audio

Financial Hacks Unique to Graduate Students

February 10, 2025 by Jill Hoffman 1 Comment

In this episode, Emily interviews Kyle Smith, a sixth-year graduate student at Penn State, about the financial strategies and hacks he’s used during grad school to increase his income and optimize how he spends and manages his money. In addition to side hustles and credit card and banking bonuses, they discuss how graduate students can benefit from using 529s and 457(b)s in a unique way. Kyle’s message is that finding ways to spend a few percentage points less on much or all of your expenses really adds up over time to confer financial security in the present and increase wealth in the long term.

Links mentioned in the Episode

Financial Hacks Unique to Graduate Students

Teaser

Kyle (00:00): By saving a few percent off your living expenses, having your emergency fund earn a few extra percent, saving a few percent on your taxes for money, that’s gonna grow a few percent every year until you retire. Um, these things, when combined, uh, really start to add up and let you, uh, get to a place where you have enough money, that you have more financial stability and more flexibility, uh, to do the things you want. Um, and really a lot of it comes from having enough of an emergency fund saved up that you can do these sorts of strategies.

Introduction

Emily (00:39): 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 (01:08): This is Season 20, Episode 3, and today my guest is Kyle Smith, a sixth-year graduate student at Penn State. Kyle and I go deep on the financial strategies and hacks he’s used during grad school to increase his income and optimize how he spends and manages his money. In addition to side hustles and credit card and banking bonuses, we discuss how graduate students can benefit from using 529s and 457(b)s in a unique way. Kyle’s message is that finding ways to spend a few percentage points less on much or all of your expenses really adds up over time to confer financial security in the present and increase wealth in the long term.

Emily (01:49): 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/s20e3/. Without further ado, here’s my interview with Kyle Smith.

Will You Please Introduce Yourself Further?

Emily (03:24): I am delighted to have joining me on the podcast today, Kyle Smith. He’s a sixth year graduate student at Penn State, and we are going to talk about, well, I’m gonna reference the title of another podcast, I listen to All the Hacks. We’re gonna talk about several different, numerous different kind of financial hacks that Kyle has used throughout graduate school to increase his income, decrease some expenses, optimize finances in a few different ways, and Kyle’s been at it for several years, so he has a lot to share with us, some very unique strategies that we hardly ever touch on in the course of the podcast. So you’re definitely gonna hear some new stuff today. Um, Kyle, thank you so much for volunteering to come on the podcast. And will you please introduce yourself a little bit further for the listeners?

Kyle (04:03): Yeah, my name’s Kyle Smith. I’m a, uh, sixth year graduate student at Penn State. Like you said, uh, I got first introduced to your podcast right before I was starting, uh, graduate school, so I’ve been able to learn from some of your tips over the years. Um, my research, I’m in the anthropology department, uh, looking at dog human interaction. So for my research I’ve gotten to go to the dog park and watch people’s dogs and, uh, study how they think and interact with people, um, which has been a lot of fun.

Motivation Behind Pursuing Financial Hacks

Emily (04:31): Yeah, that does sound like fun. Um, okay. We are going to, as I said, talk about some different financial hacks that graduate students may be able to apply in their own lives. But before we get into your list that you sent me, um, I wanted to know why have you pursued all of these and kept going with, you know, some of them that worked out? Like why not just take your stipend and work with it as is and not put in the effort to find these extra, you know, extra workarounds? So tell us about that motivation.

Kyle (05:02): Yeah, I suppose really kind of my whole life, I’ve just been more of the saver sort of mentality. Um, you know, just whatever money I got, I would usually just save it up. Um, I think I tend to have less expenses that I wanna spend money on compared to a lot of people. Um, but then, so I’ve just tried to, you know, just kind of accumulate enough excess that I have the flexibility that when there is something then that I wanna spend the money on, um, that I have enough of a buffer to do. So. Um, so really been just kind of, uh, trying to optimize things to just accumulate a little bit more, uh, focusing a lot on retirement and especially saving for retirement in a way that gives them flexibility with what to do with that money, which we’ll get into it a little bit later. Um, and just realizing that, you know, any money that you’re saving up now and investing, uh, for the future will be worth a lot more later. Um, so, you know, if you’re fine to do a few things to save on some of your expenses, that that really adds up over time.

Emily (05:59): Absolutely. And I do wanna point out that, um, in the list that you sent me, there really isn’t too much about what I would call like true frugality. We’re actually not talking about decreasing expenses in terms of like giving up, uh, quality or downsizing or anything like that. We’re really gonna be talking about earning more or like financial type ways to spend less without getting less. Is that a fair way to characterize the list?

Kyle (06:24): Yeah, I would say so. With the things I’d mentioned. I mean, I definitely do, you know, try to, you know, spend less money on, you know, don’t eat out super often. Uh, split living expenses with people, um, never lived solo. So, you know, there’s strategies like that that have saved some money. Uh, but um, yeah, a lot of the things I just try to figure out ways where if I have a recurring expense I can save a few percent on it. Um, you know, if I have some money sitting there, I can get a few extra percent on it. Uh, and finding that those really add up over time.

Emily (06:57): Yeah, and I especially wanna point this out for like the listeners who <laugh> have, have felt like they’ve maxed out on spending less. Like I’m doing everything already that I can to spend less and I’m not interested in cutting any further. How can I earn more or optimize more to, you know, free up more money for my goals? Right. So that’s really what we’re talking about today. Okay. So let’s jump into your list. The first thing you told me is that you volunteer for research studies. Tell me about that and how much you’re earning from it.

Grad Student Financial Hack #1: Participating in Research Studies

Kyle (07:27): Yeah, there’s, it’s been a while since I’ve done any of those. Um, but you know, when you’re on campus in a university you can walk around the hallways and see there’s, you know, signs sometimes where they have looking for research participants. Um, you know, so a lot of times I’ll just pay attention to that and um, follow up with that if it seems like something that’s worth pursuing. Um, you know, plenty of studies are kind of short and you can make a quick 20 bucks or some are a little more involved, but you can make hundreds over time. Um, you know, so there was one in particular, uh, that I got quite a bit from because they were doing a longitudinal study of graduate students that started my first year of graduate school. Um, so there were kind of recurring surveys that they would have you do, they’d have you come in sometimes, uh, for some invis- in-person, uh, sampling, such as like cutting your hair to look at your cortisol and stuff like that. Um, you know, so I saved up few hundreds of dollars, uh, through studies like that. There was one I did where they were did an MRI scan of my brain that they also pay you a little bit higher for, uh, ’cause you’re in a cramped box. So yeah, just looking out for opportunities like that allow you to sometimes save just a little bit extra money here or there. Uh, and then if you have a strategy where you’re trying to save anything extra for retirement, uh, or for the long term instead of uh, you know, getting an extra $20 and immediately spending it, then that really adds up over time.

Emily (08:46): Mm-hmm <affirmative>. Either way, whatever you wanna do with it, it’s your extra $20 here or there. I mean, like you said, in any sort of large research university, there’s gonna be studies like that. I think one of the other bonuses is that sometimes they’re actually pretty interesting to participate in. Um, like you actually learn something about yourself or about the study or, or what have you. Have you found that to be the case?

Kyle (09:05): Oh, definitely. Um, you know, it’s been interesting just getting to see a different side to research from the research that I’m doing and the research that I read about. But actually being a participant in it, um, can be pretty interesting sometimes, especially when you see connections with like what you’re doing. Like I had look at the hair, cortisol, the dogs, and I was giving my hair for the hair cortisol. Um, there was actually a study I did when I was an undergrad. I volunteered and they as part of it, uh, took my DNA and I got my 23andme results back in addition to getting paid for doing it. So that was an interesting thing,

Emily (09:37): Definitely. Wow. Gotcha. Okay. Next item on your list was a side hustle, a true side hustle. Tell us more about that.

Grad Student Financial Hack #2: Editing as a Side Hustle

Kyle (09:46): Uh, yeah, this was kind of funny ’cause it was just came out of nowhere. I got an email in my inbox one day, um, saying that the person was a Chinese academic who was looking for American students to help edit manuscripts by Chinese academics. Uh, and asking if I was interested. And I immediately thought that it looked like some sort of scam phishing email. There was a strange address. Um, you know, people offering you money that you’ve never heard of before is usually something to be a little wary of. Um, but it seemed, you know, I thought about it and I was like, well, it might be legit. So I tried to look up the person and looked up his papers. Um, I found that, um, people in the acknowledgements had been thanked for helping translate, so I actually reached out to those people before him and was just is that guy legit, and they, they told me they’d work with them and had good experiences. Um, yeah, so that was just kind of an occasional thing. Sometimes I would do a few of these in a month, sometimes they didn’t offer me any for a while. Um, but yeah, just, uh, he seemed to have some connections to other researchers and try just to reach out to Americans, uh, to help just edit the English. I’ve done a handful of those over the past few years. They usually paid around 150 to $200 per manuscript depending on how long it was.

Emily (10:55): That’s an amazing pay rate. Yeah,

Kyle (10:57): No, it’s been, that’s been a good way to, it’s not a reliable enough thing that I can count on that as predictable income, but just occasionally they reach out and they’re like, Hey, can you do this paper?

Emily (11:07): I really like this type of side hustle that just opportunities come your way and depending on your schedule and your availability, you can just say yes or no and that’s great. It’s nice to not be committed to something when you go through busy or periods as a graduate student.

Kyle (11:21): Yeah. Whenever they’ve reached out about editing these, they’ve asked first if I’m available before sending it and you know, there were a couple times where I’m like, no, sorry, I’m too busy this week.

Grad Student Financial Hack #3: Credit Card/Banking Bonuses

Emily (11:31): Absolutely. Okay, next item on your list is kind of a bigger one. Um, credit card and banking bonuses. Tell us about your strategies here. Yeah,

Kyle (11:40): There, there’s a few websites out there that accumulate these sorts of things. Um, doctor of credit is one where they have bank bonuses and credit card bonuses that are, uh, being offered at that time. Sometimes you get some in the mail so you know it’s worth checking your junk mail about these. Uh, and a lot of times different banks will, or credit cards will offer you like a couple hundred dollars if you sign up for a bank account or open a credit card with them and spend x amount of money in the first certain amount of time. Uh, and in many cases these can be, uh, fairly profitable ways with not that much effort. Um, usually there’s some sort of requirements attached to it, so you have to pay attention to those and carefully note down, uh, what the requirements are and if you can meet those and that you’re not gonna be incurring more expenses than you’re getting back. But for instance, a lot of banks, they’ll say like $200 if you direct deposit at least a thousand dollars. So I just update my direct deposit for that month, you know, have my next paycheck go into there and then, you know, change it back after that. And there’s, if there’s not ongoing fees for maintaining it, um, then that’s sometimes just an easy way to get some money.

Emily (12:47): Okay. Yeah. Let’s pause a little bit on the banking bonuses. Um, so you just gave one example of like, oh, I just had to update my direct deposit to go to a different place. Um, sometimes you might have to keep that up for a few months. I think for some offers like this or other ones I’ve heard of, you have to keep like a certain balance in the account for a certain amount of time. So I’m wondering if you have done anything like that. Have you had to move like a chunk of money somewhere and kept it there to get a bonus?

Kyle (13:13): Yeah, there’s sometimes little requirements like that. Sometimes there’s a minimum bonus for a certain amount of time. Um, some of these, when you run the math, it doesn’t really make sense to do, but others, you know, I can keep a thousand there for three months and then get a few hundred dollars out of it. Uh, assuming you’ve got enough money saved up that you have some flexibility there. It’s a strategy that makes more sense. If you’ve got enough of an emergency fund that um, you have a few extra thousand dollars to spare, uh, some of them require a certain amount of transactions. Um, you know, there’s oftentimes easy ways around this. You can like set up your main account to just transfer $10 in and take it out automatically if you need to have a certain transaction each month, um, in order to not have a fee. Um, some of them are tied to like use your debit card, you know, 20 times in the first month and I just go to the gas station and buy a dollar of gas, buy a dollar gas, buy a dollar of gas just in a row. Um, so there’s ways to trigger it. And if you look on sites like Doctor of Credit, they usually detail, uh, what these are.

Emily (14:11): Hmm, that’s so interesting. I hadn’t heard about those little strategies just to fulfill that requirement like very quickly. That’s very helpful to not have to like think about it over a long period of time and remember, oh, I’m supposed to be using this card versus like this one to do this.

Kyle (14:24): Yeah. I think the way they get you with these things is they’re hoping that, um, it’ll be too much for you to do all that. So they either won’t have to pay the bonus because you trip up or that you just, um, you know, you’re not paying enough attention and then you start accumulating some monthly fee because you weren’t doing their one transaction a month or whatever.

Emily (14:43): So you just have to be really organized. Yeah,

Kyle (14:45): Yeah. You just have to be really organized, pay attention to what exactly the rules are and just make sure you’re following those to a T.

Emily (14:50): Yeah, absolutely. Okay. So let’s take like a credit card example then, since we just talked about bank accounts now. When I was in graduate school, it was quite a while ago, so credit card offers were different than they are now. I know. I was always concerned about being able to reach those signup bonuses like spend 1, 2, 3, 6, whatever it is, thousand dollars over two to four months. These kinds of things are common. Um, and I also, I don’t think in graduate school I ever paid an annual fee for a credit card. I do now <laugh>, but that was something I was just sort of like the whole category. I was just like against it at the time. Right. So like, tell us about that. Like how do you balance knowing that you’re gonna be able to meet these signup bonuses? You know, do you have any tricks about, you know, spending or timing the spending or whatever? Um, and also, yeah, how, how do you weigh the pros and cons if you, if there are some costs associated with it?

Kyle (15:38): Yeah. Um, I just try to pay attention to what my actual level of spending is and what the requirements are. And if there’s something where I don’t think I can meet the requirements won’t do it. I don’t have as many credit cards as some people who really pursue the strategy. Um, but there’s some that are quite easy to meet, like, um, some of the ones from Chase tend to be some of the most sought after ones and you can only get a certain number of credit cards per often before your credit score starts to go down and you start getting rejected. Um, but you know, some of the chase ones you have to spend $500 in the first three months and you get $200 or something like that. And that’s easy enough for most people do if they put all their groceries on it for a few months. Um, there’s some that have had bigger amounts, so some of the chase ones are more lucrative where you can get a thousand dollars signup bonus or so the amount fluctuates. So you have to look at the time, but you have to spend $4,000 in three months. And I don’t spend that much in that amount of time, especially ’cause uh, you know, you’re not paying the rent on the credit card typically. Um, but there are strategies that you can do and I think you’d only wanna do this if you’re the kind of person who knows that you’re gonna specifically be doing the math to spend the right amount to make it worth it for you instead of just spending a bunch of money and thinking, oh, I’m saving money because I get it, uh, a bonus. So what I’ve done when I, you have to spend like the, you know, a larger amount of money, you know, getting a thousand back on 4,000 spending is still worth it if you can make it work. So what I’ve done is just put everything that I can on it during that time. And then when it gets closer to the deadline, um, there’s various grocery stores and pharmacies sell these $500, um, prepaid debit cards with about a $5 fee, um, which normally doesn’t make any financial sense, but if you’re getting essentially 25% back, then you can put the last couple thousand dollars of that on these prepaid cards and then just use those for your expenses for the next few months. Um, so you can kind of preload your spending of that amount and let it stretch over your expenses for for many more months. Um, I’ve also, you know, paired this for if I know I’m gonna be booking some flights for the holidays or some other expenses. So when the timing of when you get these cards can matter a bit too.

Emily (17:47): Yeah. So not only for either one of these strategies, you have to stay very organized. You also have to really know your budget. You have to know what your spending is going to be over the next, you know, three or six months or whatever so that you can understand, yes, I’m gonna have enough spending or I’m not quite going to have enough. So as you said at the end, I’m gonna be able to use this strategy. But prepaying, you know, by buying gift cards or whatever, um, debit cards that requires you to have that money up front. So another area where we talked about like getting that first, you know, thousand two, three, $4,000 in like an emergency fund or just a general savings fund is so, so helpful to actually help you generate even more side hustle money. Like you’re really putting your money to work for you. Now we’re all of course hoping that an emergency wouldn’t come your way in that time when you have some money tied up in a de- in a debit card or whatever. Um, but anyway, it gives you more flexibility. So it’s just something that like builds on itself. Um, so if you get that first thousand, like then maybe the next, you know, few hundred is easier to come by ’cause you can use some of these like tricks and hacks

Kyle (18:45): For sure.

Emily (18:46): Um, and you also were just telling me that you paired this strategy with paying estimated tax on your fellowship. Can you tell us what that strategy was, uh, when, when you were using it?

Kyle (18:57): Yeah, so if you’ve not been listening to this podcast as much and you’re not aware of the estimated taxes, uh, sometimes if you’re on a fellowship, um, they’re not withholding your income tax and you’re responsible for paying that several times a year. Uh, I was on a fellowship like this my first year of graduate school. Some people are on it, if they have the GRFP for three years, depends on your situation. Um, and they let you, um, pay these payments either straight from your bank account or you can pay it with a debit card for like a $2 or so fee I think it is. Um, so again, if you’re able to buy these prepaid debit cards in such a way that you’re earning a decent percent back and then you can use that to pay your prepaid taxes for a small fee, you know, you do the math and see if the, if it works out in your favor, but especially if you’re getting a big bonus or if you have a big percent back on that credit card, then uh, it can end up saving you quite a bit more money than you’re spending in a fee. Um, there’s some credit cards too have like different rotating benefits. Like I have one that has a category that changes, uh, four times a year and sometimes they are giving you a bunch of money back for PayPal and they also normally give you money back for a pharmacy and those stack on top of each other. So if I can get 7% back at a pharmacy by buying a pre-K card and then use that for my taxes that they immediately refund to me, uh, that saves you a decent bit of money. Uh, the last time I tried that, they didn’t let me buy the prepaid card with the credit card at the pharmacy, uh, or with PayPal anyway. Um, so you have to, you know, your mileage may vary as they say, and the, the kind of rules for these things are changing all the time. But if you look at, uh, sites related to, you know, people who are doing these sorts of strategies, you can kind of find out to some extent what works and doesn’t at that time.

Emily (20:42): Yeah, all the like buying of gift cards, buying of prepaid debit cards, those kind of, um, ways to get up to those minimum spends. It’s a common suggestion, but the routes to doing it oftentimes get shut down. <laugh>, it, it makes sense that these things don’t always work in perpetuity, but as you said, there are resources available where you can learn how to pivot.

Kyle (21:01): Mm-hmm <affirmative>.

Emily (21:02): Yeah. Is there anything else you wanna add about the credit card or the banking bonuses?

Kyle (21:07): One thing with regards to the banking is, you know, another strategy is not just the signup bonuses, but banks that are gonna give you a certain amount of, uh, interest on what you have in that account. Uh, most banks tend to give you very low percentages these days, uh, but you can sometimes find some that give you a few percent back. I have most of my money, uh, in an account offered through Vanguard called Cash Plus, uh, that gives I think three or 4%, uh, per year of what you have in there as interest. It’s kind of a clunky account. It seems like it’s not as made to interface very well with other banks. So there’s been some frustrations with using that. But if you have thousands of dollars saved up as an emergency fund and you can get 4% of that back every year, you might as well park that money in a, in an account where it’s gonna be, uh, giving you a decent percentage back. And that just goes back to the whole theme of trying to optimize, uh, your finances by a few percent here or there, especially in the long term.

Commercial

Emily (22:07): 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.

Grad Student Financial Hack #4: 529 Contributions

Emily (22:58): Okay, now we’re gonna get into the strategies that I’m really excited about. So the first one is a 529 strategy. So Kyle, tell us, what is a 529 <laugh>? Why would a graduate student be using one? You know, how are you using it in a way that’s very different from how it’s like advertised?

Kyle (23:14): So a 529 plan is something that was created to help incentivize parents to save money for their kids’ college. Uh, if you’re familiar with retirement accounts, it’s kind of similar to that where you’re getting some tax benefits to be investing money for a long-term goal. Uh, but in this case it’s higher education. Um, the, like I said, the intention seems to be more about saving for your kids’ college, but they have some flexibility about this. It doesn’t have to be your child, it can be your grandkid or your spouse or even for yourself. Uh, and while the intention is that you’re, uh, going to for expenses farther down the road, usually, uh, the minimum amount of time it has to be in there, it seems to be about a week. And it’s not just college that this works for, they let you, you use these funds for K through 12 education that has tuition and also for graduate school. So a lot of states have tax deductions for people who contribute to these plans because they’re trying to incentivize people to invest in higher education. Um, the idea is if you’re a parent, you contribute, you know, a few thousand dollars each year, uh, invest it, and then when you’re taking time that money out for your kids’ education, uh, you don’t owe taxes on that after all the growth and you’ve been saving some money on your state taxes along the way. What I’ve been doing is a tip I learned from, uh, your site years ago where you create an account where you’re both the account owner and the beneficiary, you contribute money to it, withdraw it a week later after the hold lifts, and then you can, if you’re using those money for qualified educational expenses, you’re allowed to deduct that from your state taxes. So the qualified educational expenses, you know, you need to look up and make sure it works, but basically it’s room and board for a graduate student, it’s tuition’s allowed too. But since most graduate students aren’t paying tuition, that’s not as helpful. Uh, I believe you can also do a certain amount of, uh, student loan payments as well. So, you know, I’ll just every few months, uh, contribute some of my money into this account, withdraw it a week later, uh, and then just keep track of how much I’m spending on food and rent and then just kind of do this so that the amount that I’ve contributed and withdrawn, uh, is, you know, as close as I can get it to the amount that I’m spending on room and board without going over it. Uh, and then when it comes time to pay my taxes in Pennsylvania, I can deduct in theory up to $19,000, uh, of contributions from my taxes, assuming that that doesn’t, you know, go that I’m not using these for things that are other than the qualified educational expenses. And since the Pennsylvania income tax is 3.07%, uh, you know, that adds up over time. I think in total I’ve saved about $2,000 on my estate taxes over the years by doing this.

Emily (26:07): Wow. Okay. I can see now why you’re being careful to keep track of how much you’ve actually spent in qualified education expenses. So I didn’t know about Pennsylvania specifically, but some other states I’ve looked at, the benefit might be limited to like $5,000 or like a few hundred dollars even. So with having such a high limit then yeah, it really makes sense that you are trying to, as you said, get as close as you can to matching your actual qualified education expenses so you can try to deduct as much as possible for that year. Um, that may not be as much of a challenge in other states is what I’m saying. ’cause maybe your rent alone for a few months would already max out like that benefit. Uh, we’re using the term qualified education expenses, which very, very astute listeners will know that when we talk about qualified education expenses, we always have to say what the benefit is that is defining that particular instance of qualified education expense. So qualified education expenses from a five for 529 accounts, as you mentioned, include things like living expenses, uh, you know, room and board. Um, it’s defined, but qualified education expenses for other benefits are like only tuition and required fees and so forth. So just be sure that you’re looking at the right definition, the right list when you’re trying to figure out what your qualified education expenses are for 529s. Um, so anyway, your particular benefit in Pennsylvania sounds incredible because that limit is so high. Other states the limits will be different. Sometimes it’s a credit, not a deduction. Um, some states don’t have any benefit and we are talking about a state level benefit, not a federal benefit. So the state that I, that I live in, California doesn’t offer any tax incentives for contributions to 529s. So, you know, you may be stuck with a state that doesn’t participate in this in any way, and then this isn’t gonna work for you. But if you live in a state with income tax <laugh>, then you should certainly look up whether there is any 529 contribution benefit. And I’m just, you know, struck by the fact this is another example where because you have freed up, you know, a thousand, 2000 whatever amount of money that you’re able to move around and do these different things that like these 529 contributions, you’re able to then spend less so, so much more money, like how that little bit of financial flexibility is buying you even more and more and more financial flexibility. So for those listening, I would just say if you haven’t saved that first 1, 2, 3, $4,000, like work on that hard because then you can, these other ideas are then open to you after that point. That’s so awesome. Now I have been wondering about that residence time of like the money being in the account, um, because you know, in your case, like you don’t wanna contribute $19,000 and let it sit there for the whole year, right? You wanna do small bits like frequently throughout the year. Um, so how did you come to find out what the minimum time it had to spend in, in the account to, to, you know, qualify for this deduction?

Kyle (28:49): I don’t remember how I first found out if it was somewhere in the, you know, the documentation about opening it or if I’d seen other people mentioning it. Um, the one thing to note, like you said, the state laws vary quite a bit, so you just have to look up how it applies to you if it does. But the, um, some states require it to be a specific plan from their state and others let you do any 529 plan. Pennsylvania doesn’t care what state it is. So I just did it through I think the Kansas plan because I already had a Schwab bank account and Schwab runs the, uh, Kansas plan, but you know, there’s others through Vanguard or whatever the case may be. So you need to make sure about that. But at least the one that I’ve done through Schwab, the, it just needs to be there for one week minimum. And like you said, I’m not gonna put my entire living expenses for the year all in at the same time. Um, but every month or two, um, if you just have enough money saved up for, you know, the next month’s living expenses, you can put it in, in the middle of the month, take it out, and by the time you’re paying your bills at the start of the next month, um, it’s still back there. Um, so you wanna have, you know, some extra money saved up, but it doesn’t need to be a ton.

Emily (30:03): Yes. Wow. What a powerful strategy. And so you’ve been, have you been doing this the whole time you’ve been in graduate school?

Kyle (30:08): Yeah, I, I first heard of it I think either in the beginning of graduate school or slightly before. Um, so I’ve just been doing that the whole time. Uh, it saved me quite a bit of money on my state taxes.

Emily (30:18): Yeah, you said about $2,000, that’s something like 400 per year approximately, right?

Kyle (30:23): Yeah, something like that. I, uh, I got married last year. Um, my, my spouse is also, she was a graduate student. Um, so once I was married I started contributing for her expenses as well, which saved us a little bit extra. Um, but yeah, if you’re doing this, uh, in graduate school in Pennsylvania, you know, saving 3% on all your rent and food expenses each year really adds up.

Emily (30:47): Yeah, it definitely does. Oh my gosh, I’m so grateful for this example. Thank you so much for sharing this with us.

Kyle (30:52): One important thing to note with the 529 plans, uh, is because they’re not really set up for people to be using it in the way that I’ve been using it is you gotta pay attention to certain details. Like in my account I’m listed as both the account owner and the beneficiary. Uh, so you have to make sure that you are contributing as the account owner and removing money as the beneficiary, uh, because it gives you the option to also remove it as the account owner, uh, I guess for people who contribute it and then decide that they didn’t wanna contribute it. Um, but if you’re removing it as the account owner, uh, then they’ll say that you’re not actually contributing it. Uh, so then you won’t get that tax benefit. So you just need to pay attention to that detail.

Grad Student Financial Hack #5: 457(B) Retirement Accounts

Emily (31:31): Yes. Another example of where being organized and detail oriented is very necessary for making this strategy work. Okay, awesome. And then the last strategy you mentioned to me was about using a 457 retirement account, which is not one that gets a lot of airtime. So tell us what’s different about this account? Why do you choose to use this, um, either uh, first or in, you know, to supplement your other tax advantage retirement accounts?

Kyle (31:58): Yeah, so I was working for a few years before I started graduate school. So I already had a Roth IRA and an account from my employer. Um, they thought I was contributing money and saving up that way. Um, and then when I started graduate school, I was still contributing to the Roth IRA at first. Um, but then I saw, I just think I got some letter in the mail just mentioning employee benefits that I had access to and one of them was a supplemental retirement account and I was like, what is that? Um, so I looked it up and something that a lot of graduate students encounter is that they’re not eligible for most employer sponsored retirement accounts, so they can’t sign up for, you know, a 401k and get their employer matching their contributions or anything like that. Um, but uh, I found in my case this probably holds at some other universities as well that there’s something called a supplemental retirement account where they’re like, we’re not gonna contribute any money to this as your employer, but you’re allowed to put money into it. Um, at first this wouldn’t seem like it has that much of an advantage compared to just your own IRA because you’re managing that yourself. Why would you worry about involving your employer? But I noticed when I was reading the benefits that the 457B seems to have some really specific advantages that are actually quite nice and that I don’t think you can really get, uh, through any other account that I’m aware of. Um, so if you’re not as familiar with, uh, retirement accounts, uh, they, whether they’re an individual retirement account, an IRA or an employer sponsored plan, uh, there’s usually two types, either Roth or traditional. So Roth, you’re paying your taxes on your income now, um, and then contributing it to the account where it can grow, uh, without getting taxed on your dividends or anything when you’re investing it. Uh, and then when you withdraw it when you retire, uh, you don’t owe any tax on it. Traditional is the other way around where you’re saving on your taxes for what you contribute. You don’t have to pay income tax on it, it grows without getting taxed on the dividends. And then when you withdraw it in retirement, you, uh, owe tax on it at that time. Um, so there, there’s two different strategies depending on whether you wanna pay your taxes now or pay your taxes at retirement. And a lot of people seem to recommend the Roth accounts in situations where it actually doesn’t really seem to make sense. Um, the typical advice that you hear is, oh, if you’re, you know, a graduate student or somebody else with a relatively low income, you’ll probably be, uh, earning more money in retirement or when you’re older, so you might as well do the Roth now, uh, and save on your taxes ’cause you’ll owe more tax on it later. Um, there’s really no way of knowing exactly what your taxes will be in retirement because you don’t know how policy will change and how your lifestyle will change. Um, but let’s say for instance, you’re in the 12% tax bracket now and you’re in the same one when you retire. Um, if you contribute to a Roth account, you’re saving the 12% or you’re paying the 12% now and then you withdraw that tax free later. Um, but if you’re contributing to a traditional account, you’re paying, you’re saving the 12% now and then you pay o tax when you retire. But if you’re in the same tax bracket, the first chunk that you pull out goes to your standard deduction and you don’t owe tax on it, the next chunk you pull out is in the 10% bracket. And not only after that, uh, do you owe the 12% tax on it. So your average tax rate will actually be probably lower than your marginal tax rate. So it’s a little more advantageous in many circumstances to do traditional. Uh, one of the disadvantages with traditional, as opposed to Roth, is that money is tied up until you’re 59 and a half and you’re not allowed to remove it early without owing both the income tax on it and also a 10% penalty. Uh, with Roth, one of the nice advantages is you can take that money out, um, that you’ve contributed early without owing any penalties on it. Uh, that’s only a contribution. It’s not what it’s grown from being invested. But the unique thing that I found out about the 457B plan is it kind of is the best of both worlds. You get the tax benefit now, um, which like as I just laid out, is probably in most cases gonna be saving you money on your taxes overall. Um, but uniquely with it you can actually withdraw the money you contribute before retirement age as long as you’ve separated from that employer. Uh, and as a graduate student, I’m not planning on being employed by Penn State for the rest of my life just until I finished my PhD and then after that point I’ll have access to that money should I want it. Um, and I think that this is a really nice advantage because it’s nice to have the flexibility. You know, if years down the line I have a loved one who gets sick and I want to quit my job and you know, for a year or two live off of what I have saved up, I would be able to do that and I would just owe my income tax and not any extra fee. If I get to age 50 and decide I wanna retire, then instead of waiting until 59 and a half, if I have enough money, I could just go ahead and do that and use this account. So it gives you a lot more flexibility about how you wanna use it. Um, yeah, the, this does get withheld from your paycheck, so you have to a month in advance go in and say how much you want withheld. Uh, I’ve kind of adopted a flexible approach about this where I just look at my, uh, expenses and budget and how much money I have and I’ll be like, I have more money saved up than I need, so I’ll make my contributions a little bit higher. Or, oh, I had an unexpected expense this month with car repairs or something, I’ll make it lower. Um, but I’ve been trying to save up through that and uh, I think on average contributed in the like eight to 9,000 per year, uh, into this account, which is actually more than the space from an IRA.

Emily (37:25): Thank you so much for that thorough explanation. Um, I totally agree. So, because I think most, most Americans, if they have any kind of workplace based retirement plan, it’s gonna be a 401k or maybe if they’re a federal employee or something, TSP, but a lot of people who are employed by nonprofits, um, and also government agencies at whatever level, um, might have access to a 403 B and maybe also a 457 as you do, but, but because it’s such a small like kind of percentage of the population, this account doesn’t get a lot of airtime, you know, when retirement accounts are discussed. So you’re exactly right that like this benefit of being able to remove the money early without penalty is pretty unique. Um, that is to say without having a special circumstance, like you can remove sometimes for education or like stuff like buying a home, stuff like that, but, but without any reason, right? You just, you just have access to it whenever you want it. You don’t have to justify it. It is a really unique thing and especially attractive for people who are going for early retirement or as you said, might just wanna access a chunk of money for whatever reason, for special life circumstances or, um, what have you. So it is really unique. It sounds to me like you are using this as your primary tax advantaged retirement account, right? Like you’re, you’re not using a Roth IRA or anything similar in addition.

Kyle (38:39): Yeah. Ever since I found out about this account, I’ve only contributed to that for retirement. Uh, I still have the Roth IRA from before that’s been accumulating money in the meantime. Um, but because of the advantages of this and that I’ll only have access to it for the time that I’m a graduate student, uh, I’ve just been prioritizing anything that I’m saving for retirement into this account.

Emily (38:59): Absolutely. And I do wanna point people to season 17, episode nine, my interview with Dr. Corwin Olson. So he and I had a, a long discussion in that, um, episode about what you were just mentioning, how sometimes contributing to a traditional retirement account, even when you’re in graduate school or a fairly low tax bracket, uh, makes sense, makes sense in certain situations. It’s still not something that I’m gonna say is my number one <laugh> best thing to do. I still firmly believe in the Roth IRA for most people who are going to expect that higher income marginal income tax bracket in retirement. But certainly like we talked about with Corwin, like people who are planning on retiring early have to do a lot different kinds of considerations about filling up like the standard deduction aspect of their, um, income and the 10% bracket and the 12% bracket and so forth. So it’s kind of a different calculation. Um, but I appreciate you bringing that to light again and yeah, why this could be certainly a legitimate choice even for a graduate student.

Kyle (39:56): Yeah, and as far as I understand too, the fact that I have a Roth IRA, um, from before actually pairs well with this because, you know, I could withdraw from the 457B up to the standard deduction or up to the 10% tax bracket, and then if I’m still spending money beyond that withdraw from the Roth IRA without owing any extra taxes.

Emily (40:15): Absolutely correct. Yeah, I, that’s one of the reasons why I say that it’s great to have both traditional and Roth money available to you when you get to retirement so that you can do that kind of tax optimization. And we’re even talking about pre-standard retirement age in the case of the 457 that you, you would’ve access to it, as you said, as long as you’ve separated from your employer. So that’s a really exciting account to use. Um, as you kind of mentioned early on, you do have to be an employee of your institution to have access to this. So like you mentioned your first year you were on fellowship, I’m suspecting this letter came after you transitioned over to an employee type position. So for those listeners, um, for those listening, if you are an employee, then certainly this is something to check into. I would hazard a guess that, um, large public universities part of state systems like the one that you’re at are more likely to offer this kind of benefit than private universities, or it might depend on your state as well, like maybe some state systems do, some don’t, but I have heard of this for, you know, certain employees at um, large public institutions.

Kyle (41:19): Yeah. My understanding is that, uh, it’s more of a benefit of public universities, so you wouldn’t find it everywhere and some universities might just not offer it, but worth looking into if you’re employed by a public university.

Emily (41:32): Absolutely. Before I ask you my final standard question, I was just wondering, with all these strategies you’ve been using over the past five, six years, what’s been the effect? Like, have you, you’ve mentioned numbers here and there, but like have you significantly increased your income or your net worth or reduce your stress or like, what, what has been the effect of actually employing these strategies? And I guess also the cost, like how much time do you spend on these kinds of activities

Kyle (42:01): Overall, the result of these has been, you know, thousands of dollars that I’ve saved up. And because any extra money that I’m saving up, I’m putting into retirement accounts that’ll continue to compound. So, you know, a thousand dollars saved now will be even more thousands of dollars at retirement age. Um, so it’s really kind of had a snowballing effect, uh, where just a little bit saved results in making it easier to save more money, uh, which will result in more money with investments further down the road. Um, so I found it to be definitely worth pursuing. Uh, my net worth has definitely increased quite a bit in graduate school, although part of that was having a Roth IRA from even before I’d started graduate school. Um, and like you said about, uh, benefits to stress and wellbeing, I think that’s a very strong part of it as well. Uh, by having enough of an emergency fund, uh, saved up that you can do these sorts of strategies and have money to contribute for, uh, 529s or bank bonuses or whatnot, um, and having enough extra money like that beyond your monthly living expenses is really a source of stress relief. Uh, it’s nice to know that uh, if something unexpected comes up, I’m not gonna be unable to pay my bills that month. You know, and there’s circumstances where, you know, for instance, one point in graduate school, both my parents injured themselves within a few days of each other and I flew out, uh, to help take care of them. And you know, having enough money that you can just book a last minute, uh, flight without having to, you know, be unable to pay your bills, uh, is really a source of stress relief

Emily (43:40): About the cost question. Like how much time would you say you spend doing the stuff? Like per week or per month?

Kyle (43:45): Really not that much, I would say. Um, a lot of these things, especially over time have gotten better at optimizing. Um, you know, in terms of like contributing to a 529 plan and stuff like that. Um, you know, once you’ve got it set up, it just takes a few minutes to say, you know, transfer a thousand dollars into this account and then just put a reminder on your calendar to do taking it out next week. Um, so some of these are pretty low effort. I would say that the bank bonuses and credit card bonuses take a lot more time and that’s something that I’ve not been doing as much lately, especially as I’m trying to finish up my dissertation. Um, but it’s something that, you know, was a nice extra source of cash here and there, there, and you can kind of devote time flexibly to it depending on if you’ve got extra time to look up if there’s any good signup bonuses right now. Um, but then since you’re not depending on that income, if you’re don’t have the time or don’t wanna deal with it, then you don’t have to.

Best Financial Advice for Another Early-Career PhD

Emily (44:47): Yes. Oh, such a wonderful position to be in. Thank you so much for sharing all of the things that you’ve learned and tried out and, you know, found what works and what didn’t for you, um, over the course of your time in graduate school. This is really amazing. I really hope the listener is gonna take away at least one thing to experiment with <laugh>. Um, so let’s wrap up with, um, my final 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 that we’ve touched on in the interview already, or it could be something completely new.

Kyle (45:14): Yeah, if I had to sum up everything that we’ve touched on in this interview, it’s that things that are small amounts of money here and there and just a few percent of recurring things, uh, really add up over time. Um, that by saving a few percent off your living expenses, having your emergency fund earn a few extra percent, uh, per year, um, saving a few percent on your taxes for money, that’s gonna grow a few percent every year until you retire. Um, these things when combined, uh, really start to add up and let you, uh, get to a place where you have enough money that you have more financial stability and more flexibility, uh, to do the things you want. Um, and really a lot of it comes from having enough of an emergency fund saved up that you can do these sorts of strategies. Um, so especially anything that you can do to save up extra chunks of change if you don’t have an emergency fund. And then once you get to the point where you, you know, got four or five months of your living expenses you’ve saved up in the bank, you can start to play around with some of these other strategies to let that money snowball.

Emily (46:18): Wonderful. I love it. Thank you so much, Kyle, for volunteering to come on the podcast.

Kyle (46:23): Yeah, of course. Thanks for having me.

Outtro

Emily (46:34): 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.

Financial Questions from an International Graduate Student

January 27, 2025 by Emily

In this episode, Emily interviews Gauri Patel, a first-year grad student in biomedical engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. Gauri is on an F-1 visa, but she has lived in the US for over 10 years. The financial questions Gauri has encountered are different from those typically asked by both US citizens and new international students. Gauri and Emily discuss bank accounts, retirement accounts, tax reporting, and the cost of immigrating to the US.

Links mentioned in the Episode

Teaser

Gauri (00:00): I’m the type of person to gather all the information before doing things, but that can hinder progress if you just keep adding more bits of information rather than like acting on what you already know. I spent a little too long deciding like, oh, which, which company to go with. But yes, I I was able to open up the Roth IRA.

Introduction

Emily (00:28): 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 (00:59): This is Season 20, Episode 2, and today my guest is Gauri Patel, a first-year grad student in biomedical engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. Gauri is on an F-1 visa, but she has lived in the US for over 10 years. The financial questions Gauri has encountered are different from those typically asked by both US citizens and new international students. Gauri and I discuss bank accounts, retirement accounts, tax reporting, and the cost of immigrating to the US.

Emily (01:30): 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/s20e2/. Without further ado, here’s my interview with Gauri Patel.

Will You Please Introduce Yourself Further?

Emily (03:06): I am delighted to have joining me on the podcast today, Gauri Patel, a first year PhD student in biomedical engineering at UT Austin, and today Gauri and I are going to discuss being an international graduate student, but one who has been in the US for a significant amount of time and how the financial questions that you have at that stage are different than either you know, domestic graduate students or people who are international students and brand new to the US. So I’m really excited to learn from Gauri about this. So Gauri, will you please introduce yourself a little bit further for the audience.

Gauri (03:37): Thank you so much Dr. Roberts. So I, as you mentioned, I am a first year graduate student at the University of Texas at Austin and I’m studying biomedical engineering, uh, specifically in biomedical imaging. So my start in this field was during my master’s thesis where I studied a particular image analysis technique to understand how a tumor microenvironment could influence outcomes to therapy. And so I want to continue studying this and so here I am, uh, doing more research at, uh, in a PhD program.

Emily (04:14): Excellent. Well, let’s kind of rewind the clock and take us back to, uh, maybe when you first, uh, entered the US and tell us about how that happened.

Gauri (04:23): I first moved to the US pretty much exactly 11 years ago. Uh, and it was because my dad had found a job in Michigan and so at at that age you don’t really have much of a say in where you’re going. And so my family moved to the states and I’ve been in Michigan ever since.

Visa Status: H-1B, H-4, F-1

Emily (04:46): So tell me how that works visa wise. ’cause I know, I’m gonna guess your father was on an H-1B, but I don’t know how the family aspect of that works.

Gauri (04:55): He eventually got to an H-1B, so we moved from Canada to the US and so Canada, there’s a different visa category that my dad could also work under. So he first started on a TN visa and I was on whatever dependent version of the TN there is. I’m not sure what the name of that is exactly, it was quite a while ago, but then eventually he did get moved over onto an H-1B, after which I was on an H-4 visa, which is a dependent of the H-1B. And I basically stayed on that, um, from middle school through high school and then my first year of my undergrad.

Emily (05:34): Okay. And then from your second year of undergrad, did you start on F1 visa at that time?

Gauri (05:40): I switched to an F1 during my second year of my undergrad and that was because I wanted an opportunity to do internships or paid research on campus. Uh, so the H-4 visa, you require some type of worth work auth- authorization and that there’s a different timeline about when you’d be able to work. It has to go through a different approval process and it’s kind of like up in the air when that, uh, work authorization would come through. And so if I was on an F1 visa, it would be rather immediate. I would do a year of school and during that time I would be permitted to work in a research capacity on campus. And also it’s pretty immediate you can get authorization for CPT or OPT and so that’s why I switched to the F1.

Emily (06:34): That certainly seems like a reasonable reason to, to, you know, make that switch. I’m wondering were there any downsides, like anything that you were foregoing or giving up by making that switch?

Gauri (06:44): Yeah, for sure. So since my family was on an H-1 was under the H-1B visa category, there’s also the option to apply, have your employer sponsor for a green card. And so that’s like the main perk of the H-1B visa. It can eventually lead to a green card. However children, they age out at 21 and so I was like really getting close to that point of aging out. And so the question remained, do we still hang on to this H4 dependent visa and not be able to work in the hopes that before I turned 21 I would, that green card would, you know, go through or do I switch immediately and you know, cut my losses. And so, uh, we just decided that the green card was probably not gonna happen before I turned 21. And so I might as well switch to the h uh, sorry, excuse me. F1 visa at this time.

Emily (07:53): Well I wanna kind of pick up with the green card process maybe a little bit later in our conversation, but let’s kind of go back with um, your experience, you know, doing research and everything through your undergrad. Um, it totally makes sense to me that you would want to have those potentially paid research experiences where you already thinking at that time that you wanted to pursue, uh, your field or science generally or like did this basically the switch to allow you these experiences. Were you thinking ahead to graduate school, I guess is what I’m asking?

Gauri (08:24): Yeah, for sure. So I first started off, um, my first year I was pretty set on pre-med. I wanted to go to medical school, um, and pre-med the curriculum makes you jump through like a lot of hoops, like oh, do shadowing and do research hours and all that. And so that’s how I got into research in the first place. But I ended up liking it so much that I abandoned the pre-med track and I’m like, I think this is the research is just what I’m interested in general. And so the F1 visa definitely helped. It also would’ve been helpful for pre-med purposes as well to get like clinical hours maybe, you know, work in some, some sort of, um, healthcare setting. So working somewhere was like whether I wanted to go to graduate school in research, in a research capacity or to medical school working somewhere had to have happened.

Family and Personal Finances

Emily (09:21): Yeah, that makes sense. Um, since we’re talking about work then and paid work and so forth, can you tell me a little bit about, doesn’t necessarily have to be your family’s finances, but like what was going on for you financially during that time and especially if there were any tie-ins then with like your visa status or your choices around that.

Gauri (09:39): Finances were never really a struggle for my family, which I’m very grateful for. Um, because I, as an international student, I didn’t get any financial aid or qualified for federal student loans, so everything did have to come out of pocket. So more about having paid work, it was more about, um, finding a sense of autonomy and not having to rely on, you know, my family being my safety net all the time. And so that’s why I was interested in the paid work.

Emily (10:14): And you told me during our, um, pre-interview chat that you started listening to financial podcasts even as an undergrad, including this podcast. And so what led you in that direction of like being interested in finances even at that stage?

Gauri (10:28): Oh yeah, it was pretty much, so I worked in this, um, lab as a volunteer for two semesters and then that summer after I asked them like, Hey, can I stay for the summer and work here full time and also get paid perhaps? And they were like, yeah, sure we can make that happen. Um, in hindsight I didn’t realize how like, oh wow, that actually happened <laugh>. Um, now that I know more about the research space like that, that was kind of incredible that that happened. But anyway, so I, I’m like, oh, I’m about to get money for the first time. Um, and unlike some of my peers that I went to high school with, they all worked like, you know, jobs, um, at like the local ice cream shop or they were, you know, hosts at, you know, some type of diner or they tutored on the side. I couldn’t do that on the H-4 visa. And so up until this point I’d just been volunteering. This was quite literally like my first paycheck. And so I was like, what do I do with this? What could I possibly do with this? And I’m just the type of person to go poking and prodding for answers. And so I went to finance podcasts.

Emily (11:49): Yeah, that’s great to hear. Um, I think when I had a similar like transition, you know, coming out of undergrad and getting like my first stipend paychecks, like after that I was asking the same questions like, oh, uh, never had this control over money before. Like, what exactly do I do with this? I went to books because podcasting was barely a thing back then, but that’s awesome that we have so many different like avenues you can go to now. Um, okay. So anything else you’d like to share with us? Maybe about the transition from, you know, finishing up undergrad and your master’s into graduate school in terms of your finances and then we can kind of dig into the, um, specific questions or concerns that like someone in your position has?

Gauri (12:29): I think the only big difference between my undergrad and master’s and then grad school now is that in undergrad and Master’s, the amount I was making was like, it, it couldn’t sustain all of me. Um, my family was helping out with tuition entirely and then now it’s a, a different ball game. Like I, I can more or less like take care of myself on this stipend. And so that autonomy I was like really searching for. Um, I I feel like it’s like finally coming to fruition like, oh, it’s happened.

Emily (13:06): So when you kind of approached me about doing this episode, you were saying, okay, yes, I’m an international student but I don’t have the same concerns of a brand new to the US international student and I also have different concerns going on than someone who is already a citizen or resident. So just like point by point like let’s talk through like what you’ve encountered and sort of what you’d like to share with other, other listeners who might be in a similar situation.

Choosing a Bank as an International Student in the US

Gauri (13:30): Yeah, for sure. So the first thing, um, you do is when when you get some type of money in your hands, it’s like I have to put this somewhere. And so it’s the first question is like, oh, what bank do I choose? And so I was consuming this financial content and it was like, oh, you should start saving up for an emergency fund and moreover you should put it in a high yield savings account, but for international students there are only a certain number of banks that will offer their services to you. And so the first bank account I had was, um, a Chase bank account. Um, I don’t know if it’s okay to name names.

Emily (14:07): Oh yeah, go ahead.

Gauri (14:07): For banks. Okay. So it was a Chase bank account and it had some like stipulations on the minimum balance that should be in there. It didn’t offer any interest at all. And so in terms of all the different banks you could choose from, you’re limited to a very set few. Um, so I had that bank account first, but then finally after I got the work authorization to work on campus in this uh, lab and then after I got the social security number associated with it, it was after all that that I could open this bank account. And so anytime you hear like, oh, do this, do X, y, and z, like a pretty actionable step, that seems easy enough. Um, I always seem to find like, oh I need to have this before I can do this thing.

Emily (15:05): Yeah, it is, it is really hard at like as a podcaster, someone who does one to many communications, it’s really hard <laugh> to keep all audiences in mind and speak to like all audiences. So you’re absolutely right. Like if you’re listening to a US based, you know, personal finance podcast or like reading a book or something else, like you definitely have to put another filter on that and say like, okay, <laugh>, is this actually going to be possible for me? And the answer is like, just like you said, yeah, there are banks that will work with you, it’s just not necessarily every bank and not everyone’s gonna make it easy and some people need the SSN and some don’t and so forth. So like you just have to be, there’s just another selection criteria on that. Absolutely. Have you, so since like having that Chase bank at first, have you subsequently opened or been able to open any other types of like higher yield savings or something like that?

Gauri (15:51): Yeah, for sure. I primarily use uh, my SoFi bank account now and it was pretty easy to like get the account, but it’s only after you’ve got some type of job lined up and you’re getting paid for it and you’ve got like all the things that come with the job first, like you need to have that SSN which um, is not like a oh I’ll just like apply for it type of thing. They’re finding the job is not like the easiest thing in the world. So you could hear the fi- finance advice but know that there are steps before steps you must take before you can, you know, enact those. Um, yeah, in general it’s like a thing I have to Google, like, oh open up a Roth IRA, can I open up a Roth IRA is something I have to Google.

Commercial

Emily (16:42): 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.

Opening a Roth IRA as an International Student in the US

Emily (17:34): Yeah, let’s talk about that question. Um, so you heard about Roth IRAs, I’m sure through all the content that you were consuming and uh, tell me what year that was when you like first learned about a Roth IRA,

Gauri (17:46): I actually learned about a Roth IRA back in high school and so my high school offered a finance class and so they tried to teach us about, um, saving for retirement and 401Ks and Roth IRAs and whatnot, but I don’t think it like fully sunk into our minds yet about how significant those things were. So I heard about a Roth IRA before, um, I didn’t fully grasp its like importance until I started listening to like finance content a few years later.

Emily (18:21): Yeah. So when did you like start googling that question? When did you feel like, okay, as an imminent step I would like to open this kind of account and I really need to figure out if I’m able to? When did that happen?

Gauri (18:31): I think that was two years ago. I was like, I’ve listened to all this advice. Um, so I’m the type of person to gather all the information before doing things, but that can hinder progress if you just keep adding more bits of information rather than like acting on what you already know. So I knew that I needed the Roth IRA and I was like, you know what, fine, let’s, let’s just start googling. Um, can I, can I open this and who’s willing to offer this to me?

Emily (19:01): Yeah. And what did you find?

Gauri (19:04): I think it was from your podcast, like some interview a while back, um, and there was like a snippet. I remember watching like as an international student you can open a Roth IRA and I’m like, oh check. Fabulous. Um, now I spent a little too long deciding like, oh, which, which uh, investment bank or like, which, which company to go with. But yes, I I was able to open up the Roth IRA <laugh>.

Emily (19:31): Yeah, that I think you’re referring to the interview I did with Hui-chin Chen who’s a CFP. And I think that we recorded that back in like maybe 2018 or 2019. And even by then I had been getting regularly questions in my like, live seminars from international students, can I open a Roth ira? Should I open one? You know, is it allowed? Is it a good idea? And so I was really, really glad to get an expert on the podcast who could help us with all those questions. But the, the gen, I mean people who are interested should listen to that full episode. But yeah, the, the general, uh, takeaway was like, yep, <laugh>, if you want to invest like while you’re an international student or postdoc in the US go ahead and do it now with a Roth IRA specifically, you still need to fulfill the, um, taxable compensation requirement to be able to make those contributions. Did you have to like, I don’t know if you were receiving W2, you know, employee type income at that time, maybe it wasn’t so much a question for you or is that, is that taxable compensation question something you also had to investigate?

Gauri (20:30): I don’t think I investigated it that much because at the time I really wasn’t earning all that to put anything into the Roth IRA, so it was just open for a while and it, my income definitely wasn’t a W2, it was actually a 1099, but I think from another series of, not another series, but like another episode or couple of episodes of yours, um, I think you went over the old guidance before 2020 and then after 2020 and it was like, yes, 1099 income can be uh, put into a Roth IRA. And so I was like, oh great. So I I could have done it all along. Um, not that there was anything left <laugh>.

Emily (21:16): Yeah, that definitely did change to have fellowship income not reported on W2 eligible to be contributed starting in um, 2020. But you still had that added wrinkle of like as an international student, as a non-resident in the us um, we’ve settled like the compensation term in, in taxable compensation, but you also had to know that your income was taxable in the US and I don’t know, would you like to share like what is your technical country of residence? It seems so silly to say that ’cause you’ve been here for so long, but like what is your country of residence?

Gauri (21:47): I think right now for tax purposes, it is not the US I think it switches to the US in a year. I think it’s like five years. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. Yeah, that I can say I’m on my tax. I’m like, not from here, but after five years of saying that you are from here now for as far as taxes are concerned.

Emily (22:09): Yes. So I don’t know the Canadian US tax treaty intimately, but I’m pretty confident that your income was then taxable in the US at least to some extent. So you did have that eligibility mm-hmm <affirmative>. Yep. So yeah, that’s great. But like you said, like, you know, US citizens, residents and so forth, they have this one bar of like questions they have to ask about the Roth IRA and then there’s that further bar that, you know, international non-residents have to ask. So I’m really glad that we kind of reviewed that to like, you know, point people back to that other resource and like get that all out there because like it is such an amazing tool. Um, and it’s really a shame to miss out on it if you’re ready to contribute to one just because you might have some outstanding questions that, you know, they can take a little bit of time to resolve those. So hopefully we resolved a few for the listeners. Um, is there anything else that you’d like to add on that? Like Roth IRA question?

Gauri (23:03): I think that’s about all. Just, uh, don’t let the tail wag the dog as, as they say. So I had the account open but I wasn’t like too worried about what could go in there. Um, it all worked out in the end for me, but I think if I got too caught up in the weeds, I I don’t think the account would’ve ever been opened or I would’ve ever put anything in there <laugh>.

Emily (23:25): Yeah, I totally agree. And it’s, and it’s this area of investing where people that in my observation seem to have the most like analysis paralysis. Um, and I, maybe you’ve heard me say this on podcast before, I’ve probably told the story, but like I made like a huge mistake when I first opened my Roth IRA, which is that I didn’t actually invest the money that I was putting in and yet it’s really good that I started it and started contributing even though I made like a huge mistake with it. Like, I mean we have a decades, decades long investing journey ahead of us, so like it’s better to just get started even imperfectly than to just like wait and wait and wait and wait and not do anything. It’s totally okay to make relatively minor mistakes. You can overcome them along, along the journey. What was your third uh, point that you wanted to bring up?

Opening a 403B as an International Student in the US

Gauri (24:08): So I figured out the bank account, I figured out the Roth IRA and then now my question is, hmm, I still have some more left to save. Can I open a 403B? Which the answer is yes, but then all of this additional money that I have, it’s coming from a fellowship which according to my university, it’ll be reported on a 1042s form, which I’ve never encountered before. Um, from my searches on Google, I don’t see that much guidance for graduate students with this form. It’s more about US citizens that have moved abroad that, that received this form and I’m like, I’m, I’m not that <laugh>. I’m very much the opposite. I’m a non-citizen within the US so the jury is still out. I’ve emailed like the tax folk at my university regarding like, Hey, would you happen to know if this can be put in a 403B or a Roth IRA or like any tax advantaged account and they’re like, sorry, we can’t give tax advice.

Post-Interview 403B Contribution Follow-Up

Emily (25:19): Hi y’all, this is Emily breaking in during the editing process. Gauri and I talked for a bit here about her 403(b) and her tax situation, but I wasn’t quite asking the right questions, so we ended up exchanging several emails after the interview to sort it out. Here’s what we figured out: Gauri has two types of income. She’s an employee throughout the year and also receives supplemental fellowship income. Her employee income exceeds $10,000 per year and therefore is not subject to the US-Canada tax treaty, so it is fully taxable and reported on a Form W-2. As a nonresident, her fellowship income is reported on a Form 1042-S with income code 16, and it is also fully taxable. Gauri’s question was whether or not she could contribute her Form 1042-S income to her 403(b), and the answer to that is no because it is fellowship income and only employee income can be contributed to a 403(b). But she does have employee income, and that’s why her university allowed her to open the account and she could contribute to it from her employee, i.e., W-2, income if she chose to. The reason she particularly was asking if she could contribute the fellowship i.e., Form 1042-S, income to her 403(b) is because of the automatic 14% income tax withholding rate, which is rather high compared to her effective tax rate. So our conclusion is that she can contribute to the 403(b), but not from the particular pot of money that she wanted to, and even though she has that annoyingly high income tax withholding rate, it’s all going to come out in the wash at tax time, likely in the form of a tax refund. OK now back to the interview!

Building a Financially Stable Life in the US as an International Student

Emily (26:52): Was there any other, another point that you’d like to bring up in this sort of question about having been in the US for like a very long time yet still being on this F1 status?

Gauri (27:03): The main goal of consuming all the finance content is, so answering the question of like how do I build a financially stable or good life for myself years in the future if I’m in the US but because of my visa I also have to, it’s like vacillating between yes, think long term, but also what if you’re not here long term? What then? Um, so of course that opens a can of worms, like what if this, what if that? But I just have to work with, let’s just assume I’m gonna be here for some indefinite amount of time and then if the day that I have to go back to Canada comes, um, I will deal with extricating myself from all of this money that’s invested in these US-based, um, accounts at that point. Um, I think it would, it would be like a hindrance if I constantly worried about it right now.

Emily (28:09): Yeah. And I I’m really not sure what steps you would that would be practical to take, um, to, you know, think about this possible future where you would be living in Canada, um, I don’t know, open a Canadian bank account. Like I’m not even sure what would be like a reasonable thing to do, um, like you said for an outcome that you’re hoping is not going to come about and has a probably a low chance of actually coming about. I think you’re exactly right. Just to say like, I’m gonna build what I can here and if the day comes when I have to make a change, I’ll make a change then, but you don’t need to anticipate that. Yeah, and I think that was the answer too from that podcast episode with, um, with Hui-chin Chen. She was just saying like, yeah, if you end up leaving the US later whether because you wanted to or because you had to or whatever the reason, you can sort of cross that bridge when you come to it. Like don’t let that be a reason for you to not build wealth and build your financial life in the US. So I think you’re taking exactly the right path.

Gauri (29:08): That’s fabulous to hear.

Current Financial Goals

Emily (29:09): <laugh> Do you have any current financial goals?

Gauri (29:14): Current financial goals? So the immediate thing would be to restore my emergency fund. So my emergency savings, I had to draw out of that for moving to Austin from Michigan. And so the moving costs and then furnishing, you know, the apartment, the first few months of, you know, rent before the, uh, the stipend payments came in. I used my savings to tide me over during that time. And so right now I, I need to work on restoring that amount. Um, so that’s my immediate goal. And then once that’s done, I think that should take up to a year, depending on how aggressive I’d like to be at. After that point, I will have to decide where to redirect those extra funds that were going into my, um, emergency savings, like should I put that into a taxable brokerage account or finally answer that 403B question. And so send that, send those funds over there. Where should those go would be the next question.

Emily (30:25): And are you also thinking about a potential green card in the near future and like what are the, because I know there’s sometimes hefty financial costs associated with that transition.

Gauri (30:34): Oh yeah, for sure. So the past, I think two or three years, uh, my Visa has cost about $500 a year in different work authorization fees or different petition fees. So I already have that in the back of my mind. Like, oh, every time I need to do something with my visa, it’ll be a couple hundred dollars. But for a green card application for someone that is seeking a PhD, there is a employment based visa that I myself could petition for if I demonstrate that I’ve done outstanding research in my field and I’m a person worthy of staying in the us. Um, and so just for that, just for two forms relating to that, I think it’s um, called, it’s called Immigration for Alien Worker or Petition for an Alien Worker, something along those lines. The fee for that is around $700 and then the adjustment of status. So to adjust my status from an F1 to this employment based visa, that would be around $1,400. And so just for those two forms, if I were to go about it without the help of any sort of immigration lawyers, whatnot, that’s already over two grand. So I definitely need to have some sort of bucket larger than a couple hundred dollars ready to go for when that day comes about. And also I have to decide like, do I even wanna pursue that path or would I prefer to just go the more routine route, which is employment based, um, visa. So like pursuing an H-1B track, so up in the air.

Emily (32:31): How will you make that decision? Or I guess I’m also asking like you mentioned earlier about, you know, the number of years you’d been in the US and having to make a decision about F1 versus staying on the previous status. Um, is there an amount of time that you’re looking at where you’ll, that you’ve been in the US where you or been on the F1 visa where you’ll need to make this decision? Or is it really kind of up to you? You can do it at any point?

Gauri (32:53): The sooner it happens, the sooner like a weight would be lifted off my shoulders about like this always, you know, you have to keep in the back of your mind that like you’re not necessarily here forever, whether you choose to be or not to be here forever. So it would be like a mental weight, you know, relieved. Um, the F1, since I’m in a STEM field, I could have my OPT go for I think up to three years with the extension. And so within those like three years, I’d have to make some type of decision about whether my employer can sponsor for an H-1B visa or I’m going to go about it on my own. So it’s within the next eight years I have to come up with an, an exact plan about what would be the fastest, um, most efficient way to go about this process. Mm-hmm <affirmative>

Emily (33:53): And if you decide you wanna do it on your own and you have those fees that you’re looking at, plus maybe you, you might wanna pay a lawyer, um, to help you as well, are the finances going to hold you back or do you think you’ll be able to save up the requisite amount of money by the time you want to go about this process?

Gauri (34:10): I think I am well informed enough about how much this is going to cost me, and so I’d be able to plan for that regardless. It would still be a stretch, but it’s not like this is happening six months from now or you know, this is happening in just in a very short amount of time. Like I have the time to prepare for this type of scenario.

Traveling Back to Your Home Country as an International Student

Emily (34:36): I don’t know if this applies for you at all, but something I’ve seen happen with other international students, um, is that they need to go back to their home country every so often to deal with their visas. Has that ever come up for you and, and if not, is it ’cause you’ve been in the US under all these different statuses for so long? Or is it because of the relationship between US and Canada or like how does that work?

Gauri (34:57): It’s a US and Canada thing, so it’s a special caveat in this regard as well. So most students need to go through a Visa interview and actually receive approval to study in the US however, I’m Canadian and so I simply have to be accepted into a US university and show that I have some method of paying for my stay here and that’s all the evidence I have to give to study. I don’t have to continue to go back to Canada to renew my visa or even have any documentation for the exact visa.

Emily (35:41): I see. I’m just throwing that out. There’s another potential cost that I’ve seen international students bear uniquely these like high fees of international travel every, you know, few years to deal with that like particular issue. Um, yeah, I mean the more that obviously I, I was not an international student, so like, but the more I learned about the financial aspects of having this status in the US like it just, there’s just kind of more that burdens that kind of get thrown on the pile. Like, okay, no access to student loans, can’t side hustle, have to pay fees for visa related items, maybe for travel as well. Like just, it it emphasizes um, very deeply for me the importance of paying a living wage and not just a living wage more than a living wage to graduate students, especially international students because there’s just no, there’s no ways to pivot. Um, if you are financially on your own, if you’re financially independent from your family, then you have to make it work on the stipend like you’ve been talking about and you have all these additional, um, fees that can, that can pile up as well that domestic students don’t have to, don’t have to worry about. So yeah. Yeah. I’m really glad that, you know, you brought this up and that we got to have this conversation. Um, is there anything else that you wanna add about yeah, um, being an international student, having been in the US for so long? Or about your current financial goals or anything else?

OPT Application Tip for International Students in the US

Gauri (36:59): Pro tip for international students, um, when it comes time to send in your OPT application, do it the day you’re allowed to submit that application. So first you need all those signatures or you know, green lights from your advisor about like, yep, you’re ready to graduate and whatnot. That should be done before the 90 days. You have like a 90 day window before your last day of classes to apply for OPT. Have those ready to go. And on that like very first day of the 90 days apply for OPT then ’cause I did it right the first year after I grad, graduated from my undergrad and the second year I waited a few weeks and my OPT was delayed, I think over a month.

Emily (37:55): So it’s just for processing time, like you’re just saying like be the first one, like be first in line mm-hmm <affirmative>. Because if you delay then these applications are like piling up behind it and just pushes like the timeout. Is that right?

Gauri (38:06): Yeah, exactly. So when I was first in line, my OPT, like the EAD card arrived within three weeks. And so I had it well in advance of any start date and the second year round I was like, oh, it arrived in three weeks. I’ve got time.

Emily (38:26): You were complacent. Yeah, <laugh>.

Gauri (38:27): I was, I didn’t think I’d be so off base. Um, but yeah, don’t, don’t, don’t do what I did. <laugh>.

Best Financial Advice for Another Early-Career PhD

Emily (38:37): <laugh> Yeah, don’t do it <laugh>. Um, okay. Well thank you so much for that tip. And I’d like to end by asking you the question that I ask all of my guests, which is, what is your best financial advice for another early career PhD? And it can be something that we’ve touched on in the interview already, or it could be something completely new.

Gauri (38:53): I’ve learned that you need two savings buckets at least. So there’s the emergency when truly it’s an emergency and you have no sources of income whatsoever, and then a second bucket for yearly, like one off expenses, like, oh, there’s that vacation you’ve really been wanting to take or you have to travel for whatever reason. For me it’s like, you know, oh, here’s a couple hundred dollars for some visa related thing or I’m working in a STEM field. But I think all grad students in this day and age need a laptop or some type of technology of some sorts, and that’s pretty costly as well. And so, you know, your phone falls apart or your laptop needs to be replaced or you gotta go to a conference or whatnot. Um, there has to be like a separate bucket <laugh>, aside from the emergency savings. Um, and that, that having that separate bucket really relieves like a lot of stress, at least for me.

Emily (39:55): Yeah, this is like a major component of my teaching. I would say that’s different from like you mentioned listening to like financial feminists, for example, Tori Dunlap’s podcast, Her First 100K. Um, what I see in like the more general personal finance space is people talking to other people who have higher incomes high, you know, moderate to high incomes, which is just not the case for graduate students. And so things like having to pay for a plane ticket, well, you know, if your income’s high enough and you’re doing a great job with your personal finances, you know, keeping your rent low and all that stuff, like that’s not gonna be an issue for you, but it’s an issue for almost all graduate students to pay for those types of expenses. So like that is definitely an area that I have of much greater emphasis than other like personal finance teachers do because I totally agree with you. It takes so much stress off to have planned and prepared for those expenses in advance so that you’re not having to, I don’t know, like go to the food bank and like not, you know, put gas in your car and like all the stuff that you would have to do on the short term basis to sacrifice, to come up with money that you really needed if you, if you didn’t have that savings. So I love that tip. Thank you so much for sharing that. Um, and this was, it was wonderful to talk to you and thank you so much for teaching me and you know, asking the questions and you know, sharing the conclusions that you’ve come to along the way. And I wish you all the best in getting your, you know, status in the US secured in the way that you would like it in the near future.

Gauri (41:15): Thank you so much. It was great talking to you

Outtro

Emily (41:27): 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.

Sustainably Moving in the Right Direction in Your Finances (with Dr. Kate Henry)

January 13, 2025 by Jill Hoffman

In this episode, Emily interviews Dr. Kate Henry, a productivity coach for academics. Kate was a workaholic who equated her work with her worth until her declining health forced her to stop overworking. Now, she coaches grad students and academics in how they can achieve career success in a sustainable manner. Together, Kate and Emily explore several overlapping concepts and strategies between productivity and financial management. We also learn from Kate what it takes to start a service-based business in terms of finances, scheduling, and mindsets.

Links mentioned in the Episode

Sustainably Moving in the Right Direction in Your Finances (with Dr. Kate Henry)

Teaser

Kate (00:00): For productivity, often I hear folks who are like, I’m going to write my dissertation every day. I’m going to go to the gym three times every week, or I’m going to do like X all the time. And then when they don’t do that, there’s this feeling of failure, this feeling of like, oh, why should I even try? I am not never going to get where I want to get. So in a a productivity lens, we would think of like you’re trending in the direction that you would want to go.

Introduction

Emily (00:35): 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 (01:04): This is Season 20, Episode 1, and today my guest is Dr. Kate Henry, a productivity coach for academics. Kate was a workaholic who equated her work with her worth until her declining health forced her to stop overworking. Now, she coaches grad students and academics in how they can achieve career success in a sustainable manner. Together, Kate and I explore several overlapping concepts and strategies between productivity and financial management. We also learn from Kate what it takes to start a service-based business in terms of finances, scheduling, and mindsets. By the way, I forgot to plug in my external mic during this interview, so the audio quality on my end is pretty poor. I apologize for that, and please listen anyway, as I believe the content of this interview is definitely worth it.

Emily (01:56): These action items are for you if you switched onto non-W-2 fellowship income as a grad student, postdoc, or postbac last fall and are not having income tax withheld from your stipend or salary. Action item #1: Fill out the Estimated Tax Worksheet on page 8 of IRS Form 1040-ES. This worksheet will estimate how much income tax you will owe for 2024 and tell you whether you are required to make manual tax payments on a quarterly basis. The next quarterly estimated tax due date is this Wednesday, January 15, 2025. Action item #2: Whether you are required to make estimated tax payments or pay a lump sum at tax time, open a separate, named savings account for your future tax payments. Calculate the fraction of each paycheck that will ultimately go toward tax and set up an automated recurring transfer from your checking account to your tax savings account to prepare for that bill. This is what I call a system of self-withholding, and I suggest putting it in place starting with your very first fellowship paycheck so that you don’t get into a financial bind when the payment deadline arrives.

Emily (03:08): If you need some help with the Estimated Tax Worksheet or want to ask me a question, please consider joining my workshop, Quarterly Estimated Tax for Fellowship Recipients. It explains every line of the worksheet and answers the common questions that PhD trainees have about estimated tax. The workshop includes 1.75 hours of video content, a spreadsheet, and invitations to at least one live Q&A call each quarter this tax year. This quarter’s Q&A call is today, Monday, January 13, 2025 at 11:00 AM Pacific Time. If you want to purchase this workshop as an individual, go to PF for PhDs dot com slash Q E tax. You can find the show notes for this episode at PFforPhDs.com/s20e1/. Without further ado, here’s my interview with Dr. Kate Henry.

Will You Please Introduce Yourself Further?

Emily (04:13): I am delighted to have joining me on the podcast today, Dr. Kate Henry, who’s a productivity coach for academics, and I’m really excited to speak with her and find some overlaps between productivity and time management. And Kate, I’m just so delighted to have you on, and will you please introduce yourself a little bit further for the listeners?

Kate (04:29): Yes, thank you for having me on. I’m so excited. Um, so again, I’m Dr. Kate Henry, and I am a productivity coach who works with academics, so graduate students, postdocs, professors, and I approach my work with a lens of sustainability, a lens of wellbeing, slow living, and really making productivity more accessible, which we need in the world of academia.

Emily (04:56): And I already see the same keywords that pop up in finances as well. So that’s awesome. Give us a little bit more like background about, you know, yourself, your finances, your financial mindset through, you know, when you were growing up and then like into graduate school

Financial Mindset From Childhood Through Grad School

Kate (05:10): Of course. Absolutely. So growing up, I’m from a small town in Pennsylvania and I grew up really modeled for me was a, like a working class bootstrapping mentality, working hard and working all day was very valued and, you know, tied to worth and respect for an individual. And so I was, I did that, I worked very hard. I started working as a teenager. I actually moved out of my parents’ house when I was a senior in high school and began working and sustaining myself then. And I really carried this, um, sort of attaching my worth to my work and my output and worked very hard, had multiple jobs in college and in graduate school. So I was very intent on doing things perfectly and needed multiple jobs to sustain myself in graduate school in addition to my stipend. So I certainly, you know, um, tied my worth to my productivity and the output and really approached work with a feeling of financial scarcity, which I think had been, it’s something that I picked up as a child and then also, you know, living on my own as a senior in high school and then in college. So that certainly influenced me, you know, across decades. And I was, I’m sure that many folks can relate to this who are listening, but working multiple jobs, really trying to bring in income in addition to a graduate stipend was pretty stressful as well.

Emily (06:40): Yeah, it’s something that I do like to encourage side hustling when it’s necessary. Uh, but I’m always like trying to tell people about that time, money, energy trade off on it. Like at some points certain types of jobs are not worth it and maybe you can find something with, you know, fewer hours but higher pay rate and, but they’re all hard trade offs because it’s just, it’s a difficult time of life where you’re strained in a lot of different, you know, areas. And so this mindset of tying your worth to your work and the hustling and everything, how did that ultimately impact your health?

Kate (07:14): Well, not well <laugh> as you might expect and as many people experience, and actually I’m a productivity researcher and I publish about that. Many folks in the productivity scholarship world often come to study productivity because they have some sort of physical, mental, you know, like breakdown and hit a wall with their physical or mental health. And for me, in 2017 when I was in my PhD program, I actually developed, you know, pretty severe lower back pain and issues with fatigue and chronic illness that wouldn’t get diagnosed for three years. So I was forced to stop working as much as I had because I truly could not sit at a desk for long and I had to attend so many appointments to try to find a diagnosis or to find a way to relieve that pain that I was experiencing. So I had to halt the overwork that I was doing at that point. And in order to find a new way to still be productive, I turned to external support. So I turned to podcasts, I turned to books, self-help books, time management books, and that eventually led me to start researching productivity, which led me to where I am now in my job. But initially having to find a different way to truly be an academic and work at my desk is what forced me to acknowledge that I was a workaholic. This was not sustainable. Um, like my body stopped me from doing that overwork that I was doing.

Dr. Kate Henry’s Business Origin Story

Emily (08:45): Thank you so much for sharing that. And I know it’s gonna be relatable again to a lot of the listeners and maybe not at this point in their lives, maybe they’re still in graduate school and their youth is holding up or something, but like at some point if you work like that, you’re gonna hit some kind of wall. And so how did like all these events coming together and this mindset and everything lead to you starting your business? Can you tell us that story?

Kate (09:06): Yes, I love to tell this story. So I started researching just personally looking at productivity and time management and self-help, uh, you know, podcasts and books as I said in 2017 and found that I was really, really into it and I was doing these little experiments on my own. And at the start of 2018, I was like, I want to explore this even further. So I set a goal for myself that if I could blog every single week, trying out a new tool, practicing it, writing it up, creating how-tos for others and blog every week for a year, then I could consider shifting my career path and going into productivity coaching. And it went super well. I did it for a year and then I decided to do it for a second year. So that was two years straight of weekly blogging about this, which both increased my knowledge of what I was doing and also just helped me to share a lot of free resources for folks. So folks started to get to know me and during that time I started practicing doing some productivity coaching while I was still in graduate school. So by the time I graduated in 2020, I already was prepared to start my business. I knew I was going to officially do that. I had made the decision to not go on the job market because I wanted to start the business and I already had all of this really great content there. So I started planning for my business around two years before I actually finished the PhD. But I also knew I wanted to finish the PhD. I liked my topic, I had a great advisor. Um, but it was this really nice playground, I guess to start to develop a mailing list and start to develop clients and for folks to get to know who I was as a productivity scholar,

Emily (10:50): I love how intentional that was <laugh>. Um, and it’s, it’s actually advice that I took like from the personal finance space, like if you’re planning on starting a business, like give yourself runway, right? So like you gave yourself runway both in the sense of you’re doing those early steps that are not gonna immediately, you know, see monetary ROI but are building you up to be able to offer that, you know, in the future. Um, at the same time on the financial side, we would say like, okay, you’re saving, you know, you’re, you’re getting ready for like potential, not having as much income once you, you know, commit to the business maybe. And again, I find parallels with my story, although you were much more intentional. So I was doing the same thing of, you know, blogging and so forth about personal finance and figuring out that people needed more education on this topic that was, you know, specific to my peer group of graduate students and postdocs. Um, yet, you know, there wasn’t anyone doing it. And so I was kind of like stepping into that vacuum, but I didn’t actually plan to start a business until it was like upon me that I was starting a business. So I didn’t give myself the same intentional kinds of runway that you did, which is amazing. So for the listeners, if you’re thinking about starting a business or even honestly like doing any kind of alt ac career, like this is the stuff you start in graduate school years ahead of time to lay that groundwork, to do the internships, to do the networking, to get the experiences because you know, chances are you’re not gonna get those things automatically in the course of your time in graduate school. So, and I also love it because I think you used the word like experiment. You were experimenting with the productivity, you know, tips and so forth, but you’re also experimenting with can I become a business owner and can I be committed in this area? And it’s that same thing for anyone coming up on a career change, like go ahead and experiment if you’re not sure what you wanna do, do you know, low stakes, little, um, experiments, different things as you go along, and then it’ll help you make those decisions as well as get you ready for that next step. So I just love <laugh> that how intentional you were about that. Um, we’re gonna get back to like what your full fledged business, like what you’re up to now in a couple of minutes. And before we get there, I kind of wanna, you know, riff for a bit here on like these parallels between productivity and finances and what, you know, what a person who’s maybe more competent in one sphere can draw into the other one and back and forth and, and those things. So let’s see, let’s just go through a couple different items, like what productivity principles can we apply to our finances so that we can give them the right amount of time and attention and they’re not <laugh> taking over our life?

Parallels Between Productivity and Personal Finances

Kate (13:15): Yes, certainly I am really excited about this question. So I really approach productivity through the lens of how can we make it accessible, how can we personalize it for each person? And in that way, I think about what I would call personal resources. So this is our time, our energy, our focus, also our physical health, our mental health, our mood, how we’re doing, and really approaching our productivity in a way that goes with the flow of that. So for example, are there certain times of day or certain days of the month where it would make more sense for you to schedule time to work on a particular productivity task? Like for me, I block off the last day of the month and the first day of the month to do my accounting and do my, you know, things like that. So that’s a way I approach that. But I think in terms of checking in with your personal resources and coming up with a plan that’s not going to overtax those or cause additional stress works for productivity. So I imagine that it might also work for like certain types of financial practices that would be potentially stressful or really need more time or energy or effort. So that’s one thing that, yeah,

Emily (14:25): Uh, what that is making me think of is actually sort of using that tip as as you just, you just gave an example in the financial realm. Like I know that this is a good time of the month to be working on my bookkeeping and accounting. So that could literally be in other areas of your finances too. Like especially if you’re partnered up like having that weekly, biweekly, monthly, whatever it is, like money date with your partner or if you’re not partnered up by yourself, that’s okay to do like a general check-in. Um, I would also say figuring out, like you were kind of just saying like what is sort of easy and natural for you within the financial realm and what is gonna require you to set aside some time and put some more intention behind it. Like I’ll say for example, at this point in my life, it’s like very habitual for me to like check in on my expenses, my spending, you know, keep on track, keep on top of those transactions. What’s been new for me recently is having to do a little bit more hands-on management of my investments because I opened a new type of account and I don’t quite know everything about that company and how their website works and what I can automate. So I need to, I literally did this today I need to like set aside some time just like do some actions and also learn how to automate those things in the future. And it’s not something that’s top of mind, so I have to like put it in my schedule just to make sure it gets done because I can’t leave those things, you know, un uh, untended to forever and ever.

Kate (15:43): Yes, of course. Absolutely. I, I feel that, and that also makes me think of something else that, you know, for me when I think of like ways that things may align with our approach to productivity and finances and personal finances is like outsourcing and having folks who can help you or automation programs that can help with that to sort of lighten that load. Of course, like different types of outsourcing are going to cost different things and they’re an investment. But that’s something certainly in terms of like, what can you streamline or like, are there folks you can go to who can provide you with information that will ultimately save you time and not needing to self-teach how to do it? That also comes to my mind and that’s something I’ve done before working with, you know, hiring professionals to help me learn how to do x, y or Z or like having an accountant do my taxes instead of even trying to do it myself. Right. Like, so that comes to mind in terms of outsourcing, which I imagine is super like also happens in financial world too.

Emily (16:43): Absolutely. And I’m, I’m, I’m, I’m not gonna remember all of these, uh, points to this like acronym, but with any sort of task that comes across your plate, you can either like do it, delegate it, discard it, like there, you know, a limited set of things that can happen like for something that comes to you and within your finances. Like you gotta be careful because there are certain things that you should not delegate. Like you do really need to be intimately connected in some areas of your finances, but others, like you said, preparing the tax return, you can totally delegate that to someone else. You should take a look at it once it’s done, make sure it seems okay. But the actual process is totally fine to delegate and on a budget, you know, that’s using free tax software, that’s using very low cost tax software that can be totally adequate as long as you’re, you know, comfortable with the interface and so forth. Um, I, a lot of people feel differently about this, but I just mentioned, you know, tracking finances, tracking transactions, I like to do that manually, but I also have a tool that helps me with it. So like I use Empower, which is kinda like a dashboard. It like brings all my uh, different accounts together into one place. So I have one place that I log in and sort of check on everything and some people might even be more hands off and they don’t need to even log in that often or check that often. I like to be a little more hands on, but that’s kind of like a personal choice as to how, what’s gonna work best for you in terms of ultimately making decisions about your money. ’cause that’s what it kind of comes back to is what decisions are you gonna make and are you prepared with the information that you need to make those decisions well and that amount of information’s gonna be different for different people.

Kate (18:07): Yes, absolutely. I mean I still, I, I use QuickBooks but I also have my like tried and true Excel file that I’ve been using for like eight years that I update individually. Right. So I think there’s like different ways that I can do that in like a low tech way and also like a high tech like legit way. Um, and that works well for me ’cause I get to feel like I have, you know, I’m really engaged and I know what, what my numbers are and things like that.

Emily (18:33): Yeah, and this also goes back to our previous point about like that finding that rhythm of if you are gonna do something like manual tracking, manual updates like once a week, once a month, whatever it is, like schedule it and, and find the best time because you know, maybe late at night <laugh>, like when you’re sleep deprived, it’s not the best time to be looking uh, at your accounts. Like you need to find for your, uh, chronotype or whatnot when you’re most, um, open <laugh> to looking your finances and making decisions about that. So what is another idea that you had about some crossover here?

Kate (19:01): Another idea I had about this was thinking of like trending in the right direction. So for productivity, often I hear folks who are like, I’m going to write my dissertation every day. I’m going to go to the gym three times every week, or I’m going to do like X all the time. And then when they don’t do that, there’s this feeling of failure, this feeling of like, oh, why should I even try? I am not never going to get where I want to get. So in a a productivity lens, we would think of like, you’re trending in the direction that you would want to go. So even if you don’t do something every day, you’re still, you know, developing a habit, you’re still chipping away at it. Some is better than none. And that’s something that I like certainly see being a successful way that folks can reframe their approach to their productivity and, you know, feel better about making progress even if it’s not some idealized magical way that you know, where every, all the planets align and you always have energy and nothing goes wrong, right? So trending in a the right direction you want to go is something that I think probably has a crossover as well with finances.

Emily (20:07): Oh my goodness, very, very good point. Um, sort of like what you’re just saying, like I think the phrase I’ve heard from other people in the space is like, start where you are. Okay, let’s take a, let’s assess where we are and take a small step as you were just saying, in the direction that you wanna go. But if you are gonna like do a whole schedule makeover or a whole budget makeover and think that you’re gonna be an entirely different person being able to adhere to this new plan, uh, it’s just not realistic. And especially if that causes you to feel discouraged and go back to you know, where you started from or even like regress from that point, like that is not helpful <laugh>. So let’s take like one thing at a time and move in the right direction Absolutely. Within your finances that could be like, oh my gosh, you know, you realize you’re, you’re kind of overspending and maybe you’re going into debt or you’d, you’d rather save more or whatever and you know you’re gonna be frugal in every single area of your life you possibly can. And um, it’s just, it’s just not realistic. It’s not gonna happen. So let’s, like this was actually some fun experiments I did back when I was blogging. Let’s take like one frugal tip at a time, try it out, uh, I would say maybe for 30 days and just see what kind of time and energy did you put into it? What kind of money was actually saved for, or you know, reduction in spending from it and weigh those against each other. Was it worth it or not? And then I like that to find period of time because you have that natural reevaluation point and you can really say, okay, I’m, I’m not just gonna automatically continue this forever, I’m gonna make sure that it’s actually working in my life. And then you can eventually layer on the ones that work for you, but give it time and give it space, you know, for it to become a habit. I’ll actually tell you within, ’cause you mentioned, you know, going to the gym three times a week, uh, I am gonna the gym three times a week and I was not doing that a year ago when I joined this gym and I, I gave myself some space, like I gave myself some time to figure out if it was the right place for me, if I really enjoyed it, how could I fit into my schedule. And gradually over the course of the year, I’ve gotten up to that frequency and that might seem like a long time, but uh, I’m really happy with it now and I’m okay that it took that time because I, I got to the point that I wanted to be with it, you know?

Kate (22:09): Yes. That’s a congratulations. That’s amazing. And it like if it took a year, that’s fine. That’s like the perfect amount of time for it. That makes me think too as well, like something for productivity and I’d be curious to hear your thoughts of how this works in the finance world, but like something like developing a new habit, going to the gym or let’s say for productivity like writing or you know, like applying for jobs or whatever it might be, setting up the external accountability, whether that’s through coworking or body doubling. So I was thinking like, oh maybe you have a gym buddy or you tell your partner, I’m gonna go to the gym. So then your partner can say, Hey did you go, that’s like such a helpful thing in productivity worlds so you can have more, um, more potential to show up and do the thing because you have that external accountability. Is that something, are there like ways that like in the finance world there’s like coworking or like scheduled things that cut- with others, like I’m curious to hear what you think.

Emily (23:04): I would love it if that were a thing and I’m not very connected to social media right now so it’s possible there are things like that going on that I’m not aware of. But no, I do think there’s, you know, that taboo around talking around about finances is in play here. And so if people find accountability partners in this area, I’m suspecting they’re gonna be like their spouse, their sibling, their best friend. Like it’s gonna be someone very close or like a mentor, you know, someone very close to them already. I don’t necessarily think this is something you’re gonna find a casual acquaintance who’s willing to do this with you <laugh>.

Kate (23:37): Yeah.

Emily (23:37): But I’m just thinking that there are probably some like sub areas like doing things that help with your finances, but the focus isn’t on finances, it’s on the doing of the other thing. So I’m thinking of meal prep for example. That is something that you could probably find a community that’s supporting you in that maybe do even doing some body doubling, you know, body doubling like Sunday prep day or whatever they call it. Um, and that’s gonna have a major impact on your finances, but you don’t have to approach it with like, yeah, that’s the reason I’m doing this and let’s talk about how much money we’re, you know, not spending on other things. It’s more just like let’s do this action together and whatever positive effects it has are sort of outside of that. So I could definitely see that happening. But yeah, it’s probably, if you’re talking money, it’s probably gonna be with someone really, really close to you.

Kate (24:18): Yeah, And I probably with productivity as well, like there are like platforms where you could like do coworking with like a random person who you’re paired with like from all over the world, right? But also often things happen with folks who you know, um, but yeah. Okay, cool. Body doubling effective for productivity can be effective in ways for finance as well.

Emily (24:39): Yeah, if you can find the right pers-, the right person, yeah. To be part- with it.

Commercial

Emily (24:45): 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.

Spoon Theory and Personal Finances

Kate (25:38): Now one thing, another thing that I thought of is, I mentioned personal resources earlier. So we were thinking around like everyone has their individual experience with their time and their energy and their focus. I’m also really invested in my approach to productivity working with folks who have chronic health conditions or chronic illness, chronic fatigue, long covid. And I’m thinking there around this term called spoon theory, which for folks who haven’t heard of this, um, this was coined by Christine Miserandino and the concept is that you, if you do live with a chronic health condition, you have a limited amount of energy to expend each day. So she used the metaphor of spoons saying like, you only have a certain amount of spoons that you can exchange. She said that ’cause she was out to dinner with her friend. So spoons were readily available, but really with spoon theory we’re thinking that you have a limited amount of energy units you can expend. It changes day to day. If you’re having a chronic health flare, you might have three spoons and you have to decide does one go towards a shower, one goes towards work and one goes towards, I don’t know, like warming up leftovers to eat right? And like some days you might have 10 and the concept here is that it’s a way to um, communicate with others like others who are close to you around your ability to do certain things, but also as a way that you can think of what is truly going to be accessible to you. So in in the productivity realm, I often encourage folks to think about like what is the type of day that you are having? Is this a very high focus day or is this a day where you have a migraine? How might you approach your product different productivity differently to make it more accessible? So you will like first and foremost take care of yourself but also you know, progress on your productivity in a way that feels actionable and achievable. So spoon theory can be a helpful thing when we’re thinking around what do I act-? What can I actually do for my to-do list today that’s going to be accessible and help me to move forward on my goals. So I’m curious like what comes to your mind when you think around like having to adjust your approach to, you know, your finances dependent on like if you, your health is shifting or you have much lower energy or you’re sick or things like that.

Emily (27:50): Hmm. Yeah, that’s a great question. I would say decide what are the real essentials within your financial life and what is an extra. So like I mentioned earlier, I love manual tracking. That’s an extra, I don’t need to do that at this point. It’s something I enjoy doing to a degree, but it’s not absolutely something that needs to happen. Now do my credit cards need to get paid off every month? Yeah. Mm-hmm <affirmative> that needs to happen <laugh>. So, but what I would do is I would automate as much as possible something like a credit card payment. It’s on auto. I’m never gonna forget or fail to follow through on that. So like I think it would be about like setting yourself up for those periods that you know are coming when you’re going to have fewer spoons and understanding like what is absolute baseline things that have to happen and automating as many of those things as possible and also having a really realistic sense of how much time or energy certain actions take. So like, um, I actually had a period in my life it was around, um, two years ago when I couldn’t do my manual tracking for a long period of time. I had, it was a sandwich generation situation that ultimately resulted in a death in the family and it was a difficult time and that was something that I could drop. Okay. I’d love to hear a little bit more about like your personal finance, your personal story and how finishing graduate school and becoming a business owner has actually affected your personal finances.

The Impact of Grad School and Business Ownership on Finances

Kate (29:17): Yes, totally. So I feel like I am lucky. Like I, my dad before he retired, um, ran his own autobody mechanic shop. So he was self-employed and I had this model of someone being successfully self-employed from when I was literally born. So that, like when I started a business, I of course didn’t know like everything that I would need to do do, but I at least knew like, yes, this is an accessible thing, this is something I could do and I can try. And I felt really proud to do that. And I also, when I started my business, reached out to folks, like hired a business coach to be like, what do I need to, what do I even need to know how to do? Do I need a business bank account? I really didn’t have the literacy for what you needed to do. So I learned like what’s a sole proprietor? Do I want an LLC? Just really was a beginner to learn that sort of stuff. Um, and I also was a little stressed to immediately, you know, like after my six month grace period to go into paying student loans and I have a lot of student loans. I did undergrad and then I did 10 years of graduate school, two master’s and a PhD. So that was also a real shift for me after having been in grad school for forever and not having had to pay student loans. Um, which I’ll say something about later when I share a tip. But, so my experience in my business was I need to learn like what are the things I need to know how to do to start a business and how do I navigate shifting to pay student loans? And um, also, you know, how do I sort of grow my income when I’m a bit of a newbie? So I, the first couple of years of my business I had part-time jobs as well. I worked as a tutor, I worked as a writing consultant and I did these things so that I could earn income while I was developing my books. So my personal finance experience when I started a business was that when I had been setting things up intentionally just to launch the business and to have the website and things like that, um, I still needed to be procuring that external income for a few years before I could shift to just fully earning income from my business. So that was a shift in my experience with personal finance as well. And I think from the outside perhaps people didn’t know that from the outside folks might just be like, wow, Kate’s thriving as a coach and realistically like I was working part-time as well to sustain that. So that certainly affected my personal finances behind the scene while I was developed starting to develop my business.

Emily (31:52): Yeah, I’m so glad you share that. That’s an excellent example of the runway that I was talking about earlier. So you gave yourself runway before launching the business if it, you know, in in the new way of like taking in revenue and so forth. And then you also had runway after that of like, okay, revenue’s coming up over here, but while it’s coming up I still need <laugh> some income coming in from another source. And I did the exact same thing. I worked like freelance, you know, part-time for several years after I started my business and eventually I got to drop it and that’s great. But like I was glad that it was, you know, there for me when I needed it. How have you been doing with um, I guess, you know, keeping your health in mind and of course the subject matter that you like coach in, but how do you apply that to yourself in your business?

Building a Business and Prioritizing Well-Being

Kate (32:34): Certainly. I was actually just talking to my own business coach the other day about this and we were talking about the metaphor of like, I’m sure you’ve heard of this, everyone’s heard of this, but like you have your jar with the largest rocks in the bottom and you put those in first so the pebbles can fall in the sand. And like thinking around like it’s really important for me to like approach my business where the first thing I’m thinking about is my own health. So when am I available to book coaching client calls? Like how many calls can I book in a day? What days do I need to have off in case I have to have doctor’s appointments? And really approaching my business with that stuff has to be the, that has to happen first or else I’m not going to be able to show up for my business. Um, so that’s something I certainly think about and I limit the amount of clients that I can work with and I also regularly schedule to take time off. Like if I know that there’s gonna be a busy season and I’m gonna need long weekends or need to take, you know, a whole week off or something like that, scheduling that in which I’m able to do because I have a service-based, you know, business. Um, so I’m certainly approaching it in that way. And also, you know, many of my clients, almost all of my clients have some sort of similar experience. Either they’re working parents or they’re working full-time and going to grad school or they also have a chronic health condition. So I set up my business in a way that, you know, can make things accessible to them as well. Like, so I’m thinking about that in terms of my availability.

Emily (34:02): I think one of the issues I know that I dealt with, I’ve talked with other academic business owners about this, um, that I dealt with, especially like in the first few years of my business coming out of graduate school was, um, setting pricing. Because you might think if you’ve never run your own business that you can bill 40 hours a week and just whatever you wanna make, divide it by 40 and 50 weeks a year and whatever it is and that’s gonna be your rate and it’s just so not that way <laugh>. Um, and so if you’re willing to, would you like to talk a little bit about like how you make that balance with your time but also make those pricing decisions, you know, again, keeping your clients in mind?

Kate (34:41): Yes, certainly. I’m, so this is like an excellent question. I’m so glad you asked this. I love talking about this stuff. So as a business owner, like once I started my business, I like it totally changed my mind in terms of like the folks that I work with where I’m like, oh, these people are really only making like 60% of what I, they’re billing me ’cause they have taxes, they have overhead, right? So that’s a little side note where I’m like often thinking about that now. So when I approach coaching, right, like I’m thinking of my pricing not just for the hour that or the two hours or whatever the thing is, but also like what is the extra labor that goes into this? So I think something I do that not all coaches do is I create really elaborate detailed notes for my clients and that’s something that’s going to take me up to an hour to do. So when I’m like scheduling out my day and making myself available to clients, I also have to know like that’s an extra hour where I’m gonna be looking at a screen and how many hours a day can I truly look at a screen? And so I’m thinking about like what I would call this like behind the scenes labor or this invisible labor that we might not think about when we are doing something like just scheduling for a one hour call. So I’m thinking about that in terms of how I approach my prices. Certainly that’s one thing that comes to my mind. I’m curious if there, there are other things that come to your mind as well.

Emily (35:59): Well I was just thinking that it probably was a great thing to have your parent as a business owner and being able to see how much work goes into running business aside from just the time you put into specifically the service that you’re performing if it’s a service-based business. Um, do you have any comments around like specifically like graduate students or people coming out of academia or generally being anchored at like sort of undervaluing themselves in this thing, in this, you know, um, consideration of how much to charge because it’s something that can come up for everyone at some point. Like whatever type of job you take, whether it’s in academia or later, like you’re gonna have to value your time and yourself and your skills in some manner and like, it’s just so difficult when you’ve been underpaid for a decade or more. <laugh>.

Charging For Your Services as a Business Owner

Kate (36:46): Oh my gosh, certainly. And I also think this as well, like when folks are starting a business, I know at least for me, when I started my business, my coaching calls were like $30 to $60 sliding scale an hour, right? And they’ve certainly increased since then over the years. So that’s something I think as well that like when folks are starting out, if the it is like, yes, you wanna get testimonials or you wanna build your books or you wanna get recc- yeah the recommendations or network like having a lower rate, you know, but then shifting to raise that and like I’ve raised my rates every year that I’ve been in my business. Um, certainly thinking about that and valuing that labor. And also I know for me, like there are truly, and this is one of the reasons I started a business, I cannot have a 40 hour a week full-time job because of my chronic health conditions. So I truly only have x number of hours a week that I can put towards my business and I need to make x amount of money in order to thrive. So like that affects my what I’m charging and like that affects my rates as well. Um, and that’s also something I think about in terms of sliding scale as well, like offering sliding scale. When I do that, knowing for me like what, like how many sliding scale spots I might have available or like what is the lower level that I can do in a way that’s not going to overtax me as well. Um, so that is something that I have in mind and like I encourage folks to, to think about as well, like how they can meet their enough number, how they can meet a number that can help them to thrive.

Emily (38:16): Yeah, it’s interesting like, because both of us are service-based business owners and we’re also have to apply our area of practice to our own lives and businesses like we think about a little bit differently. ’cause I don’t think as much about how many hours per week I work, I think more about how much money am I making <laugh>, you know, because, and I have that like bias, right? Because of my subject matter. So that’s really interesting. Let’s take a minute here and just have you tell the listeners a little bit more about your, your business, what you actually do with clients and how they can get in touch with you.

Contact Dr. Kate Henry, Productivity Coach

Kate (38:47): Yeah, of course. So I’m a productivity coach, I work with academics and my main offering is a six month productivity coaching offer. I call it, um, success and accountability coaching. And I actually created it because it’s what I wanted when I was doing my dissertation. I couldn’t find anyone doing it. And it’s a really hands-on coaching approach where we meet every other week, I take really detailed coaching session notes and share them with you and then we’re in conversation between calls. So it really helps to break down the goals, the projects that you’re working on. And I work with folks on dissertations promotion and tenure materials, book proposals, book manuscripts, things like that. So I only work with a, as this fits with our conversation today, I can only work with a small handful of folks at a time because of the time and energy and effort I put into that. So you can learn more about success and accountability coaching on my website, it’s katehenry.com, easy to remember. And I also have a free newsletter and a ton of free resources because I spent those two years blocking and I have that at katehenry.substack.com.

Best Financial Advice for Another Early-Career PhD

Emily (39:54): Well that is so great to hear and it’s just lovely to hear your approach to everything. Let’s end with the question that I ask all my guests, which is, what is your best financial advice for another early career PhD? And it can be something that we touched on early in the interview, I think you gave us a teaser or it can be something completely new.

Kate (40:12): Yes. So I’m thinking with this, like what I wish I had known when I was starting my PhD. That’s what I, I thought of with this was like, I wish that- I did not have financial literacy and I did not understand how things worked. I did not understand credit cards, I did not understand student loans. I did not understand how to buy a car. And um, I really do like now me wishes that back then me had like even gone to this, the financial aid office on campus and been like, can you under-, can you explain to me how student loans work? Like I wish I had known that I could have paid my student loan interest while I was still in graduate school and like things that would have really shifted that experience for me that I’m dealing with now with paying off loans. Um, so that’s something that comes to my mind is really just like, how can you access other folks who can help to inform you of things that will set you up for success, whether that is with loans or whether that’s with retirement or interest or how those things work. Um, and yeah, I feel like that all-, that’s what I did when I finished my PhD and I started my business as well, reaching out to folks and sort of, um, going towards experts who could help me to streamline and teach me things that I didn’t know on my own.

Emily (41:26): And this is not a criticism of you because I think this is absolutely natural what you did, but when you were in graduate school, those on campus resources were free for you. They were included in the whole package that was going on. And if you had asked those questions to financial aid or financial wellness or whatever it’s called on your campus, maybe you could have taken some different steps and maybe you could have, you know, learned more along the way and not have to have paid the higher price that comes, you know, in your thirties, et cetera. Uh, once you have the, the big job and, and so forth for, you know, similar kinds of advice or education or content, right? So like it’s like with compound interest, like that early investment just keeps compounding and growing and uh, if you don’t do it early, then you gotta do more later, right? So I am really glad you shared that. Again, not a criticism because I think it’s pretty much what everybody does <laugh>, but, uh, I will say that I have had the opportunity to meet many, many people who work, um, in financial aid offices in similar kinds of roles where they help students with their finances and they are lovely. Everyone I’ve met has been wonderful and approachable and just eager, eager, eager to help. Um, even in areas that seem a little bit off of maybe what they normally do. So like you could walk into financial aid and ask a question that’s not precisely about financial aid and they, they’ll either help you or they’ll point you in a direction where you can get help from someone else. Um, and you know, the more you ask those questions, the more these people on campuses realize that graduate students and postdocs need this kind of support as well, which of course is the drum that I’ve been banging for many years now. So it’s all helpful to our community just to get more attention on making those early educational investments that turn into financial investments, um, you know, early, early on in our career. So thank you so much for, um, that advice and it’s been wonderful to speak with you and I’m really looking forward to listeners getting to hear this.

Kate (43:16): Awesome. Thank you so much. I really appreciate you having me on.

Outtro

Emily (43:31): 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.

Catching Up with Prior Guests: 2024 Edition

December 16, 2024 by Jill Hoffman Leave a Comment

Emily published the first episode of this podcast in July 2018. This is the 223rd episode, and over the last six and a half years, the podcast has featured over 300 unique voices in addition to my own. For our last episode in 2024, we are catching up with the guests from Seasons 12 through 14, and a few from earlier seasons as well. The guests were invited to submit short audio clips to update us on how their lives and careers have evolved since the time of their interview, as well as to provide their best financial advice if that has changed since that initial interview.

Links mentioned in the Episode

PF for PhDs Podcast Hub
PF for PhDs Subscribe to Mailing List
PF for PhDs Excel Spending Tracker
PF for PhD Website
Emily’s E-mail Address
Sam Hogan (from PhD Home Loans): Season 2, Episode 5; Season 5, Episode 17; Season 8, Episode 4; Season 13, Episode 1
Dr. Tina Del Carpio: Season 6, Episode 10
Dr. Gertrude Nonterah (from The Bold PhD): Season 8, Episode 6
Dr. Alana Rister (from Science Grad School Coach): Season 10, Episode 4
Dr. Jay Zigmont (from Child Free Wealth): Season 12, Episode 1
Dr. Inga Timmerman (from Attainable Wealth Financial Planning): Season 12, Episode 3
Dr. Haley Sanderson: Season 12, Episode 4
Brittany Trinh (from Beyond Your Science Podcast): Season 14, Episode 4
Host a PF for PhDs Tax Seminar at Your Institution

Catching Up with Prior Guests: 2024 Edition

Teaser

Jay Z (00:00): What do I do if the path I’ve bet on, the money disappears? It’s just one of those things you gotta think about in which probably nobody wants to think about and that’s a reality check.

Introduction

Emily (00:16): 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 19, Episode 9, and today I am featuring many guest voices! I published the first episode of this podcast in July 2018. This is the 223rd episode, and over the last six and a half years, the podcast has featured over 300 unique voices in addition to my own. For our last episode in 2024, we are catching up with the guests from Seasons 12 through 14, and a few from earlier seasons as well. I invited them to submit short audio clips to update us on how their lives and careers have evolved since the time of our interview, as well as to provide their best financial advice if that has changed since our initial interview. You are going to hear a common theme throughout many of today’s audio segments. The audio clips in this episode are ordered by when the original episode was published. If you’d like to circle back and listen to any of the previous interviews, you can do so in your podcatcher app or at my website, PFforPhDs.com/podcast. To keep up with future episodes, please hit subscribe on that podcatcher and/or join my mailing list at PFforPhDs.com/advice. You’ll hear an update from me first, followed by the rest of the guests. You can find the show notes for this episode at PFforPhDs.com/s19e9/. Happy listening, happy holidays, and happy new year! See you in 2025!

Dr. Emily Roberts

Emily (02:23): Hi! This is Emily Roberts from Personal Finance for PhDs. I am of course the host of this podcast and you hear from me in every episode! My update last year at this time was a bit of a downer, and I’m pleased to report we’ve had a much better year overall in 2024. Some personal highlights from this year included: living and working from my parents’ house for a month over the summer and meeting my new nephew, vacationing in Hawaii for the first time, attending Family Camp in Sequoia National Park for the third time, camping with my daughter’s Girl Scout troop several times, including a Roar & Snore at the San Diego Zoo, seeing Hamilton in Los Angeles, and becoming a regular at Orange Theory Fitness. My husband and I also purchased our very first new car, an electric vehicle, and are enjoying having two cars at our family’s disposal. My daughters are doing really well in school and having fun in their extracurriculars. We’ve continued our family traditions of reading together—I’ve read 61 books so far this year—and playing strategy board games like Dominion and Ticket to Ride. Despite some personal health challenges, it’s been a great year.

Emily (03:40): As for Personal Finance for PhDs the business, I’m really pleased with how the year evolved. Over the summer, I revamped all of my live seminars to be true workshops, and my clients and audiences have responded quite positively. I believe this teaching style is more effective than my previous one, and the template spreadsheets and worksheets that I provide have been appreciated. My clients are also getting back to hosting me in person more so than in previous years, which is my preference by far. In 2024, I delivered workshops in person at Yale University, the University of California at Los Angeles, The Scripps Research Institute, the University of California at San Diego, Michigan State University, and Boston University, and all the engagements were delightful. I also attended two conferences, the Graduate Career Consortium in Philadelphia and the Higher Education Financial Wellness Summit in Pittsburgh. The business revenue and my income are up over 2023’s numbers, though I’m still gunning to get back to where they were in 2022. In 2024, my family has made great use of the manual expense tracker that I mentioned in last year’s update, which incorporates some of the principles I teach in my workshops. If you’d like to download the tracker, please register for the Personal Finance for PhDs mailing list through PFforPhDs.com/tracker/. Thanks for listening to my update! If you want to get in touch, you can visit my website at PFforPhDs.com or email me at [email protected].

Sam Hogan

Sam H (05:18): Hello, this is Sam Hogan. I’m the mortgage originator who specialize in graduate students and PhDs and Emily’s brother. I’ve given interviews on the podcast about various aspects of mortgage and home ownership for graduate students and PhDs in multiple seasons. Season two, episode five, season five, episode 17, season eight, episode four, and season 13, episode one. In 2024, I switched employers and I’m now with truist Bank. This has been exciting because truist offers a non repayable grant for down payment or closing cost assistance to low income borrowers in certain states that graduate students are perfect for. I’m currently exploring with them the possibility of extending doctor mortgages to PhDs as well as MDs. You can find more information about this in my mailing list or on Emily’s YouTube channel. In 2024. I also attended the National Post-Doctoral Association annual conference, which was great fun, and I plan to go back in 2025. If you happen to be there, please stop by my booth and say hi. On a personal note, 2024 has been incredible because my fiance and I had our first child, a healthy little boy named Grant. If you’d like to learn more about mortgages that I offer or have a question about the lending process, you can call or text me at (540) 478-5803 or email me at [email protected]. If you’d like to download a free PhD friendly mortgage guide that I wrote, you can find it on my website, PhDhomeloans.com. Rates are expected to keep coming down through 2026, so this is a great time to get in touch.

Dr. Tina Del Carpio

Tina DC (06:57): Hi, my name is Tina Del Carpio. I was a guest on season six, episode 10 talking about figuring out my life after a broken engagement in Los Angeles. I’m happy to report that last December in 2023, I finished my PhD and I started a job as a data analyst for the state, and I’m really happy with my job and with where I’m at. Um, the pay is not as good as it could be an industry, but I work fully remotely and that’s such a huge benefit to me. Um, the more important life update is that this past November I got married to my partner Tess and I still live in Los Angeles, but now with Tess and our three cats, Tuka, Gem, and Goose. So all is well here.

Dr. Gertrude Nonterah

Gertrude N (08:00): Hello Emily and the personal finance for PhD’s podcast team. And thank you for giving me this opportunity. My name is Gertrude Nonterah and I run theboldphd.com. I was interviewed, um, on this podcast in February of 2021. It was episode six, season eight, I believe, season eight, episode six, and we talked about personal branding and how to use that to land a job and also build a business as a PhD or academic. And since then I have continued to talk about personal branding and have the opportunity to speak at over 20 universities in different countries on the topics of personal branding, career change, and also my own career within medical communications and the biotech space. My best financial advice for early career PhDs is to really begin to think about investments early on, right? I am in my early forties. I turned 41 this year and a part of me wishes I knew what I knew now about investing when I was in graduate school because it’s only recently in the past, let’s say five years, that it has occurred to me that in graduate school I could have been putting away $20 here and $10 there and I could have actually started building investments at that time. Instead, I started in my thirties, which was later than I hoped, but it’s still better to start than never to start, right? And so if you are starting out your career, use your career as a launchpad to start funding investments. Learn about the different investments that are out there and how you can get started with them. You know, do your due diligence and start building wealth because it’s going to compound over time and every year you don’t invest, you are losing money, but every year you do invest, you are compounding it and, and that’s what’s exciting about investing. So that would be my best piece of advice for early career PhDs. If you wanna find me, you can go to my website, it’s theboldphd.com. You can also find me on LinkedIn, Gertrude Nonterah PhD.

Dr. Alana Rister

Alana R (10:19): Hi, I’m Alana Rister and I was on personal finance for PhDs Season 10, episode four. I am the founder of science grad school coach and when I was on the podcast, I talked about how I had worked through grad school in order to pay off about $13,000 of student loan debt from my undergraduate loans. Since then, I have become a full-time data scientist in a Fortune 500 company and I have been able to actually pay off an additional $40,000 of my undergraduate student loan debt. At this point, with my current plan, I’m about one year from actually having all of my student loan debt paid off, and when I graduated, I graduated with about $70,000 of student loan debt. My best financial advice moving forward, especially from the experiences that I’ve had since um, graduating grad school, is while you’re in grad school, start thinking about retirement, especially if you’re in the US and think about the different accounts that you might want to work with. Then when you’re in grad school, you typically have a lower income. So if you have any bandwidth within your income to set aside for retirement, you’re going to have, um, certain tax advantaged accounts in the US that you might not be able to fully use whenever you are fully fledged into a job, um, your income might be too high. So I really wish I would’ve taken more advantage of retirement and wouldn’t have that stress on my income now. Um, looking forward to trying to retire within the US at least. If you’re interested to find me, you can look at my YouTube channel @scigradcoach. Thanks again for having me and letting me share my update.

Dr. Jay Zigmont

Jay Z (12:22): Hi, I am Jay Zigmont. I am the founder and CEO of Child Free Wealth, a financial planning firm dedicated to serving child free childless folks. My PhD is in adult learning from the University of Connecticut and I joined the podcast on, let’s see, season 12, episode one. It talked about the garden and the rose and how do dual career couples, figure out the balance between the trailing spouse in the other job and the balance between those two. In the time since then, uh, as any good PhD, I spent the time doing a lot of research and writing. Uh, really excited. At the end of this year, I have a new book coming out, the Child Free Guide to Life and Money. It’s been interesting working with publishers and working through the process and it’s gotten super interesting because of politics. Let’s be real this year, been a lot of discussion about the childless cat ladies and the good, bad and ugly goes there. Uh, it it’s, it’s one of those things when you’re writing about a topic and you’re like, Hey, I can help a lot of people, but you’re not always ready for the politics, the judgments, the social media. I dunno, I’m learning all that. I think my big advice because of the season we’re in right now for PhDs is you need to think about a backup plan if you’re funding goes away. And that sounds a, I mean that’s always been the case. What happens to grant money? But right now when we’re talking about federal funding or departments possibly not existing and the changes, it’s tough. You know, my wife and I have had to have this discussion ’cause her work is in food insecurity and, uh, all of it’s federally funded or most of it is, and it’s one of those things like, oh, what do I do if the path I’ve bet on the money disappears. Luckily for us as a couple, we’re at a good financial place. We don’t have any debt, you know, we’ve got a emergency savings, we can do different things, but it’s just one of those things you gotta think about in which probably nobody wants to think about, but it’s a reality check. You can find me online, childfreewealth.com. You can buy the book anywhere you like. Uh, always love go to independent bookstores and on all the socials at @ChildFreeWealth.

Dr. Inga Timmerman

Inga T (14:46): Hello professors and new PhDs. My name is Inga Timmerman and I was in season 12, episode three. I’m a financial planner who works exclusively with other academics and I’m also an academic. And the best advice I have for new PhDs and this advice has changed since the last time I talked to Emily is that instead of focusing on long-term financials, focus on the intermediate term. Plan your life in the two to five year increments rather than what’s going to happen 20 years down the um, road. What I’ve noticed more and more in the last few years is that professors no longer stay in the same academic job for for the entire career. They move a lot more, they quit academia a lot more. So focusing on the best financial decision for the next two to five years ends up being better long term than trying to guess where you’re going to be in 20 years. The newest thing I have is, um, a brand new podcast for academics is going to come in January, 2025, it’s going to be called Academics and Their Money. And I hope to have all of you as my listeners. If you need any more financial advice, please visit my website at attainablewealthfp.com.

Dr. Haley Sanderson

Haley S (16:01): Hi, I am Dr. Haley Sanderson from episode four, season 12. I’ve been pretty busy since my episode was taped. I finished my two year postdoc at the Vaccine Infectious Disease Organization at the University of Saskatchewan. At that point, I reached the five year limit for postdocs, but before my contract ended, I landed a permanent job as a bioinformatics programmer at agriculture in AgriFood Canada. So I finished my postdoc and then two weeks later I started a job with the federal government. Um, and that job pretty much doubled my salary. I also had my own BioMAT bioinformatics freelance business for about a year. Uh, my mental health has also improved steadily over the years and I haven’t had a major psychotic episode in years and I’m just a lot happier now. Um, right now I’m working on training for promotion at work, um, enjoying the stability that the job I have now provides and saving to buy a condo close to my family. My best financial advice for early career PhDs is to avoid staying in academia for too long and maybe even avoiding postdocs altogether unless you’re learning a new skill that’s transferable to other sectors. Um, try to avoid getting stuck in the academic job market because you can be successful in a lot of different places and always look for how your skills can be used and how they can be more valuable elsewhere. Uh, thanks. Bye.

Brittany Trinh

Brittany T (17:51): Hi everyone, my name is Brittany Trinh and I am the host of the Beyond Your Science podcast. I was previously on PF for PhDs, um, in season 14, episode four where I talked about deferring my graduate school acceptance to work on my finances. Since the last episode, I have now started my own podcast called The Beyond Your Science Podcast, where I talk about science, creativity, and entrepreneurship and what that looks like for people in stem. I also used to work with clients one-on-one and provided workshops on website design, but since then I have shifted away from that model and started working, um, more on the backend side of things where I am collaborating with Jennifer van Alstyne of the academic designer in team VIP days. And in a team VIP day, um, we work together to design a website in one day. In my episode, I shared some advice about using your skills to create extra income and I still stand by that. Um, so an a new piece of advice that I’d like to share is to make sure that, um, when you transfer your 401k from a previous employer, um, is number one, to not avoid it, uh, just call the company and they will help you transfer it into a Vanguard account. And number two is once it does hit your Vanguard account, um, make sure that it is sitting in an actual mutual fund or ETF and being invested and not just sitting in a money market fund. And I’m sharing this advice because this is something that happened to me recently. I was pretty avoidant about calling the, um, 401k company, but it was only like a 30 minute call. And then, um, when I finally did get it transferred over, I assumed it would just be transferred into a mutual fund. And I didn’t really know how the Vanguard website worked until recently and I have now learned that my funds were not being invested anywhere. Um, but you know what we learned from the experience and now I’m sharing that with you all. Um, so that hopefully you don’t make the same mistake. If you would like to connect with me, you can find me on LinkedIn at Brittany Trinh, that’s T-R-I-N-H or on my website brittanytrinh.com for more info about my podcast Beyond your Science and other website Design Tips.

Outtro

Emily (20:35): 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 Dr. Lourdes Bobbio and show notes creation by Dr. Jill Hoffman.

This Former Prof Found True Flexibility and Profitability in Her Academic Editing Business

December 2, 2024 by Jill Hoffman Leave a Comment

In this episode, Emily interviews Dr. Paulina Cossette, a former professor and the owner of Acadia Editing. Paulina followed the prescribed academic path, but found herself profoundly unhappy in her faculty position. After leaving academia, Paulina stumbled into academic editing and eventually started working under her own brand. As a business owner, Paulina earns more, works less, and has true flexibility, which has enabled her to design her lifestyle in a way that was not possible within academia.

Links mentioned in the Episode

This Former Prof Found True Flexibility and Profitability in Her Academic Editing Business

Teaser

Paulina (00:00): The system makes it unsustainable, particularly if you have kids, though, not exclusively. Um, and so I think I just reached a breaking point, you know, and, and it really wasn’t planned.

Introduction

Emily (00:24): Welcome to the Personal Finance for PhDs Podcast: A Higher Education in Personal Finance. This podcast is for PhDs and PhDs-to-be who want to explore the hidden curriculum of finances to learn the best practices for money management, career advancement, and advocacy for yourself and others. I’m your host, Dr. Emily Roberts, a financial educator specializing in early-career PhDs and founder of Personal Finance for PhDs.

Emily (00:53): This is Season 19, Episode 8, and today my guest is Dr. Paulina Cossette, a former professor and the owner of Acadia Editing. Paulina followed the prescribed academic path, but found herself profoundly unhappy in her faculty position. After leaving academia, Paulina stumbled into academic editing and eventually started working under her own brand. As a business owner, Paulina earns more, works less, and has true flexibility, which has enabled her to design her lifestyle in a way that was not possible within academia. If you’ve been enjoying this podcast and want to see it continue, would you please help spread the word? Take a minute to leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, text a recent episode that you enjoyed to a friend, or give it a shout-out on social media. Any of those actions helps me to grow Personal Finance for PhDs and continue finding amazing guests for the interviews. You can find the show notes for this episode at PFforPhDs.com/s19e8/. Without further ado, here’s my interview with Dr. Paulina Cossette.

Will You Please Introduce Yourself Further?

Emily (02:15): I am delighted to have joining me on the podcast today, Dr. Paulina Cossette, who is a former professor and currently has a business called Acadia Editing Services. I’m really excited to learn about her business journey, her exit from academia, all that kind of related stuff. And so, Paulina, welcome to the podcast, and will you please introduce yourself to the audience a little bit further?

Paulina (02:36): Yeah, thanks so much for having me, Emily. Um, so I used to be a political science professor. Um, I was in academia for about 12 years, uh, and in 2019, um, I had a 1-year-old child and I was just sort of, uh, very overwhelmed, um, and getting fed up with the lifestyle of academia, having to work seven days a week, you know, just facing that burnout, especially having just had a baby. Um, and so I decided to quit and we moved aco- across the country to live in Maine near our family. And I sort of fell into copy editing. And, you know, long story short, uh, four or five years later, here I am, I have a successful editing business and I work from home for myself. Um, and life is good.

Emily (03:28): I love this concept. Okay. Are you familiar with Cal Newport?

Paulina (03:32): Yes.

Emily (03:33): Okay, so I’m gonna get his like, name of this wrong, but it’s like lifestyle centered career design, something like that. Have you heard him talk about this lifestyle centric career design? Something like that? Um, so that really sounds like, I mean, you said you fell into it, but it, I mean, it really sounds like that’s kinda what you were doing, right? You had built up career capital in academia and then said, Nope, my lifestyle is more important than this particular job, and so I’m gonna pivot and use this career capital in another area that supports how I want my full life to look like. Okay. So very, very great brief introduction, but let’s kind of dive, you know, more into this and sort of starting back from the beginning of the academic journey, like what led you into the career in academia in the first place?

Dr. Paulina Cossette’s Academic Journey

Paulina (04:17): So I, you know, I was always a good student. Um, I was a first generation college student, so I didn’t really have guidance on any of that other than my grandparents who were always saying, you have to go to college because that’s how you succeed. And I just, I liked school and I liked learning, so I just, I went to college, um, I kept, I just kept going and, you know, I started doing research, uh, as an undergrad and then went on to get a, the PhD program and I didn’t really have a plan, you know, I just sort of enjoyed being in school. And then once you get to graduate school, I think this is true for many people. Um, your advisors direct you towards academia and, you know, I was in political science, so there weren’t, there wasn’t any discussion of alternatives of industry or, you know, working in government or anything else. Uh, and I didn’t really know, uh, I didn’t know any other options. And, you know, they said, you apply to these schools and you get the tenure track job, and it doesn’t matter if you don’t like where you’re living, that’s just part of it, you know, you don’t have to stay there forever. And so I, I think like many people, I sort of fell into this funnel, you know, of like, this is, this is what you do, and I just did what I was told. And, um, it worked for a little while, but that was a recipe ultimately for disaster. So, um, so yeah, I, I loved school and I loved learning, but it was just sort of like, I, I just kept doing what I was supposed to do, uh, and ended up, you know, ended up there and not very happy.

Emily (05:56): Hmm. I wonder if I was on a track similar to this myself, um, up until the point in graduate school, um, when I discovered personal finance, actually. And that’s when I figured out like, oh, people have like all kinds of different jobs and businesses sometimes, and like some people work part-time and some people retire. And like all the, it’s just sort of opened my mind. And not that I was on necessarily an academic track, but certainly to stay in research, that was my intention. Um, so that is so interesting, and I totally, I totally understand how that would happen, but also good on you for being successful, even in something where you were like, I’m just following the prescribed path here. Um, but clearly it, it went well for you for a time at any rate. Right? And then you sort of, you know, briefly said earlier that the timing of you leaving your job was, you know, around when your child was very young. Is there anything else you wanna share about that decision to leave and like maybe what you thought you were jumping into next?

Paulina (06:52): Yeah, I think, um, it was a long time coming and I’m actually, I’m reading Annie Duke’s book Quit right now, where she talks about how we put off this decision to quit far longer than we should. Um, and it, it brings back a lot of memories. ‘Cause that was the exact situation that I was in, that I was so unhappy. And I thought, well, maybe it’s just the school I’m at. So I went on the job market and I changed schools, and I was, it was better, but I was still unhappy. It’s still, you know, and like I said, I I, I had my son. I was working seven days a week, and it was just, the system makes it unsustainable, um, particularly if you have kids, though not exclusively. Um, and so I think I just reached a breaking point, you know, and, and it really wasn’t planned. Um, my husband and I had talked for a long time about moving, um, his mom had been diagnosed with lung cancer. Uh, and so all of these factors were sort of playing on our minds until we finally reached this breaking point and said, you know, I said, I just can’t do this anymore. And it was the summer of 2019 and I resigned and we sold our house and we moved to Maine. And I had no idea what I was gonna do. I, you know, I thought I would go on the non-academic job market, trying to find something around here in Maine, which is not, you know, there aren’t a lot of options, um, trying to find remote positions. And I kept striking out, you know, people kept telling me I was overqualified or I wasn’t the right fit, or they decided not to hire anyone. Or like, it was, it was a really demoralizing experience, you know, feeling like, I have all this training and education, I’m smart, I’m hardworking, but nobody sees that, you know? And I think a lot of people go through that where they just don’t know how to translate the academic lingo into industry lingo, um, on a resume. And so I had just written a book and we had worked with a freelance copy editor in as part of the process of publishing it. And I thought, oh, well I could do that. I’m a really good writer. Everybody always tells me I’m, I’m a good writer, you know, I can edit. And so initially I thought it would be temporary, but I ended up loving it. And, you know, like you were saying about the lifestyle change, uh, this was shortly before Covid and then Covid happened and I thought, oh my God, I’m so glad I’m working from home. I’m so glad I didn’t take a job in an office. Um, ’cause especially with little kids, you know, I didn’t wanna be having to go off to work and then come home and potentially, you know, getting sick or something. So, um, yeah, so I really just fell into it, um, and ended up loving it, and everything has just grown from there.

Building an Academic Editing Business

Emily (09:45): Amazing story. And I, I mean, I think so many people in academia, whether that’s just as grad students or postdocs or whether that’s a career in the professorship type position after that can relate to this. I mean, there’s so many like academic exit stories like floating around in the last 10 years. Um, even on this podcast. It hasn’t been published at the time that we were recording this interview, but an upcoming episode is someone with a very similar story of having gotten that tenure track position and then just, it was not the right fit and ended up quitting, moving across the country, you know, familial reasons in the mix, kids in the mix, all that stuff, not surprisingly another woman. Um, so there’ll be echoes of that same like, motivation, um, between these two interviews as well. Um, and so I’m so glad that you found something that you loved, but it, it, it does sound like you are casting around and applying for different things and trying different things and, um, not sitting stagnant, but really like pursuing some different things until you found something that was an awesome fit. And I, I just love that. So let us know more about your business now, like, um, it’s been a few years since you like started it. So what does it look like now?

Paulina (10:47): Um, so when I first started out, I was very much a freelancer. The idea of being an entrepreneur was like, that’s too much for me. That sounds like a lot of risk. I could never do that. Um, and so I started out freelancing for some different companies that we usually refer to as editing agencies, um, where you have scholars from all over the world upload their documents and then the company hires you as a freelancer to edit them.

Emily (11:16): I worked in such a service as a side hustle for several years, yes.

Paulina (11:19): Oh, fantastic. So, you know that it is not ideal and the pay is not very good, but when you’re just starting out, it’s a great way to learn the business. You know, you are, um, it’s essentially, I tell my students it’s on the job training. You know, it’s if, if you’re faculty, you know how to do academic editing, um, but you’ve just never done it at the level that is required, you know, in professional editing, fixing every mistake using advanced tools and word track changes, all that stuff. And so I think working for these agencies is a great way to get that initial experience. And my mistake was that I just stayed there too long. You know, I didn’t have enough confidence in myself. Um, I saw other editors in these Facebook groups talking about how the way you make real money is to get private clients. And I thought, oh, I’m not good enough for that. You know, like the, the academic imposter syndrome carried over into this new life, unfortunately. Um, but eventually I got more and more experience and I decided probably a year or two ago, you know what, I’m just gonna go for it. And I started, uh, connecting with some private clients. And at first it was just a handful of people, but I, my confidence grew and I, and, and people were happy with my work. And so I realized that I really am good at this. And I think, you know, I wish it hadn’t taken me so long. Um, I did have a second child in that period, so I, I, you know, had other things going on. But, um, but yeah, I think I’ve, I’ve learned so much from building a business, you know, and, uh, a lot of it is just having confidence in myself. But a lot of it also is also that, you know, a lot of PhDs, um, think that they don’t have any skills that they can apply outside academia. I think they’re, they’re terrified to leave graduate school or their academic position because they think that they’re not gonna be able to do anything else. But there’s so much about a PhD or other doctoral program that trains you to be successful. You know, you’re hardworking, you’re persistent, you’re creative, you’ve got thick skin, you know, like all of this stuff. You’re a, a pretty good writer, probably. Um, you know how to do research, you like to learn new things. Um, all of this, no matter whether you wanna go into editing or business or, you know, industry or whatever, you have so many skills that you can apply elsewhere. And I think that the process of building a business has taught me that

Emily (13:55): I agree so much. I actually, right when I was, I guess around the time I started my business, which is also the time that I finished graduate school, I was kind of, yeah, I was trying some different things, sort of like you did for a little while. And, um, I, I remember writing a blog post about like, the similarities between like entrepreneurship and, um, the academic life. And in addition, all those, all those characters, which that you mentioned are totally, I totally agree with them. And I don’t remember if you had this in there, but I really focused a lot on like, sort of being, um, like a self-starter slash really in charge of your own work in an independent way by the time you finish a PhD. Or certainly if you go beyond that, um, very similar to being like a solopreneur or like the top person in like a business. Um, and also for me anyway, working alone. ’cause like I am a solopreneur, so I work with contractors, but I don’t have employees of my own. Um, and so that was also very similar to like, okay in, when I was in graduate school, like I had some collaborators, but I, I worked my own projects. And so like, not being part of a closely working together team was very similar to me between those two like environments. So yeah, I mean, and I actually, I really relate also to your experience of like, I’m gonna try this, um, mode of work first as like a freelancer. So working for somebody else’s business, whether as an employee or as a contractor, either way you would sort of learn what the business is and then eventually gaining the confidence, as you said, to strike out on your own and sort of do it under your own branding. But coming with that, uh, there’s much more responsibility for actually getting clients. So like, that’s the part when I was doing the freelance, like editing work, I loved that I didn’t have to get clients, I just had to do the work. Whereas when you become the business owner, like the sales aspect is something you have responsibility for. So that’s a tough, like, that’s a big role to like add when you’re making that shift. Do you have anything else that you’d like to add to that?

Paulina (15:45): Um, yeah, you know, what you just said about, uh, marketing and things being just a bit more challenging. And that’s exactly what I tell my students is like, it’s not ideal to start out working for these editing agencies that pay less, but it lets you focus on that training, uh, and, and really perfect your editing skills before you then go out and try to attract private clients. ’cause marketing does take a lot of work. It is, you know, I don’t wanna paint the picture that entrepreneurship is easy because it’s not, but um, it certainly does pay off when you get there, you know, and you figure out how to connect with people. And I think, um, I also agree with what you were saying about the similarities between being faculty or being in academia and being a solopreneur is one of the biggest things that I hear from people that they’re terrified to leave academia because they don’t wanna lose their flexibility. And I always push back on that because, um, I don’t think academia is all that flexible. You know, there’s a meme that’s gone around that says, academia lets you work, or you have to work seven days a week, but you can choose any seven days a week that you want. Uh, and it’s so true, you know, but being, being an in entrepreneurship, you, you do, you get to keep that flexibility and you’re not working nine to five.

Emily (17:03): Hmm. I agree. Like it might be a big shift for like an employee to then strike out on their own in a business, an employee in the sense of like, not in an academic setting where like maybe you work your 40 or your 45 or your 50 hours, but you can kind of turn it off and you don’t have a ton of responsibilities like outside of that. But in the way that academia can be all consuming business also can be all consuming. And so whatever skills you’ve learned about, like the boundaries that you can put up can, it can also be translated between those two settings. And like you said, academia is flexible in the sense of like, yeah, exactly. You are just gonna have a ton to do. So like, pick what you’re gonna do, all that ton of work. And, you know, business ownership is a little bit different because you can sort of define the scope a little bit better. Someone else isn’t defining it for you of how much work there is to do.

Commercial

Emily (17:47): Emily here for a brief interlude! I’m hard at work behind the scenes updating my suite of tax return preparation workshops for tax year 2024. These educational workshops explain how to identify, calculate, and report your higher education-related income and expenses on your federal tax return. For the 2024 tax season starting in January 2025, I’m offering live and pre-recorded workshops for US citizen/resident graduate students and postdocs and non-resident graduate students and postdocs. Would you please reach out to your graduate school, graduate student government, postdoc office, international house, fellowship coordinator, etc. to request that they host one or more of these workshops for you and your peers? I’d love to receive a warm introduction to a potential sponsor this fall so we can hit the ground running in January serving those early bird filers. You can find more information about hosting these workshops at P F f o r P h D s dot com slash tax dash workshops. Please pass that page on to the potential sponsor. Now back to our interview.

Personal Finances as a Professor and as a Business Owner

Emily (19:03): Let’s talk about the money part of this. So compare, you know, your job as a professor, what that paid and what it required of you to what you’re doing now. Like how have your, I’ll say, how have your personal finances changed with this transition? And there’s a lot of transitions in there. You mentioned, you know, multiple children moving across the country. Care, you know, caring for elderly parents. Like there’s a lot in there. So like how has your financial situation changed from when you had that previous position to, to now?

Paulina (19:30): So, um, with editing specifically, uh, so much of how much you can earn is based on how quickly you can edit because there are some editors who charge hourly, but I think that’s sort of on the way out. I think both editors and clients like to charge per word. So, you know, for each project you can give a quote, uh, based on your per word rate, you know about how much you’re gonna make based on your editing speed. The client knows what they’re gonna pay. And so, um, obviously the faster you can work while, you know, being accurate still, uh, the more money you can make. And so I think I am fortunate because I can edit pretty quickly, um, certainly as I’ve gotten more experienced. Um, and so I would say that, you know, my, I was making about $60,000 when I was a, an assistant professor on the tenure track in political science when I left, plus the benefits. And, you know, you, when you have a salary job, they’re contributing to your health insurance and retirement and all that, which you obviously lose when you go freelance. Um, my first year out of my first year of freelance editing, I made about 45,000, and that was working maybe 20 to 25 hours a week. Um, and you know, just kind of trying to figure out the landscape. Uh, my second year I made the same amount, but I took three months off because I had my daughter, uh, and wanted to take time for that. Um, and then within the last few years, it’s just climbed steadily, especially when I started working with private clients. And, you know, you’re not having to, you can charge much more. You’re not giving up those costs to some other company that’s employing you. Um, and this year I’m set to hit six figures. So, uh, and that’s only working about 30 hours a week. So, you know, there are a lot of editors out there who struggle with finding clients, but I’ve, I’ve somehow managed to find this formula that lets me, that has let me build up a client base with referrals and repeat clients and just new people finding me through Google or whatever. Um, and I’ve had a lot of success. And so, you know, I’m, I’m happy to share that with other people, uh, you know, to, to try to help them find their way out of academia.

Emily (21:52): Hmm. So it’s while not, and immediately upon that transition, it’s the business that you’ve built over time, I would say does compensate you well, more than, um, the academic position did, even after accounting for the benefits and so forth. And you’re limiting your work to 30 hours a week as you said, whereas it was whatever, 60, 70, whatever it was when you were in academia. Um, awesome. I’m glad to hear that both the up the upside of more money and less time both together. That’s amazing. Um, so when you volunteered for this interview, you said that you had a message for academics who are unsatisfied with their jobs like you were. So what’s that message?

A Message for Academics Who Are Unsatisfied With Their Jobs

Paulina (22:33): Um, I, if, if I could just talk to every unhappy academic, you know, I would say you don’t have to stay you if you are miserable. And you know what, if you are in academia and you’re happy, that’s fantastic. Uh, that that’s wonderful. But there are so many people out there who are unhappy and they’re terrified to leave for all the reasons we’ve been talking about, and they just feel trapped. And, you know, in the so many people that I’ve talked to in the last several months, um, you can see the anguish in their faces, you know, you hear it in their voices and, and I know exactly what that feels like. The anxiety, the stomach churn, the do I leave? Do I stay, do I leave? Do I stay? Uh, it’s horrible and I don’t want that for anyone, you know? And so if I could, if I could tell anyone who is unhappy, that’s, that’s my message is, you know, if you wanna go into editing, great. I’d love to help you get there. But, uh, no matter what you wanna do, um, you just don’t stay right. Life is too short to, um, life is too short to be unhappy and to not do what you wanna do.

Emily (23:40): Incredible. I absolutely agree. Life is too short. I’m, I’m 39 now, and so I am, I’m not having a midlife crisis, but I’m having a midlife like rethink, like, yeah, this, this is my life. Like, am I happy with the choices that I’ve been making? Most of them, yes, I am very happy. Um, what can I do differently? You know, going forward, what can make this an even better experience for me? Because you only get one life. And so to spend your twenties and your thirties and into your forties, maybe like as you just described, like dreading every day at work. Absolutely. Life is too short. Um, so totally agree. Will you please tell us more about like, well, one, where can, where can people find you if they want to, you know, employ your editing services? And I understand there’s another arm to your business actually, which is like helping other people make this kind of transition. So tell us about all that.

Get in Touch With Dr. Paulina Cossette

Paulina (24:31): Yeah, so for editing, um, my homepage is acadiaediting.com. Um, and you can also find me on Instagram, Facebook, uh, LinkedIn. Um, and that’s, that’s pretty straightforward. If you have an editing project, I usually just ask to see a draft and give a quote and happy to help whether it’s, uh, you know, a dissertation or journal article or even I’ve edited tenure packets and job market letters. Um, and then yeah, this summer I launched a digital course and group coaching program called Becoming an Academic Editor. Uh, we’ve just wrapped our first cohort. Uh, it’s a 12 week program and we’ve started our second cohort, um, so far over 20 people have gone through it. Um, and it basically, I teach you what I did, right? How to start freelance editing, how to build a website, how to find clients, um, and it’s really awesome because of that we do these weekly Zoom calls and you’re just surrounded by people who are just like you, who understand how horrible academia can be and who are ready to get started with, you know, like you were saying with that, that midlife change of, uh, really starting to pursue what makes us happy instead of what we feel like we were supposed to be doing.

Emily (25:52): That sounds incredible. And actually not to like whatever, get content out of your course, but when you described your transition, you left the job first and then you started and you found editing after having, after struggling to find another position. And so I would imagine what you’re teaching people now is, okay, you already have an idea that you might wanna edit. Let’s start that on the side before we quit the big job. Is that right?

Paulina (26:16): There’s honestly, there’s a mix of people. Um, some found me and I had one student who said she was in a therapy appointment and decided she had to leave academia and she went home and googled it and she found my website and enrolled in the course right away. Uh, other people have started editing on their own and are not having success. They’re struggling to find work, and so they find me and, and are able to get some help. Um, other people, yeah, they just wanna make some extra money, you know, they don’t wanna leave their academic job and they like that with freelancing. They can work five or 10 hours a week editing and bring in some extra cash or do it in the summer or whatever. Um, so it’s really, it works no matter what your situation is, as long as you’re a strong writer and you understand academic publishing, then you know, it’s, it’s totally doable for whatever your timing and all that.

Emily (27:10): I love it. Um, I’ll share that. Like I, when I was doing this kind of work, which I did for, I don’t know, maybe three years or so, four years, um, strictly as a, you know, contractor for another company, um, I did it as a side hustle and I started it after I defended as I was starting personal finance for PhDs and it wasn’t bringing in as much money as I wanted to bring in yet. So it was like another, it was truly like for the money, that’s why I was doing it. I didn’t anticipate having a career in this area or anything. Um, but when I started I was like, wow, I could have been doing this earlier, like I could have been doing this during graduate school as a side hustle. Like, um, and I liked that it was within, it was all within kinda my area of expertise and like that was really like nice that I still got to use those skills. Um, so I think at any stage, if you wanna pick it up and whether it’s gonna be a thing on the side or whether it’s gonna be like you are really doing this like for a lot of time and it’s gonna be one of your main sources of income, uh, maybe transitioning on to being your full-time income, like, that’s awesome. So I’m glad that people can find you if they’re curious about this career path.

Best Financial Advice for Another Early-Career PhD

Emily (28:09): Um, let’s wrap up with the question that I ask all of my guests, which is, what is your best financial advice for another early career PhD? And that could be something that we’ve touched on already in the interview or something completely new.

Paulina (28:22): So, um, so my biggest piece of advice I think is, you know, we all know we’re supposed to save and have a budget and all that stuff, but at some point, if you’re not earning enough money, enough money, you can’t save, right? I, I grew up with a single mom with not very much money at all. And so I know you, you just can’t save if there’s not enough coming in. And so for anybody who is getting their PhD and thinking about going on the job market, absolutely you need to negotiate. Uh, and I think this is especially important for women in particular who, you know, we don’t apply to jobs because we think we don’t, we’re not qualified. Um, whereas men will apply to any job that you know that they feel like they’re extra qualified for, even if they’re not. Um, so apply to jobs when you get an offer. Negotiate, right? Don’t be a don’t be afraid to ask for what you’re worth and, uh, let them tell you no, right? Like don’t, don’t assume that you’re not gonna get it and then be afraid to ask. Just go for it ’cause you deserve it.

Emily (29:25): Awesome. I love it. Okay, we’ll leave it there. Thank you so much for volunteering to come on the podcast. It was delightful talking with you.

Paulina (29:32): Thanks so much, Emily. It’s been fun.

Outtro

Emily (29:44): Listeners, thank you for joining me for this episode! I have a gift for you! You know that final question I ask of all my guests regarding their best financial advice? 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 Dr. Lourdes Bobbio and show notes creation by Dr. Jill Hoffman.

Negotiation and Long-Term Thinking Effected Financial Success for This International PhD

November 18, 2024 by Jill Hoffman

In this episode, Emily interviews Wen, who recently earned a PhD in plant pathology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Wen came to the US for her master’s degree immediately after finishing undergrad and started learning about the US financial system, even though she had an avoidant money mindset. After overdrafting her checking account, she realized she needed to take control of her finances, start thinking long-term, and work toward financial goals such as investing inside a Roth IRA. Alongside peers, Wen negotiated the research assistantship stipends in her department, they were ultimately given a 13% raise. She has started applying those negotiation skills in other arenas. Finally, Wen explains how she pursued a career in tech transfer, starting with professional development and an internship during grad school.

Links mentioned in the Episode

Teaser

Wen (00:01): Um, yeah, I, I think I want to circle back, um, the negotiation again. Um, I want to, uh, emphasize, um, negotiation. It’s not only like what the stipend could be like, I think every grad student could ask more from their PI, um, you know, sponsor me to this conference. This is a good workshop I want to do, and this is a career event I want to attend, and can you sponsor me? Can you cover that for me? Um, and there’s everything there. There’s a lot of things online. Talk about negotiation and everything. So I, I do want to share that. Um, when I purchased my second car, um, I watched a bunch of videos on YouTube, how to talk to the dealership, and, uh, just, um, trying to negotiate the best option for myself. Um, it was a quite funny, like real life big purchase that I went to the dealership, uh, and the dealer just thought I’m a innocent, uh, foreigner. <laugh> doesn’t, didn’t know what’s going on. And, um, so I think I, um, really take advantage of negotiation and know that what’s the best for me and, um, argue that, uh, those, those terms. And, um, yeah, I, I learned a lot of from practicing, uh, negotiation. And, um, advocate for myself.

Introduction

Emily (02:02): 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 (02:32): This is Season 19, Episode 7, and today my guest is Wen, a recent PhD graduate in plant pathology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Wen came to the US for her master’s degree immediately after finishing undergrad and started learning about the US financial system, even though she had an avoidant money mindset. After overdrafting her checking account, she realized she needed to take control of her finances, start thinking long-term, and work toward financial goals such as investing inside a Roth IRA. Alongside peers, Wen negotiated the research assistantship stipends in her department, and they were ultimately given a 13% raise. She has subsequently applied those negotiation skills in other arenas. Finally, Wen explains how she pursued a career in tech transfer, starting with professional development and an internship during grad school.

Emily (03:24): I have a quick update for you on the tax return preparation workshops that I’m offering next spring. I’m super excited for my planned live in person workshops in California and Colorado and also my live virtual workshops for universities in Minnesota, Missouri, and New York. I’m sure there will be many more universities offering my asynchronous workshops as well. If you want to learn if your university is already on my list for a live or asynchronous workshop or want to help me get one offered at your university, please email me! You can reach me at emily at P F f o r P h D s dot com. You can find the show notes for this episode at PFforPhDs.com/s19e7/. Without further ado, here’s my interview with Wen.

Will You Please Introduce Yourself Further?

Emily (04:25): I am delighted to have joining me on the podcast today. Wen, who is a postdoc in tech transfer at a university in Texas, and she’s going to share with us about her sort of financial transition to the United States as an international graduate student and now postdoc. And also about, uh, her pivot to the field of tech transfer. So that’s really exciting. Uh, Wen will you please introduce yourself a little bit further for the audience?

Wen (04:50): Yes. Uh, thank you Emily. Um, my name is Wen and I’m a recent PhD graduate, uh, from University of Wisconsin Madison, and my major is plant pathology. And, um, when I started my PhD, uh, four years ago, um, I, I wasn’t sure about much about financial situations and all my career plans, so I’m glad, um, things are work out, uh, currently and, uh, really, um, happy to share with people in the, uh, going through grad school. Um, so yeah, and I currently start, I just started working as a tech transfer early professional as a postdoc position at university, uh, in Texas and help researchers to protect their, uh, IP and licensing the IP to, uh, the, the industry. So it’s quite interesting and fun new, um, career for me.

Finances During Childhood and Young Adulthood in China

Emily (05:57): Yeah, that is great. Tech transfer was very intriguing to me when I was in graduate school as well, and definitely a career that I considered, uh, before starting my business. I want to actually take a step back and would you please tell us a little bit about how you grew up and your young adulthood, at least in terms of your finances, um, up until the point that you came to the US so we can understand a little bit of your background and your mindset?

Wen (06:20): Yeah, so I came to United States in 2018 when I finished my college back in China, Beijing. So before that, um, before I was 22, I spent my whole life in China. So I would see that the bigger picture of how I grew up is China was, uh, developing country and we have fast economic and financial growing throughout my, the, that two decades is I live there and how that affect my early, uh, adult year is we, not only me, but my parents, they went through a insufficient, uh, lifestyle to kind of going to be self-sufficient and to industrialize and to eventually abundant, uh, lifestyle. Um, I think that affect me in the way that okay, situations always change and I don’t feel like I need to plan for financial situation when I grow up, especially rely on my parents. And that’s quite Asian family culture, um, that parents help children to, uh, uh, fund that college and find job and, um, kind of help them to establish their, the family, new family in the future too. So I don’t have many financial literacy, uh, when I came into u uh, the, the us. And another personal, um, background about my family is my parents they are, uh, they own a family business, so they always talk money, um, in our private family life, and they would argue and things get stressful. And when I went to, uh, sleep a lot of times, and I think that just make me, doesn’t feel positive to talk about money or thinking about what can money do. Um, yeah, so I don’t consider much about learning financial stuff, uh, even in college, uh, when I make, uh, decisions on what to study. So I just follow my interest in biology, went to, uh, plant pathology and decide to pursue higher education. Um, because I wasn’t thinking about making money, it was kind of a hard topic for me to discuss or openly to look into what do I need to do? Yeah. Until I, uh, came to United States and explore things on my own here.

Emily (09:15): Yeah, that’s really fascinating. And I’m sorry if this is like overly like reductionistic, but it sounds like you developed a bit of an avoidant mindset around money because both of being provided for by your parents and in an increasing lifestyle over time, right? Things are getting better and better lifestyle wise, and also because of the stress that money, um, caused in your household and that you absorbed some of that. And so that sort of came together to be like, well, it’s, it’s all okay and I don’t wanna think about it. Does that make sense? Yes.

Wen (09:46): Yes.

Adapting to the US Financial System

Emily (09:47): Okay. So then there’s a big shift right when you get to the us. Can you tell us, uh, about that and, and how it happened and how you were feeling and how you adapted to this new system?

Wen (09:59): Yeah, so when I came to us, I started my master program in Ohio State. Um, and I was awarded the research assistantship, so the regular RA stipend to start. Um, and it was quite efficient for me to, uh, start living there because, uh, to cover rent and, uh, groceries. Um, I was just excited to just experience all things. Um, and I got my first credit card, uh, when I came to United States. It’s not a thing in China. Um, and I got my first a used car, um, in my second year. Um, but I think there is a, there was a turning point when after I pay my, um, car payment to buy the car, my bank account, I didn’t realize it went to negative. Um, and I got, uh, a fine of the overdraft fee, $39. I still remember that. So I went, um, really anxious. I’m like, how could this happen? And, uh, the bank can just take, uh, overdraft fee from me. And, um, I think I was able to argue with them saying, Hey, it was my first time I was, I was new to this system. So at that point I realized, okay, like, um, I need to take serious on my situation. I need to plan and budget very well to buy things, um, and know how much number in my account, how much do I have. And, um, so I’d say more and, uh, during Covid I moved to Madison, Wisconsin, which is a higher cost of living city, um, for grad student. Um, I just starting to saving even more, um, for the moving and, um, adjust to their high rent here.

Emily (12:15): Can you say a little bit more about how you got into that, more of like long-term or annual planning? Um, because I can imagine that’s a really, that’s a really difficult thing for someone who’s, you know, within a year or two of being financially independent from their parents. I know it took me several years to start sort of pushing that time horizon out for the planning, right? Like, did you use any like tools or, I don’t know, anything that would help someone else who’s going through that transition?

Wen (12:45): So at beginning I do ha- uh, in my first year in Madison, I want to focus on getting to know my own financial habits, uh, tracking my spending, and I just downloaded very simple, um, Excel sheet from the website to track down my spending. Um, and I realized I eat, uh, a a I spend more money take out and, uh, some online shopping and necessary fashion stuff, um, into some unnecessary items. Um,

Emily (13:28): Sounds pretty typical pandemic spending though, right? <laugh>

Wen (13:32): I know, and investing couples hobbies. Um, yeah, I think those the first step is getting to know myself and, um, get rid of their, the spending. I didn’t realize I, I was, I was doing. And then I figured out if I want to save extra, um, cutting spend, it’s one thing. And another thing is I found some resources on campus. Um, back then, we do have international student group that, uh, we will go to their, uh, local food pantry that’s on campus. Um, and there are very fresh produce. We’ll go weekly with, uh, a bunch of international students and we, it’s just like, uh, grocery shopping and I will, I got save quite a lot of money from that. And sometimes our dining hall, um, they will have extra dining food and they will pack very well and give to students. I think all this, um, on campus activity, uh, on campus nresources help me allow to save some, um, necessary spending as well. Um, and it’s a way for me to find my community that time.

Emily (15:03): Yeah. Thank you so much for, for sharing that. Um, is there anything else that you wanted to add about kind of adapting to the US um, financial system?

Wen (15:12): I think getting the social security number and um, just a first debit card was, uh, essential for us to get paid. Um, and establish that is very important, especially, um, I need the social security number to apply, uh, the credit card later and, um, be aware that having credit card is essential for, for future, like the credit scores, um, which I wasn’t educate, educated, uh, in that perspective back in China. We don’t use credit score. Um, and also I just think it’s extremely more important for international student have the emergency, um, savings because we don’t have, um, the, the, the support that domestic students have, um, and always have that saving would just help so much. Um, and at the same time take advantage of the health insurance, the benefits that, uh, come with our student staff. And I always use my dental and vision and um, uh, insurance, um, coverage every year. Um, so those are now counted by numbers, but they are financial. Um, they could be financial spendings in the future. Um, yeah.

Stipend Increase During Grad School

Emily (16:53): Yeah, that’s great that you have that insurance provided you by your program. I know not everybody has that, but it’s something that more and more programs are adding if they don’t already have it. So I believe you told me in advance of our interview that you increased your stipend during the course of graduate school. Can you tell me how that happened?

Wen (17:10): Yeah, I think, uh, it’s just a, a process of negotiation between our grad student, um, group, uh, with our department. And when I started my PhD four years ago, uh, we had that huge inflation that like about 8%, um, that year. So I realized our department only increased like about 2% into the student stipend that year. Um, and the something I think it’s critical is timing. Um, most of the universities, or at least our department will decide how much to pay the year ahead for student. So for example, this August we, the department will submit their budget for next, um, next year’s, next fall students, um, payment. So I just couldn’t, um, thinking about like this lack of, um, catching up <laugh> eventually just will make our stipend pay so behind, um, the current raise of rent. Um, so in my first year I realized this financial hardship, but I think we started talking about it. Um, and until second year, I actually joined the student body, uh, kind of our grad student council, and I initiated more discussion. We talked to other departments, grad students as well. Um, and eventually I designed a survey, um, right after actually, uh, nature published a paper on the graduate student stipend survey results. Hmm.

Emily (19:17): Was that the biology PhD stipends one?

Wen (19:21): Yeah, I think so. It has a bunch of, um, PhD programs, data that related to our program.

Emily (19:29): Yeah.

Wen (19:29): Uh, entomology, plant pathology, horticulture. So

Emily (19:32): We’ll link to the episode that I did with the, uh, one of the co-founders of that, uh, database. So we’ll link to that in the show notes.

Wen (19:39): Yeah, that’s awesome. Yeah, I think getting the information about what’s going on with other universities really help us to push this forward. So I, um, we made, I made a survey about what’s our current inflation rate and cost of living in Madison specifically, um, and stipend numbers we quote from their PhD stipend.com, uh, a bunch of data and make, make, uh, we make a very informed, um, survey plus it, uh, plus like collection of the students data points. And we made a report, so we were able to present a report at our department meeting before they make a decision. And, um, you know, it’s hard to, um, really let them to, um, because they have their budget, uh, difficulty as well. So we will patiently, um, talk about this with our department, um, faculties and administrations, and I think we got their feedback. They want to, uh, so we ask more data from other universities, similar program, um, you can say like a competitor of our programs administration, uh, admission. So I think after two times, like monthly meeting like that, we were able to, they devote, um, increased stipend, um, about 13%, um, which includes a percent inflation and 5%, um, extra for their cover, our student’s fees. It’s, it’s like their activity fee we pay for the university. So our department, uh, help us on that. Um, yeah, so we got, uh, got a pretty good raise on that. And the good thing is, um, it didn’t make our students happier and, uh, have stronger adminis admission data to attract prospective, uh, students applicants. Also our, um, nearby like close program, they were able, the student body were able to kinda refer to what we do, we did and, uh, start some conversation with their department. So yeah, I, I think it was something that, um, really amplify, um, what I think that time was important. Just voice out, um, what we need as grad student, um, and, um, extra, uh, hardship for international student that time.

Emily (22:44): Yes, I love that example so much and I’m, I’m so glad to hear this story as well as we’ve heard a couple other similar ones on the podcast about departmental level negotiation.

Commercial

Emily (22:56): Emily here for a brief interlude! I’m hard at work behind the scenes updating my suite of tax return preparation workshops for tax year 2024. These educational workshops explain how to identify, calculate, and report your higher education-related income and expenses on your federal tax return. For the 2024 tax season starting in January 2025, I’m offering live and pre-recorded workshops for US citizen/resident graduate students and postdocs and non-resident graduate students and postdocs. Would you please reach out to your graduate school, graduate student government, postdoc office, international house, fellowship coordinator, etc. to request that they host one or more of these workshops for you and your peers? I’d love to receive a warm introduction to a potential sponsor this fall so we can hit the ground running in January serving those early bird filers. You can find more information about hosting these workshops at P F f o r P h D s dot com slash tax dash workshops. Please pass that page on to the potential sponsor. Now back to our interview.

Low Stipends and High Costs Impact International Students Most

Emily (24:13): So you just mentioned, especially if you’re international students, so like the way I view this, you can tell me if you agree, um, is that in that period of high inflation or I’d really any time when stipends are not keeping up with basic cost of living expenses, um, the international students are the ones who suffer the most because domestic students have sort of financial pressure release options, which are, you can get a side hustle. I mean, they, your department may not like it, but it’s legal. You can do it. Um, and or you can take out student loans. And these are just not available at least to the, you know, 90% are not available to international students. And so it’s so much more important for the international student community together with domestic students to do the type of negotiation that you just outlined, which is, let’s just raise the stipends. Can we just get these stipends up to a decent level? Do you, do you agree or like, what are your further thoughts on that?

Wen (25:06): Yeah, I, I totally, um, agree on that as well. We’re, as international students, we are restricted to apply for certain funding and look for a, a, a second shift and make extra money. Um, but I, I will say that, um, getting to know the resources out there is still, um, skill to, uh, develop, even though there are, are limited. Um, for example, that’s something related to my stories about professional development and career planning as well. Um, there are, you know, all kinds of event provide free lunch, pizza, <laugh> free dinner. So I, I try to, um, take advantage of that. Um, and it’s also a form of connecting to other students getting to know what’s going on. Um, yeah, I think be resourceful even we are restricted is, um, I think one day it, it just extra skills we develop make out of the, the, the situation. Um, yeah, so I was involved, uh, in a professional development, um, student organization called <inaudible> on campus. Um, so this is an organization help grad students, postdocs to practice, um, um, commercialization of technology. So it’s really something I really want to develop. And, um, in this, uh, organization, they hosted event to, um, work on project and they gave micro grant, which is a grant. Um, I will buy linking per, uh, subscription and take professional headshot and only use for professional development events. Um, so yeah, that covered a lot of my, um, let’s say unnecessary spending, um, that I wouldn’t spend, I wouldn’t have the capacity to spend out on my personal account, but it’s important for me in the future. Um, so I think take advantage of the resources, uh, like that will, um, be very helpful.

Financial Goals During Grad School and Beyond

Emily (27:53): Yes. Thank you so much for adding those examples. For sure. I totally agree. Um, okay, so your stipend is increasing <laugh>, it’s, it’s at least catching up to, you know, the, the damage done by inflation. Um, can you tell us about some of the financial goals that you pursued during graduate school or since graduate school?

Wen (28:10): Yeah. Um, I wouldn’t say I have a specific number to target, but I know that I want to save as much as I can and start, start investing. Um, so it’s more like explore- uh, -ation of what’s going on in the market and where the, uh, where the places and learn about all the ETF, um, and the fire movement and write books about, uh, investing. So set up, um, investing, um, with, with the, the stipend I can save, um, I, I try to, because my pay is biweekly, so I set up other automatic transfer to my saving and, um, brokerage account biweekly. Um, just couple, just not couple hundred. I think like it’s, it’s probably 10% on my paycheck each time it comes through. And I have a individual investment account and a Roth IRA in investment account. Um, and yeah, I, and mostly just looking to their, uh, VOO S-P-F, um, their ETFs, um, trying to not, uh, yeah, I don’t do like day trading and all that. Just put money in there in, uh, in there.

Emily (29:52): Sounds perfect to me. That’s the type of investing that I teach and that I, um, subscribe to. Um, what brokerage firm or firms do you mind me asking? Um, did you open your Roth IRA with or, and or your taxable brokerage account?

Wen (30:05): So, yeah, <laugh>, um, first I think, uh, firstly I use Robinhood for my individual investment account because I think it was, uh, a fun app, uh, for me to get started and to get motivated. And I, I really enjoy, simplify their investing, um, using that app. So later I got to know more about, um, the long-term investing opened. I opened uh the Fidelity, um, uh, Roth IRA and the individual accounts I transferred my, uh, the investment from Robinhood to, uh, fidelity. Um, and one thing I think about learning out this is just finding the community of people comfortable in sharing that and learning that, and listen to your podcast. Um, really at beginning of my PhD to realize, okay, I need to, uh, pay attention to my PhD stipend. I think Sam, someone shared at a grad school workshop thing, so I clicked and I subscribe, and later I did follow some podcast, her 100, uh, her first 100k writes books about like the most important thing about investing. Um, and I think I started action, just got to know people have a similar background like me. Um, there is a website called Women Overseas built by, um, Chinese, um, Chinese Women Study abroad, work abroad. And that’s really the community. I learned a lot of these things from, they will share from life to work career and, and investment. And I, yeah, I think I learned a lot from them, from their experience. A lot of the members, um, in that Open Formula firm room, they started working for years. So it was really good experience to to set up myself to that path too.

Emily (32:26): I love it. I love that, you know, my podcast became a springboard for you to investigate, you know, the subject further, and that you found a community that was like exactly, exactly what you needed. And, ugh, that just makes me so happy. I’m so pleased. There’s such a huge amount of resources, financial education related areas now, um, that kind of, everybody can find their community that reflects, you know, who they wanna see and who they wanna be. Like, and I, I get to be one of the voices in the PhD space, but then, you know, everybody has multiple aspects of their identity, so like we can expand beyond that. And oh, I just, I love that so much. Um, is there anything else you wanna add about the financial goals you’ve, uh, pursued during graduate school, aside from the investing ones?

Wen (33:08): Um, yeah, I, I think I want to circle back, um, the negotiation again. Um, I want to, uh, emphasize, um, negotiation. It’s not only like what the stipend could be like, I think every grad student could ask more from their pi, um, you know, sponsor me to this conference. This is a good workshop I want to do, and this is a career event I want to attend, and can you sponsor me? Can you cover that for me? Um, and there’s everything there, there’s a lot of things online, talk about negotiation, everything. So I, I do want to share that. Um, when I purchased my second car, um, I watched a bunch of videos on YouTube, how to talk to the dealership, and just, um, trying to negotiate the best option for myself. Um, it was a quite funny, like real life big purchase that I went to the dealership, uh, and the dealer just said, I’m a innocent, uh, foreigner. <laugh> doesn’t, didn’t know what’s going on. And, um, so I think I, um, really take advantage of negotiation and know that what’s the best for me and, um, argue that, um, those, those terms and, um, yeah, I, I learned a lot of from practicing, uh, negotiation and, um, advocate for myself.

Current Postdoc Position in Tech Transfer

Emily (35:00): Love it. And that’s a skill you’re gonna be using literally throughout the rest of your life. So it’s fantastic too, um, master that early. And especially I know that the cultures around negotiation are very different. So especially to understand how to do that in an American context, it’ll be received <laugh> by other people in, in this, uh, in this culture. Um, that’s awesome. Okay. Let’s talk about then your current postdoc position and how you got to it and why you chose to, you know, make this pivot to tech transfer. And you already mentioned earlier that, you know, there was this specific professional development group that you were involved with. So maybe you could start back there with like, the preparation and then, you know, like your choice in like, getting your new position.

Wen (35:38): Yeah. So I would say like, compared to financial goal I had at, um, beginning of my PhD, I’m more really like clear about my career goal. Um, and I took PhD as one of a professional, um, period, um, in on my resume. So I don’t think I, I don’t think I’m a student, uh, in school. I think it as a, a career I’m at right now. So I know that I am not the best person, um, best on myself to do bench science when I went in, uh, grad, uh, the PhD program here and I want to connecting people and I want to bridge the science and market, um, gap. So I know that my goal long, uh, like four years later, my PhD after PhD, I want to do that kind of thing. Um, but I learned lot doing science and talk about science. And so I think I have that goal just over my head and took other opportunities, uh, in the professional development organization. And I took extracurricular, uh, courses, um, I P, uh, that taught by another, um, economic department. And then that lead me to an internship on campus at our tech transfer office. Um, and I learned, uh, really through their internship that one year time and, and got and just confirm my interest in tech transfer space. I really enjoyed talk to scientists and, uh, about their innovation and on different, um, topics of projects and then connecting that idea to their, the, the market, what could we amplify the value of research, um, and, and license this patent. So I think like networking, uh, in, in that space and outside our university and connecting to other tech transfer office, um, just, it was a great, I talked to a lot of PhD working in that space, really see myself can make that transition. Um, so that’s what I did. I applied and talked to people and eventually landed this tech transfer, um, role. And I think it’s very, um, a good fit for me to, uh, really combine my interest in the science background.

Emily (38:34): Yeah. I love how you emphasized like we’re not in a PhD program simply to finish the PhD and do research. I mean, if that is exactly in your professional goals and you wanna just keep doing research in that area and you’re gonna stay in academia or you’re gonna pivot to something really, really close. Actually, my husband followed that path. Like his research is very close to what he did during graduate school research wise. So like, it was a good preparation, but if you wanna make any kind of a little sidestep from that, like you need to start layering on those experiences and the, that networking and, and exploration. ’cause of course you don’t necessarily know right away what your goal is going to be your career goal. So it’s, it’s about figuring things out and exploring the space. And I love that you got to do an internship. Did you say it was for a year with the tech transfer office? And so was that like a part-time thing, um, that you were doing alongside your, your normal PhD type work?

Wen (39:24): Yes. And it’s on campus. Um, it’s very flexible, uh, terms of hours with my PhD, uh, advisor’s requirements <laugh>.

Emily (39:34): So it was something you had to again, negotiate with your advisor, right? To take a little bit of time to do that.

Wen (39:39): Mm-Hmm, <affirmative>. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>,

Emily (39:41): Yeah. Awesome, using that skill again. Um, this is so great. Is there anything else you want to tell us about that, about that career step,

Wen (39:49): Um, about transitioning to a new role or job hunting overall? I think it’s quite, um, a self discovery <laugh>, um, time for, uh, us as PhDs as we are going to this tunnel of focusing things on our field. And then suddenly we have to, I think, set up us to be very open-minded about the careers we’re, we’re, uh, we’re going to explore and I think it’s sometime we got break ourselves a little bit. Um, and it’s okay if we don’t talk in, in our research terms and it’s okay to just talk very, um, I don’t know, simple words. We don’t use scientific words. And, um, and I I think it there, the PhD is, is a, is a journey and that doesn’t represent us going to move forward, um, like connecting with others.

Best Financial Advice for Another Early-Career PhD

Emily (41:06): This is so great. Well, Wen, thank you so much for volunteering to come on, on the podcast to do this interview. And, uh, we’ve gotten so many great stories out of this. I’m really glad that the listeners got to hear, um, about your journey. Um, would you please tell us what is your best financial advice for another early career PhD? And that could be something that we’ve touched on in the interview already, or it could be something completely new.

Wen (41:31): Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. Yeah. I think just to be able find yourself being financially independent in charge of your finance, um, is extremely empowering. And I have situations about myself going through, uh, co-living with someone and then we broke up and move out. I think all those, um, life-changing decisions need, um, ourselves have their confidence in our financials and now feel obligated to, um, make decisions around others. Especially I think as international students. I, I think the last advice is we prepare to save money for the applying for, uh, work visas EAD card. And if you want to get it on time, um, use a premium, um, service, which adds $2,000 <laugh>, um, to the application. So, um, don’t be shocked how expensive those things can take and, um, make, um, make informed decisions on that. Yeah,

Emily (42:54): I’m, I’m sure you’ve heard this since you’ve been consuming like other financial material, but I just love um, the sort of, uh, mantra or phrase money gives you options. So you’re just definitely able to, um, you know, so fully realize, you know, your potential and get yourself out of situations you don’t wanna be in and you know, pay for that premium service when you need it. Whatever needs to happen if you have the savings built up already. And sometimes we don’t know when we start saving what exactly we’re gonna be using that money for, but it’s just there as like a backstop and insurance policy just to give you, um, options in the future. So I’m really glad that you emphasize that, especially for international students. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. ’cause I totally agree that, um, you just, you need a, a bigger pool of money to draw from for it because a lot of expenses that international students experience are pretty large. Um, irregular expenses as I often talk about, about, um, on the podcast, like traveling home, like visa stuff and all that. So thank you again so much for volunteering to come on. This has really been a pleasure to talk with you.

Wen (43:52): Thank you so much, Emily. Thank you for, um, doing this and I, um, really benefit from this podcast and I, I know you will continue to serve a lot of PhD students.

Outtro

Emily (44:17): 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 Dr. Lourdes Bobbio and show notes creation by Dr. Jill Hoffman.