In this episode, Emily interviews Dr. Jeanelle Horcasitas, a PhD in Cultural Studies from UCSD who worked multiple jobs to stay afloat during grad school. Because of some financial events in her childhood and being a first-generation college student, Jeanelle was determined to do her PhD without accumulating any more student loan debt. In fact, she accomplished some major financial goals during graduate school, such as self-funding for a few months leading up to her defense after her dissertation fellowship ended. Don’t miss Jeanelle’s reflections on how her financial goals have changed since finishing grad school and how she’s now resisting hustle culture.

Links Mentioned in the Episode

• Jeanelle’s Twitter (@jhorcasi)
• Jeanelle’s LinkedIn
• Digital Ocean
• Mint App
• EveryDollar App
• PF for PhDs Tax Resources
• The Total Money Makeover (Book by Dave Ramsey)
• PF for PhDs: Subscribe to Mailing List (Gain Access to Compiled Advice) 
• PF for PhDs: Podcast Hub

Teaser

00:00 Jeanelle: Before, like I said, I felt very survival mode, hustle mode. Like I’ve just got to work hard, work, hard, work hard. And I was very burned out by the time I finished graduate school. But now I’m more of, you know, I’m doing the smart thing. I’m saving. I’m saving for my future and doing what I need to. So, I’ve backed up a little off of that and given myself more grace.

Introduction

00:23 Emily: Welcome to the Personal Finance for PhDs Podcast: A Higher Education in Personal Finance. I’m your host, Dr. Emily Roberts. This is Season 11, Episode 3, and today my guest is Dr. Jeanelle Horcasitas, a PhD in Literature and Cultural Studies from UCSD who worked multiple jobs to stay afloat during grad school. Because of some financial events in her childhood and being a first-generation college student, Jeanelle was determined to do her PhD without accumulating any additional student loan debt. In fact, she accomplished some major financial goals during graduate school, including self-funding for a few months leading up to her defense after her dissertation fellowship ended. Don’t miss Jeanelle’s reflections on how her financial goals have changed since finishing grad school and how she’s now resisting hustle culture.

01:14 Emily: Jeanelle and I first connected way back in 2015 when she was working as the Grad Life intern at UCSD. I had very recently launched Personal Finance for PhDs. I reached out to her cold and pitched her The Graduate Student and Postdoc’s Guide to Personal Finance, which was my only seminar offering at that time. She liked the idea and advocated for it within her office, but it didn’t go forward right away. I actually didn’t work with UCSD for the first time until 2020, but Jeanelle had planted the first seeds all those years before. If you are a fan of this podcast, would you please follow Jeanelle’s lead and request that your Graduate School, Graduate Student Association, Postdoc Office, etc. work with me in 2022? I offer a variety of live and pre-recorded seminars and workshops on topics from taxes to investing to cash flow management. My most popular seminar remains The Graduate Student and Postdoc’s Guide to Personal Finance, and although it’s changed a lot over the years, it still touches on a wide variety of personal finance topics so there’s something for everyone. The paid work I do with universities and institutions enables me to keep producing this podcast and all my other free resources. And hey, even if they aren’t able to work with me this year, your recommendation could plant a seed for an engagement in a future year. Thank you very much! Without further ado, here’s my interview with Dr. Jeanelle Horcasitas.

Will You Please Introduce Yourself Further?

02:47 Emily: I am delighted to have joining me on the podcast today, Dr. Jeanelle Horcasitas. She was a graduate student at UCSD and has been finished with her PhD for about two years, moving on to the working world. And so we are going to talk about how graduate school went financially for her, how she funded it and so forth, and then also how her, you know, financial life is going now. So Jeanelle, thank you so much for joining me for the podcast. Thank you for volunteering for this interview. And would you please introduce yourself a little bit further for the audience?

03:13 Jeanelle: Yes! Thank you so much, Emily, for bringing me on. I’m excited to speak with you today. So, I went to undergrad at UCLA for English and I did my PhD at UC San Diego in literature and cultural studies. And, you know, since I’ve received my PhD, I did a multitude of jobs within my time at graduate school, but since graduating, I spent some time in graduate career and professional development for biomedical scientists for about a year and a half. And I’ve recently transitioned into the tech space for a company called Digital Ocean. And, you know, one of my biggest motivations for school and getting through it was the fact that I’m first generation. I also come from a low-income family. So a big part of that was the fact that I had to be the one to get myself through school, to pay for it. I knew that my parents were in a financial situation. And I learned that at about 18 when they got divorced, I experienced bankruptcy, foreclosure at the time. And that was very transformative for me at that age to just recognize the impact of financial decisions. And so part of, you know, why I wanted to complete my PhD completely debt-free was because of those reasons of just knowing what having that burden can do to you and how it can impact your future.

Undergrad Funding and Student Loans

04:51 Emily: Wow. Yeah, that’s such such an impressionable age to be going through something like that. So thank you for sharing that with us. Since you mentioned being 18, when you started college, did you also have that determination to do your undergrad debt-free?

05:06 Jeanelle: So when I was 18, I actually went to community college for a few years beforehand, which was really great because since I was low-income, I was able to receive very generous grants like the Pell Grant. And I did my FAFSA, and at that point I just really wanted to start my undergrad. And I remember saying the only thing I’ll go in debt for will be my student, like education and I’ll do student loans. So, I signed away, didn’t really know what I was doing. I did receive fellowships for my undergrad, but I was living in Westwood in Los Angeles next to Bel-Air. And as you know, the cost of living is very high, especially to live in the dorms. So I was only there for about two years, but I did come out of debt. And so at that moment, I hadn’t really felt you know, I need to do this degree debt-free, but I tried to keep the amount I was taking on pretty minimal. So I feel like I didn’t graduate with too much student loan debt, but I did have some.

06:15 Emily: And did you go directly from undergrad to grad school?

06:19 Jeanelle: No. I took a year off to work full-time and try to pay down some of the student loans. And then I went to graduate school after that for about five and a half years.

06:30 Emily: Okay. So entering graduate school, you have a new perspective and you want to do this whole thing debt-free. Were you still carrying any student loan debt at that point, or had you cleared all of it?

06:40 Jeanelle: No. So at the time of graduate school, I still had most of my student loans from my undergrad, and I also had a car payment and car loans. So I carried those two things, and I think the stress came from the fact that I wasn’t getting any younger. I was about to sign away five and a half to seven years of my life. And I knew that I wouldn’t be making a ton of money. I was given like a pretty decent fellowship, but living in San Diego, it still couldn’t cover everything. And so I think from the very beginning, I knew that I wanted to put some sort of plan into place that I was still going to graduate school, but that I would be paying off these loans simultaneously. So that by the time I graduated, I’d be in a better financial position to buy a home or just to not have that hanging over my head for longer than I would’ve liked it to be.

How Does Funding Work in Your Department?

07:53 Emily: Yeah. Very, very ambitious. But I can see how you got there. Tell me a bit about how your field, your department is typically funded. You mentioned you had a fellowship for two years. Is that something you were seeing offered at like multiple different schools? And how did you end up at UCSD in particular, I guess, and specifically related to the finances?

08:13 Jeanelle: That’s a great question. So for the most part, my specific department, they don’t receive a lot of funding. They actually, most of the graduate students have to do TAships and, you know, find a teaching assistant position. And that’s how they get it paid for. Mine was actually through nomination that someone at the literature department had to do for me, and the graduate school, they were the ones that, you know, went through candidates and selected and made that decision. And so, the reason I chose UCSD is because it was such a generous, like first two years will cover you with this stipend. And then the next two years, you’re kind of guaranteed that TAship. And then you figure it out from there. I had a couple of other offers from two other graduate schools, where one was just offering like a fellowship for one quarter, which wasn’t enough for me.

09:21 Jeanelle: And then the other was I think, just a year. And so, I was like, I don’t want to have to pay for this. And I’m going to choose where the money is for the most part. And it ended up being a good decision for that reason. And just for the folks that I got to work with. So I was happy with that, because it seems like it really varies. It’s interesting because it was all UCs where these offers came from. So they have different ways of, I guess, enticing students to come with what kind of money they might have or available for fellowships.

09:58 Emily: I think that’s a point that prospective graduate students really, really need to hear, like they need to investigate the typical funding path in their field. Is it usually from TAship, so that you know, if someone’s offering you a significant fellowship, that it’s really special and they’re really trying to recruit you. And yeah, you may have to do TAships after that ends, but when does it end? Is it two years? Is it one year? You know, how much money is being directed toward you, especially as a recruiting tool. So love that you were, you know, analyzing that at that point.

Sources of Income Beyond Fellowship

10:28 Emily: So you mentioned earlier that you worked like a lot of different jobs during your PhD. And so, what did you do beyond, okay. I have this fellowship for a couple years. I know that you had a fellowship again at the end. And also the TAing that you mentioned. Did you work other jobs in addition to those? And also were they through the university or like completely independent?

10:49 Jeanelle: I had the first two years covered from the fellowship. And the last two were for the TAship. And then my fifth year I got a dissertation fellowship. However, within that time I was working multiple jobs at different places. So for the first two, two and a half years, even though I was on fellowship and taking my, my graduate courses, I was also a graduate student researcher or GSR for the the Graduate Office at UCSD. And I did some freelance writing as well. And I also worked as a student worker for the county of San Diego’s housing office. And so, you know, some, they weren’t all at the same time, but at one point I think they were all happening at once, which was pretty overwhelming, but it was nice, especially for the county job because I could work full-time during the summer, which was great because the fellowship actually it was nice, but it wasn’t always enough to get you through the summer. And they didn’t offer summer fellowships during that time.

11:57 Jeanelle: They started doing it later on during my time at the program. And then during my TAship, I really wanted to focus on teaching, but I had an opportunity to adjunct at the community college as well. So, in addition to TAing a couple of classes, I also taught one to two classes at the community college, which was a great experience. And then during one summer I did an internship in Washington DC. So there were a lot of different jobs that I was doing both, you know, if I had to go in somewhere, or freelancing, mostly writing or editing with different folks.

Side Hustling Amongst Peers

12:40 Emily: I can totally understand your motivation to take on this extra work for extra money. Because of, you know, mentioning your goals about clearing the student loan debt and the car debt and so forth. If you had not had those extra circumstances in your life, not that they’re that extra, because a lot of people have those things. But was the stipend enough to live on, or was it like no, no, everybody has to be side hustling, even if they don’t have, you know, prior student loan debt or whatever? Like, were your peers all doing this greater degree of work as well?

13:09 Jeanelle: Oh, that’s a great question. I think it really comes down to the individual and, you know, what they can take. Personally, I didn’t feel that the stipend was enough living in San Diego. The only time that it felt like it was livable was my first couple years when I was in the graduate student subsidized housing, because it’s so much cheaper. Once I had to live outside of those bounds, the cost of living is just incredible. And, you know, you’re thinking about how am I going to live, but also how am I going to eat? I have, you know, my car, my gas, my car payment, insurance, all these things. Like I said, if you’re fully independent, which I was from my parents it could be a lot at once.

14:02 Jeanelle: And so, I had a mix of, I guess, observations of folks who, there were some people that were like me that were doing at least a couple of jobs at the same time. But then there were some that were just TAing and that was fine. They seemed to be okay, but they were also in graduate housing or they were living with many roommates, which is something else I didn’t really want, and luckily my partner came to move like halfway through my program. And that actually helped a lot as far as support. So, it really depends on the person, but from what I saw, you know, there was a big group that did have to do extra. And then some that they had to sacrifice in different ways, like living with many people or living really far away and commuting, et cetera.

Money Management and Keeping a Budget

14:56 Emily: Yeah. Thank you for sharing those observations as well. So with all these different sources of income and all the different expenses and goals that you had, how were you doing the money management part of things? Like, were you keeping a budget? How did that work?

15:11 Jeanelle: Yeah, so as far as budgeting, I tried the Mint app. And then I was trying this other app called EveryDollar. The issues with those apps that I found were, it captured like your monthly overview of what you were making, but the cash flow of, you know, when the bills come out versus when you get money in and what you actually have enough to pay for groceries that week, or, you know, gas, whatever it might be, it didn’t always line up. And so this was something that my partner and I, we were struggling a lot with, especially when we combined our finances after we got married. And so we found it easiest to create an Excel spreadsheet and it’s just day by day.

16:01 Jeanelle: And it has the categories to the left. But it’s really nice for us because we can really see where we are in real-time and know, okay, if you’re getting paid this Friday, maybe we could do a little more extra fun this weekend, or we know this is coming up. We have to put aside savings for this so that we can sequence it a bit better than these apps that are just, you have this much money for the month when it’s not necessarily true. You don’t have all that money like next week yet. Especially if you’re getting paid biweekly, which for some of my jobs I was.

16:38 Emily: Yeah, I can imagine working with, like, as you said, you had so many different jobs, all the different pay schedules that you must have been dealing with, and then, you know, like your fellowship stopped over the summer, for example, like you mentioned earlier, like it’s just a lot of moving parts. And I do agree that when you have a lot of moving parts, ultimately building your own spreadsheet is maybe the fastest way to a good solution that works for you. So thank you for sharing that with us.

Final PhD Year Funding

17:02 Emily: So you also mentioned earlier that you were funded in your fifth year by a dissertation fellowship, but you said you took five and a half years to finish graduate school. So let’s square that circle. What was your funding like for the last half year?

17:17 Jeanelle: So my last year was actually my fellowship, that was the highest amount I had received. And so, when I say it was a higher amount, it was only like $5,000, you know, more than what the other years had been. But that little bump did help. But, for that one year, I really wanted to finish my dissertation. And so, I had to say no to a lot of my extra jobs that I had. And, like I said, I have a spouse and it was nice to have you know, that support. He works full-time. And he could help with some of those extra, you know, expenses that couldn’t be covered by my stipend alone or anything like that. However, because I knew that I wanted to finish, I had planned, okay, you know, I’m not going to enroll the next year.

18:19 Jeanelle: I’m going to take leave of absence if I don’t finish at the exact year mark, but I know they’re not going to give me any more money after that. So we planned ahead and I decided to teach for one semester during that time. So, I just taught one class and then the rest of the time was dissertating. But all of that went into like a savings. We knew that that was going to be the gap of whatever time off extra I would need without getting my stipend. And so basically from January to August, or no, January to December, for about a year, I had worked on the dissertation, but the money stopped in the summer. So I didn’t have money coming in for about four months. And so I was able to be covered for about three months, and then I was starting to feel really stressed looking for jobs and seeing what we were going to do. So by that last month, when I knew I had my defense date, all those things, I was doing a lot of freelance extra work because by then the savings had run out. So I would say, from that extra time of teaching, I had saved about like a three month, like emergency fund as I wasn’t working during the summer.

19:41 Emily: That end of graduate school, getting to that defense date is such, such a busy period and such a stressful period. And you did as best you could, it sounds like to, you know, be doing the planning ahead financially, but it’s tough that, you know, at the very end there, when you’re applying for jobs, you’re preparing for the defense and all of that stuff that the financial stress had to come back in at that point. But I’m glad it didn’t go on for too long. You finished up very quickly. Yeah.

Starting Dissertation Debt-Free

20:06 Jeanelle: I just wanted to add one thing. I will say, at that time, like when I started my dissertation fellowship, we were debt-free. We didn’t have any more consumer debt. And we were actively saving for this time I would be off but also saving for our house. So the end of that summer was extra stressful because that’s when we bought our first town home condo. So that was an added layer of I need a job because we need to pay for this new place that we just got.

20:35 Emily: Wow. Yeah, that is a lot to put on one, you know, short few-month period, but it is really good to hear that you were done with the debt, especially the student loans, because you know, you mentioned taking a leave of absence. I would guess that, with not being a student anymore, your payments would’ve kicked back in, had you not already been finished with paying that off so that would’ve been like another thing to pay for during that time.

21:02 Jeanelle: The other thing is health insurance. They stop your health insurance. Like I said, luckily I could get on my spouse’s for that short amount of time, but I know that that’s not always the case for everyone. So I’m always like weary of just like, this is my experience, but that’s not always the case. And to think ahead of things like that, if you’re going to do that, like health insurance costs.

21:22 Emily: Yeah, for sure. I mean, it’s good just to know, like you sort of tick down all these boxes, I have to consider this. I have to consider this so that someone else can, if they don’t make the same decisions as you, they have different situation, whatever, that’s fine. But just the thought process is good to hear.

Commercial

21:37 Emily: Emily here for a brief interlude! Taxes are weirdly, unexpectedly difficult for funded grad students and fellowship recipients at any level of PhD training. Your university might send you strange tax forms or no tax forms at all. They might not withhold income tax from your paychecks, even though you owe it. It’s a mess. I’ve created a ton of free resources to assist you with understanding and preparing your 2021 tax return, which are available at PFforPhDs.com/tax/. I hope you will check them out to ease much of the stress of tax season. If you want to go deeper with the material or have a question for me, please join one of my tax workshops, which are linked from PFforPhDs.com/tax/. I offer one workshop on preparing your annual tax return for graduate students and one workshop on calculating your quarterly estimated tax for fellowship and training grant recipients. The next live Q&A call for the annual tax return workshop, How to Complete Your Grad Student Tax Return (and Understand It, Too!), is coming up on Sunday, February 13th. It would be my pleasure to help you save you time and potentially money this tax season, so don’t hesitate to reach out. Now back to our interview.

Setting Financial Goals

23:04 Emily: So you mentioned, you know, by the time you got to the end of graduate school, you had cleared the debt, you’re working on other financial goals. You were then, you got married at some point. And so you and your partner were able to work on these things together. Can you tell me more about those financial goals that you started setting at that point, whether that’s toward the end of graduate school or after graduate school?

23:24 Jeanelle: So when my husband and I got engaged, we were pretty, I would say hesitant to get married for a while because we both had parents that were divorced and a lot of it had to do with financial issues. And so that was a big factor in getting married and figuring out how we were going to do things together. And so before we had gotten engaged, we both were very motivated to pay off our car. We both had car loans and student loans. So at that point, when we got engaged, I had paid off my car, he had paid off his student loans and all we had were basically those reverse things remaining. But now we had this wedding, and these expectations. And so we had to make some pretty hard decisions as far as, you know, this is our budget.

24:17 Jeanelle: We’re not going to go beyond this. We’re going to have a small courthouse wedding, which is what we had with immediate family and we’re gonna have a small get together at a community center. And so, we budgeted at like $10K I would say, and it was probably like $8K that we ended up for everything. And so that was a motivating factor because we wanted to go into our marriage not with anything extra outside of our loan and our cars. And so, I would say like about five months after we got married is when we really combined everything and joined forces and got rid of all of that debt and then started thinking about a house. And so, that was like our main goal is let’s just help each other out.

25:08 Jeanelle: We’re in this together now. Let’s pay these things off, let’s put together what we can for our house. And then start thinking about other things like retirement, because I felt pretty stressed about the fact that I was almost 30. I hadn’t had put anything away for retirement. And they don’t really, they don’t do that for you in graduate school. And it’s just something I didn’t know. I didn’t come from a family that, you know, had made good financial decisions. And so, it felt really tough sometimes to know what was the right thing to do at times.

Internal Motivation for Working on Personal Finance

25:46 Emily: It sounds like you, even though you, you know, were approaching 30 and didn’t have anything in retirement savings, it sounds like you really had your head on straight though about like understanding your own internal motivations for working on personal finance, the budgeting, obviously you’ve been doing, the hustling. So like the elements, right, for financial success, I can easily see were there. And it was like, okay, you clear the debt, you get the house, you’re ready to go, right? You’re ready to hit the ground running. Is that how you felt about it since like getting your post-PhD jobs and the house and how are you doing now, I guess, with these financial goals and dreams?

26:21 Jeanelle: Thank you for that. I like to feel validated because there was just so much I didn’t know. There’s still a lot I don’t know. Since then, I feel like I’ve been able to detach myself a little bit from that tussle and survival mode that I think I’ve been raised on my whole life and experienced just growing up and seeing family struggle and my family struggle. And then just also what’s still happening especially to graduate students and the kind of, you know, these difficult situations that they might be in. So since then, you know, I feel motivated still to do the next thing. So the next thing I’d really love to do is pay off our house. I think that would be really great and would set us up really well.

27:21 Jeanelle: And that’s mostly because I’d to beef up my retirement and just be very aggressive with that because, like I said, I feel like I lost some time for the, you know, those 10 years, I didn’t really do anything since I had turned, you know, 18. And that’s one thing I really wish and regret. But, like I said, because I don’t know much I was a little nervous, but we started talking to a financial advisor and this was something like I said, no one in my family had, and I never really knew what to expect. So we spent some time interviewing folks and figuring out who would actually tell us, like, this is how this is how you invest. This is good because of X reason and someone who would explain those things to us.

28:14 Jeanelle: So I think since then, I feel like I’ve been able to hone in a little bit better on what I want to do financially for my future, in a way that I feel more confident. Before, like I said, I felt very survival mode, hustle mode. Like I’ve just got to work hard, work, hard, work hard. And I was very burned out by the time I finished graduate school. And when I finished, and I defended, I worked right away, and I’ve always been working. And even so, I was still doing freelance stuff. I just felt like I couldn’t say no. I felt like I always needed to keep money flowing in. But now I’m more of, you know, I’m doing the smart thing. I’m saving. I’m saving for my future and doing what I need to do. So, I’ve backed up a little off of that and given myself more grace, because I am making good choices as far as, you know, what the future holds and what I can be doing with investing and retirement and hopefully paying off my home.

29:18 Emily: That’s fantastic to hear. I’m so glad that you’re, you know, on that journey with your money mindset, right? Away from hustling, because it is interesting, like you had to hustle for a long time. It was necessary for survival. It was necessary to meet the sort of just baseline financial goals of getting debt paid off. But now, you know, presumably you’re making a much better income from your primary job. Now you can switch to thinking about investing and how money can be generated and come from work and income you’ve earned in the past and not completely from income you’re earning in the day to day. And eventually of course, when you reach financial independence, when you’re retired or whatever, all of your income will be coming from those, you know, previous investments. So I just love to hear that. Just hearing that transition point is really interesting.

Best Financial Advice for Another Early-Career PhD

30:08 Emily: Well, this has been absolutely fascinating, Jeanelle, and thank you so much for volunteering to come on the podcast. I always end my interviews by asking my guests, what is your best financial advice for another early-career PhD? And that could be something that we have touched on already in the interview, or it could be something completely different.

30:26 Jeanelle: So, this advice I would give especially for folks who are just finishing their PhD, and are not sure, you know, what comes next, or, you know, maybe they have these residual effects or trauma, I would say, and feel like I did. Like you always need to catch up. I felt like all my friends around me were getting promotions. They were buying houses, they had retirement, you know, saved and I felt really behind and it made me feel bad. So I would say, you know, go at your own pace. Everyone is at a different point in their life and you will get there as long as you come up with a plan. And I would say like the most powerful plan you can have is your budget and really reckoning with what you have and what you can do with that.

31:20 Jeanelle: So you know, when I first started, I wasn’t getting a lot of money, but I still made it work within my budget. I lived within my means and what I could do. And now that I have a little bit more flexibility because your income usually goes up a lot more from a grad student stipend, is just to know, just because it’s gone up more, prioritize what you really want for kind of like those future financial goals that you might have. Like think about those things first. Because a lot of times those other things are just temporary satisfaction that we’re trying to get, and it’s okay to do once in a while. You know, it’s nice to splurge once in a while. So I would say, you know, don’t compare yourself. Give yourself some patience with where you’re progressing.

32:13 Jeanelle: And definitely, you know, create that budget. Know that it’s not probably going to work for the first few months. You’re going to have to take some time to get it right. And then once you’re in a place where you feel really good, if you’re like me and you don’t know much, I recommend talking to a financial advisor and expert who can lead you and teach you in a way of, you know, things like investing and what will suit you, and what are good goals to think about. Because if you’ve never learned it, you’ll just never know. And there could be something that unlocks for you. So, that’s what I would say is just, you know, keep going, don’t compare yourself and, you know, go at your own pace. Everyone’s running their own race.

33:02 Emily: I love those thoughts. I actually want to ask you a bonus follow-up question, which is, I really like the advice actually of speaking with a financial advisor once you’re ready for that. I actually am working with a financial advisor myself for the first time in 2021. And it’s actually been really good because I wouldn’t say that I’ve gained necessarily any new knowledge, because of course I am very well informed in this area. Although there have been a few, like really, really detailed questions we’ve asked. What’s been important for me is the behavior change of involving someone else in our picture, asking for advice, and then being like, Ooh, I need to act on this else. Or else this person’s going to follow up with me and I’m going to have to say I didn’t do it. So like, that’s what really, really ultimately matters in finances.

Personal Finance Resources

33:47 Emily: It doesn’t matter actually how much you know, it matters what you do, the action that you take. So like, I love that even though you’re saying, I didn’t know much, I don’t know much. As you’ve learned, you’ve done what you’ve learned about. And that’s really the most important thing, right? Is to just take the action. So, anyway, I love that advice, but the question that I wanted to ask you was, prior maybe to starting to meet with this financial advisor, did you have any personal finance resources, like media, like other podcasts or like books or anything that you consumed that helped you along that way?

34:18 Jeanelle: Yes, you know, one, one of the most helpful books for me was The Total Money Makeover. I don’t know if anyone has heard of Dave Ramsey. I won’t get into like his political stance and some of those problematic things, but I will say the baby step plan that he has is very solid. It’s, you know, I’ve tried to read other books, like How to, I think it’s How to be rich or something like that. And it talks a lot about investing and it just really went over my head. And I liked that it was like, step one, do this step two, do this step three, do this. So that really helped me, at least, and my husband just feel like we could follow a plan that we understood. It was very straightforward. And then later on, when it got to the more complex stuff, like the financial advising and investing, that’s when we were like, okay, let’s get some expertise.

35:13 Jeanelle: There’s no shame. I will say culturally, money just wasn’t talked about in my family. And I wish it was because I feel like that transparency would’ve helped me instead of seeing it in different ways. But you know, it’s nice, like you said, to have that outside person who can give you actionable things that you can do that are really making an impact on your finances and helping you grow you know, to have hopefully a good nest egg. So that was the biggest resource is probably The Total Money Makeover and then the financial advisor. And we have a San Diego financial literacy clinic. I learned about this through working with the county. And so I actually met with a pro bono financial advisor several years ago for that as well. So there are great resources like that too, where you can just talk to someone and have this neutral person listen to you and give you advice.

36:20 Emily: That’s a great, great tip. And it’s great that you found that resource that you knew about through your work. I would say also, you know, of course, anyone listening check for similar resources in your area. Check with like a local credit union. If they don’t offer something like that themselves, they probably know where to refer you for that kind of help. And I’m sure, if you’re below a certain income level, you know, they’ll have some kind of like pro bono sliding scale sort of thing going on. So thank you so much that. Jeanelle, it’s been great catching up with you and thank you again so much for giving this interview.

36:51 Jeanelle: Thank you!

Outtro

36:57 Emily: Listeners, thank you for joining me for this episode! I have a gift for you! You know that final question I ask of all my guests regarding their best financial advice? I have collected short summaries of all the answers ever given on the podcast into a document that is updated with each new episode release. You can gain access to it by registering for my mailing list at PFforPhDs.com/advice/. Would you like to access transcripts or videos of each episode? I link the show notes for each episode from PFforPhDs.com/podcast/. If you’ve been enjoying the podcast, here are 3 ways you can help it grow: 1. Subscribe to the podcast and rate and review it on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or whatever platform you use. 2. Share an episode you found particularly valuable on social media, with an email list-serv, or as a link from your website. 3. Recommend me as a speaker to your university or association. My seminars cover the personal finance topics PhDs are most interested in, like investing, debt repayment, and increasing cash flow. I also license pre-recorded workshops on taxes. See you in the next episode, and remember: You don’t have to have a PhD to succeed with personal finance… but it helps! The music is “Stages of Awakening” by Podington Bear from the Free Music Archive and is shared under CC by NC.

In this episode, Emily interviews Dr. Alana Rister, a PhD in chemistry and the founder of the Science Grad School Coach. Alana and Emily discuss two major aspects of Alana’s finances from grad school and her postdoc: student loans and a condo purchase. Alana’s main financial goal during grad school was paying down her variable interest rate private student loans, and the strategies she used will be very accessible to grad students who, like her, don’t budget. Alana and her partner took a gamble in purchasing a condo when they moved for her postdoc, and then sold it less than a year later when she left that position. Listen through to the end of the interview to learn the connection between that condo purchase and the Science Grad School Coach!

Links Mentioned in this Episode

• PF for PhDs: Speaking
• Emily’s E-mail for Speaking Engagements
• PF for PhDs: Quarterly Estimated Tax for Fellowship Recipients Workshop
• BiggerPockets (Real Estate Investing Website)
• BiggerPockets Podcast
• PF for PhDs, S1E1: Our $100,000+ Net Worth Increase During Graduate School
• Science Grad School Coach (YouTube Channel)
• Science Grad School Coach (Twitter, @scigradcoach)
• Science Grad School Coach Resources
• Science Grad School Coach Podcast
• PF for PhDs: Podcast Hub
• PF for PhDs: Subscribe to Mailing List

Teaser

00:00 Alana: Let’s preface this with I am not a budgeter. I’m really, it very much stresses me out because I’ve never been at a point where I’m really financially secure. So I’ve never been at a point where I’ve made a reasonable budget and there’s been a positive at the end.

Introduction

00:24 Emily: Welcome to the Personal Finance for PhDs Podcast: A Higher Education in Personal Finance. I’m your host, Dr. Emily Roberts. This is season 10, episode four, and today my guest is Dr. Alana Rister, a PhD in chemistry and the founder of the Science Grad School Coach. We discuss two major aspects of Elena’s finances from grad school and her postdoc: student loans and a condo purchase. Alana’s main financial goal during grad school was paying down her variable interest rate private student loans, and the strategies she used will be very accessible to grad students who, like her, don’t budget. Alana and her partner took a gamble in purchasing a condo when they moved for her postdoc, and then sold it less than a year later when she left that position. Listen through to the end of the interview to learn the connection between that condo purchase and the Science Grad School Coach.

01:19 Emily: I have my first two speaking engagements of the 2021-2022 academic year coming up this week. Speaking live to and with graduate students and PhDs is my absolute favorite activity within my business, even in a remote format. I’ve built out a slate of offerings this year that I’m incredibly proud of. My flagship seminar is the graduate student and postdoc’s guide to personal finance. And it’s typically what I recommend to first-time hosts, as it covers a broad array of personal finance topics, which of course I discuss through the lens of the PhD experience. I also have four deep-dive seminars on financial goals, investing, debt repayment, and cashflow. I offer these in three formats, which is new for me this year. I can deliver this material as a one-hour live lecture and Q&A, a two-hour live workshop, or a flipped classroom model in which I give access to the workshop videos and individual exercises in advance, and then hold a live call exclusively for discussion and Q&A. I’m really pleased to be able to work with grad students and PhD is to create actionable steps to improve their finances in each of these areas.

02:31 Emily: These four deep-dive seminars work very well as a series, but can also be booked individually. If any of those seminars sound interesting to you, please recommend me as a speaker to your university, graduate school, graduate student association, postdoc office, or department. It’s super easy and relatively inexpensive to arrange a remote event with me. Ask the potential host to go to PFforPhds.com/speaking, or simply email me at [email protected] to start the process. I really, really appreciate these recommendations. They go very far to support Personal Finance for PhDs so I can continue to provide great content, like this podcast, for free. Without further ado, here’s my interview with Dr. Alana Rister.

Will You Please Introduce Yourself Further?

03:23 Emily: I am delighted to have joining me on the podcast today, Dr. Alana Rister of Science Grad School Coach. And it’s really exciting that she volunteered to be on the podcast. We are going to talk about some of her financial decisions from the past, a decision from grad school, a decision up from her postdoc, and I hope we are all going to learn a lot from her stories. So Alana, thank you so much for joining me. And will you introduce yourself a little bit further to the audience?

03:45 Alana: Yeah. So thank you so much for having me. I’m so excited to be here. As you said, I’m Dr. Alana Rister. I am the founder of the Science Grad School Coach. And I got my PhD in chemistry in 2019 from the University of Nebraska. And since then, went on to a postdoc at East Carolina University, and have since taken a few months off to you found the Science Grad School Coach. And that’s kind of where I am today.

04:16 Emily: Yeah. And, by the time this airs, you will be in a new position. Do you want to tell us more about that?

04:21 Alana: I will. So I’m actually going back to where I got my PhD from, and I’m going to be a metabolomics and proteomics research specialist. So I’m getting to go back into research. I’m basically doing a lot of working on doing metabolomics and proteomics for other professors. So I’m going to be a predominantly lab position getting to do fun research.

04:45 Emily: That sounds awesome. I always thought when I was going through my PhD process that I would love to be, I would call it a staff scientist. Is that a fair term? Yeah, I would like to be a staff scientist somewhere. Of course my career went in a different direction, but I find that kind of position to be really attractive. So congratulations!

05:02 Alana: Thank you!

Student Loan Situation at the Start of Grad School

05:03 Emily: Alright. So the first subject we’re talking about today is student loans. Everyone’s favorite. We’re actually going to focus on your private student loans, and we’ll get into why in a moment, but give us the full kind of picture of what your student loan situation was coming into grad school.

05:20 Alana: Yeah, so I actually went to a private undergraduate university. And I did that because it was actually the same for me to go there as my in-state public university, because I got a bunch of scholarships to the private and no scholarships to the public. So I went there, but I still had to rack up a lot in student loans, unfortunately. So when I entered graduate school, I have the numbers here. So I had $15,539 in subsidized loans, $35,418 in unsubsidized loans, and then a $13,000 private loan. So my freshman year was the only year I took out private loans in undergrad. And that was that $13,000 private loan. So altogether, if I did my math right, it comes out to $63,957 that I had in student loans going into graduate school.

06:22 Emily: Yeah. And how did you feel about that at the time?

06:27 Alana: So I was not great. I was really worried because I knew that I had all this kind of loan built up. And when you get to graduate school, you might not be thinking about your loans because they’re generally deferred. And so it’s something, oh, I don’t need to make this payment. I don’t need to worry about it, but I knew that that bill was going to come due and I knew when it was going to come due, I wasn’t going to really have the financial security to pay it off. So I was constantly looking for ways to figure out, you know, how can I pay these things off quicker? One, just because of trying to not pay as much interest, but then two, so that when I did get out of graduate school, I didn’t have, because I think if I would’ve left graduate school with all of that money, it would have been almost $800 a month that I would have had to pay back using like the government’s extended repayment. It would have been over a thousand if I like tried to pay it all back in 10 years. And I was like, looking at what postdocs got paid and what other things got paid. I was like, there’s no way I’m going to be able to afford this. So I was really worried in graduate school about how I was going to navigate after graduate school, even though it wasn’t a payment I needed to make at that time.

Which Loan Did You Target First?

07:48 Emily: That is so interesting that you were more concerned about your future self when the deferment was over, than you were about maybe how were you going to do it in the meantime, right? I mean, I think it’s really forward thinking, but I think it’s unusual, right? Because many of us, I think within our finances have a very like optimistic view. Like, my income is going to be so much higher later, and that we hope of course that’s true. But also don’t necessarily, when we’re younger, think about, well, yeah, my income might be higher, but also I might have some expenses that are higher when I’m older also. So, so interesting, but you, you noted, there were three different buckets of student loans for you, federal subsidized, federal unsubsidized, and private. And so was there like one of those that you were going to target first or that bothered you the most?

08:39 Alana: Yes. So my private loan definitely bothered me the most. And that is because it had the highest interest rate, is the first reason it bothered me. The second reason is, so COVID-19 has apparently happened. And through that time we’ve had a forbearance on student loans. That doesn’t apply to private student loans. And so I knew that private student loans generally aren’t as nice as well when it comes to, you know, forbearances or deferments for your situation. And so when I got my student loan, my interest rate was at 7%. And by the time I paid off that student loan, because I had a variable interest rate, because someone told me that was smart to do back then. It was at 11% interest rate. Yeah. It was literally going up every month in the interest that I was paying.

09:35 Emily: Wow. What a great note of warning for the listener regarding variable student loans. First of all, to have it at 7%, 7%, it’s like, okay. Yeah, it’s kind of a going rate, like, but to get up to 11? Wow. In an overall low interest rate environment. I actually also had a variable interest rate student loan, a federal one, actually. It might’ve even, yeah, it was subsidized, and then became this variable rate student loan once I came out of deferment. But because of the time period, and I think because it was federal and not private like yours, the interest rate, I think it was like at two-something percent, three-something percent. When it got up to four, I was like, you got to go, and we just paid it off. So I’m just like really balking at 11. So it was really, really good foresight again for you to say, to target that as like, oh, wow, this is variable. I don’t know which direction this is going. Like let’s work on this first. So was that like your main financial goal during graduate school is working on paying down that private student loan?

10:35 Alana: Yeah, so that was definitely the main thing I wanted to do was pay that off and then have that off my chest. Because I mean, I still had, you know, several tens of thousands more student loans that I needed to work on. So that became kind of my main goal and what I was putting money towards. I still did like other things as well. I planned for trips and stuff like that that I could go do. But that was definitely, my goal was I wanted to pay off all $13,000 by the end of my PhD. I didn’t get to that. I did $10,000, mainly because I graduated a year and a half early in my PhD, so I graduated in three and a half years. So I ended up paying it off by what would have been the end of my fourth year.

Strategies to Pay Off the Private Loan

11:23 Emily: Oh, wow. Well, that’s a great financial decision all on its own. Just get out of grad school faster. That’s awesome. I love that you identified paying off the loan in its entirety as like an ambitious goal. It’s the kind of thing that like, you know that phrase like, shoot for the moon, and even if you miss you’ll end up among the stars? Like paying off $10K, like you’re among the stars, like that’s amazing in three and a half years. That’s amazing. So let’s hear more about how you mechanically did that. Like what strategies were you using?

11:50 Alana: So I think there were probably like three, okay, let’s preface this with I am not a budgeter. I’m really, it very much stresses me out because I’ve never been at a point where I’m really financially secure. So I’ve never been at a point where I’ve made a reasonable budget and there’s been a positive at the end. So it like always stresses me out to just make a budget. So I’m just like in general, very conscious of spending money, and every time I’m spending money, I’m kind of like, is this really worth spending or not? So that’s kind of, I don’t know if that’s really a strategy, but that’s just kind of how I am.

12:27 Emily: Yeah. It’s like a predisposition, kind of.

12:30 Alana: Yeah. So probably the biggest thing that helped me to be able to do it was that I went to a graduate program in Lincoln, Nebraska. So location is a big thing when you’re choosing a graduate school, and I really wanted to go to a big city. Fortunately, I think, I didn’t get into programs in big cities. And so I came here and you can get, so my first apartment, I shared it with two other people. It was, you know, fairly new apartments, very modern. It was a $400 rent. So it’s just so much cheaper to live in a place like Lincoln. So I think my monthly stipend was $1,700 after taxes. And so that goes a lot further when your rent is only $400 of that 1700. So I think that’s a major factor is the fact that I was living in a much lower cost-of-living area.

13:29 Alana: And then what I would do is, so whenever my like bank account gets below $1,500, I like start freaking out. So I plan to every month to try and put $500 towards my student loan. So we get paid once a month at the end of the month. So right before my paycheck would hit, I would look at my bank account and I would say, okay, there’s this much. And if, you know, I had $2,000 left, I would pay $500 if I had below that I would pay until I hit that $1,500 mark. And so that was kind of my strategy in paying that loan off.

14:09 Emily: Yeah. I really like the way you articulated that and think it is probably really relatable for people who, as you said, are not budgeters or are not into that, but like you are kind of have a predisposition of, okay, I’m really going to kind of carefully weigh my spending and you have this target of $500 per month in mind. Yeah. Maybe you don’t hit that every month, but you’re going to be, when you’re drawing close to that and you’re starting to eat into that balance, you’re aware of it. So yeah, I think that strategy can be really relatable.

Take Advantage of Research Award Opportunities

14:36 Alana: The third one I did is I actually worked on getting a bunch of research awards. So I got a research fellowship that I think was right around $3,000 that was paid out over two years. And I put all of that money towards that private loan. I got multiple research poster awards. There was actually one poster session that was done every year that I literally just went to it to try and get the award so that I could put it towards my student loans. And I think I won like first or second place every year, which was like a 200 to 250 or $300 award. So it’s a nice, you know, amount of cash coming in. So I would do things like that, looking for fellowships, research awards, poster sessions, talk sessions and trying to do things like that, to be able to get some extra income and probably about $3,000 to $5,000 of what I paid towards my student loans probably came from the research awards and fellowships that I got.

15:42 Emily: That’s incredible. And what a boost for your CV, too, like so nice to have that double benefit if, you know, whatever your motivation is for going, you know, going after these things, going after awards, the outcome is great if you actually get it. And even if you don’t, it’s still worthwhile. So yeah, that’s great to hear. And so those awards, when you mentioned your stipend earlier, that’s all on top of that stipend. So you just kind of had a plan of like any windfall money, like that would go straight towards the student loans.

16:09 Alana: Yep.

16:10 Emily: Alright. Yeah. Anything else you want to share with us about how you made that work?

16:15 Alana: I don’t think so. I mean, those were kind of my biggest things. It wasn’t a very planned thing, but it was a thing that was like always on the front of my mind. Anytime I would look at my finances, I kept thinking, is there a way I can put more money to get this, you know, student loan paid down?

Current Status of Loans

16:31 Emily: Yeah. Well, let’s hear current updates. So you said you finished in 2019, we’re now in 2021. We’re recording this in April, 2021. So yeah. Where are your private student loans now? Where do they stand?

16:45 Alana: Yeah, so I paid off, so it was just one private student loan. I paid off all $13,000 March of last year. So three months after I graduated, I had the last $3,000 paid off on that one.

17:01 Emily: Incredible, congratulations!

17:04 Alana: Thank you!

17:05 Emily: Then, regarding the federal loans, we know what happened, just starting in March, 2020, administrative forbearance. What are your kind of plans around your payoff for that? Like, are you going to stick with an income-driven payment plan? Are you going to do it more aggressively?

17:19 Alana: So right now I’m on the standard, but the extended standard. So, because I had, I think it’s $25,000. Because I had over the 25,000, there’s an extended where they give you 25 years to pay it off instead of 10 years. So I’m on that right now. And my plan is that, once I start my new job and I have, you know, a little bit more money coming in, I paid some off as I’ve had, you know, extra cash in, but as I start this one, I’m going to start more heavily putting it on to those student loans. So I’m not going to change the actual plan I’m on because there’s no penalty for paying things off early. I’m just going to, you know, put extra income that I get towards my student loans to be able to pay those off more quickly, if that makes sense.

18:11 Emily: Yeah, it totally does. So you’re keeping that minimum payment low just for flexibility, but you still have that as kind of a primary goal. And you’ll still be doing aggressively and just because we are in April, 2021, what do you think about the possibility of student loan cancellation to any degree? Are you factoring that into your plan?

18:32 Alana: So I am not, I am a plan for the worst, hope for the best kind of person. So I’m not, I would be very thankful and appreciative if there was any form of cancellation because, you know, I have a partner who also comes with their student loans, but I’m not banking on it. I think that’s been in talks for a very long time with not really much coming of it. So the forbearance that happened in 2020 was actually a huge benefit to me and has allowed me to make a lot of decisions that I wouldn’t have been able to make had I not had the COVID forbearance. So I’m thankful for that, but I’m not going to, you know, make a plan that, you know, student loans will get canceled or partially forgiven.

19:23 Emily: Yeah. Well, this is a really exciting time. I’m so glad that we caught you right here at the cusp of your new job in that new phase. But again, congratulations on killing the private student loans, having them be completely gone.

19:34 Alana: Thank you.

Commercial

19:36 Emily: Emily here for a brief interlude. These action items are for you if you recently switched or will soon switch on to non-W2 fellowship income as a grad student, postdoc, or postbac and are not having income tax withheld from your stipend or salary. Action item number one: fill out the estimated tax worksheet in form 1040ES. This worksheet will estimate how much income tax you will owe in 2021 and tell you whether you’re required to make manual tax payments on a quarterly basis. The next quarterly estimated tax due date is September 15th, 2021. Action item number two: whether you are required to make estimated tax payments or pay a lump sum at tax time, open a separate named savings count 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 into your tax savings account to prepare for that bill. This is what I call a system of self-withholding, and I suggest putting it in place starting with your very first fellowship paycheck so that you don’t get into a financial bind when the payment deadline arrives. If you need some help with the estimated tax worksheet, or want to ask me a question, please join my workshop, Quarterly Estimated Tax for Fellowship Recipients. It explains every line of the worksheet and answers common questions that PhD trainees have about estimated tax. Go to PFforPhds.com/QETax to learn more about and join the workshop. Now, back to our interview.

Real Estate Purchase During Postdoc

21:15 Emily: Okay, let’s talk about the next topic you wanted to bring up, which is about your real estate purchase during your postdoc. So let’s hear the whole story around that.

21:23 Alana: So I met my partner in graduate school, actually, the day before I started graduate school, I met my partner. And so he had a house. He had bought a house years before we met, and when we moved, he sold the house. So we had some money come in from that. And when I took a postdoc, I took a postdoc in Greenville, North Carolina. And it is kind of interesting because when I was looking for housing options, I had the option of paying around a thousand dollars a month for a one-bedroom, one-bath apartment, or I could buy a condo that I could pay $650 a month for a two-bed, two-bath condo.

22:12 Emily: Those numbers are very surprising.

22:14 Alana: Yeah. So real estate was really, really cheap there. And to get into a decent apartment that, you know, wasn’t bug-infested and had other problems, it was very expensive to do there. So we decided to invest and we bought a $85,000 condo, two-bed, two-bath condo. And you know, my partner comes from a family that has constantly flipped homes. So this condo looked very bad. It kind of looked like it had been run down from the seventies, but was built in the nineties. So it was kind of interesting, it had been a rental for years and we kind of transformed it. I think one of my friends said it looked like a modern New York City apartment by the time we were done with it. So it was kind of interesting because we worked a lot on the condo and made it look a lot nicer, but our main driving factor for buying it was primarily because it was so much cheaper. And it was going save us so much money in the long-run. Both because we were investing in something, and then also just because the monthly payment was so much lower when we bought something versus renting a place.

23:36 Emily: How did you fit such major renovation projects around your research schedule?

Renovations and Research

23:44 Alana: I think there’s like a couple things. So one, I didn’t do most of the work. I’m going to be honest. So my partner, Greenville’s a really small town, so my partner actually had difficulty finding jobs there. So he was unemployed for about half the time we were in Greenville, and he spent a lot of his time working on it. I was more the design person. So I was like, this is what we’re going to do. And then I did some of the renovations and it kind of became like our hobby. So I took a week off at the end of my PhD, went down to Greenville, and we did the initial renovation. So we redid the floors, painted the walls, made it at least livable. And that was kind of the bulk. And then we did one more bulk right before we sold the place.

24:30 Alana: That kind of put us over the edge on getting a higher price back. But I think kind of knowing what you’re doing helped because like some things we really didn’t know what we were doing and Googling a lot of things. But I think having someone that, you know, my partner knew a lot more what they were doing when coming to a construction project and then, you know, it kind of ends up being fun after a while. And so that kind of became where we put our free time when we worked on it together around my research schedule.

25:05 Emily: Yeah. That’s really good to hear. I always kind of wonder about how like sort of logistically that works. Anyway, so my husband and I just closed on our first house. It’s very turnkey, but there are like a few things we wanted to change. So we’re kind of in the midst of like this, how much do we outsource? How much do we DIY? What kind of capacity do we have to actually work on this house? Or, you know, those kinds of questions are kind of circling in my mind right now. So I’m just really glad to hear how you did it. So I have been consuming more real estate investing content recently, a little bit from BiggerPockets, and I know Mindy Jensen, who’s the co-host of the BiggerPockets money podcast calls, what you described, a live-in flip. So that’s what she does, like serially, she does live-in flips, one after the other. But that’s great. So you had that initial experience. Now, I think you said that your postdoc was pretty short term, is that right?

25:58 Alana: Yeah, so it wasn’t supposed to be. So I started January 3rd, I think 2020, and I ended it October 31st, 2020. So it was about a 10-month long postdoc. The initial contract was until March of 2021, and then I was supposed to extend it for like another year, but I ended up kind of cutting it short and actually moving back to Lincoln, Nebraska.

Is a Real Estate Purchase Worthwhile?

26:28 Emily: Yeah. And so I think this is something that’s really on the minds of people when they move for grad school, move for a postdoc, move for a first job is, how long am I actually going to be here, and is a real estate purchase worthwhile? So can you tell us your thoughts on that? Like, did you have that thought you first moved there? I mean, obviously the numbers made a lot of sense, but over what time period did the numbers make sense?

26:49 Alana: Yeah, so I definitely had that thought, especially because when you’re looking at buying or selling, there are a couple of things you have to, so I said, you know, it was $650 per month, you know, versus a thousand. So that’s like what, a $350 difference that I probably would have been paying. But then you look at your down payment. So my down payment on the condo was just under $5,000, which was a lot cheaper than a lot of real estate down payments. But if you spread that out through time, you would realize that that’s a lot more than the thousand dollars a month. And so there were a lot of questions that we had on whether this was going to be a smart purchase or not. We were expecting me to stay for about two years. And generally you want, you know, for, I think the advice usually given is five years to make a real estate purchase. You want to be there for about five years. But I think the biggest thing was just our comfort level. And especially with the lack of really good landlords in Greenville, we felt like we were more suited, we knew the real estate market. We knew how to sell houses. We knew how to do that stuff. So we kind of took a gamble. And we went that direction instead. And we were like, we might come out at a loss in the end, but we think our experience there is going be a lot better. And so it might be worth that loss in the end.

28:21 Emily: Yeah. I was going to ask how did it end up turning out?

28:25 Alana: Yes. So actually it was really good. One, we did flip it, so we bought it for $85,000. We sold it for $99,500. So a pretty nice, we actually got an offer for like $104K, but it didn’t appraise for that. So it was a pretty big, you know, good chunk of change, I think after all the sales commissions and everything, we came out, because we also sold all the furniture with the house. So we came out with about $15,000 in the end. But the biggest thing was, that we didn’t think about, is because we had bought real estate, we weren’t hooked into a lease. So we sold our place, we went under contract in September, which means we could leave, where if we had started a lease in January, by the time, you know, October came around, which is when we left, we left October 1st. So by the time that came around, we would have had three months left on our lease. So we have had to end up paying a lot more to get nothing just to break our lease. So ultimately it was kind of a good decision in that we were able to, you know, leave without having to worry about paying, you know, penalty fees.

29:36 Emily: Yeah. I’m really glad that, you know, you’re here to tell this story because I think, for me anyway, my mind more naturally goes to like the downsides of taking, you know, risky decisions. And I think everyone should of course be aware of the potential downsides, but just know that there are upsides also that you might experience that are just as, or maybe even more likely, than the downside. So like, yeah, clearly it was a risk, it was a risk at two years, it was more of a risk at 10 months or nine months or whatever. But it did work out, and the thing is, you didn’t have to sell. If that was not going to work out financially for you, you were not required to sell, you could have moved and rented it out. You had other options. Right. It’s just that, oh, selling did make sense. And so you went through with it.

30:21 Alana: Yeah. So we actually considered that. We were looking at actually either doing Airbnbs for it or doing a long-term rental. And we actually looked into it, and like right as that was happening, there was kind of a real estate bubble. Because of COVID, nobody was selling real estate. So there was a scarcity on the market, and suddenly condos that were usually priced at the 60 to 80,000 range were starting to go near a hundred thousand. And like, so we were like, okay, this seems like it’s a good decision. And we could have always denied a contract if we were like, okay, we’re not going to get enough out of it. And we kind of just wanted the peace of mind. We didn’t really ever want to go back to Greenville. So we didn’t want to have a place that we knew we would have to take care of, but it was definitely something we looked into. And if we stayed closer to the area, we probably would have done it for short-term rental or something.

Real Estate Flip Funded Science Grad School Coach 

31:16 Emily: Yeah. Well this is so interesting. I’m really glad to like kind of learn that it did work out positively in your case. And so when you volunteered for this, you said you wanted to tell how that real estate flip funded your Science Grad School Coach endeavor. So tell us about that.

31:34 Alana: So that $15,000 that we got from the sale of the condo, which knowing for like me and my partner, if it hadn’t been in the condo, because we, you know, put $5,000 down, it probably wouldn’t have been around by the time we got, because again, we’re not budgeters. So the fact that it was there and we had that money, it allowed me to kind of make the decision. My partner finally got like his dream job back in Lincoln. So we made the decision for me to go unemployed and work on building this business and for him to come here, and his job was not fully going to support us here. So the money that we got from the sale of our house actually made up for at least a year. We would have been fine for at least a year between the savings and then also, you know, his income.

32:30 Alana: And so that kind of started me having the freedom to really pursue starting the Science Grad School Coach and work on it. And then on the side, I kind of looked at applying to jobs and things like that. Because I was kind of sad to leave research. I still wasn’t exactly sure what I wanted to do. And now kind of right as things are starting to come into play with the Science Grad School Coach, I’m also starting a new job. So like in the end, it was a risky decision. And the only reason we could have taken that decision was because we bought a house and sold it and had that extra money leftover to then come here and have that time. And now I am employed, starting Monday, I will be employed. And so that’s going to give me the opportunity to kind of do both. Both the Science Grad School Coach, and then also go back into research.

33:24 Emily: Yeah, this just, you know, is another example of what I like to say is money gives you options, right? The option to pursue fun employment. The option to wait for a great job opportunity to come and not try to force yourself into one that’s not a great fit, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And I also had, I guess, somewhat of a similar story when I started Personal Finance for PhDs, which just in the sense that my husband and I focused a lot of our energy and our finances on retirement investing when we were in graduate school. And so by the time we finished, and I talk about this in season one episode one, by the time we finished, we had quite a good nest egg, and that made us feel comfortable to take risks with our careers. So he took a job at a startup, which we were very concerned about.

Where to Learn More About Science Grad School Coach

34:09 Emily: It happens to be that he’s still at that same position six years later, but we did not know at the time that it would be around for six years. So he took a job at a startup and I started my business, which, you know, low revenue, you know, initially. So yeah, it was risky, but we felt confident, not because we had a bolus of cash savings as you did, but just because generally we were doing pretty well on the retirement front and we, you know, felt like it was okay to take a risk. So just so interesting, like I’d just love to hear another example of how your finances, like, we all know that our careers can affect our finances, right? By what job we choose and so forth, but how your finances affect your career as well. And for you, your ability to start your side business. So yeah, I’m just, I’m really glad to hear that. If people are intrigued by Science Grad School Coach, where can they find you and you know, what are you doing there?

34:59 Alana: Yeah. So the Science Grad School Coach is kind of the business I developed to help people with pursuing research. So like I said, one of the ways I was able to pay off, you know, a lot of my student loans was because of getting research awards and research posters. And something I realized is I’m actually good at doing research. But I didn’t start out that way. When I started in graduate school, I was really frustrated because I felt like everyone expected me to know things, but nobody ever taught me those things. So I had to kind of, over time figure all these different things out from how do I create a research idea, to how do I write a paper, to how do I put a poster together? And so what I’ve done is basically I want to share that knowledge with other people.

35:50 Alana: And that’s what the Science Grad School Coach is. So if you’re interested, I do have a YouTube channel which is the Science Grad School Coach. And there’s where I share a lot of, kind of shorter videos on different topics around research and how to get better at research and do things like that. You can also find me on Twitter at @scigradcoach. And then I also have a full resource pages if you’re interested that I have several different resources on there from how to create ideas, how to write a paper, how to do your dissertation. And you can find that at sciencegradschoolcoach.com/resources. And so those are kind of three different places where you can connect with me and hopefully get to learn some of the things that I’m trying to share. And hopefully it’s helpful.

36:43 Emily: Yeah. I love that impulse and I wish that I had run across a few of those resources back when I was in graduate school. Maybe the information was there. I don’t know. I didn’t, I was not plugged into it if it was.

36:54 Alana: Yeah, I definitely wasn’t either. And I think people don’t realize that research can be easy, and then it’s just because we’re not taught how to do it and we’re just expected to, and then we have to deal with the frustration of being like, I don’t know what I’m doing, but I feel like I’m supposed to know. So I did something wrong. And it’s not that you ever did anything wrong. It’s just how the system is set up is not set up for researchers to do well, I guess. It’s set up to make you struggle when you don’t need to. Because like I ended up writing or publishing seven papers in my three years as a graduate student, but it didn’t start out that way, right? Because I like really struggled. And then I started learning where I can write a research paper. Once I have the data, I can write it, you know, in a day or two. And that’s just because now I know how to do it. And so that’s what I’m trying to share with other people.

Best Financial Advice for Another Early-Career PhD

37:47 Emily: Yeah. Excellent. Very worthwhile endeavor. Love it. Okay. I’ll ask you the question that I end all my interviews with, which is what is your best financial advice for another early-career PhD?

37:59 Alana: So this is probably not the best advice, but I think my best advice is to think a lot about the location you’re going to. That’s one of the reasons why I came to the university I came to was because I started looking up rent prices and saw how cheap it was. But something that you may not know is before, so I came back to Lincoln after my postdoc. But I actually got two different job offers before I came back to Lincoln. I got an industry job that was going to pay me $85,000 that was in a middle, kind of a higher than Lincoln, cost-of-living, but it was just not the right job for me. But then I got my dream job, which was a postdoc. It was doing the dream research I wanted to do in Seattle. And I looked at the living cost, and I said, I’m going to have to take on debt to go work a job.

38:56 Alana: And I refuse to do that. And so I actually went for unemployment because it was cheaper for me to come to Lincoln and be unemployed than it was for me to go to Seattle and work a job. And so that was a really hard decision for me to make, because I really wanted to do that research. But I think it’s important to think about the fact that even as an early PhD, like you are worth something, and if you’re not going to be netting positive while working a job, you really may want to reconsider taking those jobs because that really shouldn’t be a thing, especially after you have a PhD.

39:40 Emily: What an indictment, you know, of the salaries that we pay, both graduate students and postdocs. Absolutely. And it’s so unfortunate. I mean, it’s the academic loss, the research engine’s loss that you did that calculus and came on the side of, I can’t take this job because you simply don’t pay me enough. You made a rational decision in the face of that, you know, situation, but it’s just so unfortunate that things are set up that way. In any case, you have another wonderful job coming up now in Lincoln. And yeah, I totally agree with you. You have to be very careful about examining the cost-of-living versus salaries. You know, the salary numbers, if you’re coming from a lower or a middle, you know, cost-of-living city, moving to a high-cost living city, like maybe that initial postdoc salary looked to you like, Hmm, not bad, but then you had to actually look into it and say, oh no, Seattle, quite expensive. It’s not going to work. So I totally agree with you do that at every single, you know, any job you’re trying to take going forward. Is there anything else you wanted to add on that?

40:40 Alana: I think that’s the main thing. Yeah, and like Seattle, like that was my dream city too. Like that is where like I want to go retire. So it was like so tempting to take it. And then just to realize that you’re literally not paying me enough to even afford rent, really. And so this new job I’m taking is just slightly over that same salary, but it’s so much more livable because Lincoln is literally less than half the cost-of-living of Seattle. So making that kind of decision, I think it’s so tempting to think that if I take this dream job, it’s going to propel me to the next dream thing. And kind of after different situations in my life, I realized that that’s not always true, and it’s not worth either going through a toxic situation or a situation where you’re not making enough money to live for a hope of the next thing, because if you don’t get that next thing, you’ve screwed yourself.

41:41 Emily: Yes. Such an important message. I mean, we all know the abysmal hiring rates for of course faculty positions, but even as I said earlier, like we tend to be really optimistic about the whole salary situation in research. And Hey, we all hope it comes about, but you’ve got to look at the downsides, too. So it’s interesting that you’ve sort of illustrated in your story, a couple different gambles that we’ve been talking about and how you’ve made different decisions, you know, in the face of these. So yeah, I love that, you know, you illustrated those points. Thank you so much for joining me today. It was a pleasure to have you and to get to know you.

42:14 Alana: Yeah. Thank you so much for having me. And I hope that my story can be helpful to other people especially about, you know, thinking about student loans while you’re in grad school. Because the other thing is, unless you have subsidized loans, your interest is still building while you’re doing that. So just, you know, thinking about that and then kind of making smart decisions when it comes to, you know, gambles. So I’m actually, I’m not a risk taker. I realize that this sounds like I’m a risk taker. I’m really not. Like I weigh through the pros and cons of everything I do. And you know, there are some risks you have to take in life, but I try to limit those to those that are just absolutely necessary. So I hope that this can help people that sometimes it works well. And sometimes not taking an opportunity also works well in the end.

43:07 Emily: Yeah. Thank you so much for sharing these stories and for joining me.

43:09 Alana: Yeah. Thank you!

Outtro

43:11 Emily: Listeners, thank you for joining me for this episode. PFforPhDs.com/Podcast is the hub for the Personal Finance for PhDs Podcast. On that page are links to all the episode show notes, which includes full transcripts and videos of the interviews. There is also a form to volunteer to be interviewed on the podcast. I’d love for you to check it out and get more involved. If you’ve been enjoying the podcast, here are four ways you can help it grow. One, subscribe to the podcast and rate and review it on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or whatever platform you use. Two, share an episode you found particularly valuable on social media, with an email listserv, or as a link from your website. Three, recommend me as a speaker to your university or association. My seminars cover the personal finance topics PhDs are most interested in, like investing, debt repayment, and effective budgeting. I also license prerecorded workshops on taxes. Four, subscribe to my mailing list at PFforPhds.com/Subscribe. Through that list, you’ll keep up with all the new content and special opportunities for Personal Finance for PhDs. See you in the next episode! And remember you don’t have to have a PhD to succeed with personal finance, but it helps! The music is Stages of Awakening by Podington Bear from the Free Music Archive and is shared under CC by NC. Podcast editing by Lourdes Bobbio, and show notes creation by Meryem Ok.