um, have, I would not be the, I would not have a, like acutely low income ever again, but, um, but yeah, with this very, very, very small amount of, uh, money to work with every month, I was still, I’m still being, I’m still able to work with it and, um, still having fun with my life and, you know, uh, so I’m, I’m, I think grad school beside what I learned from all the, you know, um, what I get from in academic-wise, I also feel much more confidence about the ability to handle finance, um, here, now or in the future.

Emily (31:52): Mm-hmm. Yeah. I mean, I have to say, I agree with you, you’ve been presented a financial challenge and you’re succeeding within it. Um, so that certainly indicates that, and, and like you said, with your career trajectory, you’re likely, this is likely to be the least amount of money you’ll ever make in your life, right? So absolutely. And, and as you said, a, a high cost of living area. Um, but I think it’s really like the things that you have done, right? You talked about, you know, having a zero based budget, about paying yourself first, about using the sinking funds, like all these strategies that you’ve learned and put in place during graduate school, um, that you’ve done to make it work are, I, feed into that confidence, right? Like you’ve used these strategies, it’s, it’s happening. Like you’re able to save, you’re able to live a balanced life, you have, you know, satisfaction in your, um, in your spending, you can carry those forward. So you’ve like learned those skills and you can still apply them through the rest of your life. It gives me confidence as well that you’re gonna be, you know, feeling financially successful at later stages when you make more money because you have the skills to go with it. Other people who, as I was mentioning earlier, maybe just kind of like fly by the seat of their pants, like they’re not doing much planning or consideration, um, around their finances, just kind of making it. Um, that may be a protective measure, a psychological protective measure because it is pretty depressing like to be paid a stipend level only, but because they’re not developing the skills, um, and mindsets and habits around how to handle the money, I don’t think they could have the same confidence that you do about being able to handle money later in their life. There’s a phrase in the personal finance community, um, you can’t out earn bad spending habits, right? Like no matter how much money you make, guess what? You can spend that much. It is possible. And so at some point, if you want to, um, you know, have a handle on your finances, you need to right size your spending, you know, based on your income and so forth. And that can be a painful process. Um, but you’ve done it, right? You did it as a graduate student and all you need to do is carry those lessons forward. So, um, I absolutely agree with you. I think the confidence is, um, warranted in this case.

Best Financial Advice for Another Early-Career PhD

Emily (33:51): Let’s wrap up with our final question then, the one that I ask all my guests, which is, what is your best financial advice for another early career PhD? And it could be something that we’ve touched on already, or it can be something completely new.

Quinn (34:02): Yeah, my advice for a future graduate student is just, um, to try to make the finance work for you. So I know that not a lot of people, um, like have the same privileges that I have, uh, graduate college without debt or may, they may also have a dependent. A lot of my friend have kid and wife. Um, so they, um, they, they may not be in the same position as I have, so they may not be, may be able to save as much or, um, invest as much, but I hope, I think the, the only advice I have is just to try to make the finance work for you. If you’re able to save more, that’s good, but if you’re able to save less, that’s fine too, because graduate school, um, is not really the time to, to save as much as you can, but it’s more like you try to build a habit of saving and and investing so that it could serve you for, uh, in the next step of your life.

Emily (34:55): Yeah, and I think, um, kind of what you said earlier about automating your finances as much as possible, having systems in place, even if people aren’t able to save, they can still do those things. Like even if you are living paycheck to paycheck, you can still have an awareness of your expenses, you can still have some automations in place. And so, like, you can still go down that learning and self-improvement route, even if overall you do need to spend all of your income because of, you know, your dependents or, you know, the lower stipend or not having subsidized housing or whatever the situation is. Um, so yeah, I think that’s really valuable. Um, Quinn, thank you so much for volunteering to come on the podcast. I’m really just delighted to hear your story.

Quinn (35:37): My pleasure.

Outro

Emily (35:37): 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? We 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 view transcripts or videos of each episode? We 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! Nothing you hear on this podcast should be taken as financial, tax, or legal advice for any individual. Podcast editing by me and show notes creation by Dr. Jill Hoffman.

Design Your Finances Advance Preparation

August 21, 2026 by Emily Leave a Comment

Thank you for registering for Design Your Finances to Support Your PhD Career and Life! Please complete the action items below prior to the date of the workshop so that you can receive the full benefits of the workshop.

Draw your dreams. Use the prompt and space on this worksheet to draw what you want your career and life to look like in 5 or more years. You will refer to elements of your dreams during the workshop.
Bring your balance sheet. A balance sheet is a record of all of your current financial assets and liabilities. If you don’t have a balance sheet, please take some time to create one. You can download a template spreadsheet as well as some instructions via this link. Feel free to use a different template if you prefer. If you use budgeting or net worth tracking software and have all your accounts linked, the software probably has all the information, so no need to replicate it elsewhere.

During the workshop, we’ll be working with spreadsheets and PDFs. If the workshop is in person, please bring your laptop or tablet. If the workshop is remote, please set your workspace up so that you can best juggle Zoom alongside the other programs.

I look forward to speaking with you during the workshop!

Dr. Emily Roberts, Personal Finance for PhDs

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Teaser

Introduction

Will You Please Introduce Yourself Further?

A $5,100 Annual Stipend as an International Student at BU

The Formation of the Boston University Graduate Workers Union

Commercial

Unionizing and Striking for Higher Stipends

How Dr. Lewis’s Personal Finances Were Impacted by Unionization

Best Financial Advice for Another Early-Career PhD

Outro

Links mentioned in the Episode

Teaser

Introduction

Will You Please Introduce Yourself Further?

What Does Giving Every Dollar a Job Mean?

“Getting a Month Ahead” or “Living on Time”

Accounting for Variable Expenses Using YNAB Principles

How Meeting Your Savings Goals Encourages Intentional Spending

Commercial

How YNAB Differs From Other Budgeting Systems

How YNAB Can Reduce Your Money Stress

How Budgeting, Saving, and Investing During Grad School Allowed for a Career Pivot

Best Financial Advice for Another Early-Career PhD

Outro

Links mentioned in the Episode

Teaser

Introduction

Will You Please Introduce Yourself Further?

From Decision Science to How Couples Manage Their Finances

Three Models for Structuring Your Financial Accounts as a Couple

To Pool or Not to Pool? How Life Events Influence Shared Finances

Commercial

Advice for Couples With Significant Income Disparities

The Complexities of Academic Life: Major Income Changes and Relocation

Best Financial Advice for Another Early-Career PhD

Outro

Links mentioned in the Episode

Teaser

Introduction

Will You Please Introduce Yourself Further?

Parenthood and Its Impact on Your Money Mindset

Changes In Fixed Expenses: Housing, Food, Internet, & Streaming Services

Finding Opportunities to Earn Extra Income During Grad School

Commercial

Connecticut’s Government Assistant Program: Care 4 Kids

A $200 per Month Childcare Bill That Gets Reimbursed

Creating a Village During Grad School

Additional Supports: Home Visitors and a Buy Nothing Group

Best Financial Advice for Another Early-Career PhD

Outro

Links mentioned in the Episode

Teaser

Introduction

Will You Please Introduce Yourself Further?

A $35,000 Stipend at UC Irvine: How Far Does It Go?

Sinking Funds and Roth IRA Contributions

Using Zero-Based Budgeting as a Grad Student

Commercial

Discovering Roth IRAs as a First-Year Grad Student: The Potential for Life-Changing Money

Checking Investment Account Balances

“Whatever Life Throws at Me in the Future, I’m Confident That I Can Make It Work”

Best Financial Advice for Another Early-Career PhD

Outro

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