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How This DDS/PhD Student Purchased a Condo in San Francisco

May 5, 2025 by Jill Hoffman

In this episode, Emily interviews Hannah Takasuka, a 3rd-year PhD/DDS student at the University of California, San Francisco. Hannah is in the process of purchasing a condo in San Francisco as part of a governmental program to provide affordable housing. Hannah overcame multiple hurdles in the journey to home ownership, including being rejected by mortgage lenders over her fellowship income. Several puzzle pieces have to come together for any graduate student to purchase a home, and Hannah shares all the numbers and details for how it happened for her.

Links mentioned in the Episode

  • Hannah Takasuka’s LinkedIn
  • PF for PhDs Spring 2025 Giveaway
  • PF for PhDs AMA with Sam Hogan on the PhD Home-Buying Process 
  • 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
How This DDS/PhD Student Purchased a Condo in San Francisco

Teaser

Hannah (00:00): I’m thankful being a PhD student has taught me to normalize, “Oh shoot, I’m in trouble. Let’s ask for help.”

Introduction

Emily (00:19): 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 (00:49): This is Season 20, Episode 9, and today my guest is Hannah Takasuka, a 3rd-year PhD/DDS student at the University of California, San Francisco. Hannah is in the process of purchasing a condo in San Francisco as part of a governmental program to provide affordable housing. Hannah overcame multiple hurdles in the journey to home ownership, including being rejected by mortgage lenders over her fellowship income. Several puzzle pieces have to come together for any graduate student to purchase a home, and Hannah shares all the numbers and details for how it happened for her.

Emily (01:22): Because we in academia and research are experiencing such precarity in our finances and careers at the moment, I’m doing as much as I can on the financial education side to help you. I’m calling this initiative Giveaway Spring. I’m giving away 60-minute group Q&A calls, 30-minute individual coaching sessions, books, and digital resources—all completely for free—and I’m also sharing the best free financial and career resources I come across for PhDs. Register for my mailing list at PFforPhDs.com/giveaway/ to receive all the details of the current giveaways and an update every other week. By the way, this is the last episode of Season 20 of this podcast. We’ll be back with Season 21 on June 2, 2025. You can find the show notes for this episode at PFforPhDs.com/s20e9/. Without further ado, here’s my interview with Hannah Takasuka.

Will You Please Introduce Yourself Further?

Emily (02:36): I am delighted to have on the podcast today, Hannah Takasuka, who is a third year graduate student at the University of California San Francisco. And I’m really especially delighted to have Hannah on because she actually helped bring me out to campus for a workshop earlier in 2025, and that was a great experience. So here we are recording in March, 2025, and Hannah is actually under contract for her first home in San Francisco. And that is shocking. And so we’re gonna find out in the course of this interview, um, how exactly that happened. So Hannah, welcome to the podcast. I’m so glad to have you on. Um, and will you please introduce yourself a little bit further?

Hannah (03:13): Yes. Um, it’s great to talk with you, Emily. Uh, my name is Hannah. I am a third year DDS PhD student. Um, so after getting my PhD I’ll go to dental school and it’s a similar funding mechanism to the MD PhDs,

Emily (03:27): Emily here breaking in during the editing process. Following our interview recording, Hannah sent me some additional audio contextualizing our conversation and I thought it would fit well here.

Hannah (03:38): Hi, Emily and listeners of her channel. Something that I wanted to express in the podcast but I didn’t have a chance to, was a sense of humility. I do wanna give the disclaimer that, um, being able to buy a home as a third year PhD student is a huge privilege that not everyone has. Um, and people might make certain assumptions about a third year PhD home buyer, um, that like I’m someone who has everything together with my finances, um, and I wanna put down others. Um, or just that there’s this Instagram idea that you see, um, people who seem to be doing everything right in the world and you compare yourself and you think, oh, because I’m not there, I’m not sufficient enough. Um, and so as a point of humility. I still have a lot to improve in my personal finances as well, even with the basics. So at Emily’s budgeting workshop that she hosted at my university, I learned how important it is not to only forecast, um, what your budget should be, but to actually have an automatic tracking system to see how you spent your money compares to what you had projected. Um, and so that’s something that I’m still working on implementing. Um, I’m, I’m part of the way there, but not, not fully there. Um, and so again, I just want to encourage you all to make the steps that make the best sense for you. Um, and home buying in San Francisco is not going to be, is not gonna probably make sense to most, um, PhD students, but I hope that I demonstrated, um, that it is a possibility, um, for some and that it might make sense for you.

Emily (05:41): Alright, back to the interview. Now, did you move to San Francisco when you started graduate school and and what year was that?

Hannah (05:48): I did, uh, that was July, 2022.

Considering Home Ownership as Graduate Student in a High Cost of Living Area

Emily (05:51): And when you moved to San Francisco or, you know, sometime after that, obviously you started considering home ownership, which honestly is something that I would completely write off for a graduate student in San Francisco. And honestly, a lot of even professionals in San Francisco don’t own their own homes. They don’t necessarily see the math as making sense for that. So I’m just really curious about, um, why you even started considering purchasing a home.

Hannah (06:17): Mm-hmm <affirmative>. So I know I wanna be here long term. Um, at least for the next 10 years. Being a DDS PhD student means that I’m here for eight years and I’m, high cost of living cities come with pros and cons. Uh, one of the great pros though is that there’s great career opportunities. Um, and for me, I’m also blessed that I have a lot of family nearby. And so for me it just makes sense to be staying here long term and looking at market rate places. Uh, you’d be correct, Emily. The math doesn’t make sense most of the time. Um, I was going for a walk one day in my neighborhood and I saw this huge sign that said, um, middle income housing available, um, condos are $260 to $500,000. Um, and so decided to call my dad and say, Hey, I saw this sign, like 260,000 is probably way too much. ’cause I had no idea what that number meant at the time. Just sounds like a big number. Um, but my dad says, oh no, Hannah, like, you need to look into that. I’m like, okay, no, no uncertainty there that I need to look more into it. So, um, decided to look more into it and, uh, thankful that it worked out.

Emily (07:34): What does this mean? What is this middle income housing? Is the housing different than other housing or is it just that the loans are structured differently? Or what is this?

Hannah (07:45): Mm-hmm <affirmative>. It could be a combination of both. San Francisco has their permitting for housing, such that 10% of any new construction needs to be designated as below market rate housing, and then you need to fall under a certain income bracket in order to qualify for that. Um, below market rate housing, um, there is also a fee, uh, that new construction can opt out of, uh, building that 10%, uh, below market rate housing. And that fee will go towards, um, affordable housing projects. And so in my case, my entire building is, um, below market rate and run by the city.

Emily (08:26): Wow. What an incredible opportunity. Had you known anyone else who, who purchased a home as a PhD student? Like with the same sort of program?

Hannah (08:37): I do not, no.

Housing Costs and the Home Buying Process in San Francisco

Emily (08:38): Okay. So it was really just you saw a sign and you had to look it further. Amazing. Um, and also just really good on you that and your father too, for pointing you in that direction of like, oh no, like, let’s, let’s go ahead and start, you know, down this road and start investigating this. Maybe we should talk a little bit about the, the sale price of the, of the home that you’re now under contract for. Um, just so we can get an idea of like your income, how that compares to your new mortgage, and also how that would compare to maybe where you were renting before or other similar place that you might rent. Can you just give us a sense of what’s going on with these numbers? Numbers?

Hannah (09:14): Mm-hmm <affirmative>. Um, yeah, so my purchase price is gonna be 260,000, um, and my graduate student stipend is four, uh, $4,200. Um, not including the health insurance, um, but we do need to take taxes out of that. Um, and currently I rent at UCSF housing for $1,350 per month.

Emily (09:41): And your UCSF housing, um, do you have like a studio one bedroom place or do you have a roommate?

Hannah (09:47): Uh, I have a roommate and it’s a two bedroom.

Emily (09:50): Okay. And is that, would you say that that is a subsidized cost or that that’s pretty standard for what you’re getting?

Hannah (09:56): It’s a subsidized cost for sure.

Emily (09:59): Okay, interesting. So you have making the, you’ve made the decision then to move out of subsidized housing into your own owned place. Amazing. And can you tell us, is there anything else you wanna add about this, you know, this opportunity, this program that you’re participating in? Obviously what I’ve heard so far is that these builders have to make the housing available to you. Um, but is there any like special, um, way that you have to, uh, you know, submit bids on the house? Or is it just kind of like regular now that it’s made available? The, in terms of the buying process,

Hannah (10:36): There’s limitations to it. Um, and then there’s also a lottery process, um, both of which are a bit exhausting to think through, um, but can be worthwhile depending on your situation. And I’m thankful that, yeah, I worked through the different, um, thought about the different limitations. Um, so in terms of the lottery system, there were 115 units available in my building. There ended up being 400 people who applied. However, at the workshop they were letting us know that for previous below market rate buildings, um, they’ve gotten to the end of their applicant list because people would decline by the time that the offers came through. For me, I ended up, uh, being fortunate in looking into the different lottery preferences. Um, so if you’re a veteran or um, if you’ve been displaced by a fire, those are a couple of the lottery preferences. The last one is live or work in San Francisco before it goes to general population. Um, and so that’s where most of the people fall. Um, for me, because my family actually came to San Francisco in, um, the early 19 hundreds, um, my great grandmother qualified me, uh, to be considered a descendant of, uh, someone who was affected by unjustified San Francisco gentrification. And that put me in the top bracket such that I had first choice for the units that were 260,000, um, for a one person, uh, one bedroom, um, condo.

Emily (12:18): Amazing. Yeah. You clearly did a bit of legwork on this and it sounds like also you mentioned a workshop, so they’re also kind of offering a lot of information about how this process works kind of upfront, is that right?

Hannah (12:29): Mm-hmm. Yes. Yes.

Emily (12:30): And you mentioned an income limitation also. Do you recall what that was? Obviously you were under it, but you, do you know what the ceiling was?

Hannah (12:37): Mm-hmm <affirmative>. Um, it’s 80% of the area median income, uh, which I believe is about $84,000.

Explaining Graduate Student Income to Mortgage Lenders

Emily (12:43): Yeah, you’re well under that. Super fascinating. Thank you very much. This of course, will be left up as an exercise for the listener, whether their own city has anything, you know, similar in terms of affordable housing being, you know, built and all of that. So that’s awesome that you’ve brought this like to our attention. Okay. But as a graduate student, you may have income, the type of income may be unfamiliar to the lenders who were involved in this. So can you tell us that story?

Hannah (13:12): Sure. Yeah. So there’s, um, a list of maybe 20 lenders that are approved through the city. Um, and you have to pick from that list of 20 for these programs. And so I just reached out to three of them, um, sent them my income and, uh, filled out the application in which you say your employer and how much income that is. And then the next step is that they request your W2. And so I uploaded my 1098T and immediately everyone, all of those three people were confused, like, what is this? I think they’re assuming that I could be an undergraduate student with just a lot of scholarships. And so I was trying to send them a letter saying, Hey, I’m actually union protected, um, I have health insurance year round, here’s a letter from my PI. And just each lender has their different guidelines and knowledge of whether, and also whether they’re willing to look into those guidelines is kind of, um, the vibe that I was receiving. Um, and so I reached out to, uh, your brother Sam to ask how to get help with this because I didn’t seem like I could resolve it on my own.

Emily (14:29): Yeah. So for the listeners, my brother Sam Hogan is a mortgage originator. And because of our relationship, because I had told him years ago how many issues people in our community like Hannah are running into having fellowship income not documented in a way these, you know, lenders expect. Um, he started looking into it now he like specializes in this area. So plug for Sam if you have any, you know, um, questions about getting a mortgage as a first time home buyer especially, and especially, especially if you’re on fellowship, um, please reach out to him. We often do live, um, ask me anything. So if there’s one coming up, you can go to pfforphds.com/mortgage and see if there’s one coming up that you can join and chat with him. Um, but kind of like back to the story. So what happened <laugh>? Like, did you ask him questions? He gave you information to help work with the lenders? Or how did this end up resolving itself?

Hannah (15:20): I was able to learn from Sam and his videos, the language to use towards the other lenders. And so I was just very upfront in the first email saying, hi, I’m Hannah I’m a graduate student researcher. I have a 1098T I don’t have significant W2 income. Um, I know that under Fannie Mae guidelines I need to show three years continuance. And so here’s a letter that I have supporting that, which was great to know in comparison to the exhausting process of filling out the entire mortgage application and then hearing later as if it was a surprise to them.

Emily (15:58): Yeah, absolutely. And that has been, unfortunately the experience of numerous, numerous graduate students and postdocs who have this unusual income type is like, you know, the, the lenders, they look at your number, they look at your annual salary or whatever, and they’re like, oh yeah, we’re good to go. And then once it gets to the documentation stage. That’s where they pull back. And like you said, it can take quite a bit of legwork even just to get all the information over to them. So that can be really disappointing when that happens. And for other people, I know sometimes they’re under contract by that point and it’s like they’ve got a ticking clock kind of timeline that they’re working on and their lender has just said, no, we can’t work with you. Right. So that’s, that’s what ends up, um, Sam, it’s called rescuing mortgages. That’s what Sam ends up doing for a lot of PhDs is he kind of comes in like late in the process because the other lender has just figured out they’re not gonna be able to actually follow through <laugh> the way that they thought. So that can be really scary. Um, I’m glad that it sounds like you weren’t under that kind of time pressure, but you know, in searching for a lender, it, it took, um, a bit of legwork on your part. Okay. Is there anything else that you need to add to the lender aspect of the story or regarding your income?

Hannah (17:02): It took a lot of work, but I’m thankful that I did it. Um, so I, you know, I reached out to the city saying, Hey, I’ve reached out to 11 lenders on your list and they’ve all said no or ghosted me. Um, and I don’t want to, I don’t know what to do. This is the same time I was reaching out to Sam. Um, I think that I’m thankful being a PhD student has taught me to normalize, oh shoot, I’m in trouble. Let’s ask for help. Um, and I think that I’ll be able to achieve great things, um, with the help of others.

Saving for a Down Payment as a Graduate Student

Emily (17:37): Absolutely. What a great observation and attitude to have about this process. And of course you didn’t wanna let this opportunity slip you by, right? Like, this is an amazing, especially as you said, because you plan on living in San Francisco long term, what an incredible, um, time to be able to purchase. Um, I wanna hear a little bit more about the purchase details, if you don’t mind, because a lot of things have to come together for a graduate student to be able to purchase a home. So your income we’ve already discussed and how this program is particularly helping you, but you also have to consider like your debt load. Um, and you also have to consider like your credit score and down payment, although all those kinds of things. Would you be able to provide any details about how it worked in your situation?

Hannah (18:21): Sure. Um, so I’m super fortunate with a combination of, um, my family situation and my own actions that I came out of college without any debt, um, and saved about 15,000 with my first couple of years of just working. Um, and then my last year of college I had an engineering industry internship and so I was able to save about $30,000 with that by, um, living with family and not having significant housing costs. Um, yeah, and so then with a couple of years of my PhD, um, and investing with the past couple of years, uh, was able to save a hundred thousand dollars to put down for my down payment. Um, so there, there were a lot of puzzle pieces that had to come together as you mentioned. Um, and there’s a small time window in which it would work out in the sense that I need to be able to save enough to put down a decent down payment, um, to be able to afford a mortgage within the certain loan to debt ratios that the mortgage lenders require. Um, but then my income needs to be low enough and I still need to have three years of continuance <laugh>. So I don’t know if it would’ve worked if I tried a year later ’cause I don’t know if I would’ve had the three years continuance.

Emily (19:53): Right. Well that’s incredible. What an amazing accomplishment to be able to save up that much, especially starting as a college student, um, and also, you know, to invest it and so forth. Like so glad that worked out for you. Was there like a minimum down payment required or like why did you choose that number to put down? I guess did it have to be that high to make the mortgage numbers work on your income or what, what was the choice behind that?

Hannah (20:19): I learned that our health insurance part of our income isn’t considered income to the mortgage lender. And so it’s about the maximum that I can take with the mortgage and being within the debt loan ratio, which I think is about 30%. Yeah. Yeah. So that, that was the number I, I could put more of a down payment if I wanted to. Um, but I couldn’t put down too much less, um, with the HOA being $400 and then, uh, which is low for San Francisco, HOAs and San Francisco are usually about a thousand dollars. And a lot of times that’s what makes, uh, the below market rate condos that are in 90% that it’s market rate not worthwhile. Um, because for a graduate student having an HOA of a thousand dollars, that’s just like practically our whole rent.

Emily (21:10): Okay. So it sounds like, and this is something I’ve heard from Sam as well, that like, as you said, it’s a, it’s like a needle you have to thread <laugh>, like, um, you need the maximum loan it sounds like, that you could take out on your income with the interest rates available at the moment was about $160,000. That was how much they were willing to extend you. And so you needed to come up with that other a hundred thousand, um, to get to the purchase price does. Is that correct? Yeah. And that’s something that I do hear from Sam quite a bit. Like, yes, I can create a mortgage on this type of income, but the income is obviously low and especially in other areas of the country, it’s gonna be significantly lower than yours. Um, you know, there’s only so many multiples of that <laugh> you can get to until you have to get to like the housing price. And then a larger down payment can sometimes help help in this, but where does that down payment come from? In your case, you did the savings early on and obviously you’ve been very diligent to build that up. Other people, they might ask for gifts from family members to make up the difference, something like that. So there’s, you know, someone has to have the resources, but there’s a couple ways to kind of solve it. Um, incredible, incredible.

Commercial

Emily (22:20): 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, frugality, increasing income, or student loans, each tailored specifically for graduate students and postdocs? I offer seminars and workshops on these topics and more in a variety of formats. This is a perfect time to book me for a workshop at the end of the current fiscal year or at the beginning of the upcoming 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, or postdoc office? My seminars 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.

Similarities Between Buying a Home and Pursuing a PhD

Emily (23:45): By the way, I, I forgot to ask you earlier, but when did you start this process? Like when did you walk by the sign <laugh> and see, you know, $260,000 for a condo?

Hannah (23:54): Uh, what was it, a month before the deadline, which I think was like May 5th. So probably around early April.

Emily (24:01): Okay. So we’re coming up on a year that you’ve been in this process. Wow. Okay. But clearly getting like such a discount. Hopefully it’s, it’s been worth all this all this investment of time. Amazing. Um, were there any surprises that came up in the course in this whole process of, of pursuing this purchase? 

Hannah (24:20): Uh, so it’s kind of like pursuing a PhD in my opinion, in the sense that there are gonna be challenges and you have to decide, um, if you’re gonna try to overcome them yourself by talking directly with the mortgage lender, talking directly with the city who represents the seller in this case. Um, or if you’re gonna go and ask for outside help, like from Sam for example. Um, so in my case, um, deciding to look into the lottery preferences, um, I thought that was gonna go nowhere. I just submitted my dad’s birth certificate and then I get a call from the city saying, oh, your dad doesn’t qualify, but because he’s in the neighborhood that generally does qualify, you know, there are other family names that you can run. And so, um, gave them my grandmother’s maiden name, which is how I discovered that my great-grandmother would qualify me. Um, and with a new construction place, there are a lot of government permits that need to go on. Um, that’s been exhausting in the sense that they first pitched that the first move in dates were gonna be fall 2024, uh, and I wasn’t under contract until winter. Um, and I think there’s just so much uncertainty that they don’t wanna pitch certain timelines to you ’cause they know they’re probably gonna let you down. Um, so originally they said that the close of escrow would be, um, mid-March. Um, and then due to LA fires there was, um, a delay with I think the Fannie Mae permit. Uh, so then they said it was gonna be another six weeks. Um, so all this is to say that the move in date is pretty uncertain. It’s difficult to challenge, uh, it’s difficult to balance that with the moving interest rates, even with the 30 day loan lock that they require you to do. Um, and managing that with your current lease because you wanna give your landlord the notice that they require without you being penalized heavily. Um, yeah. ’cause then they could just, if they delay it again, then I’m without housing or I need to find short-term housing.

Emily (26:53): So at this point, do you have a move out date scheduled with UCSF housing?

Hannah (26:59): I decided to take the risk, um, and set my move out date to be a month after, um, April 18th. Um, because if I didn’t schedule a move out date, then I would be charged likely until July 1st. Um, ’cause that’s generally when the, that’s their default contract end date. Um, and so I’ll need to look for a short term sublet if um, the housing doesn’t end up working out, which is yeah a risk that I’m taking.

Emily (27:34): Yeah, like you said, this is, uh, a common thing with new construction, um, that these kinds of timeline issues can come up, but yeah, it sounds like you’re working with the information you have as best as you can. Um, any other surprises you’d like to share?

Hannah (27:49): Insurance is difficult to buy in California. Um, so that was another challenge. I’m thankful that, um, AAA was still taking people, at least with the agent that I had called, ’cause apparently there were some others in my building that AAA was not writing new policies for. Um, and there are very few who are willing to insure in California.

Emily (28:15): So you said earlier that your long-term plan is to live in San Francisco. Um, how long do you think you’ll stay in this particular condo?

Hannah (28:25): I would love to stay 20 years, but it’s a good question. Will, will my life priorities change in 10 to 20 years from now? Maybe. Um, but I am thankful that my neighborhood is being zoned as a biotech hub. And so even if I do wanna leave the university, there should be great, um, job opportunities within walking distance. Um, and for me being in California and close to family, um, and being in a neighborhood that is walkable, um, instead of owning a car, um, or being reliant on a car is important to me. And, um, San Francisco is the only place that, uh, meets all those criteria.

Emily (29:09): That sounds wonderful. And certainly because of your, you know, dual degree program, you’re gonna be at UCSF presumably for, I think you said eight years total, is that right? So like five more years. Um, awesome. And let’s say if there is ever a time that you do decide you want to no longer live in this condo, are you permitted to sell it? Does it have to be to another qualifying resident or are you permitted to let, to rent it out? Like what are your options?

Hannah (29:37): Um, yeah, so that’s one of the limitations. Um, affordable housing is created, uh, so that it can be affordable for you to live there. Um, not so that apparently there was someone who found a loophole, um, that if you could just rent it out at market rate, you can make a profit off of the city program that is being funded by bonds. And so that’s just not right. Um, so they’ve made the rule that generally you can’t rent it out. Um, but there is, there are certain exceptions, um, like if you get a job offer that’s a decent distance away, um, I’m not sure if they have there, there must be a control under what you can set the rent to being so that it’s an affordable rate to someone else. Um, and then when I sell, if I were to sell the place, um, I need to sell it at the 260,000, uh, plus any documented improvements that I have made to the place, um, I don’t think that I make interest unfortunately. Um, and it needs to be to someone who is below 80% of the area meeting income.

Emily (30:53): So this home is not going to appreciate,

Hannah (30:57): Correct.

Emily (30:58): It’ll be sold at the same price plus improvements. Interesting. And do you mind sharing what your mortgage payment is going to be? Especially how that compares to like what you were paying, what you’re paying currently in UCSF housing?

Hannah (31:11): My mortgage payment is gonna be $950. Um, combined with HOA property tax utilities, I am expecting to pay 1800 a month.

Emily (31:23): So somewhat higher than your current rent. But you get to live on your own.  Um, and you get that stability. Yeah. So this really seems like the impression I’m getting from our conversation is this, for you is a play to be able to stay in the city in a neighborhood you like in a place that’s, that works for you. Um, and just to have that assurance that you’re an owner and you get to be there long term. Is that right?

Hannah (31:47): Yes. Yes. Uhhuh

Emily (31:49): Very good. Um, and you said when you applied for the podcast that you had kind of a message for other PhD students regarding home ownership. Would you like to express that now?

Hannah (32:00): You know, just like when I was playing soccer, I would say you miss a hundred percent of the goals of you don’t take. Um, so you know, you could shoot a soccer ball to try to be a homeowner, um, and it might be totally off the first time. You might look at a market rate place and say, oh my gosh, the HOA is way too expensive. Um, but you know, you’ve learned something, you’ll shoot the ball better next time. And um, maybe it’ll make it to the goal or maybe it won’t. Um, but, uh, personal finance, um, even outside of home ownership is something that you can take in small steps. Um, and it’s okay that the first steps that you take aren’t gonna get you 90% of the way there. Um, but with endurance, um, uh, you’ll be able to be in a much better position than if you were paralyzed, um, with the idea of starting nowhere.

Emily (33:02): I totally agree. I’m glad that you expanded that beyond home ownership to personal finance in general. ’cause that’s exactly how I feel about it. Like, um, as you said, don’t, don’t be paralyzed. Just start taking the steps that you can take and you’ll be better off for it a year or five years or whatever from now. Um, and especially once your income increases post PhD, um, you’ll have the skills, you’ll have the mindsets, or at least you’ll be in a better spot with respect to the skills and mindsets to be able to manage your money at that time when the stakes are a bit higher. Um, exactly. So yeah, I’m so glad you said that.

Best Financial Advice for Another Early-Career PhD

Emily (33:31): Um, what is your, this is the question I conclude all my interviews with what is your best financial advice for another early career PhD? And it could be something we’ve touched on in the interview already, or it could be something completely new,

Hannah (33:44): Turning unpredictable costs into predictable costs, um, by budgeting a certain amount per month so that you’re able to spend your money in the ways that are valuable to you.

Emily (33:58): Very good, very well put. And you are definitely gonna be putting that to use as a homeowner <laugh>, turning those unpredictable home maintenance and repairs costs into something manageable for your budget. So awesome. Hannah, it’s been lovely to you again and get this story. I’m so excited for you in this new, um, phase of your financial journey and congratulations and thank you so much for coming on the podcast.

Hannah (34:20): Yeah, thank you so much for having me, Emily.

Outro

Emily (34:32): 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? My team has collected short summaries of all the answers ever given on the podcast into a document that is updated with each new episode release. You can gain access to it by registering for my mailing list at PFforPhDs.com/advice/. Would you like to access transcripts or videos of each episode? I link the show notes for each episode from PFforPhDs.com/podcast/. See you in the next episode, and remember: You don’t have to have a PhD to succeed with personal finance… but it helps! Nothing you hear on this podcast should be taken as financial, tax, or legal advice for any individual. The music is “Stages of Awakening” by Podington Bear from the Free Music Archive and is shared under CC by NC. Podcast editing by me and show notes creation by Dr. Jill Hoffman.

Business Class Flights and Hotel Elite Status on a Grad Student Stipend

April 21, 2025 by Jill Hoffman Leave a Comment

In this episode, Emily interviews Brendan Henrique, a fourth-year PhD student in education at the University of California, Berkeley. Brendan leverages his conference and research travel plus personal spending into free luxury travel by amassing credit card points and elite status at hotel chains. He breaks down how he pursues the points and miles hobby even while living on a grad student stipend and how it’s motivated him to work hard so he can play hard. Brendan’s travel habits might seem out of sync with his income or ‘student’ status, but it’s achievable for many grad students who are free from credit card debt and have a small degree of savings.

Links mentioned in the Episode

  • PF for PhDs Spring 2025 Giveaway
  • Brendan Henrique’s Substack: Grad Student Travel
  • Brendan Henrique’s TikTok: Grad Student Travel
  • Host a PF for PhDs Seminar at Your Institution
  • Emily’s E-mail Address
  • Travel Hacking Resource: MilesTalk
  • Frequent Miler
  • PF for PhDs Subscribe to Mailing List
  • PF for PhDs Podcast Hub
Business Class Flights and Hotel Elite Status on a Grad Student Stipend

Teaser

Brendan (00:00): There is a little cognitive dissonance sometimes, um, to the point that through Instagram, some of my friends thought I just had a pile of money in the corner. Part of the reason I’m kind of talking more about it is there’s not any money in the corner, there’s no treasure chest. It’s just really using points effectively. It’s kind of a big disparity sometimes where like for a conference hotel, I’m staying under the university minimum and you have to be this like very responsible steward of like a grant. And then when I do leisure travel for less money because it’s effectively free, I’m at five star luxury resorts.

Introduction

Emily (00:41): 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 (01:11): This is Season 20, Episode 8, and today my guest is Brendan Henrique, a fourth-year PhD student in education at the University of California, Berkeley. Brendan leverages his conference and research travel plus personal spending into free luxury travel by amassing credit card points and elite status at hotel chains. He breaks down how he pursues the points and miles hobby even while living on a grad student stipend and how it’s motivated him to work hard so he can play hard. Brendan’s travel habits might seem out of sync with his income or ‘student’ status, but it’s achievable for many grad students who are free from credit card debt and have a small degree of savings.

Emily (01:52): Because we in academia and research are experiencing such precarity in our finances and careers at the moment, I’m doing as much as I can on the financial education side to help you. I’m calling this initiative Giveaway Spring. I’m giving away 60-minute group Q&A calls, 30-minute individual coaching sessions, books, and digital resources—all completely for free—and I’m also sharing the best free financial and career resources I come across for PhDs. Register for my mailing list at PFforPhDs.com/giveaway/ to receive all the details of the current giveaways and an update every other week. You can find the show notes for this episode at PFforPhDs.com/s20e8/. Without further ado, here’s my interview with Brendan Henrique.

Will You Please Introduce Yourself Further?

Emily (02:55): I am delighted to have joining me on the podcast today, Brandon Henrique. He is a fourth year PhD student at University of California Berkeley and we are here talking about travel hacking or the points and miles hobby or stacking travel rewards. We don’t have a really firm term for this, but that’s our topic for today and Brendan’s gonna tell us all about how he does this as a graduate student. So Brendan, thank you so much for volunteering to come on the podcast. Will you please introduce yourself a little bit further for the audience?

Brendan (03:23): Yeah, thank you so much for having me on. I’ve been a fan of kind of the website and everything for a long time. So I am a fourth year student out in sunny California. I study uh, computer science education, um, at the school of Education at UC, Berkeley and I’ve been, I’m in my fourth year.

Using Travel Rewards for Once in a Lifetime Trips

Emily (03:39): Excellent. For you as a graduate student, what kinds of travel rewards stacking strategies do you use? This is a big question, it’s what we’re gonna talk about for the whole interview, but let’s get a high level intro and then we’ll kind of dive into some different ones.

Brendan (03:54): Yeah, so my kind of claim to fame in this is I use a variety of credit card points, whether it’s signup offers, hotel points, conference days where I can generate points to kind of stay in these amazing once in a lifetime resorts, flights, and were kind of redeem these points for really amazing experiences. And that’s kind, I think if I had to summarize in like one paragraph, that’s kind of what I do.

Emily (04:18): Okay. There’s the part of this process where you are um, gaining points and like amassing the rewards and then there’s a part of it where it’s like deploying the rewards and the points and stuff that you’ve amassed. So I wanna talk about both of those. Um, but first do you stay within like a certain um, family of types of points or certain airlines that you use or do you kind of spread everything all over the map? Tell us about that selection process.

Brendan (04:50): Yeah, and this is actually one of the kind of cool parts about points is depending on what credit card family you want to join. So if you’re an Amex person or a Chase person, a lot of those points transfer. So for me the best value for my chase points is transferring it to Hyatt. So I’ve become a really big Hyatt person to the point that I’ve been able to gain the top status with Hyatt where I get the upgrades, I get the free breakfast, kind of the bells and whistles. And so what I recommend to grad students is pick a hotel brand and stick to it. So the big ones are being Marriott, Hyatt, Hilton, and then when you go to those research meetings you have to do field work for a month and they have you at the Holiday Inn, well it might be great to join IHG collect those points. And all of them really have great luxury properties that you can kind of spin the points from the casual stay to the super stay.

Emily (05:39): It makes sense to me that if your university is sending you somewhere for a period of time, they might control, they might choose which brand you’re staying with, it might depend on exactly the location, what’s available and so forth. Um, do you, have you in your experience had agency over that? Um, like when I go to conferences I just try to stay at the conference hotel, but I know some people stay you know, down the street or whatever. So like do you exert control to like stay within your preferred rewards family or do you just go with wherever they wanna send you?

Brendan (06:10): I’ve had both experience. So sometimes it’s like where we have to go to Philadelphia, stay within a mile of the conference center and at that point I do try to go outta my way. Like where’s the nearest Hyatt, my backup kind of family is Hilton so if there’s not a Hyatt, there’s probably a Hilton and that kind of rings true most of the time. There’s been a couple of times where I did like a two week research project where I was on the road and we had to say like a motel, I tried to pick one that had a super family. So for this one it was Wyndham, I forget the sub-brand and Wyndham points can be transferred to Caesar rewards in Las Vegas at one point percent. So I got to eat a great steak dinner because of my two weeks in a motel.

Accumulating Travel Rewards Points

Emily (06:53): I see, okay. You’ve picked a preferred brand but also you try to have some flexibility depending on you know, the location that that’s calling you or what have you. Let’s talk more about the accumulation of rewards. So it sounds like when your university is paying for you to go and stay somewhere that somehow benefits you personally. Can you tell us how that works?

Brendan (07:13): Yeah, so what I make sure I do is I book direct. So if you book through expedia, booking.com, you don’t collect points. So what I recommend to every grad student, I would honestly sign up for the top five hotel brands, make a loyalty account it’s free and then when you do get sent to conferences you can just plug in your rewards number and even if you have to book through like the travel agency or like the conference booking page, every time I’ve had one it allowed me to put in my number and then on the backend they were sync up. So I’m welcomed as like an elite member or loyalty team member. Usually you get better service, especially with a conference hotel, they’re sold out so if there’s a way to split the difference, they’re gonna look who’s a member who’s not and it’s free to join. So that’s kinda one way to personally benefit is to just kind of sign up and make sure you’re using um, kind of the family you want to stick to, whether it’s you know, your Hyatt or Hilton.

Emily (08:05): Okay. So we have our very easy applicable tip number one which is just sign up for the, you know, the loyalty programs for all the hotels that you interact with in your uh, daily, you know, yearly life. Um, so just sign up for ’em all. Great. Let’s talk more about um, amassing points to yourself. Um, you mentioned Chase earlier, so tell us about your, the credit card like aspect of this strategy.

Brendan (08:31): Yeah, so using credit cards you can get a return on the point. So like I think the Chase Sapphire preferred is kind of your typical, most people will say it’s like your introductory travel card. It gets like two or three times on travel. Those points are transferrable to Hyatt. So let’s say you spend a hundred dollars on a hotel for a conference, you get 200 Hyatt points that you could transfer from Chase to Hyatt. You can also use it a few different ways That is kind of a slow grind but it helps you kind of slowly accumulate points. The big leaps are signup offers. So the Chase Sapphire, I think the signup offer right now is 60,000 points. That’s a significant amount of Hyatt points or you can transfer to I think United Air France, a few other partners. That’s a lot of points for Amex. Their offers tend to be a little more generous I think I’ve seen on the platinum card 175,000 Amex points with 1 cent up offer With them though you have to spend a certain amount of money in a certain amount of time. So for Amex I think it’s 8,000 in three months, which is a massive ask Chase. I think it’s a little bit lower, it’s like 4,000 in three months and some are six months. So you kind of have to play what’s that public signup offer and with what those points are worth for you and can you hit that bonus.

Emily (09:46): I think that’s the real key there. Like I just barely started dipping my toe into credit card rewards when I was in graduate school and I mostly stuck with the cash back offers because of two reasons. One, I was nervous about meeting those minimum spends required to get you know, the big sign up bonuses. Um, and two, I really didn’t wanna pay an annual fee ever <laugh>. I didn’t wanna do the math on whether or not it was worth it. I just didn’t wanna pay fees. So can you speak to both of those kind of like objections?

Common Travel Rewards Concerns: Minimum Spending and Annual Fees

Brendan (10:13): Yeah, so I think it’s also a very valid objection if you’re like, you know what, I don’t really like to travel, I like I would rather put the money in a cash back and just kind of pay myself back then there’s cards meant for that. Like I would still recommend you look into it and there are cards that offer great cash back offers where you spend X amount of money and you immediately get it back. So maybe you wait until the end of the year to pay your taxes, you have that sum or estimated taxes, you kind of time it right, you pay with a credit card even with a 2% fee, if the cash back is significant enough it might offset that. And then in regards to I think your other, oh the annual fees, those are a lot trickier. What I like to tell people is we’re graduate students, we’re really good about spreadsheets and like details make a map of it’s gonna work out for you. Some of like my top annual fee card is the platinum card, it’s like 700 a year. I’m very meticulous about extracting every dollar of value on every cent. So there’s a way to get, they have one part of it is a $200 airline fee, so you can’t use it for airfare, you can use it for incidentals. The backdoor hack is the United Travel Bank where you like fill up your travel bank counts as an incidental which you can use for a flight and I find SFO is a United hub, um, as well as like a bunch of other kind of major airports around the country that you can totally one united flight a year that’s paid for.

Emily (11:36): Going back to my, my first objection about like meeting the minimum spends, um, and my comment about like sort of sticking with cashback cards which are usually have lower minimum spends and typically no annual fee. What I’ve learned since then <laugh> since I was in graduate school and had those kinds of objections was that using points for cash back versus using them for travel. There’s a massive um, ROI difference, it’s something like five times, six times, maybe even more of a difference between using those points for travel and points for cash back. So if you are really frugal like I am and especially was in graduate school, I actually would’ve been better served probably by um, using those points that I was accumulating through my normal spending and so forth, um, for travel purposes instead of for cashback purposes. But you know, I didn’t have the bandwidth at the time to understand the whole system. So that’s what you’re, what you know, what you’re helping us do here, which is really fun. Okay, so we talked about collecting points through signup bonuses through ongoing spending on certain cards, whether an annual fee is worth it, do the math, um, figure that out. Tell us a little bit more about the spending of the points and how, how you’ve done that in a really worthwhile way.

Brendan (12:47): Yeah, so it ends up being this kind of complicated optimization problem where you know the points are worth about a penny a piece, some are a little bit less, some are a little bit more and you want to track the maximum value. The best way I found to do that is if you’re trying to redeem it for kind of the lower end of the spectrum. So like a southwest flight, a basic hotel say you’re really only gonna get a penny, a penny 0.5 per point. Where this starts to really get exponentially bigger is your business class flights. Your five star hotels are like, uh, one of the hotels that I’m hoping to stay at is in Paris, the minimum is like 1300 a night but it’s, it’s 45,000 Hyatt points, which is a massive amount of points but point per dollar. It’s an incredible return on investment. And same thing for business cost flights, some of them are like three or $4,000 or international where if you use the points that way I’m getting five to 6 cents per point, which is five times then if you just used it regularly. And that’s kind of the hack is knowing those optimal um, utilization and when to kind of u- hit that value. And that’s the complicated part I would argue.

Emily (13:56): So it sounds like your, is your preference to redeem these points for like the more the step up the little, little luxury travel and not go for economy class and basic hotels and so forth? Or do you do both or like how are you using them?

Brendan (14:11): I kind of aim to get like a minimum value on my points. So for chase points I try to aim to 2.5. So if I do the math that the cents per point redemption isn’t gonna gimme that, I’ll kind of make a hard decision of like do I have to stay at this hotel? Can I find another way to stay there? Like not through, maybe it’s not Hyatt this time, maybe I’ll go to Hilton and check it out and then that’s kind of my cutoff for Amex points. I’m a little more, I kinda held them close because I knew I wanted a business class flight for Europe on a upcoming big trip. Um, so I kind of held them until I saw the moment and then I knew that that value would be there if you watch closely and it popped up on my computer and I snagged it.

Emily (14:52): Okay, this is a bit of a weird question, but you’re a grad student, how does it like feel like psychologically to be traveling in an upgraded way?

Brendan (15:06): Yeah, it, it’s kind of a big disparity sometimes where like for a conference hotel I’m staying under the university minimum and you have to be this like very responsible steward of like a grant. So it’s kind of a, and then when I do leisure travel for less money because it’s effectively free, I’m at five star luxury resorts, it, there is a little cognitive dissonance sometimes, um, to the point that through Instagram some of my friends thought I just had a pile of money in the corner and I had, part of the reason I’m kind of talking more about it is there’s not any money in the corner, there’s no treasure chest. It’s just really using points effectively so that we can, my uh, fiance and I have been able to say at some incredible places from Arizona to Florida and do some incredible stuff because of all these hacks and like tricks.

Gaining Elite Status at Hotel Chains

Emily (15:53): Now you mentioned earlier like stacking deploying of points with like having status at like Hyatt for example. Can you tell us how that works?

Brendan (16:02): Yeah, so what’s great about it is when you redeem the points it’s free to like, or the hotel becomes free. When you then have status, you still get your status benefits. So for Hyatt it’s a little bit harder to get status but when you hit their top, if there’s a suite available that’s in their basic suite, you’re guaranteed to get upgraded to it. Granted some front desk give you a little bit of a hard time, but there’s been times where I’m like, Hey, is there a suite available? I saw one on the app and they’re like, oh my bad. And then all of a sudden I’m in a 800 square foot room, two bathrooms and that’s the fun times at conferences when it’s like you have the massive room because every other room gets sold out and then in the morning for, Hyatt at least, you get to eat breakfast in the lounge or there’s not a lounge, they give you a voucher for the restaurant. So it’s been actually at conferences it’s helped a lot because I’ll fill up at the free breakfast and not have to pay lunch out of the grant money. So it kind of actually I’ll pick a Hyatt and like I’ve argued with like in present an argument to the like whether I’m getting reimbursement, like no, no, by booking this hotel I actually saved you money by the free breakfast and lunch. It allowed me to kind of offset the cost.

Emily (17:11): So I’m so attracted to this idea because I, I know just from my light study of the travel reward space that as you said that Chase redeeming chase points at Hyatt is like a really great value. Um, overall. So I just wanna know how do you get status at Hyatt?

Brendan (17:28): So for their top status you have to stay 60 nights in a year, which is an absurd amount of years. Um, not years, uh, nights there’s some kind of short cuts to get that number lower. One way is if every conference I pick Hyatt, I go to two or three conferences a year, three or four nights, that’s already kind of 10 to 12 nights. So already out of pocket I’m down to like what 50, 48 nights, use point and when you use points, nights count as qualify nights. So then I lower the pay like paid nights even more. When you have the Hyatt credit card, which is their credit card, they give you free, um, what is it, five free qualify nights. So that’s five more nights to hit the 60. And then there’s a few other kind of backdoor hacks where I can gift my status to someone and when they stay I get the night and that allows me to kind of lower, I don’t actually stay 60 nights a year in a hotel because that would be like twice a month, you know. Um, so you’re able to lower that number through some credit card hacks, some of, and then some taking advantage of the Hyatt loyalty program structure itself.

Emily (18:35): Okay. And is this something you have to do every year?

Brendan (18:38): Uh, to some degree the year you earn it you earn it through the rest of the year. And then so if you were to earn Hyatt globalist, I guess you couldn’t hit it now because we’ve only had 28 days. But let’s say you stayed 60 days, you hit it early February, I mean early March you would have it for the rest of this year and the following year. Um, so when I hit globalist, you keep it for the kind of, it’s 12 months plus the remaining of the year.

Emily (19:04): I can see this is a great um, program on their end to retain loyalty <laugh> from you know, frequent travelers and so forth. I think you also mentioned that you use um, travel hacking strategies for rental cars as well, which I’ve like never heard of. So how does that work?

Car Rental Strategies Specific to Grad Students

Brendan (19:18): So this isn’t so much a travel hack as taking advantage of what grad students may not know and if you’re at a large university system, your corporate like office for travel at the university negotiates a ton of travel deals. So I found out recently at Berkeley that because they’re part of the University of California system, they negotiate hundreds of thousands of deals. We have tons of travel offers that just by being an employee of the university you get one of which is uh, tr uh, renter cars. So we get I think 35 to $45 a day rental cars anywhere. What’s amazing about kind of stacking the university discount with a credit card is the Amex platinum gives you top hertz status which allows you to pick any car in like their luxury lane. So when I go to an airport and I need to rent a car, I don’t pick the car that I booked, I go straight to the lane and see what’s available and I’ve done everything from like a Mustang convertible for like 37 a day in San Diego to like we were going to the Grand Canyon. And I wanted like a supped up SUV, there was this like really nice all-wheel drive Buick, but I still paid the same base rate that I paid based off the university discount. And I’ve seen most public big university systems have something like this, whether it’s a travel portal or like just kind of your standard corporate discounts.

Emily (20:36): I had no idea about that. So like I’m not affiliated with the university anymore but I wish I had known that <laugh> back when I was at Duke ’cause yeah, probably they had something if you’re saying that. Um, most do but that’s, that’s like easy tip number two is just check out is there a travel portal for a university that you’re, you know, permitted to book through and yeah see what kind of deals you can get. And it sounds like you can use it for personal travel as well as university business.

Brendan (21:00): Most of them are, they’re tell you you can’t on the travel portal. So for Berkeley there’s some that are very clear that they actually get a, I think the corporate contract gets a kickback and they don’t care whether it’s leisure or for business. With business there’s some more benefits but with leisure you can use the corporate code at lease.

Emily (21:16): Okay, wow. Alright, this sounds really great

Commercial

Emily (21:21): 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, frugality, increasing income, or student loans, each tailored specifically for graduate students and postdocs? I offer seminars and workshops on these topics and more in a variety of formats. This is a perfect time to book me for a workshop at the end of the current fiscal year or at the beginning of the upcoming 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, or postdoc office? My seminars 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.

Using Travel Rewards for a $30,000 Honeymoon

Emily (22:46): Now you’ve mentioned your fiance a couple of times. I understand you’ve been gearing up for a honeymoon on you know, using these strategies. Can you tell us about what you’ve booked?

Brendan (22:55): Yeah, so I kind of have been in like points slumber mode where I’m just accumulating hidden and sign up bonuses, asking my fiance if she would also apply to get double the the bonus and you can usually backwards transfer and we’re gonna do a couple weeks in Europe. I’ve never actually been to Europe so I’ve always dreamed of going. Um, so I’m really excited to kind of stay in Europe for a very long time for essentially no money because every hotel has been on points. We got business class flights to and from for about a quarter of a million Amex points, which is like a big number but um, we’ve been kind of saving up for a while with our points to make this once in a lifetime trip possible.

Emily (23:39): Give us like a scale on how many points this took

Brendan (23:44): I actually, I wrote it down just because I knew that this might come up. So it’s about 280,000 chase or Hyatt points kind of. I had to combine them three Hyatt. They have these things called suite upgrade awards where you take your basic book reservation upgrade to the suite three Hilton free night certificates, 800,000 Hilton points and about 350,000 Amex points. So a lot across multiple brands, multiple credit cards.

Emily (24:13): Yeah those are like eye popping numbers um, to me. So how, how long would you say that this took to generate all the points for this trip?

Brendan (24:23): I would say depending on the card, three to four years depending on some were accidents. We were gonna do a big stay at a Hilton so I had started to get into the Hilton ecosystem, decided not to go on the trip so I just had this leftover treasure chest from like three summers ago. Then I was like oh this might be useful on a rainy day and it just kind of kept growing as different Hilton offers came out with different um, signup and you were able to kind of stack them and so I would say we’ve been Hyatt, I tend to use ’em more quickly. So the Hyatt I would say was more than like a year, year and a half.

Emily (24:59): And it sounds like even though you know, you’ve been, the points have been accumulated for around three to four years, but you’ve still been traveling some during that time. You said most recently you’ve been quieter on the travel front to like finalize all of this, but it’s not like it took you all of your spending devoted for three to four years just for this one trip.

Brendan (25:17): No, this involves multiple, like I’ve definitely stayed at Hyatt quite a bit in the last two years. Hilton, I haven’t touched the points I very much like that was kind of don’t touch and then Amex I didn’t touch because I knew, I knew I wanted us to fly to Europe in business class so I kind of wanted to have this kind of flexible chest of points to be able to find the right value and find the right flight route for us to get home.

Emily (25:40): Okay, so you’re staying for essentially free, it sounds like you got all the nights, you got all the flights covered, those, that aspect of the travel. Um, if you would have paid cash for that, how expensive is this trip?

Brendan (25:54): So I have a spreadsheet where I kind of track the value of like the hotel room, what suite we got upgraded to the business class might, when you add it all up plus or minus a little bit, it’s around $30,000 which is, I was almost shocked when I did the math. I checked it twice because I couldn’t believe that the amount of value we were able to extract and we’re averaging anywhere depending on the point like three to 6 cents a point, which is incredible value sometimes I think at the, the Park Hyatt in Paris, the suite goes for 3000 a night. So that was an incredible value for $0. Um, and 45,000 Hyatt points isn’t like normally a lot but at that cash rate, which I certainly would never pay $3,000 for a suite, but that’s what they’re charging someone for it. Um, so I was very amazed that it’s pretty much a brand new car of points.

Emily (26:44): Yeah, a brand new car, uh, I’m assuming over half your stipend for the year. Yeah, I mean it’s, it’s a remarkable, yeah, again, you wouldn’t have paid that but somebody would have for some of all these, for the some of all these components. So, uh, that’s so interesting and again that to me the cognitive dissonance is coming up of like, oh but you’re a grad student. Like you know, do you, you know, not do you deserve but like is it within your realm and understanding of the world to be traveling this way? But that’s the amazing thing that points makes this possible. My goodness

Brendan (27:21): And my fiance is a uh, she was a teacher and now she’s an instructional coach. So we’re both in a similar kind of like highly educated that middle class kind of group or like that it, there is a dissonance of coming back from a couple of really incredible resorts but it’s gone to the point that our friends know were the points people and they’re like, oh where are you off to now? How much did it cost you? Zero. And it’s almost an ongoing joke.

Teaching Other Grad Students about Travel Hacking

Emily (27:46): Yeah. Well on that topic, have you been teaching any of your peers about this? Are they receptive?

Brendan (27:52): So that actually led me to start a Substack, which is my weekly newsletter. I get a lot of questions from a lot of friends like we’re going to Italy, can you help us? So I was like, why don’t I just share everything I know in a way that’s kind of meant for grad students. Um, so every week I post a new post, um, every Wednesday and it’s some either hack some trip report and kind of different ways I’ve come to learn points and I’m trying to kind of write it in a way where to help graduate students understand um, and hopefully like I can kind of help people do this in their own lives with some of the hacks are very low lifts and it’s very much just sign up, search for the travel agency, get this one credit card sign up and you can do this end of year summer amazing dissertation celebration.

Emily (28:37): Yeah, I would say especially for graduate students who do a lot of travel or a decent amount of travel in the course of their work, like it’s kind of, I guess the impression from like travel hacking maybe from like the nineties or something was it was like, oh this is possible if you’re like a consultant who travels every single week on the same airline so you can you know, get the status or whatever. Um, and it’s just changed so much over the decades that this actually is accessible um, even for people who are making like a grad student stipend but especially if travel is a component that your work does pay for to some degree.

Brendan (29:10): Yeah, I think the reimbursable cost part is a really big part that even if you’re at like a Hampton Inn for 100 a night on field work, those are Hilton points. If there’s a Hilton double point promotion, you have the Hilton card, all of a sudden you can add such a big multiplier on something you’re getting, you have to do anyways for your research so why not go to that resort once summer break hits, you know?

Emily (29:33): Yes, wonderful idea. Okay. Earlier you mentioned some example minimum spend levels maybe $4,000 in three months, maybe $8,000 in three months. Um, how do you work it with your like typical level spending as a graduate student to meet any signup bonuses or maybe more like the more aggressive signup bonuses?

Brendan (29:54): Yeah, so let’s, if I, let’s use the 8,000 for the Amex Platinum as kind of like, that’s the highest one I’ve attained. Some tricks that I’ve used is you can pay your taxes with a credit card. They charge like a 2% fee. So if you use estimated taxes you could do time it right? Or if you kind of have the end of the year you have that big lump sum that probably might be able to allow you to hit at least half of it a quarter of it. The other hack I’ve been able to use for smaller ones is if you know you go to Starbucks once a month, 10 times a month, whatever that number is, you can prepay your year for credit like and gift cards. Same thing with Amazon. You can, if you know for uh, the holidays you’re buying a ton of gifts for both you and your friends or family, you can just load your Amazon account a little bit ahead of time and it’s all about the timing. So I wouldn’t sign up with the platinum card with 8,000 and just hope you’re gonna make it. I’d be very intentional with, oh we have the holidays in December, then taxes, maybe I’ll try to do them really quickly in February and then I can kind of get in that three month window or a big conference. If you have a international conference in France, you’re gonna spend a pretty penny. Why not use that towards a signup bonus?

Getting Started with Travel Hacking

Emily (31:08): My goodness. Yeah, most of the conversation around, you know, um, having to front travel expenses and conference fees for graduate students is around complaining rightfully so about you know, having to pay interest on it if they’re not able to pay off the cards and how it actually costs them money and so forth to do it. But you’re completely flipping this on its head and saying, actually use this to your advantage now it does take some savings, right? If you wanna prepay expenses, you have to have the money to do that. So like for you, is this a general savings fund that you have? Do you kind of tap your emergency fund? Like where is the money coming from for you?

Brendan (31:43): I kind of have a small revolving fund that I know that like I’m gonna get reimbursed for the conference or I know that this thing is gonna kind of come and go. So I typically would kind use it almost as like a flex fund that when I need to hit that signup bonus, it goes into it, then the tax or not tax a conference happens, I’m gonna get refunded a month later. Um, if that’s not possible for you, depending on your stipend structure, I would recommend credit cards are probably not a good because you don’t want to, as soon as you hit a penalty at interest charge, all of the point value really starts to get washed away really quickly that if you spend a couple hundred dollars in interest, even that $300 Hyatt Hotel, you’re not gonna break even anymore. So I’m really intentional about staying below and never, never missing a payment.

Emily (32:29): Yeah, this is definitely not an entry level strategy. If you’re a first time listener to this podcast, this is not, okay, go ahead and sign up for the loyalty programs. But like don’t try the credit card stuff until you have, you have all your credit card debt paid off, you have some savings like you said, a flex fund to be able to prepay some things or the conference expenses or, or what have you. Um, this is a level two <laugh> or further like kind of strategy. Um, yeah, I’ve noticed in my own life, um, I, I talk about irregular expenses quite a bit in my uh, teaching but now that I have a higher income than I used to when I was in graduate school. Um, but I also have different expenses. I have kids now I have a house, blah blah. So like I actually just sat down a few months ago and was like, okay, let me look at the cycle of my year. I can figure out like when are these higher expense, you know, periods it’s like March and April for me are like really high spending for some reason. It’s like kids camps, car insurance, like all this stuff. Um, okay now I know February let’s apply for a new card. Hit that sign up bonus. So I’ve just been more intentional about like looking at my year and figuring out okay, these are the key months when it’s a great time to sign up for something

Brendan (33:33): In February works really well because if you hit the bonus around April you can start thinking summer vacation that kind of gives you a three month window when resorts start to, not every hotel releases point availability the same. So three months out is a great time start looking. So that’d be, that’s actually a great timeline. 

Emily (33:48): Yeah, Okay. We were just talking about some things you have to have set in your finances to play around with credit cards <laugh>, but let’s say someone is ready for that, they have all the credit card debt paid off or they’ve never had credit card debt, they have some savings. What’s like the first, the next first step after signing up for those loyalty programs after checking with their university’s travel portal? Um, what’s a good first step after that?

Brendan (34:10): Yeah, I think I would decide what you want to use the points for and then that’s a really great kinda decision tree. So if you’ve heard today you’re like, I really wanna stay at Hyatts, that sounds awesome. I would really recommend the Chase Sapphire preferred. The annual fee is like 95 a year. If you book once through the Chase portal, I think you get $50 back, which offsets annual fee pretty much immediately. The signup offer anywhere from 60, I’ve seen as high as like 90,000, but that hasn’t happened in a while. 60,000 Hyatt points gets you four nights at some like really nice hotels. It could also be two nights at an incredible once in a lifetime hotel depending on how you want to use the points. And I would say find that entry level card if you’re like, you know what I, I don’t mind paying for the hotel, I want an incredible flight experience. American Express points are great for business class flights to Europe, um, or even going west, I’ve seen some amazing deals to like Tokyo from the west coast, from like Seattle or LAX, you wanna fly in first class. There’s some incredible deals to be had that way and if you know that’s you or you want to visit there for leisure or for family or anything, then that might be the route that you want an introductory Amex card, which might be like the American Express Gold, which is kind of your dining and grocery reward card.

Emily (35:25): Yeah, and I would say my tip that I’ll add onto this, it’s just, it’s something you mentioned earlier, but just like staying organized <laugh>, um, staying on top of this. So like try one card, get a spreadsheet set up or whatever system you’re gonna be using to keep track of like, you know, the date that you sign up, the date you have to finish spending, the amount of the spend, what you’re gonna get for it, um, what those extra rewards categories are for ongoing spending. The little um, you know, $50 here, a free night there, all that stuff that can come like with your annual annual fee and so forth. Like just get your system going <laugh>, um, from that first card and then you can kind of layer on and add to it over time.

Brendan (36:01): Now I tell people to kind of get your sea legs with your first travel card and then once you’re like, oh I know how to use points, I know how to transfer, then it’s time to maybe think about a different one but try it out and um, take that first day and see how great if it was to not pay for it.

Emily (36:15): Yeah, I agree. I’ve been like just very slowly making my way into the travel rewards points and miles hobby kind of space. I’ve like, I feel like I know like the Chase Southwest system for that free budget <laugh> flight kind of situation. And the next thing I have my sights on is like international travel. Now I don’t know that I’m gonna be able to go business class ’cause I have a family of four, but we’ll see.

Brendan (36:39): That makes it a little harder.

Emily (36:40): Yeah. But just to be able to take those longer flights to that, you know, the further destinations again for free or you know, low, low fees, you know, depending on the taxes and whatnot. Um, so I’m excited about expanding my own like practice in this area. So I’m talking to myself too as well during this interview. Um, so what’s been kind of the overall like effect on your financial mindset, on your stress, on your, how you spend your time of like pursuing this hobby?

Brendan (37:09): Yeah, I think for me in terms of financial, it’s made me think about return on investment a lot more because now every time we go out as a lab or I take friends out or grad school, I’m the first one to say I’ll pay just venmo me. And you can kind of think about it as a return on investment that it might end up paying your dinner actually, if you think about the points that you get in terms of personal kind of enjoyment of life, knowing that there’s this kind of once in a lifetime stay coming up at the end of the year really has helped motivate me to work harder in my like day-to-day life as a PhD student knowing that as soon as I finish this conference I’m flying to Florida for this really amazing to stay. Um, and kind of, you know, that’s coming up that allows me to kind of stress a little bit more so I, because I know the de-stress has coming where I can just sit pool side for a couple days.

Emily (37:58): I think that’s such an important point because probably a trait that’s pretty common among PhD students is not, um, giving yourself the kudos that you deserve for all the great work that you do and not taking the rest and the rejuve rejuvenation and so forth. Um, and what a great way to sort of enhance that experience to be anticipating it, you know, while you’re collecting these points, planning the trip, working really hard as you said, and then be able to actually, you know, take the vacation and do that relaxation that you need. And it’s, it’s cyclical, right? So like that’s so helpful. I know I didn’t take enough like vacation or personal uh, time, you know, when I was a graduate student and it’s really, um, it’s, it’s not that healthy to live that way. So I’m glad you’re kind of an example here of like a different way to like work hard, play hard, work hard, play hard, 

Brendan (38:45): And especially we have to to work hard a lot of the time. So like why not get that reward at the end of the tunnel, especially like whether it’s yearly at the end of the milestone. Kind of give yourself that reward.

The Grad Student Travel Substack and Other Travel Hacking Resources

Emily (38:57): Absolutely. First of all, share with us the name of your substack and then tell us some other great resources that you use in this space.

Brendan (39:03): Yeah, so my substack is gradstudenttravel.substack.com so when you go to that, you’ll be able to subscribe as soon as you put your email in, you have access to my archive of every post that I’ve ever written and every Wednesday you get an alert with, there’s a new post and it’s kind of a trip report, a new hack, a new trick and so on. And then the things that kind of got me into this space, um, there’s a lot of great blogs and kind of guides that get you in. One is MilesTalk, um, it’s a Facebook group that became, I think it’s a blog that became a Facebook group and now it’s kind of back and forth. He’s been really instrumental in kind of teaching how you can go from one thing to another and just stack all the rewards. And then Frequent Miler is another one. They do some awesome trip reports of, we use Amex points on this business flight to France. We didn’t like this so you should try this, another hack with Amex and kind of even like you read trip reports that people doing what you hope to do. So it’s been able to kind of gimme one aspiration of I want to be that guy on that plane or two how to get there.

Emily (40:07): It’s so much fun. Okay. When should we tune into your substack to see the trip report on your honeymoon?

Brendan (40:13): Yeah, so that trip report should come out probably next fall. Um, so I’ll be able to kind of write it up fully in the meantime. I’m going to, I started a kind of a six part post of like every little piece that went into it. So that would be every month or every two months I’m gonna kind of give a glimpse of how do we find the flight home, how did I use the points, how did I collect that? And then I’ll do a retrospective probably in like maybe a year from now where I say, this is the whole trip, these are the pictures, um, this is all the upgrades we got and everything.

Best Financial Advice for Another Early-Career PhD

Emily (40:46): Awesome. Well we will look forward to that. Okay, Brendan, thank you so much for this interview. I’m so like inspired <laugh>. Um, but I wanna end with the standard 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’ve touched on on the interview already or it could be something completely new.

Brendan (41:05): I would say the best advice outside of like kind of dipping your toes in the water and like travel on points would be Roth IRA it. When I was a, I used to be a teacher, a older teacher kind of took me aside and said, Hey, you’re 22, you don’t know what you’re doing. Get a Roth IRA like first day. And I was like, oh, okay. Um, my mom had mentioned it too, so I should have listened to her in the first place. Um, but it really, if you think about what it affords you and there is kind of an opportunity cost for the PhD sometimes with retirement access that it really for me changed how I thought about retirement and finances and even invest in period.

Emily (41:43): Awesome. You know, I have to co-sign that. Love the Roth IRA for graduate students and really for everybody. Um, okay. Well Brendan, thank you so much again for volunteering to come on. It’s been wonderful talking with you.

Brendan (41:54): Thank you so much for having me. This has been awesome.

Outro

Emily (42:07): 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? My team has collected short summaries of all the answers ever given on the podcast into a document that is updated with each new episode release. You can gain access to it by registering for my mailing list at PFforPhDs.com/advice/. Would you like to access transcripts or videos of each episode? I link the show notes for each episode from PFforPhDs.com/podcast/. See you in the next episode, and remember: You don’t have to have a PhD to succeed with personal finance… but it helps! Nothing you hear on this podcast should be taken as financial, tax, or legal advice for any individual. The music is “Stages of Awakening” by Podington Bear from the Free Music Archive and is shared under CC by NC. Podcast editing by me and show notes creation by Dr. Jill Hoffman.

Are PhDs in a Financial Emergency?

April 7, 2025 by Jill Hoffman

In this episode, Emily shares her thoughts on whether PhDs are in a financial emergency. It’s possible that you are facing a financial emergency because you’ve been laid off or your grants have been terminated or interrupted or there’s some risk of that happening in the future. In this episode, Emily explores 1) what she learned from attending the National Postdoctoral Association’s Annual Conference in March, 2) what steps she recommends that you take in your personal finances and your career if you are in a financial emergency, and 3) what she’s giving away this spring to help you in this turbulent time.

Links mentioned in the Episode

  • PF for PhDs Tax Workshops
  • Op-Ed by Tom Kimbis: Federal research instability risks postdoc careers, American leadership
  • National Postdoctoral Association Survey Results: Impact on Postdocs from Executive Branch Actions 
  • PF for PhDs Tax Center for PhDs-in-Training
  • PF for PhDs Spring 2025 Giveaway
  • Emily’s E-mail Address
  • PF for PhDs AMA with Sam Hogan on the PhD Home-Buying Process
  • PF for PhDs Book Giveaway for The Entrepreneurial Scholar by Ilana Horwitz
  • PF for PhDs Subscribe to Mailing List
  • PF for PhDs Podcast Hub
Are PhDs in a Financial Emergency?

Introduction

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.

This is Season 20, Episode 7, and today you’re getting my thoughts on whether PhDs are in a financial emergency. It’s possible that you are facing a financial emergency because you’ve been laid off or your grants have been terminated or interrupted or there’s some risk of that happening in the future. In this episode, I’m going to share with you 1) what I learned from attending the National Postdoctoral Association’s Annual Conference in March, 2) what steps I recommend that you take in your personal finances and your career if you are in a financial emergency, and 3) what I’m giving away this spring to help you as best I can.

The tax year 2024 version of my tax return preparation workshop, How to Complete Your PhD Trainee Tax Return (and Understand It, Too!), is now available! This pre-recorded educational workshop explains how to identify, calculate, and report your higher education-related income and expenses on your federal tax return. Whether you are a graduate student, postdoc, or postbac, domestic or international, there is a version of this workshop designed just for you. I do license these workshops to universities, but in the case that yours declines your request for sponsorship, you can purchase the appropriate version as an individual. Go to PFforPhDs.com/taxreturnworkshop/ to read more details and purchase the workshop. You can find the show notes for this episode at PFforPhDs.com/s20e7/. Without further ado, here’s my episode on whether PhDs are in a financial emergency.

I attended the National Postdoctoral Association Annual Conference in March, and it was quite valuable for me to get to speak with postdocs and postdoc office personnel about what’s happening on their university campuses and with their jobs. Everything has been so chaotic this spring in terms of the actions of the new administration and the responses from the judicial and legislative branches, it’s really hard to keep up with. Thankfully, some of the presenters pivoted their planned sessions to address what’s been happening and academia’s response, and the conference helped me to clarify a few of my thoughts, which I’ll share with you in this episode. Part 1 is what I took away from the NPA conference. Part 2 is what you can do in your personal finances to best weather the present storm, and I’m going to include specific advice for different stages of PhD training and employment. Part 3 is what I’m giving to you over the next couple of months and why and how you can access everything.

Part 1: My Take-Aways from the National Postdoctoral Association Annual Conference

This was my first time attending NPA, and I attended as a sponsor, and I thought it was a wonderful conference. I attend conferences both for networking with potential clients and my own professional development, and in this case the timing was really good for me to get a sense of how universities are responding to the funding cuts and so forth. Because this conference was focused on postdocs, I didn’t hear much specifically about graduate education, but I’m sure I will learn more when I attend other similar conferences later this year. At this conference, I especially appreciated the talks from Tom Kibis from the NPA and Nicholas Dirks from the New York Academy of Sciences, the session co-led by Meagan Heirwegh from Caltech, Sofie Kleppner from Stanford, Julia Parrish from the University of Washington, and Zoe Fonseca-Kelly from Harvard, and my conversation with Alberto Roca of Diverse Scholar, as they most directly addressed the current situation.

My overall take-away from the conference is that everyone is bracing for a tough time economically. The tough time has already started but will get worse in the next fiscal year, which typically starts in July, if we continue on the track we’re on. Some universities have instituted hiring freezes, which may or may not extend to postdocs and graduate students. I’m sure we’ve all seen reports of graduate programs rescinding offers and just generally admitting fewer graduate students than has been typical in recent years. Positions that are funded by soft money, which means external grants and contracts, are most at risk of being eliminated.

Tom Kimbis, the CEO of the NPA, referred to the results of a survey of NPA members conducted in February; the survey results and an op-ed by Tom are linked in the show notes. The headline numbers from that survey are that 43% of postdocs say their job or position is threatened and 35% say that their research is delayed or otherwise in jeopardy.

The overall climate of the conference was of great concern for the postdoc workforce, particularly international postdocs. If we don’t see major pushback from Congress or via the judiciary, there will be a lot fewer postdoc positions available next year. Again, we’ve already seen the reduction in PhD program offers, and this is honestly the responsible step for PIs to take as they face uncertainty regarding their grants. So the postdoc itself as a training step is in jeopardy. And, broadening beyond this specific conference, the research enterprise as a whole in the US is under threat.

A lot of current postdocs will need to find new positions in the near future. Again, the highest level of concern is for international postdocs if temporary visas are harder to come by and fewer jobs are available overall. Will those positions be in academia or the federal government? We all know how few people were being hired as tenure-track faculty members before this attack on research, and that market is only going to get tighter, and I think hiring for non-tenure track academic and governmental jobs is also going to be quite limited. Understandably, institutions feel most responsible for their current employees and probably won’t want to extend themselves too much in hiring.

I don’t mean to give the impression that the conference attendees were throwing up their hands in defeat. There was plenty of talk about what people generally and postdocs offices specifically can do to meet the moment, and I heard some creative ideas about how to keep people on payroll to at least give them more time to find another job.

However, from what I heard, most of the discussion was around helping PhDs prepare for and land jobs in “industry.” What I didn’t hear enough discussion about was the likely upcoming recession and how that is already affecting hiring in the private sector. While the pain might be less acute in the private sector in comparison with government and academia, again, if we continue on this route, there will be an overall contraction in the labor market. PhDs typically have a very low unemployment rate, but I am definitely skeptical of industry’s ability to provide jobs to a glut of PhDs exiting the federal government and academia in the coming months. Some private companies are already conducting layoffs, even when not directly or substantially funded by the federal government. Of course, this will be worse in some sectors and not so bad in others, and I expect the most pain will be felt by PhDs in areas of research that are more dependent on funding from the federal government.

So the conclusion is: A lot of PhDs are going to lose their jobs, whether that’s called a layoff or a firing or a contract not being renewed. I suspect the unemployment rate or at least underemployment rate among PhDs is going to go higher than we’ve seen in recent recessions because academia is being targeted, and that PhDs are going to land in jobs that are different from their previous career aspirations. Many PhDs on temporary visas will have to exit the country, even if they would like to stay, because they can’t find an appropriate position fast enough when their current one ends. I’m not much one for prognostication and it really pains me to report such a grim outlook, but that is how I see it.

Part 2: Financial Steps You Should Take Right Now

I want everyone who works in academia or research to consider that they may now or soon be in a financial emergency and to take appropriate steps. Since the main threat at the moment is loss of income, rather than being underpaid or experiencing rapidly rising expenses, the steps are to serve both your finances and your career.

First, I’ll share some steps I think everyone should take, and then I’ll share some stage-specific suggestions. To begin with, please assess your finances holistically. What are your assets: bank account balances, investments, property, etc.? What are your liabilities: credit card debt, buy now pay later debt, student loans, a car loan, a mortgage, medical debt, IRS debt, etc.? What is your current income? What are your current expenses? Specifically, I want you to focus on one type of asset and one type of debt. What I’m sharing next is an abbreviated form of the financial framework that I teach in my live workshops.

The asset is your emergency fund. The best practice is to have a separate, named high-yield savings account for your emergency fund so that you can be super clear about the money available to you in the case of an emergency vs. the money available to spend on a monthly basis on regular expenses or annual basis on irregular expenses. Based on your current expenses, for how many months could your emergency fund support you if you were to lose your primary income? If your answer is that you don’t have an emergency fund or it’s smaller than three months of expenses, please make it your top financial priority to build the fund to that level. This is a slightly larger recommendation than I have made in the past specifically because of the unique threat we are under. You should consider yourself to be in a financial emergency until you reach this goal—more on this in a bit.

The debt is credit card debt. The best practice is to carry no balances on your credit cards, and in fact to use your credit cards as if they are debit cards, only making a purchase if you could pay for it right then with the money already in your bank account. If you could not immediately pay off all your credit cards and switch to using only debit cards, you are in credit card debt—even if you never pay interest. Following the creation of your 3-month emergency fund, your next financial goal should be to clear this credit card debt. However, I recommend that you keep the credit cards open as long as they don’t have an annual fee; you may need these lines of credit in the future if you do lose your income or incur a large, unexpected expense such as a move. Holding debt of this kind also puts you in a financial emergency.

If you’re a little further along in your financial journey, I want you to increase your emergency fund size to six months of expenses. That would be if you have no credit card or other high-interest debt, have other savings for near-term expenses, and have started investing. If all those elements are in place, you’re not in a financial emergency, but you should put some extra financial effort into building your emergency fund to six months of expenses. Once you’ve achieved that goal, you’re in a very strong financial position and don’t have to be quite so intense about keeping a high savings rate.

The next step is to assess your job security and career security. If you haven’t yet, this is the time to talk with your advisor or boss about the source or sources of your paycheck and the group, office, or company’s overall funding. You may learn that the source of your income is entirely or largely independent of federal funding, such as from a private foundation or tuition. You may learn that the source of your income is federal, but there are currently no concerns about its continuity. Or you may learn that the source of your funding is federal and is tenuous. We’ve already seen many grants cancelled or temporarily paused, and so you would probably know if you were in that group because you’ve either already lost your job or you’ve been switched to some kind of emergency or temporary funding. Or perhaps your advisor is currently funded but not optimistic about securing more grants due to the shifted funding priorities of the new administration. In those latter cases, assuming your emergency fund meets the levels I just outlined, throw your efforts into preparing for a job or career transition.

Now let’s get to some practical steps. We’ll do the financial first and then the career. If you’ve self-diagnosed that you’re in a financial emergency or have a financial goal that you should strenuously work toward, how should you do so? Let’s look first at expenses. Normally, when I teach about reducing expenses, I do so with a focus on long-term sustainability, so I talk a lot about right-sizing housing and transportation and other large, fixed expenses. Right now, I’m not so concerned about sustainability, because you have a short-term, highly urgent goal of increasing your emergency fund or paying off high-priority debt. That means slashing your discretionary expenses, essentially engaging in a limited-term fast from anything you can possibly spare.

The question you should ask yourself is: If I had no income right now, would I spend money on this? If the answer is no, don’t spend on it and put all the money you can free up toward your financial goal. I suggest that you stop spending entirely or as close as you can get on discretionary expenses such as restaurants, takeout, and delivery; entertainment; going out; travel; and shopping aside from the bare minimum. The exceptions are for expenses for your job search or career pivot, such as expenses related to interviewing or professional development. Delay every expense that you can delay, even what you might consider necessary expenses. Take a hard look at your subscriptions and cancel everything that you would cancel if you didn’t have an income. You can always restart them when you’ve reached your goal.

For me personally, it would be really hard, but if I didn’t have a fully funded emergency fund right now, I would cancel my gym membership, take my kids out of their pay-by-the-month extracurricular activities, cancel all our streaming services including Amazon Prime, skip my next haircut, and put off some much-desired-but-not-strictly-urgent home repairs.

You can also try to increase your income to reach your urgent financial goals. Normally, when teaching on increasing income, I say to focus on income-generating activities that also advance your career goals. That’s still great work if you can get it, but with our top-of-mind objective of adding to your emergency fund or paying off debt, you can pursue other types of work as well. Whatever gives you the best pay rate-to-time or pay rate-to-energy ratio is worthwhile. In fact, diversifying your income sources so that you are less directly or indirectly dependent on the federal government is a great idea in the short term.

Finally, I suggest planning where you would turn should you lose your income and deplete your emergency fund. If you would turn to debt, think through what is the least toxic type of debt available to you. Credit cards are an easy option, which is why I want you to pay them down but not close them, but as they come at such a high interest rate, they might not be your best option. If you have good credit, you might be able to get another type of loan like a personal loan or a home equity line of credit, but it’s going to be more difficult if you wait until after you’ve lost your income. If things got really dire, would it be possible for you to move in with a family member or friend until you get back on your feet?

Turning our focus back to your job or career, I suggest devoting serious time to professional development, and that goes whether you perceive your job to be at risk or not. Of course, the more unstable your job or career is, the more important it is to engage with this. If you don’t know already, you need to figure out, as I heard one person at NPA put it, your career plans B, C, and D and start setting yourself up to pursue them. If you are affiliated with a university, this means patronizing professional development events and the career center. Check if there are recordings of past events that you can catch up on as a full suite of topics is probably covered over the course of 12 to 24 months.

Networking is vital right now, and again that goes whether you anticipate a near-term job search or not. Yes, use LinkedIn and attend local meet-ups, but also make an effort to connect individually with people you know from past degrees or past jobs. It’s always great to catch up with an old friend or colleague, and it doesn’t have to be like “Can you offer me a job?” Just ask what they’re up to and if their industry has been impacted by the new policies. Then if you do need to come around again with a serious request, it won’t be so out of the blue.

By the way, when you’re networking, keep two things in mind: 1) What can you offer the person you’re speaking with? It could be continued friendship or information or access to your own network. 2) By keeping up with your network, you might very well be able to help a friend or colleague. So do this not just for yourself, but to help the people you know find great-fit jobs and careers. We should all increase our networking activities right now, not just if we have an urgent need.

So far I’ve only mentioned networking with peers and colleagues, but don’t forget that people outside of your profession can be part of your network and prove very helpful, especially if you are considering changing industries. To that end, speak openly about your career aspirations and industry concerns with people you know socially. In fact, it will be a great boon to your mental health if you lean into in person social groups and gatherings in this difficult time. Remember that you are much more than just a researcher; you are a well-rounded human being with unique hobbies, interests, beliefs, etc.

Commercial

Emily here for a brief interlude! Tax season is in full swing, and the best place to go for information tailored to you as a grad student, postdoc, or postbac, is PFforPhDs.com/tax/. From that page I have linked to all of my free tax resources, many of which I have updated for this tax year. On that page you will find podcast episodes, videos, and articles on all kinds of tax topics relevant to PhDs and PhDs-to-be. There are also opportunities to join the Personal Finance for PhDs mailing list to receive PDF summaries and spreadsheets that you can work with. Again, you can find all of these free resources linked from PFforPhDs.com/tax/. Now back to the interview.

Financial Advice for Each Stage of Your Academic Career

We’ve spoken in general terms to this point about assessing your finances and your career stability and some steps you can take to prepare for a loss of income. Nothing I’ve said so far is extreme, and you will improve your finances and career by following the advice, even if you never lose your income. Now let’s delve into some stage-specific advice for those who have lost their income or whose income is at higher risk. We’ll start with people earlier in the PhD career track and move to later.

A) Prospective graduate students: If you’re still interested in graduate school after all this, more power to you. Go ahead and apply next fall or whenever is appropriate for you. But please apply for jobs as well in case admission or funding doesn’t work out. Seriously consider whether a master’s or PhD is more appropriate for your career goals and whether it might be worth paying for a master’s, even if your original plan was to pursue a funded PhD. I can’t yet tell how the landscape will shift between those two types of graduate programs. It might be worth taking a couple of years to work before you head back to graduate school; you will have more clarity about your career goals and what academia can offer you and will also be in a stronger financial position to start graduate school if you use your income intentionally. When you apply to graduate school, please apply widely for fellowships. Consider programs abroad as well as in the US. Also, listen to my advice for rising and current graduate students.

B) Rising graduate students: Some of you have gotten a really raw deal, and I’m sorry. The fact that this attack went down literally during admissions season was the worst possible timing for you. If you’re still headed to graduate school, take a really critical eye to the stability of your funding, and do your best to build financial and career security if you do perceive your funding to be tenuous. More on that next in the section for current graduate students. Also, as you start graduate school, do your best to keep your large, fixed expenses like housing and transportation as low as is comfortable for you so that you can maintain a savings rate. Your emergency fund, etc. could become a lifeline if things go south.

C) Current graduate students: If your funding does not seem to be secure, layer in financial and career stability in other ways. 1) Apply widely for funding opportunities, focusing outside the federal government. 2) Establish at least one side stream of income, if that’s legally and morally permissible for you. Ideally, this would be from a career-advancing activity. 3) Treat every year of graduate school like it might be your last, because it very well might be if your funding evaporates. What I mean by this is that you should have at least one big accomplishment to point to within the last 12 months that will translate well to your resume. That could be completing practical classes, mastering skills, finishing your master’s degree, publishing or patenting, etc. You should also be ready on very short notice to conduct a job search, so stay up-to-date on your professional development, career exploration, and networking. This especially goes for international graduate students, who have a very small window of time available to find another position before they would have to leave the country. 4) Submit the Free Application for Federal Student Aid. I certainly hope it doesn’t come to this, but if a small student loan will bridge you to the end of your degree which itself would vastly improve your job prospects, it may be worthwhile. 5) Do your research now on the social supports that would be available to you if you did lose your funding or have to leave grad school abruptly. For example, does your department, school, or university offer any kind of bridge employment or funding? Do graduate students qualify for unemployment in your state, and if so under what circumstances? Does your university offer emergency loans or grants to graduate students? Are there programs through your city that would help you pay for rent or groceries if you lost your income?

D) Current postdocs: Much of the same advice for graduate students applies for you as well, although thankfully you have the security of your finished PhD. Take those steps to shore up your financial and career resources, especially if you are an international postdoc. You should also check into whether you would qualify for unemployment in your state should your position end; don’t assume you will, especially if you are a non-employee.

E) PhDs in government, academia, and nonprofits: You know your situation best, but stay frosty. Like everyone else, you should understand how your position is funded to ascertain its potential instability and be ready to transition out at any time. If you haven’t already, I suggest starting the process of separating your personal identity from that of your job. These can become especially intertwined for tenured or tenure-track faculty. If you do have to separate, it will probably be super painful. I suggest listening to the new podcast Academics and Their Money by former podcast guest, Dr. Inga Timmerman.

F) PhDs in the private sector: Your job is probably the most secure of any that we’ve discussed so far, which is not at all the case in normal times. You will be everyone’s best friend right now if you devote some of your time to networking, doubly so if your company is hiring. It may benefit you in the future, but it will almost certainly benefit your friends and peers.

I have a couple of concluding thoughts, and for these I need to thank the most recent episode of the new podcast Optimist Economy, titled Is This a Recession or Not?, and the financial independence movement.

First thought: During a recession, if you manage to keep your job and assuming you didn’t expect to retire super soon, you are going to be financially fine. You might have some anxiety, and perhaps I’ve fed into that today, but you will come through it in good shape. The pain of recessions is felt mostly by people who lose their jobs, and typically, it’s not so much the losing of the job that’s the worst, it’s the time it takes to get another job, which is lengthened during recessions. That’s why I’ve focused so much time today speaking about how you can prepare yourself for the loss of your income. It’s a low-probability but high-risk event.

However, we have the added wrinkle in the PhD community of being super specialized in our research or skills and perhaps even the sector in which we expect to perform that research or use those skills. For PhDs in academia and government and nonprofit research settings especially, losing your job is so much more than a temporary disruption in income. It’s a rupture of your identity because of how much of yourself you had to put into breaking into that career path. In another time, you might have been able to get a similar job, but that just might not be the case right now if your whole field is contracting. Losing your job might feel like the end of your career. It’s not, it doesn’t have to be, but if you feel that way, it’s going to take some serious inner work to decouple your career from your identity and move on. In this, we can take some inspiration from the financial independence movement. Many early retirees have modeled this process of finding yourself outside of your career. It will look different for someone who is still working, but it is a good example.

Second thought: One of the scariest aspects of losing your job in the good old U S of A is that you likely lose your health insurance as well. That part of it is almost as horrible as losing your income, especially if you are chronically ill or have dependents. There are solutions, however, and again these have been well explored by the financial independence community. It may help you alleviate some anxiety to think through what you would do specifically about health insurance if you were to lose your position.

You might be able to hop onto your spouse or partner’s insurance or your parent’s insurance, depending on your specific eligibility and the cost of doing so. Some insurance plans offer a program known as COBRA, in which you can continue with your same coverage for up to 18 months after you lose your job. Your workplace likely offers COBRA, but your student health insurance plan probably doesn’t qualify. If you are eligible for COBRA, you have up to 60 days to enroll in the program and it covers you retroactively, so you could wait up to 60 days to see if you actually need insurance before starting to pay any premiums. The premiums are going to feel high because you have to pay the portion that your employer was paying previously in addition to the portion you paid before. Another good option is to purchase a health insurance plan through the ACA marketplace in your state. This is the fallback plan for most early retirees who stay in the US, and it is a good one, especially since you likely will just be on the plan in the short term. Finally, another type of plan that’s popular with early retirees is a health care sharing ministry, which is not proper health insurance but serves some of the same functions as health insurance. People like it because it’s less expensive than proper health insurance. I will leave it to you to look into further and decide whether this is a viable or preferable option for you should you lose your job.

Part 3: What I’m Offering You for Free

A few weeks ago, I was feeling really despondent and powerless in the face of all these terrible changes, so I decided to embark on what I’m calling Giveaway Spring. I finished all my scheduled speaking engagements by the end of February, so I have an unusual amount of free time between now and the end of the academic year, and I’ve decided to give away a lot of it.

If you aren’t already on my mailing list and you want to sign up for any of these giveaways, please register through PFforPhDs.com/Giveaway/. You’ll receive an email with all the current giveaways being offered, and I’ll update my mailing list periodically as I add items. I’m planning on expanding the content I’ve shared in this episode into a full webinar, for example, and I’ll give a pilot of that webinar away to a limited number of people on my mailing list after I put it together.

Here are some of the items on offer as part of Giveaway Spring:

1) I’m offering free 60-minute Q&A calls to cross-institutional groups. This would be perfect for a professional society or interest group that has a lot of PhDs and PhDs-to-be. You don’t even have to be on my list to schedule one of those, just email me at [email protected].

2) I’m offering free 30-minute coaching sessions, four per week between now and early June. These are going fast so once you get the link, keep checking back as availability opens up on a rolling basis.

3) I’ve collected all my best free templates and downloadables into one easy folder.

4) I’m hosting a free AMA with Sam Hogan, a mortgage originator specializing in graduate students and PhDs, on April 8, 2025. You can register via PFforPhDs.com/mortgage/.

5) I’m giving away other people’s books! The first giveaway is for The Entrepreneurial Scholar: A New Mindset for Success in Academia and Beyond by Ilana Horwitz. I will keep cycling through my favorite personal finance and academia books throughout the spring. You can sign up for the book giveaway directly at PFforPhDs.com/BookGiveaway/.

6) I’m sharing free opportunities hosted by other groups or people as I find out about them. For example, Princeton’s GradFUTURES conference from a couple of weeks ago went out to my list, and right now via PFforPhDs.com/Giveaway/ you can sign up for an upcoming free webinar from AccessLex titled “Navigating Recent Updates to Student Loan Repayment and Forgiveness.” If you are hosting or know of free events or resources that are related to PhD personal finance or careers that you think I should pass along, please notify me—I would be happy to do so!

Again, the link to find out about all the current giveaways is PFforPhDs.com/Giveaway/. I would really appreciate you sharing that link with your peers. I’m trying to get two things out of these efforts: 1) goodwill within our community and 2) new mailing list subscribers. So you can really help me out with both of those goals by sharing PFforPhDs.com/Giveaway/ or any of the other links I’ve mentioned in this section.

I would be very happy to hear your reactions to the content of this episode if you would like to share them with me. Perhaps you’re hearing different messaging from your university or employer or you think I missed a good piece of advice. Please share any comments with me at [email protected]. Good luck this spring, this year, and this four years. I’m rooting for you.

Outro

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? My team has collected short summaries of all the answers ever given on the podcast into a document that is updated with each new episode release. You can gain access to it by registering for my mailing list at PFforPhDs.com/advice/. Would you like to access transcripts or videos of each episode? I link the show notes for each episode from PFforPhDs.com/podcast/. See you in the next episode, and remember: You don’t have to have a PhD to succeed with personal finance… but it helps! Nothing you hear on this podcast should be taken as financial, tax, or legal advice for any individual. The music is “Stages of Awakening” by Podington Bear from the Free Music Archive and is shared under CC by NC. Podcast editing by me and show notes creation by Dr. Jill Hoffman.

Stipend Data and Strikes on the Path to a Grad Student Union

March 24, 2025 by Jill Hoffman

In this episode, Emily interviews Garrett Dunne, a 5th-year PhD candidate in the College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Realizing that they were being dramatically underpaid, Garrett and his peers used the data from PhD Stipends to advocate for a significant stipend increase in their department. Subsequently, they joined up with grad students in other schools within the University of Alaska system to unionize and bargain for better pay and health insurance. Garrett’s account of their relatively quick process includes several concrete tips for graduate students at other universities who are advocating to increase their stipends and improve their benefits, including who is in the best position to lead the charge.

Links mentioned in the Episode

  • PF for PhDs Tax Workshops
  • PhD Stipends Database
  • PF for PhDs Tax Center for PhDs-in-Training 
  • PF for PhDs Subscribe to Mailing List
  • PF for PhDs Podcast Hub
Stipend Data and Strikes on the Path to a Grad Student Union

Teaser

Garrett (00:00): Disturbing and depressing is probably the best way I can put it. And so it, it does take students that are in that position of safety and strength to then advocate for the people who are a lot more vulnerable.

Introduction

Emily (00:19): 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 (00:47): This is Season 20, Episode 6, and today my guest is Garrett Dunne, a 5th-year PhD candidate in the College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Realizing that they were being dramatically underpaid, Garrett and his peers used the data from PhD Stipends to advocate for a significant stipend increase in their department. Subsequently, they joined up with grad students in other schools within the University of Alaska system to unionize and bargain for better pay and health insurance. Garrett’s account of their relatively quick process includes several concrete tips for graduate students at other universities who are advocating to increase their stipends and improve their benefits, including who is in the best position to lead the charge.

Emily (01:32): The tax year 2024 version of my tax return preparation workshop, How to Complete Your PhD Trainee Tax Return (and Understand It, Too!), is now available! This pre-recorded educational workshop explains how to identify, calculate, and report your higher education-related income and expenses on your federal tax return. Whether you are a graduate student, postdoc, or postbac, domestic or international, there is a version of this workshop designed just for you. I do license these workshops to universities, but in the case that yours declines your request for sponsorship, you can purchase the appropriate version as an individual. Go to PFforPhDs.com/taxreturnworkshop/ to read more details and purchase the workshop. You can find the show notes for this episode at PFforPhDs.com/s20e6/. Without further ado, here’s my interview with Garrett Dunne.

Will You Please Introduce Yourself Further?

Emily (02:44): I am delighted to have joining me on the podcast today, Garrett Dunne, who is a fifth year PhD candidate at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. And we are going to discuss increasing grad student stipends through a couple of different mechanisms. And I, I won’t say more than that now, but hopefully you’ll take away a couple of actionables that may be applicable at your own university as well. So, Garrett, would you please introduce yourself a little bit further for the audience?

Garrett (03:08): Hi, everybody. Uh, I am Garrett Dunne. Uh, I’m a fifth year, as you said, PhD candidate, university of Alaska Fairbanks. I study, uh, two species of a shark in Alaska. Um, I’m trying to improve the federal stock assessment for those two species. Uh, I did my undergraduate work at Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Florida, and then I did my master’s degree at Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts. But did my field work in, uh, based outta Biloxi, Mississippi in the, uh, Gulf of Mexico. The naming has changed, but I’m gonna go with Mul- Gulf of Mexico. Um, and then I have been working on and off in Alaska for about the last decade, uh, primarily on fishes. I started with Salmonids and then transitioned into sharks, which is my true passion. But, uh, salmons where the money is made.

Emily (03:53): Wow, okay. You’ve lived all over the place. I was gonna ask if you’re an Alaska native or anything, but it sounds like you’ve been living there on and off for 10 years.

Garrett (04:00): Yeah, originally I’m from New England. I split my time between New Hampshire and Massachusetts, but I really have kind of lived all over the country. Um, and I settled in Alaska full-time about four years ago now,

The Impacts of Low Pay and Poor Healthcare in Grad School

Emily (04:12): Speaking of four years ago, that is when we first started our email correspondence. <laugh>, uh, the listeners, sometimes it takes this long to our podcast episode to get into production. So, so four years ago you emailed me about the project that I have going on PhD stipends, PhDstipends.com, which is a database of self-reported stipend information all across the US and actually outside the US as well. So let us know, like what was going on with you back in 2021ish, like what was the pay you were receiving the benefits and like what led you to reaching out about this dataset?

Garrett (04:47): Unsurprisingly, it was because the pay and, uh, university healthcare was underwhelming. So, uh, in 2021, uh, there was a bunch of different levels within my college. University of Alaska Fairbanks breaks up the way that they, uh, pay students one by college and then usually within the college. It’s multiple different levels, but for sake of ease here, if you averaged out what master’s students were making at different levels and PhD students were making at different levels, uh, in 2021, the average salary was, uh, about 21,500 annually for a graduate student at UAF. Um, and the, to further complicate things that really depended on, uh, what type of funding you were through, um, the UAF and kind of UA system is funded through a very large patchwork of different ways to be funded. I, myself have been funded as a TA, RA and fellow, uh, throughout my five years. Um, and at different times and in different orders. I started as an RA, moved to fellowship, moved to TA, and now I’m an RA again. Um, so it’s a bit complicated and the numbers change a little bit depending on what style of funding you have. Um, sadly, uh, after my first year of being an RA, I moved to a fellowship, um, and in some ways that was easier, uh, but it did not leave enough room for summer funding, so I was unpaid in the summers. So while my take home should have been 21,500, my effective take home, because of the lack of pay in the summers was about 17,000, um, which is quite low. And the cost of living in Alaska is very high. Um, the federal government adjusts, I think their numbers from I think 1.25 or 1.5 times the poverty line, uh, for Alaska and to, in 2021, the poverty line was $16,000 a year, um, in Alaska. So, uh, as a graduate student in the sciences, I was being paid a thousand dollars above the poverty line, and I was forced to take, uh, additional work on in the summers. Um, I didn’t mind taking on that work. It was something that I got to, uh, I I’ve always enjoyed and actually did before going back to graduate school. Uh, but it has significantly delayed my progress on my dissertation. Um, and so yeah, we kind of came to, uh, the realization as a college that we just were not being paid enough. Um, and too many people were living at near poverty levels, and we wanted to, uh, push the graduate school to do better. And most of this work was led by the student organization within my college, so the, the, uh, fisheries student organization where people realized that the healthcare was poor and that, uh, we were being underpaid. And because of this patchwork nature, people were going from making $21,000 a year to me then making 17 a year, and then I wasn’t even sure if I was gonna get paid the following, uh, year. So, uh, quite complex as far as things go.

Emily (07:44): Also, shocking shockingly low numbers for 2021, as you said, in a, a relatively high cost of living area. Um, wow. I mean, I know you just sort of offered part of the effect on your own personal finances, which is that you had to take outside work in the summer, which has then, you know, therefore you’re not working towards your dissertation and that’s gonna push things out. Um, would you be willing to share with us anything else that you experienced on that low stipend at that time or maybe that you observed your peers experiencing?

Garrett (08:16): Yeah, for me personally, it was just I had no ability to save. Um, and so I was living very much paycheck to paycheck. I was in the privileged position of coming into, uh, my PhD with no major debt. Um, so I didn’t have major debt from undergrad or large car loans or a, a home loan, anything like that. And, um, I was living paycheck to paycheck. Uh, and so for others that I had spoke to people coming in with undergraduate debt or master’s debt or medical debt, which is a huge problem in the United States, um, they were actively losing money. Um, and so they were dipping into their own savings to be able to have the privilege of going to the graduate school. And it was becoming a real problem. And once we started digging into it, one of the reasons that we were paid so low was that we realized that the college had not given a pay raise to graduate students since 2008. So we were in 2021, and we had not gotten a pay raise since 2008. And so in 2008, the pay was actually fairly competitive and did keep up at least somewhat with the cost of living in the area. But I used the data set that you provided to then look at how we were being paid nationally and even in compared to low cost of living areas. Um, at 21 5, we were being underpaid. And then you had students like me who were making just above the poverty line, uh, and we were obviously being deeply, deeply underpaid. And so we took this data set. I did most of the data analysis and just kind of made box plots and just looked at the fact that we were being paid underpaid nationally. Um, and within specifically art disciplines, I used your dataset, got rid of everything that didn’t have to do with kind of biological science, and we were still being underpaid, um, nationally. And again, we, we <laugh> we live in a relatively high cost of living area. Yeah, it is not one of the major coastal cities, but Alaska’s expensive and especially the stuff that graduate students need, food is very expensive. Housing used to be inexpensive. Um, that has changed actually just really in the last five years, especially in, uh, the major campus areas, which would be Anchorage Fairbanks in Juneau. Um, I don’t live in any of those partially because of the high cost of living. Um, but with food and shelter being expensive, uh, it really, really dips into our ability to, uh, survive up here, um, and not have to dip into savings or take out loans, which, uh, many other students did.

Emily (10:40): Yeah, so the, the data from PhD stipends, okay, first of all, I was in graduate school in 2008 <laugh>, and those numbers are still not that rosy. Um, especially I was even in a moderate cost of living area and I was being paid more than that. Um, yes. Okay, so <laugh>, your lived experience is were barely above the poverty line. People are having to, you know, do outside work and these kinds of things to, to get along here. That’s your lived experience. Then also, you look at this data set and you’re like, wow, wow, wow. Okay, everybody else across the board is getting paid more than us. What, what was the, and you did this data analysis and then what was the next step that you took, like with approaching the administration, for example?

Using Data to Negotiate a Long Overdue Pay Increase

Garrett (11:20): The last part of that analysis was looking and saying, okay, so we are being underpaid. And then, uh, actually adjusting, using the federal numbers to adjust what we were being paid to the current marketplace. So taking in co- uh, inflation and the fact that the federal government says that our poverty le- poverty level is higher. And so our average was 21500, adjusting for all of that. It was about 30,000 is what we should have been paid in 2021 compared to what it was in 2008, which I think is definitely more competitive. Still not that competitive, but more competitive. Um, and so our next steps after having those numbers, having this write up in all of this data analysis was mostly getting, uh, at first graduate students riled up. I mean, all of this came outta the fact that we kept having these student meetings and all these graduate students were saying, I can’t pay for the healthcare. I’m having to ch- choose. I’m having to ration meals I’m having to live in. Um, uh, one of the unique experiences, the University of Alaska Fairbanks is dry cabin living. And it is not something that a lot of people think about. Fairbanks gets incredibly cold. Uh, last winter we hit negative 50 Fahrenheit, so aggressively cold. So heating buildings is not always feasible. And so a lot of the cabins do not have running water. And so a lot of graduate students have had to resort to living in dry cabins that are heated in a variety of ways with no running water.

Emily (12:44): That’s a new one for me. Wow. Yes.

Garrett (12:46): Yeah. And so that had used to be the way that you could save money and attend the university is an experience. Um, and not everyone dislikes it, but it is a difficult one. Um, and those dry cabins have actually gotten quite expensive. And so, you know, even when I joined the university in 2020, uh, those were usually 400, $500 a month and you could get a small cabin for yourself. Uh, those prices have skyrocketed close to a thousand dollars a month for the privilege to live without running water. Um, and so during covid, the university shut down shower access, we have lots of students living in dry cabins, so that got everyone quite angry. And then we all got together, decided that the pay was too low, the healthcare sucked, got us all angry, and then we approached our faculty. Um, and not all faculty were supportive, but my advisor was quite supportive. And a couple of new faculty especially were supportive of this because, similar to your experience, which was they looked around, they went, oh wow, we’re not paying these students enough. And they had seen other university systems and seen the conditions for other graduate students and were very supportive of bringing that forward. And so we got a large portion of the graduate students, a number of the faculty, and then we approached the dean. Um, and that is how we pushed forward with it and said, you are criminally underpaying us. Some people are living at or below the poverty line. Something needs to be done. Um, and we did effectively, uh, petition for a, a pay pay increase. Um, it wasn’t everything we wanted, but it was at least a, a sizable increase.

Emily (14:17): How long did that take from, from the point of, um, I guess first approaching the dean to the pay increase? What was that timeline?

Garrett (14:27): The timeline for approval was surprisingly short. I think that was about a month, two months of negotiation. Um, we did have to wait to the next fiscal year for it to be implemented, however, so that took a a bit longer. Um, I think the problem was we had told the dean a problem for him was that we had told him that we were gonna start going to the papers. Um, the fact that we had students living in poverty and squalor, um, was a real problem and it was gonna look really bad for the dean and the university. Um, we were also significantly underpaid compared to the other science disciplines within the university program. Um, the other colleges, uh, in, in other sciences especially, uh, geoscience, aerospace, those kind of programs are quite well funded. And as I said, we hadn’t gotten a pay raise since 2008, so it was, uh, a bit of an issue.

Emily (15:19): So you used PhD stipends, but you also were gathering data from your peers at your university?

Garrett (15:24): Yeah, absolutely. And just saying that we were even being underpaid within the university system, so PhD stipends was absolutely one of the best ways we could say, look, not only are you underpaying us compared to these other colleges, but like you are underpaying us nationally and it’s expensive to be here. Um, so yeah, it was, it was kind of a double whammy.

Emily (15:43): One of the, I guess, points of criticism about PhD stipends that I’ve heard from other advocates is at least that what they heard when they presented the data was, this is self-reported. This has not been verified by anybody. Did you get any pushback like that or was it just so obvious in your case that we overlook that?

Garrett (16:04): Uh, I had to do a lot of cleaning of the dataset to make sure that we were getting out outlier values. ’cause there are definitely some things that have been mistyped and, you know, we had to take out some of the small values and some of the extreme values where you’ve got somebody who’s counting their stipend as like they’re being paid by a tech company to go back to school and they’re reporting that they’re getting 80,000 or $90,000 a year to go back to graduate school. We had to pull all of that out, but we really didn’t get much pushback on it because it was just so obvious that we were being underpaid. Even if some people were misreporting and there were some outlier values still contained within it, um, yeah, we didn’t get much pushback and the fact that they hadn’t given us pay raise since 2008, pretty much just it was self-explanatory, uh, that we, we something needed to be done.

Emily (16:47): Absolutely.

Commercial

Emily (16:50): Emily here for a brief interlude! Tax season is in full swing, and the best place to go for information tailored to you as a grad student, postdoc, or postbac, is PFforPhDs.com/tax/. From that page I have linked to all of my free tax resources, many of which I have updated for this tax year. On that page you will find podcast episodes, videos, and articles on all kinds of tax topics relevant to PhDs and PhDs-to-be. There are also opportunities to join the Personal Finance for PhDs mailing list to receive PDF summaries and spreadsheets that you can work with. Again, you can find all of these free resources linked from PFforPhDs.com/tax/. Now back to the interview.

The Unionization Movement at University of Alaska

Emily (17:41): And so the next step was you achieved this big win for your department, um, but then you rolled this into a larger movement. Can you tell us about that larger unionization movement?

Garrett (17:53): Yeah, yeah. And, um, I don’t want to undersell this. So we were kind of having this conversation within our own college and push for the pay raise, and we actually got them to, uh, agree to a biennial, uh, pay increase as well, pegged to inflation, which was really nice for us, so we didn’t have to fight for it as often. And as a part of this, we started kind of hearing murmurs in the background that actually the, uh, some of the liberal arts colleges had already started talking about unionization. So I don’t wanna say that we were the, we were the start of this, but we did join in with a lot of gusto. And so we heard that there were other organization groups. And so, um, one of the main reasons that that started in the liberal arts college is to my understanding, they were being paid at or below poverty line at their maximum amount amount of pay. So most of these students were making between like 14 and $17,000 a year, and that was maximum if their summers weren’t paid for. Um, they were making $12,000 a year, um, well below the poverty line for Alaska. And so they had a lot more reason to be even angrier. So they kind of got things started and then we joined in in that process. Um, and so that the murmurings of that happened, I think around the time I got started, uh, in 2020. And then by 2020, late 2021, early 2022 is when things kind of got moving. Um, and I’m, I’m happy to talk more about kind of that process if that’s something you wanna dive into.

Emily (19:29): Yeah. Maybe give us like, ’cause it’s, I mean, we don’t need to motivate this. We obviously see the problem with the pay for the graduate students. Um, I’m more curious about, you know, at the time of either, um, you know, voting to form a union or starting to approach the administration about the contract. Like just go over how that process went for you all. We’ve heard it a couple of times on the podcast before, but every story is a bit unique, so I’d love to hear yours.

Garrett (19:55): Yeah, yeah, the healthcare seems to be one of the biggest drivers for us. The, the pay was always bad, um, for, for most of the graduate students, and that was always an easy one. But we are under United Healthcare Student Resources, um, and United has a reputation, um, deservedly so for being quite poor and frequent to deny pretty much any type of coverage. It’s actually, how I got involved in all of this was I spent about two years fighting with them. And so we kind of took these people who were upset about pay and very much upset about healthcare, and we were getting a lot of pushback from United and the, um, student, uh, healthcare manager at the university. And so we decided to say that we were not getting anywhere as a group. And so we started talking internally and seeing what it would take to form a union. And so it was starting to take like, you know, the, the student organization out of the, the College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences, which is the college I’m in, and finally meeting with the, um, you know, a lot of the liberal arts colleges, many colleges have this problem or universities have this problem where the different colleges are quite separate. Alaska is specifically difficult, um, because we are so spread out. It is a giant state. The UA system, since it is integrated, we actually had to, uh, unionize across all of the colleges. We could not just unionize UAF or UAA. And so it was trying to get all the graduate students from all the different colleges to gather in enough of a critical mass to then move forward. So that was step one was just trying to get these meetings and get enough, uh, frankly upset students <laugh> together to say, okay, so this is something that we actually do want to do.

Garrett (21:35): The next step from there was then saying, okay, we need to start picking people who have time and ability to then, um, become officers and really lead the charge. Uh, I was one of the officers during that push, um, but I was definitely not one of the leaders. I I was just kind of there to help do paperwork, reach out to people, move forward and, and get in contact with people. And the, once we kind of had officers, the, the me- major next step was getting the word out and finding union representation. And that was, honestly, that’s one of the biggest key steps that in retrospect I see is just you can’t do it alone. You need lawyers and you need someone who’s actually been through the unionization process before because all of us officers were very engaged, very motivated, but we needed somebody to actually guide us through. Um, and so we approached two unions, one of which we never had much interest from, and then UAW so United Auto Workers, which I did not think would be heavily involved with graduate students in the United States, which they are, um, was really excited about working with us. And, um, kind of we got in touch with them, found somebody who was gonna be, you know, our, our union rep for this process and their set of lawyers, and that’s really where we got the ball rolling.

Emily (22:48): Wow. Okay. So the ball’s rolling on the unionization process. Um, I think the next step is like a, a card drive, like a signature drive kind of thing, and then, and then it’s starting to talk with the admin, right?

Garrett (23:01): Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And so card drive was next, and that was again, trying to make sure we had that critical mass of pissed off students before we kind of even got that ball rolling. Um, and that was really difficult, especially up here because I’m more in the Anchorage area and so I had cards shipped down to me UAF primarily. They have the bulk of the graduate students for the UA system. And so we were the primary university for driving this. We were shipping most of the cards everywhere, but it was really trying to make sure that we had representation of these officers in all these different places so we could go to offices, hand out cards, talk to people, um, because graduate students are bombed with emails, the best thing you can do is call people in this day and age, text people, um, emails sometimes work, but we didn’t always have the best response there. And it was really the officers in the background making sure we went through every graduate student collecting everyone we could and just reaching out over and over again to get those cards signed. Um, it was an incredibly successful drive. Um, the graduate students in the UA system are quite upset with kind of the general state of things, um, and that’s not always the university’s fault. There’s more information there we can always chat about. Um, there were some very large cuts in 2019 to the university system that have made it very hard to make things better for everyone, including faculty and staff. Um, but we got the cards together and then, uh, yeah, I mean we had representation and then we could approach the university, and then we went directly into bargaining, um, and we bargained for a contract if I’m not misremembering, within five months, which is unheard of. Um, getting from card drive to a, um, a, a formal union in, in a contract within a year is impressive. So we went quickly into bargaining and then had a contract within a year. Um, and we have signed and it is formed.

Factors that Accelerated the Unionization Process

Emily (24:48): Yeah, I’m also surprised by that, um, speed, especially given what you just said about there being university-wide, like funding cuts just prior. So like, what, what do you think, what were the factors that made that happen? And especially fast for you all?

Garrett (25:04): I mean, we were protesting a ton. Um, we were protesting on the University of Alaska, Anchorage campus, UAS and UAF, uh, UAF especially because we have the largest population of graduate students. We were regularly picketing the deans of the colleges and the deans of the college and ju- and the university. I mean, we were just being very loud and obnoxious. Um, and we were talking to several papers up here, um, really just getting the word out that we were very, very unhappy and that was the best thing that we could’ve done. Um, partially because the university is so resource strapped as well. Um, we got more than what we initially asked for as far as inclusion within the graduate school. Um, so we, it’s, uh, it’s a difficult thing to deal with, but you know, the TAs and RAs are very easy to say yeah, they’re employees of the graduate school, the fellows, as I talked about, it’s a much more washy area, but we actually managed to get all the fellows included as well, um, as well as some staff.

Garrett (26:03): There were a lot of weird kind of one-off students that are partially employed by the university also in graduate school, and we got a lot of those included as well. Um, the, the university did not play their hand particularly well, and the state was, uh, very sympathetic to a lot of our arguments. So, so it went quite well, uh, for us there. Um, yeah, and, and the speed was just because the university was tired of dealing with us. Um, we really wore them out. Uh, we did not get everything that we wanted within the contract. Uh, one of the big things that we had to jettison for the year was the, uh, healthcare. And so that’s what I care about most. But we had already signed a contract with United for that year, and so if we wanted a contract that at least locked in a floor for all graduate students for pay and a lot of other, you know, representation, grievance policies, things that really are, uh, a huge part of what a union provides and streamlining all of that, we had to wait for this year, which we are now going into bargaining for.

Emily (27:02): Hmm. So everybody, all parties knew that that was still gonna be renegotiated as soon as possible.

Garrett (27:07): Yeah, we wanted to, and absolutely it’s why I got involved and I was disappointed to see that that was the case. But the, uh, university just didn’t have time. They had already signed the contract with the United, so yeah, all parties knew that we were gonna be coming back to the bargaining table within the next year or two to, uh, work on that. Um, one of the fun things that we discovered through this whole process of discovery and requesting information from the university was for years we had been told that, you know, actually no, we, we look at this every year. We find the best healthcare for you guys and we’re really on it. And through discovery, we found out that literally they just check the mark. They, they ask for requests from three possible institutions, they pick the cheapest one and go with it. And turns out they’re pretty much just rubber stamping united every year because they United shifts most of the cost to the graduate students so they can provide the lowest cost to the university, uh, on the healthcare. For the record, we are also required to buy this healthcare. There is no way to opt out. Um, and it’s, uh, become quite expensive. It’s about $1,500 a semester now, and it was about a thousand dollars a semester, um, previously, and that’s before copays and, and all of that. Um, yeah, it’s, it’s poor coverage.

Post-Unionization Stipend Amounts

Emily (28:17): Okay. So forthcoming progress on the healthcare front, but in terms of the stipend, can you tell us like what’s the new minimum or like maybe what you’re making now versus what you were making before?

Garrett (28:29): Yeah, yeah. My, my experience is probably not the best one to go for, um, because I’ve now switched back to an RA ship and so I’ve gone back up to being paid, um, uh, quite a bit better and through the summers. So I’m no longer living at that kind of 17,000 and having to take on summer work. Uh, my new pay rate is closer to, uh, 25,000 a year, um, which is more reasonable. It’s not amazing, but it’s definitely more reasonable, um, if you average out all of the different pay steps that they still have within our college because while we put a floor through the union for the whole university system, um, our pay actually wasn’t affected all of that much. We just now get a regular annual increase peg to inflation, um, rather than, um, we, we didn’t see a pay raise ’cause we were already above that floor. Um, uh, the average now is about 27,000 a year. Um, and some graduate students are now making over 30,000, which, if you remember from when we were chatting earlier is in 2021, arguably kind of where we should have been, um, if we had actually, uh, kept giving pay raises with inflation that said inflation’s been rampant over the last four years or so, uh, post covid or, you know, whatever we wanna call this era of time. Uh, and so I would argue that we’re now should probably be paid in kind of the mid 30 thousands, um, if we were really trying to be, uh, competitive. But it is significantly better than it was, uh, although the healthcare is not where we would like it to be.

Emily (30:05): Okay. So on your personal side, the work that you did to, with your peers to, you know, advocate for increasing the stipends within your department, um, that was sufficient to bring everybody above the minimum that then was set by the union. So really it’s like both efforts were important, like that unionization part of it is not gonna allow you guys to drop below any floors. It’s going to make sure that everything is reevaluated on an annual or biannual basis. Um, but you had already done a, a great amount of legwork for your closer group of peers, but now we get to extend this to a much wider group within the university.

Garrett (30:42): Yeah, absolutely. And that was the case is the College of Fisheries and a lot of the science colleges didn’t see much of a pay raise. Um, we did get those locked in, you know, annual or biannual increases, uh, but it was really trying to keep especially our, our liberal arts colleagues from living in poverty. And so that was one of the privileges of being able to be a part of this was I was able to work before I went back to graduate school, I had savings and I was less concerned with, uh, retaliation from the university. And it was something that I felt good that I was able to provide was help, uh, help push through to help our lower paid colleagues who really just didn’t have a lot of, uh, leeway and, and ability to then argue, uh, without worrying about retaliation from the university. Um, and there were several times where retaliation seemed to be very much on the table. Um, the power dynamics of going through, uh, a unionization push was not what I expected it to be. Um, and it was, uh, difficult for sure.

Power Dynamics During the Unionization Process

Emily (31:41): Can you share any more about that observation?

Garrett (31:43): The power dynamics of, of some of these people who are leading colleges and paying paid hundreds of thousands of dollars against students who are living at or below the poverty line, taking out loans to survive and are deeply concerned that if they get sick or are living with chronic illness, they’re gonna fall into deep medical debt. Um, is, uh, it’s disturbing and depressing is probably the, the, the worst, yeah. The best way I can put it. Um, and so it takes often students that are in positions that are a little bit more stable and have support. Like I said, my uh, advisor was very supportive of both our push for, uh, a pay raise within the college and the unionization push, um, that I felt safe. And so it, it does take students that are in that position of safety and strength to then advocate for the people who are a lot more vulnerable, um, because they, they simply, the power dynamics don’t allow for them to be as loud.

Emily (32:42): Yeah. Thank you for pointing that out. I hope that for any listeners who are interested in this, who there’s not yet union representation for their campuses, that they’ll take a, you know, an eye to themselves and see am I in this more privileged position? Am I in a safer position to be able to advocate on behalf of my peers or am I, am I not? And I need to, uh, advocate within my peer group for somebody else to take on these, uh, bigger roles. But I’m really glad to hear that you felt like you were able to do that and, and carry through it with all this, um, wonderful progress. Um, would you say, so earlier, you know, you mentioned that like the main thing for you having the lower stipend was that you weren’t able to save anything. Are you able to save now?

Garrett (33:26): I am, yeah. Which is quite nice. Um, and primarily I’m saving up for unexpected car repairs and it is not a significant amount of savings, but it is, uh, much more stable and I don’t have to worry about going to the grocery store anymore, which is very nice. Um, and not having to shop all of the worst possible least expensive brands, <laugh> is also, uh, a bit of a relief. Um, and so I mean, one of the ways I was able to survive at that very low pay rate was, and I think this ties into uh, a question we’ll probably talk about more, is by creating a very, very detailed budget. I mean, I have a monthly spreadsheet that has all incomes, all outflows and then an annual up or down. And that’s how I kept track of the fact that I was actually generally losing money at that lower stipend level was that you could see, you know, month to month I was losing a couple hundred dollars. Um, I was in the lucky place to have some savings, so I was able to dip into that rather than taking out loans or asking money from friends and family. Um, but that is not the position for many graduate students that I spoke to pre uh, unionization push. So

Emily (34:32): Yeah. And do we really wanna select for graduate students who have worked prior to graduate school who have family support, et cetera, et cetera, or do we want graduate school to be a place that anybody can financially survive?

Garrett (34:45): Absolutely. Yeah.

Best Financial Advice for Another Early-Career PhD

Emily (34:46): Great. Well, Garrett, this has been such a wonderful story. I’m so glad that you came on to share it with us. Um, I would love to hear, uh, from you the answer to the question I ask of all my guests at the end of interviews, which is, what is your best financial advice for another early career PhD? And it can be something that we’ve touched on already or it could be something completely new.

Garrett (35:04): Yeah, I, I think I’m gonna echo a lot of the themes we’ve had during this interview. Um, is first is to pay attention to the entire compensation package. It’s not just to the stipend, but also especially for us, in my experience, the, uh, healthcare that’s provided, how expensive that’s gonna be, what your expected out of pocket is gonna be. Um, does university provide it? Do you get, pay it through your grants? Um, and then you need to really understand the cost of living in the area that you’ll be, uh, doing your work from. If you’re lucky enough like me to be able to do things remotely, you can reduce some of your costs, but a lot of universities I know don’t allow for that. Um, and so you need to see what your pay is gonna be, what your healthcare is gonna be, and any other kind of sneaky costs and, uh, costs of living are gonna be. Um, for me, uh, it was a benefit to wait to return to grad school, um, make sure that I had some savings and was able to, uh, have resources available in case of an unexpected car repair or a surprise cost, a surprise injury. Uh, and so I would encourage some graduate students to consider whether going directly to graduate school is the best option for them, depending on financial situation. Um, my fi- my, uh, budget spreadsheet or using an application for keeping track of your finances, I think is huge. Um, it, it really, really helped me when I was living at kind of the most, uh, spare ends of when I was being paid. And um, and then one of the biggest issues for me, and we haven’t really touched on this, but also looking at how long that funding that you have, uh, for your graduate program lasts. Um, I came into graduate school with only one year of funding and so every year I’ve had to reapply and it’s been a huge stressor for me and, and a big financial strain not knowing whether I’m gonna be in graduate school next year. I do not know if I’m gonna get paid. I don’t know if I’m gonna have my classes taken care of. I’ve been really lucky. I’ve managed to get all the way through and every year I’ve managed to find some form of funding, but it’s been really tight and very close in a couple ways. And so I think that is one of the things that’s most important is making sure that there’s enough money for at least your first many years and that it’s stable. Um, we live in a climate now where funding stability is much more in question and it’s definitely worth asking that, um, before you decide to go to any program.

Emily (37:22): Absolutely. Um, for like prospective graduate students, you know, looking at the offer letters and starting to do, uh, visits or interviews or what have you, um, what’s the best way do you think for them to find out some tricky things like that? You know, what is this insurance policy actually gonna cost me out of pocket? Um, that kind of information within this compressed time period of like the admission season.

Garrett (37:45): Yeah, absolutely. And that is the real hard part is you’re juggling multiple universities, multiple offers and trying to figure out how to navigate it all. Uh, graduate student groups are probably one of the best ways I’ve found. ’cause often that’s where a lot of the grievances are held and that’s where I got together with my colleagues and kind of figured out how to start pushing forward towards action. So any of the graduate student groups in the colleges that you might be going to great people to reach out to, um, other graduate students within your lab, um, often I would argue the ones that are farther along tend to understand the systems a little bit more and be a little bit more honest about the difficulties that they’ve had within the system. Um, and that those are probably my two biggest resources. They tend to be the most honest about both the benefits and drawbacks of those institutions. 

Emily (38:32): Yeah. They’ve had time to see maybe some edge cases play out, like, uh, oh yeah, this is normally how things go, but like 10% of the time it goes this other way, you know. Um, well, Garrett, again, thank you so much for agreeing to come on, um, to the podcast and talk about this whole process. It’s been a long, you know, time in, in making this story, but I’m really, really glad to hear this, uh, not a final outcome, but this point in the process and how, how things have been for you and your peers. So thank you so much for your work and for sharing it with my audience.

Garrett (39:03): Yeah, it was a pleasure and thank you so much for having me. Um, I’m just hoping we can make, uh, the graduate student experience better for everyone.

Outtro

Emily (39:21): 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? My team has collected short summaries of all the answers ever given on the podcast into a document that is updated with each new episode release. You can gain access to it by registering for my mailing list at PFforPhDs.com/advice/. Would you like to access transcripts or videos of each episode? I link the show notes for each episode from PFforPhDs.com/podcast/. See you in the next episode, and remember: You don’t have to have a PhD to succeed with personal finance… but it helps! Nothing you hear on this podcast should be taken as financial, tax, or legal advice for any individual. The music is “Stages of Awakening” by Podington Bear from the Free Music Archive and is shared under CC by NC. Podcast editing by me and show notes creation by Dr. Jill Hoffman.

How and Why to Become an Entrepreneurial Scholar

March 10, 2025 by Jill Hoffman 2 Comments

In this episode, Emily interviews Dr. Ilana Horwitz, a professor at Tulane University and the author of the newly released book, The Entrepreneurial Scholar: A New Mindset for Success in Academia and Beyond. Ilana explains how a grad student or academic can be an entrepreneurial scholar and why it is so beneficial in an environment of uncertainty and limited resources. Ilana and Emily discuss the necessity for grad students to become the CEOs of their own educations and careers. Finally, they explore in more detail ideas from the chapter on how to leverage resources, both human and monetary.

Links mentioned in the Episode

  • Dr. Ilana Horwitz’s Website
  • The Entrepreneurial Scholar: A New Mindset for Success in Academia and Beyond (use discount code: IMH20)
  • PF for PhDs S16E4: How This Grad Student-Parent Managed Her Money and Time in the Bay Area
  • PF for PhDs Tax Workshops
  • PF for PhDs Tax Center for PhDs-in-Training 
  • PF for PhDs Subscribe to Mailing List
  • PF for PhDs Podcast Hub
How and Why to Become an Entrepreneurial Scholar

Purchase Dr. Ilana Horwitz’s book, The Entrepreneurial Scholar: A New Mindset for Success in Academia and Beyond, use the code IMH20 to receive a discount!

Teaser

Ilana (00:00): It helps you sort of to have an identity outside of academia to have sort of self-worth in yourself, right? To understand that you are a person that isn’t just bound up with your academic identity. Because if, again, the academic job market doesn’t work out, the crisis that one has about their sense of self-worth is like maybe a little bit less, knowing that you have value in some other capacity.

Introduction

Emily (00:34): 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 (01:03): This is Season 20, Episode 5, and today my guest is Dr. Ilana Horwitz, a professor at Tulane University and the author of the newly released book, The Entrepreneurial Scholar: A New Mindset for Success in Academia and Beyond. Ilana explains how a grad student or academic can be an entrepreneurial scholar and why it is so beneficial in an environment of uncertainty and limited resources. Ilana and I discuss the necessity for grad students to become the CEOs of their own educations and careers. Finally, we explore in more detail ideas from the chapter on how to leverage resources, both human and monetary.

Emily (01:44): The tax year 2024 version of my tax return preparation workshop, How to Complete Your PhD Trainee Tax Return (and Understand It, Too!), is now available! This pre-recorded educational workshop explains how to identify, calculate, and report your higher education-related income and expenses on your federal tax return. Whether you are a graduate student, postdoc, or postbac, domestic or international, there is a version of this workshop designed just for you. I do license these workshops to universities, but in the case that yours declines your request for sponsorship, you can purchase the appropriate version as an individual. Go to PFforPhDs.com/taxreturnworkshop/ to read more details and purchase the workshop. You can find the show notes for this episode at PFforPhDs.com/s20e5/. Without further ado, here’s my interview with Dr. Ilana Horwitz.

Will You Please Introduce Yourself Further?

Emily (02:56): I am delighted to have a return guest on the podcast today, Dr. Ilana Horwitz, who’s a professor at Tulane University, and the author of the new newly released book titled The Entrepreneurial Scholar and Ilana’s previous episode on the podcast was season 16, episode four, and we get a lot more of like her personal story about being a parent in graduate school and like all the resources she marshaled to, you know, financially get through that period. But it’s interesting, she and I were just looking back at our email exchanges. We first got connected back, you know, over a year about two years ago, um, because she was starting to write this book and wanted to, you know, give for, wanted me to give a short interview for it. And I ended up interviewing her and that came out quite a while ago. But now the book that she’s been working on for so long is finally out. And so that’s our subject for today, the Entrepreneurial scholar. So Ilana, thank you so much for coming back on the podcast. Will you please give a brief introduction for the audience?

Ilana (03:50): Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me, Emily. It’s great to be back. Um, as you mentioned, yes, I am trained as a sociologist of religion and education. I am in the Jewish studies and sociology department at Tulane University. I’ve been here, um, for four years, and before that I spent a decade at Stanford as a grad student and as a postdoc.

What Is An Entrepreneurial Scholar?

Emily (04:10): Excellent. I wanna jump right in to like, what, what is this book about? Because it’s not about, as I, you know, maybe thought just by reading the title, it’s not about academics or PhDs who want to become entrepreneurs. We have a slightly different spin on that. So can you tell us the working definitions you have for like an entrepreneur and also an entrepreneurial scholar from the book?

Ilana (04:31): Absolutely, yes. So this is a little bit of a different definition of what entrepreneurship means. When I say entrepreneurship and when I talk about entrepreneurial scholarship, I’m specifically talking about the ability to generate ideas with very limited resources while navigating an environment of high uncertainty. What I don’t mean by entrepreneurship is, uh, I’m not talking about trying to take a neoliberal approach to academia, uh, that advocates for the corporatization of the academy. I am not talking about applying market models to universities, and I’m also not talking about the kinds of sort of, um, business oriented research firms. And as you mentioned, I’m also not talking about necessarily starting some sort of, um, venture on the side, which is like what most people of think of when I say entrepreneurial, uh, thinking. And so again, being an entrepreneurial scholar means being a- able to generate ideas, right? That is the product that is like the currency with which we work. Being able to generate ideas with very limited resources while navigating an environment of high uncertainty. That is what entrepreneurs do. And it’s actually also what scholars do when we are at, um, when we are sort of working within the constraints of what academia is.

Emily (05:51): And one of the things that I found really interesting about your book is that, and this is actually what how you ended up quoting me, like within the subject matter, um, is that going, we’re not just talking about like academics like you, like who have, you know, career professors and that kind of thing. We’re going all the way back to basically the grad student stage and how this mindset can be helpful in, in fact is necessary even from that point of making that transition from undergrad to graduate student. And you just mentioned, um, you know, ideas are the product that we work with within academia. And so I just wanted you to expound on this a little bit more. Like what is this transition that a person has to go through from being a, an excellent undergraduate <laugh> to being a successful graduate student? And why do so many people kind of get stuck or mired along the way and don’t make that transition successfully?

Ilana (06:40): Yeah, absolutely. The main mindset shift that I think people need to make is being able to shift from being a consumer of information to a producer of knowledge. And I really didn’t understand this. I think when I started my PhD program and it was at my orientation that, um, a professor said, right to all the incoming students, like, your job is no longer to consume information, it is to produce knowledge. And what that meant for me as this like realization that my entire life I have been evaluated on the basis of like my ability to consume information and regurgitate it back to the teacher, right? That’s what we generally do in K 12. That’s mostly what we do in college, right? And I was actually never very good at this. Um, which is, I ultimately, I think what ended helped me love graduate school. Um, but when I realized that graduate school is about being able to, um, is, is really about this production of knowledge, meaning that you are now like playing detective and it is up to you what is the problem in the world that you wanna pursue.

Ilana (07:45): And it is up to you how you wanna pursue it and when you wanna pursue it and what resources you wanna pursue it. Like you have so much agency in the process and your grades no longer matter. And for me, that was really liberating. But for a lot of people that’s really debilitating. And the reason it is debilitating is because people who often end up in PhD programs are people who are so good at school and meaning that they were so good at navigating the, what I call the or sociologists of education called the hidden curriculum of school. Like the rules and the routines and regulations, right? They’re like pros at this and they’re like, oh, I’m so good at school that I should go pro. And going pro means going to a PhD program, right? You are a career sort of, uh, student career students, um, aren’t necessarily great at having the mindset to sort of think outside the confines of what is expected of you.

Ilana (08:35): And so when grad school starts and you have a bunch of, you know, requirements, it’s okay, but then the script falls away. And then that is when I think panic, uh, sets in for a lot of people. ’cause it’s like, wait, now there are no rules and there are no routines and there are no regulations, like, what am I supposed to do? And then they, there’s this resentment of like, why isn’t my advisor telling me what, what to do? And like, why isn’t it super clear? And so the ability to like, instead of feeling that moment as debilitating, but instead of, uh, embracing it and embracing that autonomy, I think is like the big mindset shift that needs to happen.

Becoming the CEO of Your Own Education

Emily (09:08): I totally agree. And I, I see, you know, in retrospect how I kind of f- faltered in that myself during graduate school. And it was, it was difficult and you just used the term like script. I think that’s a really, really good way of putting this, like, as you said, you can master how it is to be good at school, you know, all the way up through the end of undergrad and be successful in that. And then once you reach graduate school, you have to really forge your own path. And it’s not totally cl- it’s not just, you know, x, y, z and then you get a degree. It’s a completely like unique experience. And the term that you use in the book, which I really loved is, um, becoming the CEO of your own education. And one of the reasons why I liked this is because it made me think about your education is not just what you do in graduate school, it’s a holistic picture of everything that goes into who you are professionally. And that could be experiences that you have through your classes and through your research and with your advisor and with your colleagues, but it could include a whole lot more than that. And you had a lot of examples in the book of people, um, seeking out experiences that, um, you know, using this mindset of being an entrepreneurial scholar that ultimately led them to the creation that they, you know, were in, were in graduate school or in their careers and to do so. I just really liked that like, framing of it. Did you wanna say anything more about that, that phrasing or how you view it?

Ilana (10:30): Yeah, that’s such a great question because right, my PhD is from a school of education, so I also, uh, think of education as a much more holistic endeavor. And when I think about your P- one’s PhD journey, and if I reflect on my own right, it’s so much more than what I learned in my classes. Um, and so for example, in the book I talk about this experience that I created for myself where I realized at one moment, maybe around my fourth year that I really needed teaching experience, um, as a Stanford, a PhD student in my program. Like I didn’t have to teach, I only had to be a research assistant. And I was like, how do I create an opportunity for myself to go teach? I ended up going to teach at a community college. And so when I think about my own education, I learned so much from that experience of being a community college, um, professor, both from the students in the class who were very different than most of the people I spent time with. They were like working adults mo- mostly first gen, low income, um, students of color. And so not only did I learn from them, but I also learned what it means to sort of educate a different population and what it means to sort of talk about sociological concepts to people who generally don’t come from elite backgrounds. And, um, and so all of that right, was part of my education. Uh, and my education also when I think about my PhD was about navigating things like gender expectations in the academy and like being, um, a sort of, uh, in a household, um, where I had to navigate gender dynamics, um, as everyone mostly has to. Um, and it was about doing a bunch of side hustles, uh, so that I could learn like, what does it mean to do, you know, statistics like act- for ac- an actual client as opposed to doing it for a class. Um, so yes, education is this like much more holistic experience, um, as you mentioned,

Emily (12:22): And now this is a little bit of a sidebar, but it’s kind of a soapbox that I get onto from time to time on the podcast, which is I really think it’s shortsighted of graduate programs to, um, disallow their students. And maybe this was not your experience, but it is in some places to disallow their students from taking outside work opportunities, very much like the ones you just mentioned, adjuncting, you know, side hustling using their skills that they’ve learning graduate school. Um, I get it that they want them to stay focused on finishing their dissertations. Um, but it’s, as I just said, it’s very shortsighted because many of these kinds of side hustles can be, um, augmenting as we were just talking about being the CEO of your own education and making you a better prepared professional once you get to the end of graduate school. So, um, yeah, little <laugh> just a little sidebar there, but I don’t know if you have any comments about, about that and how faculty might in some places view these kind of side endeavors.

Ilana (13:16): Yeah, I think it’s tricky, right? Because I, as you said, like I understand from the faculty’s perspective that they want students to be really focused because once you have some sort of job, especially if it’s like a full-time job, it’s really hard to stay focused on your research. But, um, I also feel very strongly and uh, and I did this myself, that when you take those outside opportunities, you are both, um, building your skillset, developing a network that’s really important. And also like, just being really realistic about the fact that most people who start a PhD program are not gonna end up in a a professor position, right? A very, very tiny percentage of people will end up in the, uh, being able to get a tenure track position or even a non-tenure track position. So it’s just like to, to navigate the uncertainty of academia means being really realistic with what the prospects are and to buffer yourself against that, uh, sort of crisis that is gonna come when you realize you can’t get a job. It’s really helpful to know that you have other options. Um, in my case, um, the School of Education, look, it didn’t have, I think there was a policy and some professors sort of instituted the policy more than others. I will say that, um, there was certainly not enthusiasm for me pursuing this, uh, teaching position at a community college, but I made the case, um, of why it was beneficial. And so it was allowed. And then I, and then there was a bunch of stuff that I did without telling anybody, and it was totally fine because I’m very good at being the CEO of my own education and I sort of knew what I could manage and what was valuable, like what, when I thought about it from a cost benefit ratio, like how much time am I spending on something versus the value I get out of it? And I have no regrets about pursuing anything, um, outside of academia and in the book, there are several examples of people who I interviewed, um, of how transformative those opportunities were. Because one is, it helps you sort of to have an identity outside of academia to have sort of self-worth in yourself, right? To understand that you are a person that isn’t just bound up with your academic identity. Because if, again, the academic job market doesn’t work out, the crisis that one has about their sense of self-worth is like maybe a little bit less knowing that you have value in some other, um, sort of capacity. And some, um, there have been some like amazing opportunities that people got because, you know, one person who I interviewed, Tamara worked for Kamala Harris, uh, on Fridays, and that led to a bunch of other opportunities. And particularly like if you’ve never worked outside of an academic setting, like if you are a person who’s pretty much going straight through from undergrad to your PhD, it’s really important to work in the outside world to understand sort of like the real, how the world, real world functions and not just be in like the academic bubble.

Emily (16:13): Absolutely. I, I totally agree everything you just said. Um, and I guess maybe a, a a corollary, like a, another interpretation of CEO of your own education is CEO of your own career, because you don’t know for sure that you are gonna end up in academia. And it makes sense, as you were just saying, to have, um, built an image of yourself that’s bigger than just an academic in case that career path, if it’s one you’re even going for, um, doesn’t work out. And you can still be an entrepreneurial scholar in graduate school and pivot to something else outside of it. But, um, the point that I wanted to make is that being the CEO of your own career maybe includes some career development experiences that you wouldn’t, you aren’t automatically being pushed into as a graduate student, but that are available to you probably from the graduate school and the career center and so forth. And just being able to like, spend some time exploring those professional development, um, resources and career ideas can, can really help you whenever you are making that next transition point,

Ilana (17:07): Right? And I talk in the book about like, you cannot predict the future, but you can help create it. And that’s, uh, I think an important lesson because all these things that you’re doing can help create your future, um, and it helps sort of offset that uncertainty that we as grad students, uh, sort of have to live with on a, on a day-to-day basis.

Emily (17:29): Yeah, and I, I really love that you talked in the book about uncertainty and about limited resources and oh my gosh, how timely is this? We’re recording this in February, 2025, and as of now there’s been these executive orders. We don’t know in academia how this is all gonna shake out whether there’s gonna be a massive funding decrease, um, you know, know layoffs. We don’t know. We’re in a period of uncertainty. And so how, I mean, it’s, it’s horrible timing in a sense, but it’s good timing for your book to like sort of land in this moment where in academia there’s probably a lot of questions going around about what, what resources do I have? What’s the value that I can bring here? What is my career path going to look like? And so, well, for that reason, if not any other, maybe it’s time to, you know, pick up this book.

Commercial

Emily (18:15): Emily here for a brief interlude! Tax season is in full swing, and the best place to go for information tailored to you as a grad student, postdoc, or postbac, is PFforPhDs.com/tax/. From that page I have linked to all of my free tax resources, many of which I have updated for this tax year. On that page you will find podcast episodes, videos, and articles on all kinds of tax topics relevant to PhDs and PhDs-to-be. There are also opportunities to join the Personal Finance for PhDs mailing list to receive PDF summaries and spreadsheets that you can work with. Again, you can find all of these free resources linked from PFforPhDs.com/tax/. Now back to the interview.

Leveraging Available Resources as an Academic

Emily (19:07): And since we were just talking about scarce resources, um, I was really compelled by the, the book is basically five, five big ideas, five big chapters, and I was really compelled by the fourth one, which is around leveraging the resources available to you as a graduate student or as an academic. And so can you just expound a little bit more about what kinds of resources, um, might be available to a graduate student or an academic that could, you know, help them as an entrepreneurial scholar?

Ilana (19:33): Yeah, absolutely. So I actually start off the book with this idea of that being, um, thinking entrepreneurially means asking yourself, given who I am, what I know, and who I know, what kind of opportunities could I create for myself? And so here we are thinking about sort of, um, like the intellectual capital that you have, the human capital that you have, and the social capital that you have, right? Who do you know, what do you know? And who are you, um, to start thinking about how you can leverage all of that. So let me talk about this. First of all, this idea of like who, you know, in academia and particularly in the humanities, um, we tend to sort of think of, um, this very, this like lone scholar sitting in a library doing work very independently. And I really wanna disrupt this idea even in the humanities, because even if you’re writing a monograph, I wanna put forth the idea that scholarship is a community sport. Even if you end up writing alone, why is it a community sport? I want people to sort of imagine that the academic landscape is this vast network where each node is a person and each link is a potential collaboration or a shared idea, or even like just a mutual support system, um, because nobody should be doing this alone. And I remember even like as a grad student, I’m in the social sciences, so there isn’t a fair amount of collaboration, but the sort of reticence that some of my colleagues had to ask each other for help to seek out help from, um, more senior people was, was astonishing to me because I came from working in startups and in management consulting where it was very, very common to just ask for help or ask for other people for ideas. So when I say that I want people to think of scholarship as a community sport, what, what that means in practice is like thinking about your network and relationships that you have, not just like, how do you in an icky way try to extract value from that, right? That’s an icky like, um, and I think incorrect version of what it means to network. Instead, I want people to think about networking as the opportunity to actually help other people, right? Not extracting value, but actually putting yourself out there so that your idea and someone else’s idea or sort of your problem and the problem that someone else is experiencing, um, can have sort of mutually beneficial, um, solutions, right? That you in, in partnership with other people can problem solve together, right? And so for example, um, at one point in when I was a sort of latter stage grad student, I was working on a paper, um, and I got really stuck on it. Um, and a new postdoc came to Stanford and I, we were having lunch and I started telling him about this paper. Um, and then I realized that like what I was missing was like a whole framing around gender.

Ilana (22:26): He happened to be a gender scholar, and I realized like it would be really beneficial if he came and joined as an author on this paper. Um, and it was this very, very mutually beneficial decision and collaboration that by the way, has a, actually ended up, that paper ended landed in the top sociology journal. And I don’t think I would’ve been able to do that alone. And since then, he and I have collaborated on several other, uh, other things. Um, but it wasn’t like I was like, oh, this, this person is coming and I wanna just extract value, um, by having lunch with ’em and like seeing what I can sort of get out of that person. Like I knew that this would be a me- mutually beneficial relationship. Um, and so there are many ways to think about how can you identify people in your network, but also develop relationships with people who are outside of your network, um, by thinking about like, where might you have complimentary skills with other people? Um, how might you be able to offer value to somebody else’s project? Right? And so not just thinking about your own career advancement, but thinking about like, how can we do more with what we have, um, by, by collaborating, right? If like, I think of, uh, I think therefore I am instead, like, I think therefore I collaborate.

Emily (23:38): Hmm. Yeah. As you were talking about that, I was just thinking like, yes, this is such a human endeavor. Like it’s human to have relationships with other people and build things together. And I like what you said there because under, under the topic of like leveraging resources, really what you’re saying is think of yourself as a resource that you can offer to other people, and then they mutually can offer their resource of themselves in this case back to you. So it’s, it’s, it’s quite mutual. So I love that. Um, any other sort of categories of, of ways people can leverage resources?

Ilana (24:11): So when people hear the terms leverage resources, they immediately think of money, right? And sort of funding. And so I would do wanna touch upon that and what does it mean to sort of think entrepreneurially about funding? Um, in the book I give examples of people who, uh, have been very successful at getting different fellowships. And there are different ways to think about how to be strategic in those. Like do you go for a bunch of sort of small, low, uh, uh, sort of low bar, uh, grants where it doesn’t take very much to apply to them? Like maybe you can repurpose something and then you just apply to a bunch of really small things. Or do you invest several months into putting together something that has, uh, bigger, bigger reward, right? You always wanna be thinking in all of academic life, you wanna diversify your risk, uh, sort of risk benefit portfolio. And funding is one of those things. Um, I’ll give an example of something that happened to me recently because a lot of thinking entrepreneurially is like taking advantage of opportunities that you didn’t necessarily expect. And so recently, um, Tulane had, uh, somebody from the Russell Sage Foundation come and give a talk about, you know, their funding streams. And I went, and in that talk I realized, I was like, oh, I don’t have anything relevant for this, because they’re looking for really early, more early stage projects than anything that I have. Um, I sort of wrote it off, you know, like I didn’t even take the opportunity to meet with a program officer. And then about a month later I had kind of like a crisis in one of my projects that resulted in me pulling out of the project for a variety of reasons. Um, and I, I was having this like sort of moment of both, like panic, but also seeing opportunity emerge from this breakup where I was like, oh my gosh, like this gives me an opportunity to actually do a totally different study. Uh, and I was like, oh gosh, but that’s like really early stage. Where would I get funding? And I was like, wait a minute. I was like, I just sat through one of those RSF things. So right away I contacted the person at Tulane who had set up that program officer to come and I said, I all of a sudden have an idea, is it too late to meet with them? And she said, let me get in touch. So I met with a program officer, I learned so much, I told them what my idea was, and through that conversation I learned about like some stuff that, about their grants that I wouldn’t have been able to figure out just based off of their website. Like it turns out that there was a stream of funding that wasn’t gonna continue and it would be very beneficial for me to apply to, to this particular stream of funding. So I did, and I submitted, um, a letter of intent, um, which is their first stage. And I actually made it through to the, to the proposal stage. So I should hear back in a couple of weeks about whether I got it or not. But I at least feel very good that I made it through the LOI stage. And again, the like, key takeaway is I didn’t, you know, the sort of, I put myself out there, I went to the session, I didn’t think anything would come of it. And then when I had this like moment of, of crisis and I, and I saw opportunity, I was like, oh, wait a minute, I can connect the dots here. So, so thinking about like, um, expansively about funding and resources, um, and just like sometimes going to stuff that you may think doesn’t have any benefit for you, you never know when there will be, um, a payoff.

Emily (27:24): Hmm. And I’ll speak as a business owner, I actually don’t identify with the term entrepreneur for my particular type of business, but as a business owner, I have to think about the revenue streams in my business. And I have, I might have predictions about which revenue streams are gonna work out to what capacity, but it’s really beneficial, as you were just saying, to have, um, ideas maybe on the back burner, <laugh> of other revenue streams, other fellowships, other grants you could apply to. And so if you have the capacity, like in your example that you just gave, if you suddenly have the capacity to be applying for things or putting effort into an area that you weren’t before, then you say, oh, I, I have some background in this. I know how to turn this on in a, in a quicker way than just, you know, starting completely like cold. I really love that example. Anything else you wanna add? Um, I, I, just for the podcast listeners, especially if you’re a longtime podcast listener, chapter four of this book is really special because Ilana included, um, my podcast, like interviews as some of the resources and also interviewed some other people that I’ve had on the podcast before. So like, it was like seeing some old friends in this chapter, which was really exciting. And also, of course also pulled in some other interviews that I found really, um, great. So I thought you actually summed this up really well in the, you know, concluding notes for that chapter where you said, remember, every funding opportunity is also a chance to expand your community and collaborate with others who share your vision and actually ties really well both of those points, um, together. So thank you so much. Anything else you wanna add in about this leveraging resources topic?

Ilana (28:48): I’ll add one more thing, and this is sort of the, this idea of connecting with people so that you can expand your knowledge of what is possible in the world. And what I mean by that is there are things like that I remember as a doctoral student that I was like, there’s no way that I can do this because I have no mental map and I have no schema in my head for how to make this possible. So for example, um, at towards the end of grad, grad school, I was like, I wanna write a book. I had written a multiple multi paper dissertation, but I wanted to write a book, but I have no mental model of how you go about writing a book when you are a PhD student. And it seemed like out of the realm of possibility. And nowhere in my graduate program did anyone ever train me to think about this. Um, and I had a friend who as a grad student was able to, uh, not a friend, he wasn’t even at my institution, but, but it was someone who I had met along the way. Uh, and I knew that he had been able to secure not one, but sort of two offers from prestigious public, uh, book presses, um, for an advanced contract. And I was like, wait, that’s a thing. I didn’t know that was possible. And once I knew it was a thing and he helped me understand how it became a thing and walked me through all the steps that he went through and even shared his proposal, I had this like ability to think beyond what I could think about earlier. I was like, oh, if he could do it, maybe I could do it too, and here’s what it could look like. And I followed some of the similar steps, um, and it became possible. Um, so I think we, we don’t think of collaborating, um, as sort of an opportunity to think beyond ourselves, but that’s what it does for me. It gives me the, the poss- that that sort of opportunity to imagine possibilities that I thought were off the table.

The Origin Story of The Entrepreneurial Scholar Book

Emily (30:37): Mm-hmm <affirmative>. Yeah. So this is your second book and you use this book as an example in, I believe it’s the fifth chapter of, um, a an entrepreneurial scholarship activity, right? Of publishing a book. So, um, can you just tell us really briefly how the book, um, came about?

Ilana (30:56): Yeah, the book came about, um, from something I totally didn’t expect and out of a sort of a story of failure, which I think is like a very defining, uh, feature of entrepreneurship. When I was a graduate student at the very end of grad school, I was a sixth year, you know, I wasn’t even taking classes, but because I was in this mindset of like, I wanna get everything I can out of Stanford while I’m here and while it’s free, um, I decided to, I was auditing a bunch of classes. I was auditing classes on like how to be a good public speaker and improv. And one of the classes I audited was how to Write for the Public. And it was taught by Sam Weinberg, a professor, um, at the School of Education. And our final assignment was to write an op-ed, right? Not surprisingly, and mostly everyone in the class took this opportunity to write an op-ed about their research. And at the time I was about to graduate and I was reflecting sort of deeply about how my own PhD journey, um, went. Um, and so I took this opportunity to write, um, an op-ed that like, basically I submitted to a couple places and it failed. It did not get published. And it was really frustrating. And Sam, who, um, who I really, really have to give a lot of credit to, he was like, you, you shouldn’t give up on this idea. There’s something there, there. And even if you sort of put it down for a little while, you have to promise me that one day you will pick it back up because I see it, it has a future. Like he, he believed in it. Um, and so for two years, Emily, I kid you not two years, this thing just like sat on my computer. And so about a week before I started my job at Tulane, I was already in my new office and I was about to go home for the day and I was like, you know what? I was, was like, I have childcare. Nothing is gonna like blow up at home if I just like stay in the office for two more hours and I’m gonna pick up that op-ed and I’m gonna dust it off, you know, and see what I can do with it. ’cause I promised Sam that I would. And, and I did, and I, I sort of spoke from a place of what I knew, like I leaned into this startup and, um, consulting experience that I had and I wrote this op-ed that was, or I revised it I think with the title Why PhD students Should Think Like Entrepreneurs. And I submitted and then I thought about, okay, I have this, where can I submit it to? At that point, I already had published once in Inside Higher Ed, so I submitted it to them, right? That was like the, the, the, the most obvious choice. I already had a personal connection there. And within two hours they wrote me back and I, and they were like, yeah, this is great, we will take it. And I was like, oh, that was easy. Okay. And then a few weeks later it came out and, you know, I got a, a couple of nice emails from, um, faculty and some from therapists who said how much this resonated for them and working with grad students. And then I got the most unexpected email. It was from, uh, the editor at Princeton University Press, Peter, and he was like, this is great. Do you wanna flesh this out into a book? And I was like, I’m sorry, come again, <laugh>, uh, you want me to write a book on this topic? And so that, that is the, the sort of birth story of this book. Um, and so it really came out of something very unexpected and to, to write this book, I went out and I interviewed about, um, 45 people who hold either different positions in academia or who have left academia or who are entrepreneurs. So this book really required me to think about like, who am I? What do I know and who do I know to make it happen? So in that way, it is very much like a story of an entrepreneurial, uh, endeavor.

Emily (34:30): Absolutely. I can see that so clearly. I’m so glad that you brought that up so that I could ask you this question about how the book came to be. Um, and so interesting that there was that two year just time period, and I dunno what it was, I don’t know if it was the rewriting that you did or how things had changed in your perspective in two years, or how the world had changed in the two years, but somehow the idea clearly hit <laugh> the second time around. Um, and that’s, that’s fantastic. Where can people find the book?

Ilana (34:57): The people can find the book at Princeton University Press, and I think in your show notes, uh, I can share a, uh, discount code, um, that people can use. People can also find it on Amazon as well as learn more about it on my website, www.IlanaHorwitz, that’s I-L-A-N-A-H-O-R-W-I-T-Z.com. Uh, and I encourage people to reach out to me, uh, if they wanna learn more about it.

Best Financial Advice for Another Early-Career PhD

Emily (35:27): All right, and since you said that you love dispensing advice, we have one more opportunity for you to do so, which is with the standard question that I ask of all my guests, which is, what is your best financial advice for another early career PhD? And it could be something we’ve touched on in the interview already, or it could be something completely new.

Ilana (35:44): My best advice is to pursue a side hustle if possible. And I recognize that it is not possible for everyone, especially international students, students who are parents. Um, I get that this is something that isn’t available to everybody, but if you have the opportunity and sometimes the pay might be so bad, like my first side hustle, I made $12 an hour and it was absolutely worth it because I gained so many skills from the experience. But don’t just think about it from a financial perspective, think about all the other different ways that it could benefit you. Um, and the money that you get on the side is also a really nice perk.

Emily (36:26): Very good. Uh, thanks for tying all those themes together. Well, Ilana, thank you so much for coming back on the podcast. It’s been a pleasure to speak with you again.

Ilana (36:34): Thanks Emily.

Outtro

Emily (36:45): 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? My team has collected short summaries of all the answers ever given on the podcast into a document that is updated with each new episode release. You can gain access to it by registering for my mailing list at PFforPhDs.com/advice/. Would you like to access transcripts or videos of each episode? I link the show notes for each episode from PFforPhDs.com/podcast/. See you in the next episode, and remember: You don’t have to have a PhD to succeed with personal finance… but it helps! Nothing you hear on this podcast should be taken as financial, tax, or legal advice for any individual. The music is “Stages of Awakening” by Podington Bear from the Free Music Archive and is shared under CC by NC. Podcast editing by me and show notes creation by Dr. Jill Hoffman.

How Academics Can Apply Self-Compassion to Their Money and Time

February 24, 2025 by Jill Hoffman Leave a Comment

In this episode, Emily interviews Dr. Danielle De La Mare, a career wellness coach and facilitator and the person behind Self-Compassionate Professor. Danielle recounts how she reached a crisis point in her career and personal life that led her to quit her tenured professorship. This crisis included a financial component due to her avoidant money mindset. Danielle describes how she is healing in the area of finances, especially in relationship with her husband, using self-compassionate practices. Danielle and Emily draw parallels between time management and money management to keep both in balance and sustainable. Danielle ends the interview by teaching two quick self-compassion practices that you can apply immediately to your financial life.

Links mentioned in the Episode

  • Dr. Danielle De La Mare’s LinkedIn
  • Dr. Danielle De La Mare’s Website
  • Dr. Danielle De La Mare’s Podcast
  • Host a PF for PhDs Tax Seminar at Your Institution 
  • PF for PhDs Tax Center for PhDs-in-Training 
  • PF for PhDs Subscribe to Mailing List 
  • PF for PhDs Podcast Hub
How Academics Can Apply Self-Compassion to Their Money and Time

Teaser

Danielle (00:00): So the healing was really about like me finally just like, ah, turning into the reality that I had to develop a relationship with money and it was really scary.

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 (00:49): This is Season 20, Episode 4, and today my guest is Dr. Danielle De La Mare, a career wellness coach and facilitator and the person behind Self-Compassionate Professor. Danielle recounts how she reached a crisis point in her career and personal life that led her to quit her tenured professorship. This crisis included a financial component due to her avoidant money mindset. Danielle describes how she is healing in the area of finances, especially in relationship with her husband, using self-compassionate practices. Danielle and I draw parallels between time management and money management to keep both in balance and sustainable. Danielle ends the interview by teaching two quick self-compassion practices that you can apply immediately to your financial life.

Emily (01:35): The tax year 2024 version of my tax return preparation workshop, How to Complete Your PhD Trainee Tax Return (and Understand It, Too!), is now available! This pre-recorded educational workshop explains how to identify, calculate, and report your higher education-related income and expenses on your federal tax return. Whether you are a graduate student, postdoc, or postbac, domestic or international, there is a version of this workshop designed just for you. While I do sell these workshops to individuals, I prefer to license them to universities so that the graduate students, postdocs, and postbacs can access them for free. Would you please reach out to your graduate school, graduate student government, postdoc office, international house, fellowship coordinator, etc. to request that they sponsor this workshop for you and your peers? You can find more information about licensing 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. Thank you so, so much for doing so! You can find the show notes for this episode at PFforPhDs.com/s20e4/. Without further ado, here’s my interview with Dr. Danielle De La Mare of Self-Compassionate Professor.

Will You Please Introduce Yourself Further?

Emily (03:12): I am delighted to have joining me on the podcast today, Dr. Danielle De La Mare of Self-Compassionate Professor. And we, uh, this podcast interview came to be from an unusual path, which is that we both work with Dr. Jill Hoffman, who you heard from, uh, last season in an interview. So Jill thought it was a great idea to get me and Danielle together and we agreed. So we’re doing this interview now and I’m really excited we’re going to talk about the intersections of money with other aspects of life management, and Danielle has a lot of unique perspective on this. So, uh, Danielle, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast, and will you please introduce yourself a little bit further for the audience?

Danielle (03:51): Oh my gosh, thank you for having me. Um, yeah, uh, I’m Danielle De La Mare and I have been what I call a career wellness coach to mostly mid-career academics, um, for the last several years, since 2019. And, um, sometimes I have early career academics, sometimes I have postdocs, sometimes I have later career academics that I work with full professors. Um, but basically these are people who have hit a wall in their career. They’re not feeling alive in their career. They’re not feeling joy, they’re not feeling well. Um, and basically I have a group, um, program that that sort of works them through that. Now I myself earned tenure in 2018 and then quit my job right after that <laugh>. So the way, um, I engaged with academia myself was very hard on my body. I was very overwhelmed all the time. I was very stressed all the time. I hit burnout. I had small illnesses all the time. And then I had really big major like life-threatening kinds of illnesses as well. Um, two of those actually. So I ended up leaving academia and I started doing this career wellness coaching work, um, diving into it, trying to learn about how to be well in my career and what <laugh> what I found is that those toxic work habits I, um, used in academia I just brought with me to this new job. Um, and, uh, the reason I left academia so quickly is ’cause my husband got a job. Um, he, he was an academic at my same institution and he got a job, um, across the country. So I ended up leaving and I was so happy to leave and thought I can start this new gig and do it all differently. And then I ended up doing the same thing. So, um, yeah, I guess that’s it. The, the core of my work is about self-compassion, like making decisions about your career, taking action in your career from a place of self-compassion. And I guess that’s me in a nutshell.

Emily (06:16): Yeah. Okay. I’m so glad to, I’m, I’m excited to hear more about this story. So like when you were coming up on those maybe the last few years, um, as an academic, um, give us kind of what was going on with you getting up to that crisis point. Um, you’ve mentioned health crises already, but maybe also about your time management, maybe also about your career progression, maybe also your money, like even more holistically. Let’s hear more about that.

Danielle (06:43): Yeah, 100%. Um, so yeah, physical body was giving out. Um, and I think had I been somebody who was a planner, like I never planned anything like weekly planning monthly. I never did any of it. Um, that would’ve definitely helped with my overwhelm. Um, my overwhelm definitely contributed to my, some of my health crises for sure. Um, so I was essentially just focusing only on my work, doing my work, and that was it. I was trying to shut out my life other than that in every way. Um, you know, I was a professor and that was my identity and this is what I did. And, um, I wanted to prove to the people around me that that’s, that I could do a good job and that I would do it well. So I would shut my door <laugh> when I got into the office. Um, and I could hear my colleagues banter outside the door and I wouldn’t communicate with them. I wouldn’t hang out with them. I could hear them and I would kind of have this longing of like, oh, it’d be nice to go hang out with them, but I can’t. I’ve gotta work. Um, I remember, you know, doing everything I could to, to push my daughter off on, um, my mom like, can you take care of Mar she needs, uh, she needs you today ’cause I have to work. Um, I didn’t look at, you know, I didn’t look at my weeks. As I said, I didn’t look at my months, I never looked at my money, I didn’t look at anything. The only thing that mattered was my work, and it’s because I had this core, core belief that I was incompetent and I was bad and I was wrong. And it was this impo-, these imposter feelings. And because of those, I shut everything else out and not shockingly got sick.

Navigating Money, Career, and Relationships

Emily (08:39): Wow. Wow. I can so see how your brand became what it is, <laugh> identifying that as the core issue inside you, your psychology, um, that was kind of like fueling all of this. Um, was there ever going to be an end point or with that like core belief that you were incompetent, had you not left your job, would you just have continued, as you said, shutting out everything else in your life to only focus on the work?

Danielle (09:07): Well, I think I did do that. Um, I, I continued to shut out everything to focus on the work even after I left. Um, I, I remember having an argument with my husband right after he accepted this job across the country. And, um, I was like, I’m fine leaving. This job sucks. It’s not for me, dah, dah, dah, dah. I don’t feel well, this is well after I had hit burnout. And so it, you know, my feelings were very different then. And I was like, let’s go, let’s get outta here. And he’s like, okay, I get that you want to start sort of this entrepreneurial work and I just need to know like, where are we money wise? Like when are we gonna call it quits? Like we can give it a shot, we can move, I can take over, you know, paying for things and doing, you know, supporting us, but then I need to know when you’re gonna, when is sort of the breaking point when we’re not gonna be able to do it anymore. Um, and I remember just getting really angry, like, this is my purpose in life. I’m pretty sure that we can manage it. We can figure this out. I can’t believe you want a number. What is this number thing? And I, I remember getting really, really angry with him and, and he was really angry with me. Like I, he wanted some clarity, he wanted some sense that, you know, we go into this. He, he knew like when the end point was he needed that. And I, I was like, um hmm. It’s like I was offended by it. Like, no, this is my real work. This is the work I’m meant to be. How could you, you know, question that kind of thing. Um, and so I kind of shrugged him off and he kind of let me, and he wasn’t happy about it and he carried a lot of sort of resentment about it. And we got here and I’m in Denver now where he got the job and I ended up taking another faculty job to appease him. But then I got sick. I got really, really, really, really, really sick life, threateningly sick and ended up having to quit six months later. And so it was this, like, it was the body <laugh> was, was communicating things to me. My husband wanted some clarity about money. I didn’t know how to plan my time out in a way that would like actually balance out my life. Um, I was just sort of fully focused on my career and my, my new job, or I guess I should say my new career, my new, what I felt was like my calling, my, my dharma, my purpose. Um, and I was very, very, very imbalanced. And so we got here and started arranging our new life and things just got more and more stressful actually. And I guess a big part of that stress was lack of money because I had to quit that job six months in and then I had to try to build a business and I refused to talk about money with my husband and <laugh>, like all this stuff was happening.

Emily (12:22): Was he more clued in about the money than you were, or were you both kind of flying like in the dark?

Danielle (12:27): So this is kind of how I think of it. I think of our relationship to money as like attachment style. If you’re securely attached, you, you communicate with like your partner and your friends and the people around you in this way that, that, that is productive and loving and truthful and those kinds of things. Well, we have that same relationship to money <laugh>. Um, and if you don’t have a secure attachment style for me, I tend to be avoidant. Um, I will avoid human relationships. I will avoid, um, relationship to money. I will avoid relationship to time. And he, my husband falls sort of on the other end of the spectrum and he is, um, he’s anxious about everything and he tries to push things into being, and it should work like this and it, and he gets really rigid about it. And so I would say that neither of us had a secure relationship to money. Um, and in fact we were talking about money in completely different ways, and each of our ways were like totally unhealthy, <laugh> totally, totally unhealthy, totally toxic. Um, yeah. And actually as I, as I recall this time, like I can feel this sort of pain in my body and the heaviness and the sadness. It was a hard time.

Healing and Building a Relationship with Money

Emily (13:51): Yeah. And I, I think we’re gonna keep the conversation fairly focused around money today and it, and its relationship with these other things, but clearly this was going on for you in multiple areas of your life, right? It’s not just money, it’s not just career, it’s, it’s well beyond that. So you’re speaking about this time in the past tense. So let’s talk about like, emerging from that or, or shifting it or healing from it or however you like, conceptualize that. So like, what’s been the shift from like that point in time to now

Danielle (14:19): Turning into the reality that I need to have conversations with my husband about finances, um, which was really scary to me. I, when we first started, we, we have these weekly meetings every Tuesday, although we haven’t had them for a few weeks, and it’s making me nervous. Um, but I would, I would get shaky, um, when we would sit down to talk about it and he would get angry and they were very stressful. And it was this like turning into like what’s authentically happening right now as we talk about money, when we, what, Like, I, uh, just like I said to you just now, like, I can feel this in my body as I’m talking about it. Like, I started saying that to him, like, I can feel the shakiness showing up in my body and I can feel like a sense that I wanna run away really fast from this and I don’t wanna have this conversation. Um, and so being really honest, and then when I was doing that, he started telling me how he would feel and often we’d have similar reactions like he wanted to run too. Um, so the healing was really about like me finally just like, ah, turning into the reality that I had to develop a relationship with money. I had to develop a relationship with all of these things, with my husband, with <laugh>, you know, with time. Um, and it was really scary. And, um, it, and, and if I compare that to where we are now, I would say that there’s still definitely work to be done in terms of my own relationship to money, but also my relationship to my husband, um, when it relates to money. ’cause that is like the hot point for us and has been for the 20 years that we’ve been married, like it always has been. Um, and so we continue to do the work. I can see when he kind of pulls out and it’s like, ah, I gotta go to a meeting and I can’t meet for our time. And then I feel like comfortable with that, like, yeah, yeah, please go and I don’t have to worry about it or deal with it kind of thing. Um, and so it’s very easy, easy for us to fall into that avoidant place where we don’t talk about it and we don’t think about it. And like I said, for the last few weeks we haven’t been doing it and I’m like, I gotta get back on it. I gotta step back in. This is probably why I’m on the podcast right now, so that I can like force myself to do that. You know what I mean? Like, I’m thinking about like divine intervention or something. I would say that so much of it has been about just holding myself in these difficult moments. I mean, just in the same way when I talk to my husband about money, I get nervous and scared and shaky. Uh, the same thing happens when I look at my, my money. Um, when I look at the actual numbers and I’m, and I’m tracking. And when I’m doing that every single day, which I’ve been doing, um, I really have to take a self-compassion break. I have to like hold my chest. I have to tell myself I’m not alone. I have to tell myself that everything is okay. I have to tell myself that I am competent and I can do this money thing. Like there’s, there’s some real stuff that I need to do to get in, get in a really good, secure relationship with money. Um, and I’m doing it, but it’s a process and I think that’s what I really wanna impart to people. It’s not just you look at the numbers and then you know, you quit avoiding and you transition and voila you’re there. It’s not like that. It, there is some healing work and some time. And to know that I think is really important.

Emily (18:02): I’m very actually impressed that you and your husband have both been able to like, identify that you want to avoid and that you want to run away and so forth. And yet have held yourselves to maybe not the weekly standard, but like a standard of meeting periodically and engaging with the subject and doing the work. Um, as you were saying, like physically to get to that point where you can have those conversations. I’m wondering in the time that it’s been since you have been intentionally engaging with one another around the subject of money, um, what positive things you’ve been able to accomplish, like what keeps you coming back to the table even though it has been so difficult?

Danielle (18:39): I feel closer to him when I can hear the way he’s thinking about things and the way he’s framing sort of our money story. And, um, and, and he actually says to me, thank you. When I tell him, you know, what, where I am and how I’m feeling, um, like he’s, he’s really valuing hearing me and I can feel just this, like, I can feel a real tenderness that he has for me when I talk to him about my fears and when I talk to him about why this is so difficult for me. Um, and that, that is, um, that is absolutely the thing that keeps us coming back, right? Like, wow, wow. To feel that sense of tenderness and, and care for each other when, when money for the 20 years we’ve been married, um, has always been, um, just fraught with pain and, uh, disdain and contempt and um, and so knowing that it’s hard but coming back feels really, really good. It feels like courageous. Like, I can do this and um, and I can and I can love fiercely and I can see he can do the same thing. Uh, so yeah, that’s what comes up for me when you ask that.

Emily (20:13): Hmm. That’s, that’s incredible. And it, it speaks also I think greatly to, um, your marriage, your partnership. Um, I think of there’s various aspects of our lives that we can share with our partners. Not everybody shares money and you’re not even necessarily talking about the dollars and cents, you’re talking about sharing the feelings and the fears and the dreams and so forth. And that’s, that’s really, that’s really precious and it can bring people closer together the way that sharing other aspects of your life can as well. This is just kind of one of those examples. I’m really glad to hear, hear that. That’s really lovely. Is there anything else you wanna talk about from kind of that first question, which is like, coming to crisis point and how you came out of that?

Dharma and Connecting to your Purpose

Danielle (20:58): I think this idea of dharma, I’m a huge Stephen Cope fan. Stephen Cope talks about dharma. He’s a yogi and a psychotherapist. And he had his own like mid-career crisis as a, as a therapist in Boston years and years ago. And, um, during this time when I was in my tenure track job and I was feeling all the stress and all the pain and my husband said to me, you like carry anxiety with you at all times. Um, I would have like these Sunday mornings, um, when I had an infant at home, I would go to the coffee shop and just read Stephen Cope, um, his work. And he had a book, what was it? I’m trying to see it on my shelf. Uh, I think it’s, I think it’s called Yoga and the Search for True Self or something like that. Anyway, in it, I, when I was reading it at the coffee shop on those mornings when I was always anxious and I’d have this from 6:00 AM to 7:00 AM ’cause I had a baby at home, 6:00 AM to 7:00 AM on Sunday mornings, was this like, ah, I can just kinda slip into this place where it feels like somebody understands me and the crisis I’m going through. And this is the person that also talks about purpose and dharma from a, from a sort of yogic philosophy, from particularly he, he, he talks about the Bhagavad Gita, which is um, which is this, this scripture that helps us to understand purpose. Uh, and so that was the thing I think that got me it, one, it was the thing that caused some arguments ’cause my husband didn’t get it and he was like, I don’t like this. Um, like, we can’t have a conversation about money because you’re so, like, this is my purpose. This is what I do, this is what I want. Uh, he thought it was so lofty and ridiculous, so it caused that kind of problem. But what it did for me is it the idea of having a dharma, the idea of having a purpose and then just like putting to work the health of my body, time, money, all of those things in alignment with that sense of purpose. That was the thing that kept me moving because those things bore me otherwise, like, oh my gosh, time, money, it’s boring, it’s dumb, I hate it, but if I have like a real why about why I do it, like this is why I do it, it for me it was dharma. Knowing that I’m doing it because I know there are other faculty out there who are having a hard time and I wanna be able to be there for them and I wanna be able to to, to heal, to help heal with them. 

Commercial

Emily (23:57): Emily here for a brief interlude! Tax season is in full swing, and the best place to go for information tailored to you as a grad student, postdoc, or postbac, is PFforPhDs.com/tax/. From that page I have linked to all of my free tax resources, many of which I have updated for this tax year. On that page you will find podcast episodes, videos, and articles on all kinds of tax topics relevant to PhDs and PhDs-to-be. There are also opportunities to join the Personal Finance for PhDs mailing list to receive PDF summaries and spreadsheets that you can work with. Again, you can find all of these free resources linked from PFforPhDs.com/tax/. Now back to the interview.

Connections Between Time and Money: Prioritizing Wellness in Both Areas

Emily (24:48): I would love to talk a little bit more about some of the things that you just mentioned. We’ve touched on this a couple times, the time management, the planning, the weekly plans and so forth. And I want to kind of draw a comparison between managing your time and managing your money and see how well, you know, strategies from one can transfer to the other and maybe in some cases where they break down and these things are very different and can’t be thought of in a similar way. Um, so tell me like, you know, having gone from someone who, who wasn’t doing the management of time and now presumably you’re much better at it because. You want it to be part, you know, enabling you to do what you’re here to do. Um, tell me a little bit about like your practice of time management or how you teach other people about it. And let’s just start talking through those analogies with money.

Danielle (25:35): I do weekly planning in my program that I have for faculty. And every Friday we get together and we talk about our career wellness or we, I have them meditate on their career wellness destination, this is where I wanna be. So like, let’s step into that, that let’s feel into that, what is that? And then now let’s set an intention for the week that supports that. Um, so, uh, I would say that as a person, I, I do things, uh hmm. I have to act on things before they sort of integrate. Um, so I had to do the weekly planning with my people for a long time, for probably at least a year before I was really getting good at it sort of myself. Um, and I, that same thing with my dissertation. When I wrote my dissertation, I had to be in the field. I did ethnographic research, I had to be in the field before I could really write my methods section. Like I’m just not the kind of person who can like, you know, put it out there, make a plan, and then, and then move forward with it. Like, I have to act on it, I have to feel it, it has to be part of me kind of thing. So I think that that’s the one thing, like just developing a relationship with the plan every week. And that’s the thing I say to them every time we come together, the purpose of weekly planning is to develop a relationship with our weak so that we can self compassionately protect ourselves, our future selves protect, you know, um, our, our needs and our wants kind of thing. So, so it’s this like, here’s our why, this is why we’re coming together, right? Here’s the, here’s the big why, the career wellness destination, here’s the little why, this is why we’re doing it this week. And um, and doing that with them every week, week after week after week after week really allowed me to integrate that into me and to, um, and to my own practice and develop my own relationship with, um, with time. Because before that it was like I would read what somebody said about time management and what somebody else said about time management, but until I like made it my own, I really couldn’t do it well. Um, so there’s always space for them to, to do it their way as well. It’s not just about me, but I do always want to remind us all of the why before we do the planning.

Emily (28:11): Yeah. So what I’m curious about in trying to draw an analogy with, we’ll say budget planning, right, is the analogous, analogous, um, area there, and it probably wouldn’t happen on a weekly basis. It might be more of like a monthly or quarterly kind of thing if we’re talking about money. But what I’m wondering about is when you and the people you work with are creating these plans, um, what’s the, I mean, you, you said, you know, we have to keep in mind our overall goal, career wellness goal, but then within that, are you emphasizing like accomplishing something this week or rather putting in time for something this week that will like move your career forward versus just keeping your head above water and getting the grading and, you know, all this stuff that doesn’t really move the needle? Like is that more like what you’re talking about, like making sure you make space for overall progress or is it more about, um, scheduling in time for, um, self-care or, or like, or all of that? Or like how do you think about maybe the different components of the week that should be present?

Danielle (29:16): Yes. The, the bigger picture is we’re trying to be more well in our careers. And so with that, we’re always scheduling in rest. You know, you spend three hours a week with each of your classes, well, there needs to be three hours of rest time for you, space that you get to do whatever you need to do to feel more connected to yourself. You know, body, mind, spirit. Um, so there’s that piece, but then there’s also the piece of like, let’s figure out what our priorities are. Um, this week I have all of these things on my list for work, but what’s actually priority and how can we, Martha Beck talks about, and I always use this, she talks about the three Bs, right? How can we, like, if you look at something and you don’t wanna do it and you have this weird relationship to it, like, oh, I really don’t wanna work on this thing this week. How can you one, bag it, how can you two, barter it? Like, and she says barter it is just sort of like give it to somebody else, right? Um, and three, how can you, um, better it? Like I’m gonna, I don’t wanna grade, but I’m gonna sit in this chair that I love and listen to music that I love while I grade. So, so, uh, and then I had, I had a client once say, and then we should do botch it, so do it imperfectly, right? And um, so, so we go through that like what is the list? What are your list of to-dos? Now let’s just get rid of ever-, let’s get rid of all the things we can get rid of. Let’s delay the things we can delay. Let’s, uh, let’s commit to doing things imperfectly, that kind of thing. And so now we’re gonna find our priorities for the week. Now we’re gonna find, um, like I said, our time that we’re gonna do rest. Now we’re gonna find time that we need to take care of our ourselves. Like, are you scheduling lunch every day? You should have a lunch every day. And that is not something faculty ever think about, right? Like, oh, I haven’t eaten for 12 hours. <laugh>. Like, that is common. That is very common. So those kinds of things. And just staying in relationship to the week and knowing that that weekly relationship is gonna contribute to the larger goal of career wellness.

Emily (31:33): I just love this advice on its own. I mean, if this were a time management podcast, we would just talk about it because I, I love that stuff. Um, but I’m still trying to draw these like analogies with money. Um, and I’m thinking about how when we’re planning a budget we have to plan for, and the typical term, which you actually mentioned earlier is like needs and wants and also saving. And I feel like the saving is more like the rest actually that you were just speaking about because it’s, um, it’s shoring up your ability to roll with punches in the future. It’s shoring up your own health, um, both in the long term and in the short term. And so that to me is like, it’s something that you can neglect on a weekly basis, monthly basis, maybe even for a year, maybe even for a few years. But it will come back with a vengeance if you never ever address it. Um, and it’s so much better to build it in cyclically like on a weekly basis like you’re talking about. So that to me is like a saving, kind of like saving, um, building in your own, again, ability to kind of continue to live your life with all the like, you know, the, the punches that you know, life is gonna throw your way. Um, and then also like thinking about the needs and the wants and the priorities. Um, like you were saying about okay, there’s maybe a list of tasks that need to happen. There may be a list of things that you want to spend money on in the course of a month, let’s say. And some of those are more important than others. Some of them can be delayed, some of them can be frugalized, <laugh>, some of them with a little bit of, you know, creativity. You might be able to use something for free or lower cost. Um, some things may just need to be deferred into the future. And so that’s kind of the analogy I would draw there of like, but with money, and probably with your time you have some big rocks that are just standard, right? Like you gotta pay your housing costs every single month. You have to spend a certain amount of money on food every single month. There’s gonna be some staples going on. But similarly in, in your time management, there are probably staples depending on what your job actually is and what your life consists of. There are some things you gotta do, um, every single day. Yeah. Do you have any comments on, on that?

Danielle (33:41): I love the way you just broke that down. Um, and, and drew an alignment to, uh, money. And I will say that money is something I’m still building a relationship with, and so I don’t think I can speak about it in the way I just spoke about time, right? And so, and I think that’s really important to say, like, it’s really important to be really honest about that. Like every day I sit down and I do something that helps me to feel inspired with money, right? Like have a little mantra or I tell myself this is why I’m doing this. And then I look at my, and then I look at my tracking and just like developing that relationship that isn’t a scared, shaky relationship, um, feels like the only thing I can do right now. And so having this sort of big eagle view of my money at the moment is really hard. But having that, that, and I eagle view versus mouse view, I’m again drawing from Martha Beck, mouse view is this like, you know, the the little daily thing I can do to stay in relationship and to develop a deeper relationship, that’s all I’m doing right now. And so talking about it, um, in big lofty terms with somebody who’s an expert on this feels pretty intimidating. ’cause it’s just not where I am yet. Um, and I, and I want people out there who really are hearing this and being like, oh my god, I can relate to that and I’m scared and I wanna get away from it. And, and hearing all the financial terms and all of, and hearing people who are really good at it talk about it all the time, that is scary. And it makes me wanna shut down. I want those people to hear me say that it takes time. And I know I just said it, but I wanna say it again.

Emily (35:37): Thank you so much for pointing that out because part of the purpose of this podcast is, um, and the listeners, hopefully regular listeners will know this, but you may not, is that I interview regular people. Like yeah, they may be regular people who are willing to talk about money, which is not everybody in the population, but I don’t interview other experts almost ever because I think it’s much more relatable, useful, actionable to hear from people who are more similar to the listener rather than more similar, like to me who’s like devoted my career to this, right? So like we already have one of me on the podcast. We don’t necessarily need two <laugh>, at least not every episode.

Danielle (36:08): Totally.

Using Automation and Routines to Support Wellness

Emily (36:09): So that’s kind of my like, uh, approach there. So I’m really, really glad that you said that. And I actually, I’m gonna think more about this mouse view versus eagle view <laugh>, uh, terminology that you just pointed out. And like, yeah, what can be done to draw the connections between the two? Like if you have an eagle view, how do you develop mouse? Uh, I don’t know, habits or actions? And if you only have mouse views and habits and actions, like how do you get up to the eagle view as well? Um, one thing I wanted to ask you about, again, in this analogy between like money and time management is I really love automation in the area of money, and I’m wondering how much automation comes into your view of time management. And by automation I could mean something as simple as like, well actually something you just said reminded me of, uh, Kendra Adachi of the Lazy Genius. Are you familiar with this brand?

Danielle (36:55): No.

Emily (36:56): Okay. So what you said earlier that reminded me of her is that, uh, she’s very intentional to schedule her lunch because she realized that she was not taking lunch like ever and that it was ineffective overall for her wellbeing and also for her work to not be taking lunch breaks anyway. One of her so-called lazy genius principles is decide once, and that’s a form of automation. It’s not necessarily carrying things out automatically, but it’s okay, I only had to think about this one time. This decision is gonna last for a while and I can just carry out that decision without revisiting it every single time it comes up. So that’s kind of a form of automation. Um, so yeah, I’m wondering what you think about that in, in the area of, of time management.

Danielle (37:35): Hmm. The thing that is really automation for me is when I sit down to do weekly planning, I have questions for inner wisdom. Because when you look at your week and you’re like, ah, I don’t know how this is gonna work and I still need to, to contact this person and figure this logistic out and blah, blah, blah, all these things are happening, right? And you don’t always know the answers to everything. You don’t always, um, know how to exactly plan. How am I going to find the capacity to get such and such done this week? Um, that might be an inner wisdom question or whatever it is, but if you just have those questions listed and then they’re not like taking up space in your brain and they’re not like, uh, and you’re not ruminating on it and you’re not getting, um, like scared about that. And then after you know what your questions are, you take space to go listen to what the answers are. So I’m gonna, now that I’ve done my weekly planning, I’m gonna gonna schedule some time this weekend to just go for a walk and really jus- like I look at my questions before I go for my walk, and then I’m really just gonna let the answers come to me as they need to, right? Um, and trusting that they will, and they will, they will, I mean sometimes they’ll say, don’t do this yet. Like pause and, you know, postpone this until next month or something. They might not have an answer in that way, but at least you have some kind of an answer.

Emily (39:02): The automation is the listing of the questions. And then scheduling reflection time again because you mentioned earlier like not, not wanting it to take over all of your brain space to ruminate on these questions. Like you’re just gonna give it a dedicated time where you’re like, I know from doing this process many times if I just have these questions working in my subconscious during this time, a few answers will arise

Danielle (39:25): 100%.

Emily (39:26): I’m actually also thinking about in terms of automations like routines. So have you developed, for example, a morning routine or a sitting down to work routine or an evening routine or anything like that? Or do you like those or do you recommend them?

Danielle (39:39): I do. I love the getting up in the morning and doing what I’ve been calling a trust practice, um, which is just kind of like, um, feeling into gratitude or feeling into a celebration of yourself or anything that’s gonna make you feel good. And I call ’em trust practices because they allow you to trust the moment they allow you to trust your journey. Um, and if you don’t do them, you often will feel distrust and like you can’t do the things you want to do in your life. Like you’re not gonna be able to make it happen. Um, so I would say one, some kind of a trust practice and usually for me, um, I am thinking about things I’m grateful for and I’m thinking about ways I’m really proud of myself and in the evening I’m always doing right before bed. I’m always just taking a second to really feel into my career wellness destination. Just like, this is what I really want and this is how it feels to have that. Um, and I do that just because, um, you know, those people who, who talk a lot like in the spiritual world, right? And manifestation world, they talk about that. And um, and how if you do that just before bed, you know, it sort of sets your psyche up for, for the next day to do things that are in alignment with that. I also love Cal Newport’s shutting it down thing at the end of the workday. Oh my gosh, I feel so much better when I do that, that kind of like, okay, I need to get this done, this done and this done first thing tomorrow. And then these are the things that I need to think through for the rest of the week. Like, and then now I’m gonna check the box because I have his like calendar. I’m gonna check the box that says shut down. I did the shutdown and I am done. And I’ve noticed that I don’t look at my phone as much. Um, when I do that, I just feel better and the whole day because I’m just intentional about how I spend my time.

Emily (41:41): I also have used Cal Newport’s, um, time block, time block planner, which has that shutdown, uh, checkbox in it. And I don’t always use it, but when, as you said, when I do, I certainly feel like a difference. And I’m actually trying to draw another analogy with money here. And this would again, probably happen on like a monthly or yearly basis instead of on a daily basis. But like knowing when you can call something good enough and done and that you don’t need to devote the additional hours that day. Analogously, I’ve done enough with my money this month. I’ve hit my minimum goals. It’s okay if I haven’t used every single last dollar optimally or whatever. Like, it’s okay to have some flexibility and to set your goals realistically, <laugh> like, I mean, Cal wouldn’t want you to schedule, you know, 12 hours of work into a six hour day. That’s not feasible at all. And so similarly, like you need to rightsize your money goals according to the means that you have at that time so that you’re not in this like dissatisfied feeling all the time. Like you have to get to a peaceful conclusion <laugh> at least some of the time with your time and your money. So yeah, that’s just another analogy I was thinking of there. I wonder if you could leave us with maybe one or two self-compassion strategies. You’ve actually already brought up a couple in the course of the interview, but maybe like one or two more that you haven’t brought up yet that we could use across different areas of life wellness or management, including money.

Self-Compassion Practices for Academics

Danielle (43:06): Yeah. So the first one I brought up was a self-compassion break. And this is, uh, from Kristin Neff and Chris Germer’s work in mindful self-compassion. And essentially it is when you know, notice you’re nervous, and it might be while you’re planning, it might be like while you’re planning your week, it might be while you are working through your budget, it might be something else. Um, maybe it’s, maybe it’s even your body, right? Like, I don’t want to exercise right now. And everything in me is like, eh, I don’t wanna exercise. And so a self-compassion break would be to just feel those feelings. Oh yeah, this is what it feels like in my body to feel terrible about this, whatever it is, the anxiety, the stress, the anger, whatever. And then you place your hands either over your chest or somewhere else, that is, that feels very supportive, right? You could like cup your face or um, you could hug yourself, whatever it is, but you’re finding a way. And I really like wrapping a blanket around myself, like really just feeling the warmth of the blanket and letting and, and doing it tightly so you can really feel it tightly. But that that sort of nervous system thing where you’re really giving your nervous system some soothing, um, and then you’re just gonna lean into your own hands or into the blanket and let all the feelings you’re feeling be there while it holds you or while your hands hold you. And then you just remind yourself, I am not alone in this. This is life and life is hard. And, um, everybody’s on their own journey and everybody deals with hardships kind of thing. Um, the other thing is you wanna soothe yourself with words. If you can find something that feels really good to you, so you know, this too shall pass, or I’m doing this for a reason, I’m doing this because I want to, you know, for me it would be to fulfill my dharma, whatever it is. Um, so just you’re, you’re holding yourself with your hands, you’re holding yourself with your words and you’re reminding yourself you’re not alone. Those are the big self-compassion, um, pieces to a self-compassion break. Um, so that’s one way.

Danielle (45:24): The other way is just pausing. I, I think pausing is huge. Like, I’m moving through my day and I’m starting to get stressed and this is happening and I’m triggered. I just went to a faculty meeting <laugh> and I’m triggered because faculty meetings are, I don’t know why they seem to be like triggering 80% of the time, but you walk out of there and, um, for many of us, we just keep, continue on with our day and um, instead pause, right? And I could do this too, especially when I, as I’m developing this relationship with money and I’m trying to heal my relationship with money,

Connecting with Dr. Danielle De La Mare

Emily (46:00): Thank you so much for explaining how to be more self-compassionate in these, you know, times when we might need a little bit of extra. And certainly I know there are people in the audience who are gonna be feeling this with respect to money and will appreciate those strategies, um, when it comes to opening up their bank account or meeting with their partner or whatever, whatever is, um, causing those that trigger to come up. So thank you so much for that. And if someone is listening and they realize that they’re kind of in the, the audience of people that you serve, um, can you tell us just a tiny bit more about how they can find you, how they can learn more about your work and what it looks like to work with you?

Danielle (46:35): Yeah, thank you. Uh, selfcompassionateprofessor.com. You can go there and you can come to one of our monthly coffee chats, um, where we just make space for career wellness. So we spend an hour every month, anybody who shows up and we talk about anything you wanna talk about, whether it’s like toxic workplace, feeling like you, you know, are burned out, whatever it is, you come, you chat. It’s, it’s free, it’s an hour every month. Sign up selfcompassionateprofessor.com, just click on Coffee chats. And then I also have Self-Compassionate Professor, the podcast, um, for people who, who are interested in, in that as well.

Best Financial Advice for Another Early-Career PhD

Emily (47:14): Excellent. Thank you so much. And let’s end with the, uh, question that I ask all of my guests, which is, what is your best financial advice for another early career PhD? And that can be something that we have touched on already in the interview, or it could be something completely new.

Danielle (47:29): It doesn’t have to be perfect. You don’t have to have it all figured out. All you have to do is be in relationship to your money. That’s all you have to do.

Emily (47:42): Could not have phrased it better myself. Thank you so much, Danielle, it was absolutely a pleasure to speak with you.

Danielle (47:46): Yay, you too.

Outtro

Emily (47:58): 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? My team has collected short summaries of all the answers ever given on the podcast into a document that is updated with each new episode release. You can gain access to it by registering for my mailing list at PFforPhDs.com/advice/. Would you like to access transcripts or videos of each episode? I link the show notes for each episode from PFforPhDs.com/podcast/. See you in the next episode, and remember: You don’t have to have a PhD to succeed with personal finance… but it helps! Nothing you hear on this podcast should be taken as financial, tax, or legal advice for any individual. The music is “Stages of Awakening” by Podington Bear from the Free Music Archive and is shared under CC by NC. Podcast editing by me and show notes creation by Dr. Jill Hoffman.

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