money mindset

Teaching Personal Finance Illuminates the Opportunity Cost of a PhD

March 23, 2026 by Jill Hoffman Leave a Comment

In this episode, Emily interviews Dr. Trevor Hedberg, an assistant professor of practice at the University of Arizona who teaches a seminar on personal finance to undergrad students based on Morgan Housel’s The Psychology of Money. Trevor is a repeat podcast guest, and he shares how teaching the course has made him think differently about finances during his PhD and postdoc, including the financial opportunity cost of grad school and lifetime wealth killers.

Links mentioned in the Episode

Teaching Personal Finance Illuminates the Opportunity Cost of a PhD

Teaser

Trevor (00:00): Because I think that the actual mechanisms for building wealth over time are really pretty simple to understand, but remarkably difficult to put into practice. And I think also as academics, like we’re primed to think that problems in the world sort of correlate in difficulty with their complexity. But it’s not always the case that problems are difficult because they’re complicated. Sometimes it’s just that there are psychological and behavioral things that kind of sabotage us in, in what we’re trying to do.

Introduction

Emily (00:38): 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 (01:07): This is Season 23, Episode 6, and today my guest is Dr. Trevor Hedberg, an assistant professor of practice at the University of Arizona who teaches a seminar on personal finance to undergrad students based on Morgan Housel’s The Psychology of Money. Trevor is a repeat podcast guest, and he shares how teaching the course has made him think differently about finances during his PhD and postdoc, including the financial opportunity cost of grad school and lifetime wealth killers.

Emily (01:37): The tax year 2025 version of my tax return preparation workshop, How to Complete Your PhD Trainee Tax Return (and Understand It, Too!), is now available! This pre-recorded educational workshop explains how to identify, calculate, and report your higher education-related income and expenses on your federal tax return. Whether you are a graduate student, postdoc, or postbac, domestic or international, there is a version of this workshop designed just for you. I do license these workshops to universities, but in the case that yours declines your request for sponsorship, you can purchase the appropriate version as an individual. Go to PFforPhDs.com/taxreturnworkshop/ to read more details and purchase the workshop. You can find the show notes for this episode at PFforPhDs.com/s23e6/. Without further ado, here’s my interview with Dr. Trevor Hedberg.

Will You Please Introduce Yourself Further?

Emily (02:50): I am delighted to have a repeat guest on the podcast today, Dr. Trevor Hedberg, who is currently an assistant professor of practice at the University of Arizona. Trevor was first on the podcast in season eight, episode 14, way back in 2021 when he was a postdoc, and we’ve had five years of time pass. Um, and there’s been a lot of changes and Trevor has a lot of new insights for us today. So I’m very excited to dig into that, um, both on the professional and personal front. So Trevor, will you please introduce yourself and tell us what’s been going on professionally in the last five years?

Trevor (03:26): Sure. Thanks Emily, and thanks for having me back on the, uh, podcast after all this time. So, um, I’m, I’m now as, as you said, an assistant professor of practice. Uh, my primary affiliation is with W.A. Franke Honors College. Uh, I also have a partial affiliation with the philosophy department. Um, the last time I was on, I was a postdoc at Ohio State. Um, and in the, a year or so after that, uh, I landed this job here at the University of Arizona and have been, um, continuing to teach undergrads, do my research, and, um, and most recently I’ve started teaching a personal finance, um, seminar here in the Honors college.

Teaching Personal Finance Seminars Using the Psychology of Money

Emily (04:03): And that is what prompted us to revisit and have another interview. And I’m so excited about this. Um, but yeah, tell us how you went from, you know, doing philosophy for your PhD to teaching personal finance at this point.

Trevor (04:16): Yeah, well, if, if anybody remembers five years back, I did, I did talk a bit about, uh, when I was in graduate school, the, the challenges associated with managing to live on such a small stipend. And so I had some personal interest in issues in personal finance because I had been grappling with some of them, uh, in my own, in my own life, just to kind of, you know, make it as a graduate student, uh, without having to take out additional loans. Um, when I got here to the University of Arizona, it was not part of my original, you know, teaching load. Uh, I was mainly hired to teach applied ethics courses, which is what my main research area is. Um, but there was a personal finance seminar that was being offered in the Honors college, but it was being offered by an out of house faculty, a faculty member in a different department that we were paying, um, to teach that seminar once a year.

Trevor (05:03): And these little honors seminars are one credit classes that, um, all honors students have to take one of them in order to graduate with the honors distinction on their transcript. So, and that happened to be one of the most popular classes, but it was only offered once a year. And the course caps on these seminars are pretty small, like, you know, low twenties in terms of the number of students. And so they were interested in, you know, this, that course was always maxing out. It’s, it had tons of people on the wait list and just, there was a lot of student demand, so it just came up in an administrative meeting. Um, you know, is there, is there someone else who might wanna teach like a course in this area? And I said I could take a crack at it. And, um, about a year later, um, we, you know, we piloted the first, and of course that course filled to capacity.

Trevor (05:53): Um, I used a, uh, I used the primary text Morgan Housel’s, the psychology of money, um, because my way of teaching the course is not just the nuts and bolts of personal finance, you know, what’s a credit score? What’s an IRA, how do you save for retirement? How do you design a budget? It’s also about the psychological and behavioral elements of, of money management and trying to familiarize the students with the, the obstacles that get in the way ’cause I think that the actual mechanisms for building wealth over time are really pretty simple to understand, but remarkably difficult to put into practice. And I think also as academics, like we’re primed to think that problems in the world sort of correlate in difficulty with their complexity. Um, because almost all the things, especially in philosophy, like all the stuff I write about, these are super complicated moral issues with all kinds of, you know, things changing empirically.

Trevor (06:44): All kinds of assumptions being made in the background about effects of, you know, emerging technologies and things like that. But it’s not always the case that problems are difficult because they’re complicated. Sometimes it’s just that there are psychological and behavioral things that kind of sabotage us in, in what we’re trying to do. And history is littered with examples of people who came upon or accumulated vast amounts of wealth at some point in time and managed to lose all of it in a very short span of time. Um, and, and my hope is that the students that come outta my class won’t follow that life trajectory.

Emily (07:20): Well, I love that you mentioned Morgan Housel’s book, and actually at this moment I’m on the waiting list for his next book or whatever his most recent book is. I’m, I’m at the library. I’m gonna be getting it soon. I’m really excited about that. Um, I’m wondering, is that the same, uh, core text that the previous, um, professor who was teaching this course was using? Or was that a shift that you made?

Trevor (07:41): So, interestingly, it was the same primary text that he was using, but I did not know that when, um, when I was like, I was essentially just looking at different books that, trade books that were written for, you know, a general audience in this area. And that was the one that kept coming up, uh, as a, a very popular source. I mean, the, the way the book is structured, each chapter essentially has one key lesson or idea, and the chapters are only, you know, eight to 10 pages long and there’s 20 of ’em. And so for a one credit course, um, where, you know, you don’t want to really overburden the students in that kind of class with a ton of a ton of reading, um, or assessments. It was just a good fit. Uh, I didn’t, now I have this semester, um, this is my third time teaching the course. I have cut out a couple of chapters of the book that I had previously assigned and replaced them with other material covering the same stuff. Uh, ’cause you know, some chapters seem to resonate more with students than others. And so I’m, I’m trying to, you know, kind of keep, keep tweaking the, the course content to a, to adapt to what works best, um, for the students, uh, Housel’s like new book is called The Art of Spending Money, and I actually do have a chapter from that book that I’m, that I’m gonna use, um, this semester. There’s a lot of overlap in his ideas in the art of spending money and in the psychology of money. But I did find, uh, I haven’t read the entirety of the art of spending money, but like probably two thirds of it, I have found the prior book, the Psychology of Money, I, I thought it was superior. Um, the, and I think like there’s overlap between the ideas. It’s clear to see that the artist spending money is an extension of some of the things he says. But, um, certainly as a teaching tool, I think the psychology of, of, of money has is, is a very good text and, and works well for, for these purposes.

Final Project: Creating a Long-Term Financial Plan

Emily (09:33): Yeah. And certainly a credit to it that you and your predecessor both independently chose it for this particular course. Um, it is a very easy and entertaining read and almost like filled with anecdotes and yeah, it’s a very, um, it moves along very quickly and it teaches you a lot in a very effective way, I think. Um, is there anything else that you wanna tell us about the course itself?

Trevor (09:55): Probably the, um, the final project that I’ve had the students do in the class the previous two times is I, I have made them actually design and outline a personal financial plan from their current age, which for most of ’em is about 20 all the way up to retirement age at 65, uh, operating at about five year intervals. Now doing that, uh, that is challenging for anybody to do regardless of, of, of your, of your age or your, um, financial situation. But I think that a lot of these students have never, they’ve never imagined like their, their wealth building journey on this long time horizon. And so I got a lot of feedback the first semester I taught the course where like everybody was like, this is a really valuable thing to do. And also, this was really, really hard and I would like some more direct guidance and more resources.

Trevor (10:40): Um, so I spent more of an effort last semester, um, showing them in class how to use retirement calculators and, um, and where to look to get information about like what their expected income is in their anticipated career at different life stages. And, uh, and also pointed some things out about like, you know, what commonly goes wrong over the course of a lifetime in trying to, because I, I required them in their timelines to incorporate some negative life events that, not saying that those things will happen, but basically like, don’t design your plan operating where, oh, I’m never gonna have any health emergencies. I’m never gonna have a, be in a car accident. I’m never gonna, you know, have any period of unemployment or decide to make a career change or go through a divorce. Like these are not realistic. Something bad will happen to you over 45 years of your life. You just don’t know exactly what it is. So plan for some of those things. Imagine that those things alter what your plans are and, and adjust your goals, um, accordingly, or like build in that preparation into how you structure your emergency savings or, or, um, or what you end, you know, what, what career decisions you make earlier in your life.

Emily (11:50): I think that exercise is so valuable. And actually I don’t think I’ve ever done that, like, to that level of detail, like projecting that far out. But I did want for our audience to take it down to a, a smaller timescale. Um, and just emphasize this principle of don’t assume everything is going to go perfectly financially, um, especially as you’re entering into a new position as you’re entering graduate school, as you’re entering a postdoc later on in your career. Um, if you’re pro projecting your budget and trying to figure out, okay, can I make it on this stipend? Can I make it on this postdoc salary in this city? You have to build in some of those shocks and prepare your finances for them because the length of term you’ll be in, you know, your PhD program, the length of time you’ll be in a postdoc way too long to assume that nothing is gonna go wrong. And so if your plan relies on everything going perfectly and you’re living on a razor’s edge, it’s not a good enough plan at that point.

Trevor (12:43): Yeah. The, the one, um, the one change that I am making this semester to that final kind of project is I am giving them an alternative option because a number of students kind of seemingly wanted to do this in previous courses, which is I’m gonna allow them alternatively to spend 12 weeks during the semester tracking their spending. Um, and then essentially the, the personal financial plan has two components, like the timeline that I’ve kind of described, and then a narrative that syncs up the timeline with like the course content and material. Like, why did you pick the strategies you did? How is it influenced by the, um, the stuff that we’ve read? Uh, it’s the same thing, but it’s like the information you’d be using is like, what did you learn about your spending over these 12 weeks of tracking your interactions with money? What do you spend money on? How is that consistent or not consistent with the things that we have, uh, covered in the, in the class? You know, what changes might you make in light of what you’ve learned to how you are, uh, to how you’re spending money or what you’re spending things on. Um, now whether or not students will actually like do this project, ’cause this requires you to get started like week three or week four, I’m gonna outline for them next week like how to use a template that I’m giving them for tracking, you know, your spending over time. So it’s an experiment. We’ll, we’ll see how many people actually do it. Um, but, but the idea behind both of these is just, you gotta have a certain level of intentionality and forethought with respect to how you manage your money. It does not magically happen in, in some way. And, and, and for I think virtually every student who takes this class, they’ll not have done either of these things, either this long-term kind of mapping things out to retirement, at least hypothetically, or just let me see what I’m spending money on for three months and see if I am okay with my behaviors. Uh, and if not, what am I gonna do to make a change?

Emily (14:38): I’m just loving this. I hope the audience is as well. And you know, I’m sure they’re all wishing they had the opportunity to take this course, uh, when they were in undergraduate or in graduate school. Um, it sounds incredible, uh, but I understand that you, you know, this is now your third time through teaching the course. It’s caused some reflections and, um, you know, rethinking in you about, you know, decisions you’ve made in the past and so forth. So I’d love for us to kind of, yeah, with this new information and deeper knowledge that you have in this area. Like, let’s speak to, you know, your time as a graduate student and as a postdoc, and how your thoughts about that have changed.

The Opportunity Cost of Grad School

Trevor (15:12): Yeah, so one of the things when, one of the, the basic pieces of advice you always get if you go to grad school in the humanities is like, don’t take out any loans to pursue because of the career prospects are uncertain and you don’t wanna take on additional debt, so on. That’s a totally fair point. It’s actually very understated, um, how important that is. But there’s also, like, there’s a really high opportunity cost to going to graduate school in, in, in any humanities field in your early twenties because the, you’re, you’re de you’re depriving yourself of, of a financial resource that we don’t talk about that much. Um, so a lot of people will point out like, well, if you, if you got an even just an entry level job where you were making, I don’t know, $50,000 a year to start out, you’d not only be working towards having a higher income, you would also be potentially, you know, paying off your debt sooner or, you know, uh, accumulating, you know, $50,000 a year instead of 15 or $20,000, whatever your graduate student stipend was.

Trevor (16:09): Um, that’s all fair. But the real resource that you’re depriving yourself of is time, uh, and specifically time for your money to grow via some kind of investment mechanism. So the, the alternative where you’re making 50 or $60,000 a year in your early twenties as opposed to try just trying to get by, not take out any more loans and, but not in a position to really save anything, um, when you’re in graduate school, that time is disproportionately more valuable than time in your thirties and forties and so on. Because if you put that money even in just like a basic index fund, um, it’ll, we have to make some assumptions about like, you know, based on past performance of how like the market does, but it’s reasonable to think that whatever money you put in will double somewhere between seven and 10 years after you put it in.

Trevor (17:00): So if you were to spend your twenties, even if it was just, I don’t know, $10,000, $15,000, put that in. By the time you are in your, you know, mid sixties and looking to retire, that money is going to have, have doubled four to six times. And so you’ll be in a position where if it was say, $10,000 and even if it only doubled four times, 10,000 goes to 20,000, 40,000, 80,000, that’s $160,000 by the time you get all the way down there. This is the, just the basic concept of compound interest, which I spend about two weeks trying to drill into my students in, in this class because all of them are typically 18 to 20 year olds. And so for them, the greatest resource they have is, is their time. So I think, I think this is an element of going to graduate school, uh, and being in graduate school for a long time with a relatively modest salary, uh, that isn’t properly appreciated because you’re, you’re not just depriving yourselves of like income in the short term. You’re also taking away like essentially one doubling cycle on money that you could save. And that, that, that cycle that takes place during the twenties, so and so if you, if you lumped all this money in instead, like when you’re 30 instead of when you’re in your early twenties, you’ll only wind, you’ll only have about half as much at the end of this process as you would’ve had, um, using that same money if you just put it in eight to 10 years earlier.

Emily (18:27): I, I wanna make sure the audience is really picking up on this because, um, as you’re saying, it’s not just the lost wages, it’s the lost time for the investments. You, we can presume in our scenario, you would’ve been doing had you not been in graduate school, and it’s not just a few thousand dollars or 10 or $20,000 that you could have invested, let’s say in your twenties, if we’re talking about a traditional PhD student, what we’re really talking about is the last doubling that occurs on your money. Your career itself is let’s say seven years longer if you start it after your bachelor’s degree instead of starting after your PhD. So to make up for that last lost doubling, which could be worth, it could be worth a million dollars. It could be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars easily. You have to earn more on the backside of the graduate degree and save more on the backside of the graduate degree, invest more, um, to make up for the lost time.

Emily (19:24): And so, as you know, from your perspective as someone in the humanities, um, that’s something that you have to be very, very cognizant of, careful about, like if you, how much is the premium going to be on your salary if you have the PhD versus not? What’s the expected outcome there if you get the tenure track job versus you have to take some other kind of job because it didn’t work out in that respect. So you have to make so much more money to make up for this. Now we can all make lifestyle decisions, like it’s okay if you just want to have a PhD, but to be aware of the financial, you know, implications from that decision. Um, really it should be taught before you make these decisions about where you’re, you know, if you go to graduate school, where you go to graduate school and so forth. So I’m really glad you brought this up. I just wanted to put another like kind of underline under there that’s not just a few thousand dollars, it’s the last doubling that you’re missing out on.

Trevor (20:18): Yeah. Now, as a disclaimer, I should note that like, I don’t think this is in itself like a decisive reason to never go into any graduate program or pursue any professional training. Um, most people who go into graduate school in philosophy or any humanities field like I did, uh, you’re probably making that decision primarily for non-financial reasons. I would hope, I would hope that that is the primary motivation for, for doing that. So it’s not like I look back and I say, oh, it was just a total mistake to go to graduate school in philosophy because I, because, you know, my 65-year-old self could have, I don’t know, $500,000 more than I would’ve had, uh, in, in the, in the timeline that I’m currently in. It’s more like knowing what I know. Um, if I could go back in time, one of the things I would’ve done, I was able to still save a, a significant chunk of money while I was in grad school.

Trevor (21:06): And I used some of that to pay off, um, a couple of stu of, of the student loans that I had from undergrad. Um, but I had enough money at, at a couple of points in time where I could have opened a Roth IRA and it wouldn’t have been a huge sum of money initially if I did it as a lump sum, it would’ve only probably been like a couple thousand dollars. But I think what I would’ve liked to do is open a Roth IRA around the age of maybe 23 or something like that, and put in, you know, a hundred dollars a month or something like that. Uh, just get into the hab- even if it was only $50 a month, right? Just build a habit of just putting money in investing in this vehicle. And I just, it did not occur to me, uh, at that time, uh, to do that. So that’s probably the biggest, the biggest change I can look back on and say I would’ve made, um, in grad school. The-

Emily (21:52): Absolutely. So to take that scenario that I just said, okay, you’re starting a career, let’s say seven years later because you decided to do a PhD and you couldn’t save in that meantime, um, that’s true under that set of assumptions that we were just talking about. But what you just pointed out is if you can start to invest a little bit, then you have started that clock, then you’re not missing out entirely on the last doubling, you’re missing a fraction of it because you’re able to invest much less than you would if you had a different kind of job during that period. But you’re, you’re lessening the damage, right, of that lost time just by getting started a little bit. And as you said, a hundred dollars a month, $50 a month, this is still a significant amount of money once you project it forward, you know, as you said, four to six doublings later.

Emily (22:34): Like, this is a significant and effective amount of money. And so it’s not, um, something that you should disregard just because, oh, I can only save $50, I can only save a hundred dollars. No, go ahead and do it if, if you’re financially ready for it. And as you just mentioned, it not only is the effect of the money itself, but the, it’s the effect of the habit. It’s the effect of you having your identity as I am someone who invests even in difficult life circumstances. I still invest, you know, and so that’s very, very valuable as well.

Commercial

Emily (23:03): Emily here for a brief interlude! Tax season is in full swing, and the best place to go for information tailored to you as a grad student, postdoc, or postbac, is PFforPhDs.com/tax/. From that page I have linked to all of my free tax resources, many of which I have updated for this tax year. On that page you will find podcast episodes, videos, and articles on all kinds of tax topics relevant to PhDs and PhDs-to-be. There are also opportunities to join the Personal Finance for PhDs mailing list to receive PDF summaries and spreadsheets that you can work with. Again, you can find all of these free resources linked from PFforPhDs.com/tax/. Now back to the interview.

Financial Changes After Grad School

Trevor (23:54): Yeah, so once I got out of grad school and, and got into kind of, you know, making like a reasonable, like closer to that $50,000, you know, hypothetical income we were talking about, um, the things I did after that was like, I immediately paid down, you know, my high interest student loan debt. Uh, I had never had any, I’ve never had any credit card debt. I’m one of those, uh, what they call in the industry deadbeats who uses credit cards, but just pays off the balance in full every single month. Uh, so that wasn’t an issue. And then I, um, now I, I didn’t really look into, it took me about two years to pay off that debt and to pay off my car. And then I started my postdoc at Ohio State, and it was really that moment, like early, like I believe I was 31, um, when I was actually like, okay, I have some retirement money from, you know, that was just being pulled from my paycheck at South Florida.

Trevor (24:45): Let me convert that into a Roth IRA and, and let’s, let’s actually now start, start like taking this, you know, seriously, not because it’s like, I didn’t care about it previously, but it’s like I actually have money now. I actually am saving a significant chunk of, of my income because one thing I did manage to avoid and have continued to manage to avoid is I have not really had the lifestyle creep problem that, that some people experience, where as your income goes up, your, your lifestyle and the cost of it proportionally increases so that you, you know, you’re making $10,000 more a year or $20,000 more a year, but you’re not actually saving any more money than you were when you were making less. Um, that has not been a, I I haven’t been tempted, um, to, uh, just start to live lavishly, um, once, once I had like a real income

Emily (25:39): Listeners. I have, I need to be very disciplined still <laugh>.

Trevor (25:43): Yeah, so I, I think, I think once I got into like doing the stuff in the postdoc, like I don’t really think there are a lot of choices I would’ve made differently given that, but I, I do, as I said, wish I had kind of set myself up, um, a little bit better. One thing I have learned in teaching this class and just investigating kind of the trends in among, you know, my, the, these people in their late teens, early twenties, folks who are just starting to manage their money. Um, there are certain kinds of well-known like wealth killers, and it’s amazing how often if you just, if you just, if you read some books on the subject or if you, uh, just browse like YouTube videos or other social media for like, from financial advisors or other people, the same kinds of problems just surface over and over again in this in different ways.

Four Common Financial Wealth Killers

Trevor (26:27): Credit card interest, I think is the most well known like wealth killer because the interest rates are so high, you do not wanna ever be carrying a balance month to month on a credit card. Um, student loan, um, interest if, if the, particularly if you’re taking out like private student loans with real high interest rates and not being very aggressive and paying those off. Um, historically there have been cases of people who spend 10, 20 years paying down a balance, and because they were paying so little on the balance, the amount they owe is actually more than the amount they started with because they’re not, they’re not paying off any of the principal money they borrowed, they’re just paying off the interest. Um, that’s a disastrous situation that I, you know, emphasized to my students, you gotta avoid.

Trevor (27:11): And then the two things that, so I knew about those, but there were a couple other things I did not know about, um, teaching this course, one of which is just dubiously financed auto loans. Um, this is sort of a combination of a couple of things. Buying, buying a car you can’t afford, uh, but also buying it on terms that I didn’t even know existed. Uh, I, you know, I, I’ve heard now that there are apparently 84 month and 96 month car loans, which I didn’t know that was a thing. Um, and the interest rates, um, the car I have right now is a 2.9% interest rate, which is pretty good. I think I’ve seen interest rates of like between 11 and 16%, uh, in, in some, in some instances that get talked about in some of these videos. And that’s, um, that’s sort of nightmarish. Uh, and granted, I know like, you know, having a good credit score is what qualifies you for interest rates. Not every people are in different circumstances, but you gotta be cognizant of what kind of car you can afford given your financial situation.

Trevor (28:07): And you’ve, you’ve, you’ve gotta, you’ve gotta find a better, better situation with that. You cannot take, if you’re, if you’re paying 11% interest on $80,000 car, uh, by the time and it’s 84 months, by the time you pay that off, you’re probably paying double what the car’s value is. And it’s a depreciating asset. So if you, you know, get, if you get caught in a situation where you have to get rid of the vehicle or it’s totaled out or something like that, uh, you may have to roll negative equity into your next, which is another thing that I didn’t even know was like an option for, for vehicle purchases. So I don’t know if, like, I was just naive about how people buy cars or, or what, but seeing like all of the ways you can sabotage yourself in that area has been somewhat enlightening for me teaching, um, teaching the class.

Emily (28:51): I totally agree with you, and this is really great stuff to know when you’re going into like your first car purchase or maybe your first financed car purchase or new car purchase or something along those lines. Um, but zooming back out to that like sort of lifetime timeline that we were talking about earlier, one of those other wealth killers related to cars is just always having a car loan. Like never keeping a car <laugh> much, much long, you know, much, much longer past the time period when you’re done paying off the loan. A lot of people do get in a cycle of, they’re just accustomed to it. They’re just accustomed to always having a car loan when their car is paid off, they get another new or they finance another car. And that, that habit alone makes a massive difference for your wealth over your lifetime.

Emily (29:36): I mean, easily a million dollars if we’re talking about like more expensive like kinds of cars, it’s incredible what that habit is. Now, there are structural reasons why this happens, okay? Like we live most of us in very car dependent cities. Absolutely. And so cars are a necessity for a lot of people. And the other thing, sorry, this is a little bit of soapbox for me, but like the types of cars that are being produced now are much, much, much more expensive than types of cars that have been produced in the past. So people feel like they’re kind of forced into a very expensive car just because they’re very limited options on the lower end of the price range. So that is a structural issue that’s kind of pushing people in this direction that’s also very worth, you know, pointing out. But the more, as you’re doing with your students, you know, the more awareness you have about these, um, influences around you, the more that you can try to work against them when you’re making your own individual decisions.

Trevor (30:28): Yeah, and I, I definitely empathize with the point about, um, not wanting to be in a state where you don’t have a car payment every month. So when I came to Arizona, I was driving, um, a Hyundai Elantra that had been fully paid off for several years, but a few months into being here in Arizona, uh, it was one of those older models of vehicles that, uh, unbeknownst to me did not have what is known as a key immobilizer, which means that if you knew what to do, uh, and unfortunately, yeah, so there was a, a TikTok trend about this that was going around under the hashtag Kia Boys, where it was basically a series of tutorials about how to steal Kias and Hyundais that had been manufactured without key immobilizers. And essentially if you strip off the steering column and know what to look for and have like a large blunt object, uh, like in, in this case, I believe it was a, just a screwdriver, um, a flathead Phillips flathead screwdriver that was used. You can, um, you can get the car to start without having any of the keys, right? And so overnight, uh, my car was stolen outta my apartment parking lot and crashed and totaled out in, uh, in like 25, 30 minutes outside of town. Um, and this is apparently just what these people were doing. Um, so somewhere on TikTok, there may be a video in, in the archives of someone driving my Elantra and just crashing it out in the Catalina Foothills of Arizona. Um, but I had two off-, just two. I was woken up by two police officers knocking on my door at 7:00 AM and be like, sir, do you have the keys to your vehicle? Do you know where it’s located? You know, et cetera, et cetera. So we eventually figured out what had happened. Someone had broken out the back window, uh, of the car climbed in, stripped off the steering column. There was a screwdriver in the vehicle that was not mine. That was a very long, you know, uh, there had been a bunch of stuff that had been, you know, it, the vehicle had been totally trashed. It was totaled. Um, so I had to buy a new car here in Arizona. Like that wasn’t my financial plan. This is one of those things that can go wrong, right? We were talking earlier about you can’t, you can’t, like that was a completely unanticipated event. Um, my insurance gave me a very good like, payout for the vehicle, but I had to get a new vehicle right when it wasn’t, it wasn’t part of the plan. Um, so I’m looking forward to, in about a year where I will have this current car paid off and not, um, and not, not have, hopefully not have that car payment for a lot, for a lot longer. I know my new car does have a key immobilizer, so at least won’t be destroyed in the same way.

Trevor (32:53): So the, the one other thing I learned that that was not, this was definitely not a thing when I was growing up, is, um, there’s, so one of the great advantages we have now compared to the past when it comes to like building wealth, is you can manage your investments and other stuff like online. You don’t have to go through like a broker at a brick and mortar bank. Um, and, and you can, you can get a snapshot of like how things are going, what you’re doing, et cetera, way more easily. But the downside of that is it’s now also possible to engage in dubious investment practices or what we would just describe as outright gambling, um, with your money. Some of that is in investment formats. People who are doing, like, they’re, they’re pretending sort of to be day traders, uh, and, and doing, doing things with their money. That’s, I think just basically indistinguishable from gambling, especially if they’re doing things like investing in these, these crypto meme coins where occasionally something hits it big, but the vast majority of the time these things just crash zero over over time. Um, and, and the other big one is sports betting, which is just everywhere now.

Trevor (33:56): And, uh, used to be a very niche thing, uh, that that very few people did. And if they did, it was really just kind of a novelty, like, oh, I happen to be in Vegas, so whatever I, I, I bet on a horse race or something like that, I, but now it’s everywhere and you can access it on your phone. Lots of, lots of, and, and it disproportionately affects young men. Um, the vast majority of, of sports bets are men, uh, and they’re, they skew really young. Um, that, you know, age range of 18 to 25 seems to be like the, the largest, um, growing demographic of that. So I’ve been trying to caution my students many times about not doing these things, these behaviors where you’re ex the expected value is not that you gain money over time, right? And that’s why FanDuel and DraftKings and these, um, why they give you these promotional benefits, you know, that $5 get $200 in bonus bets or, or these, these profit boost tokens they give out where, oh, if your bet hits you get 1.5 times the payout on this. You know, it’s all designed to just keep you there placing bets because they know the longer you’re in the game, the more likely it is that eventually you’ll lose and they’ll make money off of you.

Emily (35:10): Absolutely. I was just explaining to my daughters a few days ago, the concept of gambling. Like they don’t even know what it is. They’re very young, and I, the first thing I said to them is, the house always wins. Remember that <laugh>, like, do not let go of that lesson. The house always, always wins. As we’re recording this interview, um, in January, 2026, it happens to be that I listened to a podcast episode yesterday of deep questions with Cal Newport where he covered sports betting and gambling and the new technology around that and how prevalent it is, as you were mentioning. And this also came up for me in previous conversations with Dr. Zach Taylor, who’s been a repeat guest on the podcast as well, who works with undergraduate students too. And so the stat that I heard in that episode with Cal Newport was that, um, 70% of young men who live on a college campus have a sports betting account, right?

Emily (35:55): We don’t know how much they’re using it, but they have an account, they have access to it. Um, and so to me, I don’t address gambling much. I think this is maybe the first time it’s come up on the podcast, but to me, I struggle with, um, helping to teach how <laugh> entertainment and spending money on entertainment might be okay, and it can be part of your budget, but how gambling, you know, obviously taken too far, it becomes very addictive and very financially damaging and damaging to relationships. And like, how do you find yourself on that spectrum and sort of for your own personal self, your own personal values, decide what you’re comfortable with and what you’re not. How, how do you address this with your students?

Dr. Hedberg’s Experience with Sports Betting on FanDuel

Trevor (36:37): What I tell the students about gambling, whatever form it takes, is that you need to approach what you’re doing. That money that is not savings money, that’s not money that you’re, you know, putting aside for emergency savings. It’s not money that you’re investing for retirement. This is money that needs to be in the same category as like, I’m going out to a nice restaurant, or I’m, I’m going to the movies with some friends, or I’m, I’m, I’m buying some, you know, decorative item from my home or whatever. Um, it needs to be money that you are okay if there is zero return on investment, if it is all, if it is all lost. Um, and that’s how I approached, um, I did a couple of years ago, um, use FanDuel, uh, which is one of the major sports betting apps, uh, for one year. And I basically took a fixed sum of money, which in my case it was like a thousand dollars.

Trevor (37:23): And I said, this is what I got for the whole year. If I lose all of it, that’s it. If I, whatever I, you know, and, and, and we’ll just see what happens. I mostly bet on NBA games as a sport I’m the most familiar with in that, in that kind of context. I actually wound up making $50 over the course of this whole experiment, but it was incredibly tedious, um, and did not make me enjoy watching basketball more. Um, for me it was very much the opposite. I could have made more money just putting that a thousand dollars into, uh, a brokerage account or even like a high yield savings account probably. Um, and so that, that was not, uh, ’cause the other factor is like the gambling earnings or taxed in kind of a weird way. So like, I’m, I’m not sure I actually made $50.

Trevor (38:09): I don’t know what the positive value was, but it was negligible is the, is the point. I neither made nor lost a meaningful sum of money doing that. Um, but if I had lost all of that money, nothing about my financial future would’ve hinged on that. There was no expected amount, rate of return. It was just an experiment. Wanna see how this app works? Want to see what, what this experience is like because so many people are doing it. Um, I don’t really regret doing the experiment, but I also like have deleted my account. Will never go back. So, um, I encourage, you know, my students to, if they are going to do any kind of gambling, to approach it that way, like set aside a fixed sum of money that is just your, and, and have it budgeted in that way. Don’t put more money into your account and do not anticipate or make projections about your financial future based on anticipated earn earnings or gains. Um, that, that’s a recipe for disaster.

Emily (39:06): And I think that, um, paired with this extra, this optional exercise that they have of tracking their spending over the course of the semester is really valuable because some people may be adding money all the time to these kinds of accounts, and it’s one of those like small transaction things that can kind of get overlooked unless you’re really, really in your numbers and adding them up over the course of the month or what have you. And so that could be really valuable. Oh, I’m actually spending this many hundreds of dollars per month on gambling, and maybe that’s not, that’s more than entertainment budget than I need to be spending at this point. Right?

Trevor (39:38): Yeah, I, we’ll see, I I, since I have done that activity before, um, I don’t know what to expect for what, what, how many students will do it or what I’ll, or what I’ll learn about it. But, um, but I do think that if they, if they really did it for the full 12 weeks, that’s three months, that’s enough of a time slice that they would get some idea of what some of their habits were, and they might get some insight into, um, where they might want to make changes, uh, in, in, in the future. Or maybe they would discover like, oh, I’m, I’m doing better in this than I thought, you know, it’s possible.

Dr. Hedberg’s Future Financial Plans

Emily (40:11): Absolutely. Uh, you mentioned the future, so I wanted to ask you if your own plans for your life, your finances have ch- and you know, forward looking have changed at all from your experience teaching this course?

Trevor (40:25): I think for the most part, I mean, I think some of the habits that I have had, had, had developed, um, I, I, I feel are a little bit more vindicated given, you know, like the avoidance of high interest debt and a and a few of the other things. Uh, as I mentioned earlier, I do kind of wish in the past and maybe I had developed an investing habit a little bit earlier. Um, but the, the one thing that is different now is that when I was a postdoc, I was always operating on basically 18 month time horizons with everything in my life because, you know, what’s the next job? What, what am I doing to make myself competitive for that next cycle? And that included the fi- the financial stuff too, right? I mean, there, there was, you know, there was an expectation that at some point that would stretch out longer term, but it’s really hard to like, feel like you’re prioritizing re- retirement outcomes when you don’t even know whether you’re gonna be employed the next academic year.

Trevor (41:18): And once, once I got here at Arizona and once, like, after a year or so, I kind of got the sense that this could be a fairly stable and permanent, you know, appointment, you know, and I liked living here and liked the people I work with. Um, then it became easier psychologically to say like, okay, we’re gonna, I’m gonna overhaul some of the things I’m doing and we’re gonna really, we’re gonna be maxing out that Roth IRA, the university has a, has an HSA as as well that you can use as a kind of retirement investment vehicle. So I’m maxing that out also. Um, and then, um, I also opted in actually to the university’s pension, uh, options. So they give you two options at the University of Arizona, and you have to decide pretty early in your, when you start your job, what you’re taking.

Trevor (42:00): One of ’em is a 403B, which is structured like a 401k, and the other one is a defined benefit pension plan where if you, there’s a formula where like you get a certain percentage of your highest five income earning years in the state of Arizona based on how many years you worked. And, um, so if you work, like, I don’t have the table in front of me right now, but if you work around 25 to 30 years in, in, in the state of Arizona, uh, while you’re eligible for the pension and are putting in the amount of, you know, it’s mandatory, they just deduct it, you know, pre-tax from your, um, from your paycheck, uh, you will get like something like 70% ish of your, of that salary every month, you know, for the rest of your life until, until you die. Uh, so the hope is that between like my Roth IRA, which is like a, like something that I’m maintaining on my own and which started with funds from Ohio State and University of South Florida, like the retirement stuff I had done in those places before getting here between that and the HSA and then having a pension hopefully between those three things, you know, in tandem. Um, I’ll, I’ll be all right when I, when I get into my sixties. Um, right now the short term goal is I’m, I’m, uh, I’m, I’ve got some m- money that I’m growing to potentially make a down payment on a house or, or maybe buy a condominium or something like that.

Emily (43:27): It’s amazing. I’m so glad to hear that, um, that you chose the pension. I mean, obviously the numbers are different for different people, but just to have that perspective, um, for the podcast audience of like, yeah, pensions actually do still exist, um, in higher education at certain types of institutions. And so this may be a choice that you are faced with and you, it’s really a combination of a career and a financial decision. And it’s also, I also would be very tempted by the pension just for the aspect of the guaranteed income. And as you said, you can still do some retirement investing on your own. Maybe you consider it optional, maybe you consider it necessary, I don’t know. Um, but you still have those other vehicles that you know, you can use for that purpose as well. So anyway, it’s just very interesting and as I’ve gotten, um, well closer to retirement, I guess you could say time keeps passing. Um, I find that idea of guaranteed income to be very attractive and possibly worth, you know, paying a premium for in some ways. So, super interesting.

Best Financial Advice for Another Early-Career PhD

Emily (44:23): Um, I wanna end with the question that I ask all of my guests, which is, what is your best financial advice for another early career PhD? You answered this the first time you’re on the podcast, so let’s get a, a refresh on that. And it can be something that we’ve touched on already in the interview, or it could be something completely new.

Trevor (44:40): The thing that I’ve learned, like I’ve mentioned here earlier, that the one thing I would go back and change is that I would’ve started, I would’ve opened a Roth IRA and I would’ve started investing, even if it was a tiny sum of money every month, just to build that, just to get that habit. Like this is just the thing I do. Um, I think that is something that is not on a lot of 22, 23-year-old PhD students radar. And that’s something that I would definitely, uh, tell people. Now, if I was, if I was advising, uh, an undergrad student who’s gonna go to grad school, this is, this is something that I would make them, um, privy to because, uh, you know, there are all these, um, calculators you can use on in online space to figure out how much money it’s worth. The most common figure that I’m familiar with, which, uh, originates from a guy named Brian Preston, who, who runs like a, I think it’s like called the the Money Guy Show, or the Money Guy podcast or whatever.

Trevor (45:33): He has a book called Millionaire Mission. He’s got this chart, uh, based on, it’s basically how much is a dollar worth at the age of 65 invested at different ages. And, and it assumes a declining rate of like investment returns as you get closer to retirement because you make your, you make your portfolio a little more conservative to make sure that that money doesn’t fluctuate dramatically right before you retire. And essentially $1 invested at age 20, at least according to his calculations, is worth about $88 at the age of 65. Now, again, there are some assumptions built into how that’s calculated, but on any plausible estimate, in my view, the minimum is it’s gonna be like $64 and it could be higher, it could be over a hundred, depending on, again, what background assumptions you’re making, how aggressive your portfolio is, and what actually happens in the market.

Trevor (46:23): So getting even just a small amount each month when you’re 21, 22, 23 years old into these kinds of accounts is just such an incredibly powerful thing. But you don’t get that money for 40 plus years. So there’s a trade off, you know, and, and I know as a graduate student, I was always weighing like, how much emergency savings do I need in the event that I’m unemployed for six months after I get my PhD? And it’s easy to look back now and to say like, oh, I really wish I’d invested, you know, 10,000, $20,000, uh, of, of that, of that money I had on hand now because I didn’t have that period of unemployment. But that’s very much a hindsight bias because certainly if things had gone a little bit differently, there could have been a gap of some sort where I would’ve been very glad to not have a bunch of money tied up in a retirement account. So this has to be, these things have to be weighed, but a small amount, $20 a month, $50 a month, whatever you can scrounge away, like just building that habit and knowing like this is, when you were in even I think once you get to your thirties and you see how much it’s grown in just that short time, you, you will not regret building that habit early and and making those choices.

Emily (47:31): Very well said. Trevor, thank you so much for giving this interview. Thank you for coming back on the podcast and giving us all an update. It was wonderful to hear from you.

Trevor (47:39): Yeah, thanks for having me back, Emily, it was great to see you again, chat about this stuff. And, uh, I, you know, I’ve, I’ve, I have enjoyed teaching about it and I, I expect I’ll keep doing that here in the Franke Honors College for quite some time.

Outro

Emily (48:02): 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.

Money Is a Good Enough Reason to Leave Academia

October 20, 2025 by Jill Hoffman 1 Comment

In this episode, Emily interviews Dr. Gabrielle Filip-Crawford, the founder of the peer support network Recovering Academics. Gabrielle left her tenure-track position after discovering she was vastly underpaid with almost no room for salary growth even after promotion. Gabrielle shares the common financial questions and mindsets that she sees within the Recovering Academics community, such as not understanding what different careers pay and feeling guilty for needing to earn more money. Gabrielle and Emily discuss how graduate students and postdocs can improve their money mindsets prior to pursuing academic or non-academic positions post-training.

Links mentioned in the Episode

Money Is a Good Enough Reason to Leave Academia

Teaser

Gabrielle (00:00): That was kind of my mindset going from grad school to postdoc to faculty position. Each one paid more than the last. And so that faculty role that didn’t pay enough for me to really live on was the most I’d made up to that point. And it didn’t occur to me for a ridiculously long time. That didn’t mean it was a good salary just because it was more than my postdoc.

Introduction

Emily (00:34): Welcome to the Personal Finance for PhDs Podcast: A Higher Education in Personal Finance. This podcast is for PhDs and PhDs-to-be who want to explore the hidden curriculum of finances to learn the best practices for money management, career advancement, and advocacy for yourself and others. I’m your host, Dr. Emily Roberts, a financial educator specializing in early-career PhDs and founder of Personal Finance for PhDs.

Emily (01:03): This is Season 22, Episode 5, and today my guest is Dr. Gabrielle Filip-Crawford, the founder of the peer support network Recovering Academics. Gabrielle left her tenure-track position after discovering she was vastly underpaid with almost no room for salary growth even after promotion. Gabrielle shares the common financial questions and mindsets that she sees within the Recovering Academics community, such as not understanding what different careers pay and feeling guilty for needing to earn more money. Gabrielle and I discuss how graduate students and postdocs can improve their money mindsets prior to pursuing academic or non-academic positions post-training.

Emily (01:44): I’m delighted to share that I will join the Recovering Academics weekly call on Tuesday, November 18, 2025 for a 60-minute Q&A call. If that group is a good fit for you and you’d like to join in time for that Q&A, get in touch with Gabrielle via LinkedIn or [email protected]. 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/s22e5/. Without further ado, here’s my interview with Dr. Gabrielle Filip-Crawford.

Will You Please Introduce Yourself Further?

Emily (02:49): I’m delighted to have joining me on the podcast today, Dr. Gabrielle Filip-Crawford, who is the co-founder of Next Draft LLC, and the founder of the Peer Support Group, Recovering Academics. And Gabrielle is a former academic, and we’re gonna be talking a lot about that journey as well as the journeys that she’s observed among others. And Gabrielle and I met actually at the graduate career consortium annual meeting that happened last June. We’re recording this interview in September 2025, and we were both sponsors of the conference. And so of course, I love to meet the other sponsors and get to know how they support the academic community as well. And so we decided this was worth a whole podcast interview. So Gabrielle, welcome to the podcast, and will you please introduce yourself further for the audience?

Gabrielle (03:32): Yeah, thank you so much for having me on. It is a pleasure to be here and chat with you. Um, so I am, uh, as you said, co-founder of Next Draft LLC. My background is in social psychology, graduated with my PhD in 2015, and I went straight into academia, so I was a postdoc for a year and then, uh, on the tenure track at a liberal arts college for six years after that. And I ended up transitioning out of, uh, my academic position and moving into the world of program evaluation and applied policy research. And that’s what I’ve been doing for the last few years now.

Emily (04:12): Tell us more about the decision to leave your tenure track job, because I understand that finances played a heavy role in that.

Gabrielle (04:20): They definitely did. So I think one of the things that kind of caught me up around finances is nobody ever really talked to me about what normal people earn <laugh>. Um, I have a lot of friends who work in the tech industry, work for Google, Microsoft, Facebook, who make just massive amounts of money, and I didn’t wanna work in big tech. And so I thought, well, I’m just never gonna earn a salary like that, and what I’m earning is normal. And I earned 56,000 as a tenure track professor with PhD, and nobody really pointed out the discrepancy between that and what PhDs were earning outside of academia and outside of tech. And there were kind of two financial nails in the coffin to my decision to leave. One was, uh, the APA, the American Psychological Association published salary data, and they published the mean salary for people with a bachelor’s in psychology, a master’s in psychology, and a PhD in psychology. And I was right there at the average salary for a bachelor’s. And then I found out that a colleague who had been my department chair was tenured, had been there for more than a decade, was making 60,000. Um, and I just saw this future of, man, I’m gonna be here for my whole career and I’m gonna be lucky if by the time I retire I hit 70,000 a year. And it just wasn’t feasible. I have a family, I have a child, and, um, childcare costs, school costs, uh, everything’s pretty expensive and just not doable on a salary like that.

Feeling Financially Dissatisfied in Academia

Emily (06:12): Now, it would be one thing if you saw that you were under earning compared to what you could potentially earn elsewhere, but you were okay with it, right? The finances still worked in your own personal life. We’re not saying everybody needs to make as much money as they possibly can in their field, but as you were getting to at the end of your answer, like it was not personally satisfying to you to stay at that level and you could see the future. Like it wasn’t gonna, you know, sometimes professors can expect decent leaps up in salary as they go through the, the, you know, professor process with their promotions, but that apparently was not the case for you. So can you tell me a little bit more about like the financial maybe dissatisfaction that you had? Not just the comparison, but for yourself?

Gabrielle (06:54): Yeah, definitely. I think that we hear a lot in academia about, you know, we’re not being, we’re not in it for the money, right? It’s not about the money. And so I think there was sort of a internal unwillingness to look at that for a long time and feeling like almost guilty for considering money. Like it shouldn’t be a career consideration. I am here, I am able to do this amazing job that so many people want, and I’m unhappy with it for a material reason, which felt, um, felt like it wasn’t okay to admit. And, um, but that just bumped up against financial reality, right? Of, of trying to pay childcare costs. And I don’t live, I am, I’m in Minnesota, I’m in the Twin Cities. It’s not a super high cost of living, but it’s also not a super low cost of living. Um, and I need to be able to make ends meet. I need to be able to meet the needs of my family. And when I started really thinking about it, it was clear to me that, you know, it was like, money can’t buy happiness, right? But there’s like, but it can <laugh> be a really big factor. It can pay for, it can be the difference between, you know, your car breaks down and it’s a huge crisis for the family for months and causes a massive amount of stress. Or you go to the mechanic and you get car fixed and you move on with your life and it’s okay and you can afford what you need to afford to make your life work. So I think that that was kind of eye-opening when I kinda gave myself permission to start really thinking about it and, and opening up that question of, well, what do I actually need? And how can I get that?

Recovering Academics Peer Support Group

Emily (08:50): Yeah. Thank you so much for sharing that more detail in your perspective on this, because I’m sure it’s really valuable for you to say, I was in this mindset, this is what we are told in academia, and I had to really reexamine that. Um, and that gets me to like, let’s talk more about this peer support group of recovering academics ’cause it sure, like this conversation that we’re having right now is one of many types of conversations you have in that group. So can you tell us more about recovering academics?

Gabrielle (09:18): Sure. So when I was looking to leave my position, there were several of us from my university who were job hunting at the same time, and we kinda ended up finding each other. And, uh, we started meeting every week. And it just started out as, you know, our little internal group within our university supporting each other through the job application process, talking about the challenges. And through that it became clear that there were a lot of people in the same position we were of, we, we landed the coveted tenure track jobs. Some of us had tenure and, um, for a variety of reasons that just wasn’t, it didn’t fit with what we needed in our lives anymore. And so I put a call out on LinkedIn just trying to reach out and see if there were other folks in that same position. A bunch of people responded. We held a Zoom meeting with maybe a dozen people that first time. Um, another member of the group dubbed us recovering academics and the name stuck. And, um, what we did is built a Slack community and, uh, we meet weekly on Zoom, and we have done so now for more than three years. And the group grows almost weekly. Uh, word of mouth, generally, we don’t have, uh, a website for the group. We are a very private group because leaving academia can be a really sensitive process for a lot of people. And we don’t want, we don’t want anyone to feel unsafe seeking out help and support. Um, originally the goal was to kind of bring together people leaving tenure track or tenured roles, and almost immediately we expanded beyond that. So we have people leaving from every career stage you can think of from every type of institution. Uh, we have academic staff including, um, like student affairs staff, uh, academic librarians. Um, it’s a really wide variety of people. It’s cross disciplinary. Uh, there are people from nursing, engineering, chemistry, English, um, media studies, ethnomusicology, psychology. We’re kind of across the board. And a big value of the group is breaking through a lot of the isolation that happens when people think about leaving academia and providing a safe place for people to ask questions and to bring up things like salary and, um, and financial struggles and all of this, um, all of the issues around money that get wrapped up in this process,

Emily (12:03): I can so see the value of that kind of group. Um, I don’t, I don’t wanna call academia a cult, but like <laugh>, you’re, you’re like, not, okay, I’m reading a book right now. <laugh>, it’s science fiction. It’s a dystopian, you know, but like, if you speak out like you, if you even question their like society, you’re immediately killed like death penalty now. Okay. Academia is not that extreme, but there are consequences for you to be very open about potentially leaving in a way that other kinds of industries are not that way. Um, and so I, I’m definitely hearing like that value of privacy and being able to ask those questions in that setting that you. Could not ask in your workplace, or you might not even be able to ask among your peers at other institutions because what if you decide to stay and they knew you had doubts. You know, like, um, so I, I see that now given that this is so, such a, um, a closely held group and you don’t have a website. How do people find out how to join? Because I’m sure somebody listening is like, I need this in my life right now, <laugh>.

Gabrielle (13:04): Yeah, absolutely. So, um, so despite being a very, very private group, we have over 480 members now. So people find us, um, generally people find us either through me on LinkedIn, people are more than welcome to message me or connect with me on LinkedIn. Um, and then I will share information about the group. And I do also wanna be clear that this is a free group that no one pays to attend this. Money’s not a part of that picture. Um, because I couldn’t afford <laugh> coaching resources when I was leaving. And I know a lot of us are in the same boat if we’re leaving for financial reasons or if that’s a contributing factor, then we probably can’t spend thousands on a coaching program, even if that would be amazing and valuable. Um, so this isn’t a substitute for coaching, but it’s definitely, it’s sort of crowdsourced, um, coaching in a way. Um, so people can reach out to me directly. Um, there are other group members, uh, we get a lot of referrals from other group members as well. Um, but for folks who might not be connected or know that they are connected with members, I’m probably the easiest, um, place to look. And we are hopefully soon gonna set up a, a webpage attached to my business webpage, just so I have a place to direct people more easily.

Common Limiting Beliefs Among Recovering Academics

Emily (14:29): Yeah, that sounds good. So I would like to hear more about, you know, in you sharing your personal story about the decisions leave academia, you brought up, you know, um, the salary comparisons between what you could make with your degree inside versus outside of academia. Um, you brought up like, oh, we’re not supposed to be in this for the money. Um, but I’m wondering if there are any other like, common questions or limiting beliefs or mindsets that you’ve noticed, uh, within the recovering academics community beyond those ones that you’ve already brought up.

Gabrielle (15:02): Mm-hmm <affirmative>. Yeah, I think, um, I mean, I think the first thing that strikes me in just hearing how people talk about money in the group is just, um, for such a highly educated group of individuals, we are kind of astoundingly ignorant <laugh> when it comes to financial issues. Um, people don’t have a good sense of what salaries look like and you know, what other people make with the skills that they have. So they have no idea what they should be looking for. They don’t know how to ask for the appropriate salary. They don’t know anything about salary negotiation or anything like that. Um, and one place that also carries over is there’s a lot of people who move into some form of, um, entrepreneurship, uh, or do some level of consulting. And so then there’s also this whole how do you value your skills and how much do you charge and what is appropriate.

Gabrielle (16:11): And then a third bucket is, um, for those of us who move out and do make more money in our new position, what the heck do we do with the additional income that we have and how do we manage that? And that is definitely something that has come up. People don’t know how, what kind of accounts their money should be in. They don’t really know how to manage that. They don’t know how to, um, they’ve never really been able to think about, what if I was able to put this much money into retirement, should I, how do I do that? Do I pay down my debt first? Do I do that? Like, we don’t really know, um, how to, how to manage, um, because it’s a good problem to have. Right? But, um, but definitely still an issue. And I think a lot of us probably are not making the best financial decisions because we just are a little, uh, a little bit at sea with having those decisions to make.

Emily (17:09): Yeah, I can see not only, ’cause I’ve thought before about like the catch up that PhDs at some point when their income does increase, I mean, hopefully it does at some point increase a lot <laugh>, um, what they can do in terms of their financial goals to like, ’cause a lot of ’em feel like they’re behind, whether they leave academia when they’re 30 or 40 or 50 or whatever, a lot of people feel that they’re behind. Now whether that’s true or not depends on who you’re comparing yourself to, but, um, they feel behind. And so I have thought about like, what are those, if, if there’s any special considerations that group should have, um, once, you know, exiting academia. But what you brought up that I think is really interesting is not only is there kind of a, an actual dollars and cents monetary catch up, but there can also be a little bit of a catch up needed just in education around like norms. And like what your goals should be. Um, I I’m even thinking about like benefits, like benefits inside academia can be really different. They actually should be pretty generous in some ways, and they could be quite different when you’re looking at positions in industry or in other sectors. And so just knowing that like, oh, my employer is no longer gonna pay for this, or like, I don’t have a pension, or, you know, these other kinds of questions might come up too. And making that kind of industry shift as well. So, uh, you’re making me wish that I didn’t just specialize in graduate students, postdocs, <laugh>, because I can see that the questions can continue in, in certain environments for a long time afterwards.

Gabrielle (18:35): They definitely can. And I also think that the more advanced someone is in their career, um, the more awkward they feel about asking the questions, they feel like they should know, I’m 45 years old, I’m leaving this career that I’ve been in for decades, and I should know how retirement works. I should know how I should be investing my money. I should know what kind of savings account I need. And so people are embarrassed to, to ask these questions.

Emily (19:07): One of the reasons that I do specialize in the way that I do, um, is because I think that the vast majority of graduate students and postdocs, as you were saying earlier, like coaching is expensive. At the career coaching option. Yes. You might spend thousands of dollars on, if you’re working with an individual or you could buy a course that’ll be, you know, less expensive. Um, what I perceive is that, like, I specialize where I do because, um, these people have no ability to do anything, a course a coach, anything. But the good thing is that once you get that higher salary, like once you can actually make the transition, whether that’s within academia or, or leaving academia. Um, you do have the money once a transition is made to hire professionals. But it can still be intimidating psychologically, like what you just said. Like, okay, I could afford to hire professional, but like, are they gonna help me with my, like, really basic questions that I feel embarrassed to even ask? So I can see why that would be a barrier as well.

Gabrielle (20:06): Yeah. And not even necessarily knowing what kind of professional you need. There are a lot of different, um, a lot of different players in the financial industry. And so it’s, do I need a financial advisor? Do I, how much money do I need to have to make it make sense? To hire someone who’s like to manage things versus just consult with somebody on a one-off basis, um, versus just hire somebody to do taxes. There, there’s a lot of, um, options and, and it’s not always clear what makes sense to invest in.

Emily (20:41): Hmm. And since we’re in this environment right now, I’ll just go ahead. And let people know all the options that you just said are available. So like, you don’t need a million dollars, you don’t need half a million dollars to hand off to an investment advisor to manage for you. Yes, you could do that if you had that kind of money. But as you said, there are so many more people in the last like 10 years offering more of a fee for service model. Um, that’s more about paying someone for their time rather than paying someone to manage investments for you. So you can pay someone for a package. Like it might even be as low as a thousand dollars, maybe a few thousand dollars, um, for okay, you create a plan for me and like it’s on me, the client to execute it. Like that’s not the advisor’s responsibility ’cause they’re just working with you for a limited period of time. But they can answer those questions. And I, I actually, my perception of the industry is that people who have that model of like, you’re just paying for their time, you know, you might work together once, twice or maybe over the course of a year, there’s different models, they’re much more willing to answer those kinds of, like, I feel like I should know this already, but can you just tell me like, what is a 401k like, you know, um. How much should I be, you know, prioritizing my retirement versus my kids’ college? You know, tho- those kinds of questions are, they’re much more open to that than someone who’s strictly focused on managing investments. They might not answer a question for you, like, should I pay off my mortgage faster? You know, they, that might be outside their sort of area of operation, but people who you’re just paying for their time should use that time, however you the client want to use it, if that makes sense. So I think whatever sense, yeah, whatever your level of wealth, whatever your income, you should be able to find someone at that level to help you. Um. But again, it’s getting over the, can I even reach out for help <laugh> part of it?

Commercial

Emily (22:28): 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 2025. These educational workshops explain how to identify, calculate, and report your higher education-related income and expenses on your federal tax return. For the 2025 tax season starting in January 2026, I’m offering live and pre-recorded workshops for US citizen/resident graduate students, postdocs, and postbacs and non-resident graduate students and postdocs. Would you please reach out to your graduate school, graduate student government, postdoc office, international house, fellowship coordinator, etc. to request that they host one or more of these workshops for you and your peers? I’d love to receive a warm introduction to a potential sponsor this fall so we can hit the ground running in January serving those early bird filers. You can find more information about hosting these workshops at P F f o r P h D s dot com slash tax dash workshops. Please pass that page on to the potential sponsor. Now back to our interview.

The Problem With Academia’s “Not in It for the Money” Mindset

Emily (23:46): Do you have anything else you wanna add to, you know, the common like questions or, or like mindsets that you’ve seen within the group, you know, relating to finances?

Gabrielle (23:55): Yeah, I mean, I do wanna mention again that the, that mindset of we don’t, um, we’re not in it for the money because that is transitioning out of academia involves like a lot of psychological transitions, a lot of identity shifts. And that is a really central one. And it’s just so difficult for people. And the number of people who, when they introduce themselves, we have an intro channel on our slack, and their written introduction of themselves includes essentially some sort of apology for pay being part of their decision making process to, to us, to other people who are in the same boat. Like there’s nobody from the outside looking at this and there’s still this, this, um, guilt that they had to consider something as ordinary as money <laugh> in their, in their, you know, making decisions about their life. So that shows up on a very regular basis of just this feeling of like, there, there needs to be some higher calling reason why I’m changing careers. I can’t just say, you know what, this isn’t enough money for my family to live on and I need to earn more <laugh>. So we try to reassure people that’s enough. If you need that, you need that.

Emily (25:19): Absolutely. What an indictment of academia, right? That they’ve, we’ve been brainwashed by the culture of these institutions that I mean, it’s a racket, honestly, <laugh> like make people grateful for the job that they have so that the pay doesn’t matter, even if the pay is so low that they can’t reasonably afford to live in the city where the institution is located, you know? Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. I’m so glad that you all are, are doing that work, um, in that moment for those people. Like yeah, it can be enough. And not to say that you can’t find mission driven work elsewhere that is still reasonably compensated. Like just Absolutely. It’s because of that, that tie to like the tenure track because they say it’s a one way street and you know, all that kind of stuff. And it’s not true. Like yeah, it’s true sometimes, but like, it doesn’t have to be true for everybody. Anyway. Okay. Thank you so much for bringing that up again. ’cause it is so important. So like same message going out to my audience. Like, I mean, okay. They’re probably already listening to this podcast. They probably understand that money is a factor <laugh> in like living a good life. Um, and if it gets, if the pay is low enough, it might be the only factor telling you. Like, it’s, it’s time to move on from this position or this type of work. Yeah. Oh my goodness. Yeah.

Developing a Healthy Relationship With Your Salary

Emily (26:36): So let’s pull back a little bit from like the people that you usually work with of these, you know, academics or people who work in academia, um, considering a transition out, pull it back to my more typical audience of prospective graduate students, current graduate students, postdocs, people who are still, um, in the academic system, and maybe they’ll stay long term or maybe they won’t. But they’re earlier in their careers. So how can this audience of people start to work on their money mindset so they can have a healthy relationship with their careers and with their earnings wherever they end up? What are your thoughts about that?

Gabrielle (27:13): Yeah, I mean, I think that’s a great question. And what I encourage grad students to do is start doing informational interviews as early on as they can. So talk to people in careers they think they might be interested in, talk to alumni of their program who’ve either are in academia or aren’t. Um, either way, I, I have no skin in the game of whether people stay in academia or leave. I want people to pursue careers that are a good fit for them. And that could be either. Um, so talk to people and ask about money. People are, are generally have the idea that it’s taboo to talk about much more than the reality is that it’s a taboo. People generally are okay answering money, answering money questions, and you don’t have to say like, how much do you make? Um, what I asked people when I was doing informational interviews was, um, how, how, what’s a typical salary for this kind of role? Or, you know, here’s the experience that I have, what’s a reasonable starting salary for me to aim for? Um, so it’s not like you have to come out and just be like, what’d you earn last year? Um, which might feel awkward to ask a stranger. So I would say talking to people and getting kind of just a baseline idea of what, uh, of what people make. And then we tend to approach if, if people are aiming for an academic career, they tend to approach it with this mindset of not what do I need in order to thrive in my life and have all of my needs met, but, um, like, what can I stand to put up with in order to win this prize of having a tenure track position? So I encourage people to start from thinking about their needs and their values. So for example, if somebody values their family and it’s important to them to be near family, where does family live? How much money do you need to earn to live near family? Then that is a filter in your job search process, A baseline filter. You’re not gonna look at jobs that earn less than that because you can’t meet your need of living near your family if you don’t earn at least that amount. Um, so yeah, so I encourage people to, to start not from this sort of almost this end point of what job do I wanna end up in, but what do I want my life to look like? And finances is a big part of that because you need to earn enough to live where you wanna live and to have everything in your life that you want to have in your life travel’s important. You need to think about, well, how much do I need to budget for that? How much am I gonna need to earn to be able to budget that?

Emily (30:06): Yeah, it’s been a minute since I brought up Cal Newport on the podcast. I know I’ve done that a lot in the past, but he has this term that he uses, I believe it’s lifestyle centric career design. And so that’s kind of the, what you just mentioned is like the start of lifestyle centered career design. And I think that even someone who has just finished their PhD, Cal Newport uses a term called career capital. The more career capital you’ve built up, the more you can design your career to fit the lifestyle that you desire. But even someone who’s just finished their PhD has a degree of career capital. It’s not as much as they’ll have five or 10 years later, but they have some <laugh>, um and so that’s a perfect starting point for doing exactly the exercise you just mentioned of like, let’s just baseline, what do I need geographically? Maybe not necessarily a specific geography, but like type of place that I want to live. Um, you can think about your lifestyle too in there. Actually I did an interview, it was published, um, I put it out at the beginning of season, um, 22 of the podcast with, um, Dr. Kate Sleeth from EduKatedSTEM. And we talked about figuring out a minimum salary number in a certain location, kind of what you were just talking about. But one of the elements we added there that I wanna bring to this conversation is don’t just take like your current postdoc salary or you know, wherever, whatever stage you’re at, and then like translate that to a different city. Really think about what you need to add on to that salary to make your life, um, enjoyable. And so of course you’ll have some extra responsibilities of taxes and maybe your student loan payments. Those will be added on as like a baseline. But beyond that, do you wanna take some vacations? Do you wanna buy a home? Do you want to just spend more on entertainment than you have been the last, you know, x many years, um so really think about like intentionally what you want to add into your life when you’re thinking about those minimum requirements of the next job. And I also wanna go back to your first point about informational interviewing, which I think is so powerful. And actually, even if you were staying in academia, I feel like you should still do informational interviews because your one observation at your one institution or your one pi or whatever is not, you know, everything that happens in academia. And I had this, um, I did a very short term fellowship after I finished my PhD in science policy. And it was very intentional. Like it gave us work experience, but there was also a set aside time for like professional development, like a certain number of hours per week we were supposed to spend on that. And part of that professional development was we had to a, conduct a minimum number of inter- informational interviews like it, you know, with other people in science policy. And it was so valuable. And I wasn’t even asking that much about salary and these kinds of things that you’re talking about. Which are very important. But it gave me a much better idea that, oh, actually I didn’t want to stay in science policy and I wanted to pursue this business that I was, you know, starting at that point personal finance for a PhDs. And so it’s such a valuable process and it, and going through that policy fellowship gave me permission to do it. It was like, oh, it’s a requirement. I can just tell people like, I’m doing this fellowship and it’s a requirement that I interview you, you know, or at least that ask, I ask you for an interview. Um, and so it gives you like that permission. So I just wanna tell everyone listening like, you’re required, you’re required to conduct five, 10 informational interviews in these career fields that you want to go into. I think it’s absolutely necessary before you start applying for jobs.

Gabrielle (33:19): Yeah, I completely agree. And my experience has been particularly in reaching out to PhDs that they, at worst, they’re too busy to talk, they’re never offended that you’ve reached out. They’re usually very happy to give their time and, and meet with you. So I think people are very nervous about reaching out to strangers, but folks who’ve left academia are really looking for ways to give back and are generally on board <laugh> with meeting with grad students, postdocs, other faculty looking to transition. There’s a lot of, um, generosity in the community. And I also wanted to come back to one thing that you said, which is one of, I think people overlook the importance of learning what you don’t want to do. Um, and that is incredibly valuable with, with, um, internship experiences, with informational interviews, trying things and finding out it’s not a good fit is fantastic. You’ve, you’ve ruled out a whole area, you don’t have to think about that. Um, you’re narrowing in on what, what you do want. I tend to conduct any job search kind of, I never know what fields exist out there and I don’t wanna accidentally rule things out that might be a good fit. So I tend to rule out the things I know I don’t wanna do and look at whatever is left <laugh>.

Emily (34:40): You know, you just brought up I think another strategy for, um, you know, improving your money mindset even while you’re inside academia, which is going beyond that informational interviewing and going to internship, which you just mentioned. Or any type, any type of work experience. It could be paid work, it could be volunteer work, but anything that exposes you to other workplaces and other missions and other environments and other people like so valuable while you’re a graduate student or postdoc in helping you clarify, as you were saying, what you do, what you don’t want to do going forward. And again, if you’re asking those financially pointed questions like you mentioned, what, what would you suggest as a starting salary? You know, I should ask for a starting salary for, you know, this type of work, um, that can break you out. Because one of the big, big issues with PhDs is that we’ve, we’ve the process of getting that education and the training takes so long that we become anchored at this like stipend or like this postdoc salary, like level of income. And so you’re going into that next position like, oh, well if I just make like a little more, that would be great. Instead of like, I need to realistically understand what this market pays and what I, I can ask for keeping in mind what we talked about earlier about like discovering your own minimum requirements as well and what, what fields are gonna fit with that and what fields maybe aren’t, you know?

Gabrielle (35:57): Yeah, absolutely. That was kind of my mindset going from grad school to postdoc to faculty position. Each one paid more than the last. And so that faculty role that didn’t pay enough for me to really live on was the most I’d made up to that point. And it didn’t occur to me for a ridiculously long time. That <laugh> that didn’t mean it was a good salary just because it was more than my postdoc.

Emily (36:25): I know it’s because we forget, like when you enter graduate school again, it might, it might be your first job, you know, your first full-time position. And like, you again, become anchored at those levels. And unless you’re talking to your peers, you know, maybe who you went to college with who didn’t take that track, unless you’re talking with them, you may forget that you’re vastly underpaid as a graduate student. Yeah. Pretty well underpaid as a postdoc as well. And then depending on what you go into afterwards, still could be underpaid even as a full-time big girl job, you know, academic <laugh>, um, for sure.

Emily (36:56): Okay. Any other strategies that you can think of to, you know, for those trainees just to be working on their money mindsets?

Gabrielle (37:03): I mean, I think any, any kind of opportunity to educate yourself on what we were talking about earlier of like what people don’t know, right? Of the basics of just what, how do retirement accounts work, <laugh>, where should I prioritize my savings? How do you approach paying down debt? Just any kind of education that they can gain around that. It’s easy to write that off because you’re stuck in this low salary stipend situation. And, um, it’s like, well, that doesn’t apply to me. I, I barely have money for groceries, much less investing, but it is still, you won’t always be there. And so the more kind of prep you can do ahead of time, so you’re not very confused when you do eventually make more money, um, I think is really valuable.

Emily (37:53): I totally agree. And like also you just advertised for my podcast, so like, hello listener, if this is your first time listening to this podcast, like please subscribe, keep here because we talk about all this stuff and like you just said, like maybe it’s not actionable right now, but it could be in just next year, three years from now. And you wanna be prepared for that. But I would say don’t, just don’t just listen to my podcast. Maybe if you’re interested in this topic, find a few other, uh, long distance mentors so to speak, you know, gurus or educators that you can listen to. Maybe it’s some other podcasts or maybe it’s, you know, YouTube creators or books that you wanna read. Like there’s so much excellent financial education material out there. Um, yeah. None of it’s tailored for, you know, graduate students, students in postdocs except for mine. But that doesn’t mean you can’t learn from it and learn from lots of different people. So like, create like a panel in your mind, maybe there’s like five different people who you wanna listen to, to learn from about this topic because as you said, it will become relevant and actionable like before you know it.

Gabrielle (38:51): Yes.

The Recovering Academics Community and Next Draft LLC

Emily (38:52): Wrapping up here, um, you mentioned how um, people can get access to the recovering academics community. Which is through you on LinkedIn. So great place to look for you. Any other places that people can go to follow up with you about anything we’ve talked about today?

Gabrielle (39:06): The group has a, an email address so folks can reach out to me that way too. It’s [email protected]. So anyone can send an email that way. And, um, and I will get back to you with more information on the group. Um, and once we do have websites set up, I can share that with you if you wanna, um, add the link with the description of this, of this episode or anything.

Emily (39:32): Do you wanna tell us more about Next Draft LLC?

Gabrielle (39:35): Sure. Yeah. So one of the things that came out of Recovering Academics was, uh, you know, years of working with a lot of people leaving mid-career who were, uh, essentially having career existential crises and had no idea what else they could do and we’re, you know, mid forties associate professors who were panicking. So part of the idea for next draft, um, came from the idea of, of stepping in earlier in the pipeline. Again, we don’t, we aren’t pushing people to leave academia or to stay. The idea is to provide grad students with the tools that they need to make informed values-based decisions about the career paths that they want to explore so that they can, uh, it kind of building on what we were talking about before, right? Make sure that they are making decisions that keep their actual needs in mind and their deal breakers in mind, and that they’re not just, um, pursuing an academic role at all costs because it’s the only thing that they know that they can do. And this is especially relevant for folks in the humanities and social sciences where the connections between academia, uh, their academic research and industry are, um, not always as clear. So, uh, we do workshops and so our, uh, website is nextdraftllc.com. Um, we do, uh, workshops that individuals can sign up for to work on, um, various aspects of the job search process. We also work with universities to offer those workshops. And we are planning in January to launch a small group mentoring program where people can, uh, get support and thinking through their job search process from somebody who, uh, from their same discipline who has kind of been through the transition themselves. And the mentors that we’re working with have all worked in faculty roles and in non-academic roles. I can kind of speak to both and support grad students who are thinking about whether or not to make that transition.

Emily (41:44): Incredible. Okay. Nextdraftllc.com. Is that right?

Gabrielle (41:47): That’s right.

Best Financial Advice for Another Early-Career PhD

Emily (41:48): Beautiful. Okay. Last question that I end on with all of my guests. Um, 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 it could be something completely new.

Gabrielle (42:01): I think we’ve touched on, I think really open communication around money is, is key of just learning about what, what are people earning, what is a reasonable salary? So you have some sense of, of reality to counter that feeling of being stuck in the stipend that you’re making or that mindset of, um, we’re not in it for the money. Um, so I want people to really open up the sources of information that they’re learning from and give themselves permission to think about money and that it is okay to think about we, for better or worse, live in a capitalist society where we all have to earn money to pay our bills, um, and get all of the other things that we actually want in our lives. So it’s okay to think about that and it’s okay for it to be a key piece of decision making. And there’s nothing, you haven’t done anything wrong as an academic to be keeping money in mind.

Emily (43:08): So well said. Thank you Gabrielle, so much for this wonderful interview.

Gabrielle (43:12): Yeah, it was a pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Outro

Emily (43:24): Listeners, thank you for joining me for this episode! I have a gift for you! You know that final question I ask of all my guests regarding their best financial advice? My team has collected short summaries of all the answers ever given on the podcast into a document that is updated with each new episode release. You can gain access to it by registering for my mailing list at PFforPhDs.com/advice/. Would you like to access transcripts or videos of each episode? I link the show notes for each episode from PFforPhDs.com/podcast/. See you in the next episode, and remember: You don’t have to have a PhD to succeed with personal finance… but it helps! Nothing you hear on this podcast should be taken as financial, tax, or legal advice for any individual. The music is “Stages of Awakening” by Podington Bear from the Free Music Archive and is shared under CC by NC. Podcast editing by me and show notes creation by Dr. Jill Hoffman.

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

February 24, 2025 by Jill Hoffman Leave a Comment

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

Links mentioned in the Episode

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

Teaser

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

Introduction

Emily (00:21): Welcome to the Personal Finance for PhDs Podcast: A Higher Education in Personal Finance. This podcast is for PhDs and PhDs-to-be who want to explore the hidden curriculum of finances to learn the best practices for money management, career advancement, and advocacy for yourself and others. I’m your host, Dr. Emily Roberts, a financial educator specializing in early-career PhDs and founder of Personal Finance for PhDs.

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

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

Will You Please Introduce Yourself Further?

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

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

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

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

Navigating Money, Career, and Relationships

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

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

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

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

Healing and Building a Relationship with Money

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

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

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

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

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

Dharma and Connecting to your Purpose

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

Commercial

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

Connections Between Time and Money: Prioritizing Wellness in Both Areas

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Danielle (36:08): Totally.

Using Automation and Routines to Support Wellness

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

Danielle (36:55): No.

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

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

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

Danielle (39:25): 100%.

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

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

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

Self-Compassion Practices for Academics

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

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

Connecting with Dr. Danielle De La Mare

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

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

Best Financial Advice for Another Early-Career PhD

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

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

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

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

Outtro

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

This Grad Student Channeled Her Financial Exuberance into Teaching and Coaching Her Peers (Part 2)

November 4, 2024 by Jill Hoffman

In this episode, Emily interviews Elle Rathbun, a 5th-year PhD candidate at UCLA. This is a continuation of a conversation started in the last episode. Last year, Elle shifted her financial education efforts into an official position with the UCLA financial wellness office, through which she delivered presentations and provided one-on-one coaching. Having a 75% position with the university required her to adjust how she managed both her time and money. Elle and Emily conclude the interview by sharing ideas for how the listeners can start helping their peers at their own universities with respect to their finances.

Links mentioned in the Episode

This Grad Student Channeled Her Financial Exuberance into Teaching and Coaching Her Peers

Teaser

Elle (00:00): Because I, I grew up with so much anxiety regarding spending and money that is, I, I think it was actually really good for my health, mental health that I sort of figured out where, where to cut, um, that anxiety from just because I needed to be able to save time in order to do my job, um, to do both jobs and get enough sleep.

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 (00:57): This is Season 19, Episode 6, and today my guest is Elle Rathbun, a 5th-year PhD candidate at UCLA. This is a continuation of a conversation started in the last episode. Last year, Elle shifted her financial education efforts into an official position with the UCLA financial wellness office, through which she delivered presentations and provided one-on-one coaching. Having a 75% position with the university required her to adjust how she managed both her time and money. Elle and I conclude the interview by sharing ideas for how the listeners can start helping their peers at their own universities with respect to their finances.

Emily (01:37): You’re probably listening to this podcast because you’re interested in improving your own practice of personal finance, and you want to learn the best PhD-specific strategies to do so. Well, you don’t have to listen through the entire episode archive to do so. Instead, go to PFforPhDs.com/advice/ and enter your name and email there. You’ll receive a document that contains short summaries of all the answers ever given on the podcast to my final question regarding my guests’ best financial advice. The document is updated with each new episode release. Plus, you’ll be subscribed to my mailing list to receive all the latest updates there. Again, that URL was PFforPhDs.com/advice/. You can find the show notes for this episode at PFforPhDs.com/s19e6/. Without further ado, here’s part 2 of my interview with Elle Rathbun.

Financial Wellness: Struggling with Motivation

Emily (02:47): I’m curious what you learned once you, or you said you had to get up to speed on student loans and so forth. That makes sense. Um, once you started talking outside of your like biosciences peer group, were there any, aside from the financial things you already brought up that were more like taxes and bureaucratic kinds of things, any financial patterns that you noticed or issues about the PhD community more broadly at UCLA? Like what were people struggling with or what, what do they have questions about aside from retirement, aside from taxes, aside from pay checks.

Elle (03:14): One of the main things was motivation. Um, and so this is mostly to speak about the wellness side of it, but it has a huge impact on the financial side of it. And so, um, people just didn’t seem, it’s really hard to convince someone to save for something that’s like 30 plus years out, right? And so, um, a lot of the people I talked with, um, they, they just needed to feel a little bit more motivated or they’re like, I know I need to start investing. I have no idea how. Um, but also I think credit cards were a huge aspect of it as well. Um, I think there’s a lot of misinformation, um, about how to pay off credit cards, um, and when to pay off credit cards. Um, and so, so I think credit card, like debt in general, um, and student loans, uh, as well as just motivation of how to get organized to the point that you then felt comfortable going forth and either paying off that debt or investing or just saving or just spending, um, certain things. And so there was that, there was also just what, what resources are available. Um, UCLA is phenomenal in terms of offering so many student resources. Um, besides financial wellness, we also have, uh, like loan services where you can talk about your student loans and figure out a repayment strategy, but student legal services was incredibly helpful to me when I was figuring out, um, some stuff with like my employment and, and the pay schedule and overpayments. Um, and, uh, so I think there are just so many resources that students are not necessarily aware of or they needed to be reminded of. And so just being able to point them in the right direction, um, was a huge thing that we talked about. Um, and it wasn’t a huge burden to me. I was like, oh, there’s an office specifically for that, and they’re much more capable of talking about that. Um, so I would just redirect them to there.

Emily (05:03): That’s one of those great advantages of being a student that you might not realize until you’re no longer affiliated with the university is like there are so many resources available to you and a lot of them are free or low cost because they’re designed for students. And yeah, once you exit the university system, you’re on your own and you have to pay for everything. So like, yeah, get all your checkups, your financial checkups, your legal checkups, whatever needs to happen, like before you leave the university.

Elle (05:27): Yeah, absolutely. And I will say also that there are people who before graduate school, whether they’re master’s program, uh, or PhD or what have you, um, they would, they worked right? They, a lot of them worked in the UC system. And so when I helped a, there were a couple people who I helped create a, a Roth IRA with, I would just, they would screen share or I would sit next to them, um, and they would see, because uc use- the uc system uses Fidelity as, uh, its brokerage institution. They would see a retirement account with like tens of thousands of dollars in there. And they’d be like, is that mine? And I’m like, yeah, that’s yours. That’s all yours. Um, this is the type of account it’s in. This is, these are some of the restrictions. Just know it’s there and know where it is and know what you could do with it. Um, and so that was actually really nice to see that, um, you know, a lot of people don’t necessarily pay too much attention to their withholdings and um, and things like that, which is totally fair. People are busy, but also, um, you’re, you’re paying into that for, for a reason. And so it’s already there. You may as well may as well know that it’s there and know how to use it.

Emily (06:30): That speaks to the power of pay yourself first, that you can literally forget that money was being removed from your paycheck for that, you know, great purpose and oh, discover it like free money later. You didn’t even, you didn’t even miss it. That’s the whole point.

Elle (06:44): Absolutely.

Working for Financial Wellness as a PhD Student

Emily (06:45): I’m also curious about the logistics of you working, um, for this office. And I understand you’re not working with them anymore, right? So it was maybe a nine month, eight month kind of period, right?

Elle (06:56): Yeah, uh, the beginning of November to the end of June.

Emily (06:59): Okay. Were you paid W2?

Elle (07:02): Yes.

Emily (07:02): Okay. And so how did this work with your existing funding or your existing stipend?

Elle (07:06): So my income was W2, um, for the first, when I first became employed through the Department of Neurology, which is the department my PI is associated with. Um, and so they would both appear, so I had to get explicit permission from my PI to sign off so I could have a higher percentage of effort. Um, so it was basically 10 hours a week or 25% effort for this financial wellness position. Um, and then I was at 50% effort for my graduate student researcher position, uh, with neurology. Um, and then things had to become rebalanced because that grant that I applied to did get funded. And so, um, so then I was partially had partial effort on, uh, for neurology. The 25% financial wellness remained the same. And then I was a certain percentage on my own grant, which was not W2. But now is.

Emily (08:02): Yeah, that’s the highest percentage I’ve heard of a graduate student going up to in terms of employment. So it’s not at all surprising to me that you had to get like the special permission and everything to do it. And then in terms of like your own work and your own time management, did that 10 hour per week that you were devoting to the financial wellness office, was that like over and above a 40 or more than 40 that you were already working?

Elle (08:22): Yes, very much so. Um, and so it is one of the things that I had laid out in that initial email to my PI requesting to, to be able to apply for this, and then eventually, if I got it, um, that he would sign off on this. Um, and he’s been nothing but supportive. He’s been phenomenal, um, in this whole process. Um, but one of the things I laid out was this is not a zero sum game. This will not take away from my time or effort in lab. Um, I am one of those people who the more things I have going on, the more productive I become. Um, and, uh, so, so I maintained many hours in lab, um, and that never faltered during my time. One thing that I had to come to terms with was I had to be okay with spending more. So I knew that if there was a way to save time in my personal life, um, even if that meant spending a little bit more, I had to take it. So I didn’t meal prep as often, um, and I didn’t drive out of my way to get the cheaper gas because that takes like 20 minutes. Um, and so, so there were things that I just had to come to terms with. Um, I, it was definitely a net gain. Um, I was paid $24 an hour for that position, and so, um, that added up in a month. But, um, because I, I grew up with so much anxiety regarding spending and money, that is, I, I think it was actually really good for my health, mental health that I sort of figured out where, where to cut, um, that anxiety from just because I needed to be able to save time in order to do my job, um, to do both jobs and get enough sleep, um, and serve as a mentor to, you know, my undergraduate students and a rotation student who is, um, uh, working on my project. Um, and just to make sure I wasn’t slipping in any ma- major areas, I had to be able to, to pay for saving time.

Emily (10:13): So this, tell me if you thought about it this way, but I guess the way that I would think about this is that despite the fact that it was associated with the university, you had to get the special permission you’re paid by the university and all of that. Essentially what you were doing is you had a side job, you had a side hustle, maybe you were doing it, you know, during your regular, what other people would consider their, you know, nine to five. You had permission to do it, but essentially it was a side job. And really what this is, is kind of a hobby that you decided to monetize, right? So like, it’s something that you clearly had been devoting time to before that point on a volunteer basis, and then you switched at least some or maybe all of that effort into this paid position. Um, and so it absolutely makes sense to me. Like it’s essentially like you took on a side hustle, right?

Elle (10:56): Absolutely. Yeah.

Emily (10:57): And then the other thing that I’m thinking about this is that, um, just what you were talking about there of like making the decisions of like, okay, I need to manage my time a little bit differently. I need to manage my money a little bit differently because I had this extra position. Probably all the work that you’d been doing in YNAB and everything really helped you make those decisions because you already had a really good perspective on what you’re spending, how you were managing your time and so forth. And so it was probably very easy for you to make decisions about what you could shift now that you had more money, but a little bit less time.

Elle (11:27): Yeah, it did. It made me, I, I sort of looked at my budget and said, okay, um, if I didn’t meal prep, how much would I spend on eating at the hospital cafeteria or, uh, getting something from the store or, um, just, you know, going somewhere else and, and dining out. Um, and so, so I knew exactly how much I was comfortable increasing my food budget, my gas budget, um, and uh, I think those were the two main things. Um, but I also had to look at my calendar. So I think part of it is financial. Absolutely. And part of it was also where is this coming from in terms of time? So I stopped giving strangers advice on Reddit, <laugh>, that was one of the boundaries for me. I’m like, okay, um, I can still read stuff and still look for opportunities, um, and resources, um, but I’m gonna spend less time writing paragraphs. Um, so

Emily (12:14): I also had to create a Reddit boundary with myself because I loved it so much. I could not continue at all.

Elle (12:21): <laugh>. Um, yeah. And I’ve, you know, and after, uh, ending the position, um, that I, I sort of slipped back into that. Um, and so, but really figuring out where that time was going to be coming from was essential. Um, and just relying on every day I would just like wake up. I had no idea what I did the day before. I had no idea what I was doing that day. I just had my Google calendar tell me everything. Um, and so, um, so yeah, it was really, it was, it was very busy. Um, but I loved it so much. I don’t think there’s ever been another time or activity in my life where I felt like I was making such a huge positive difference in other people’s lives. Um, and so that was incredibly rewarding to me.

Emily (13:02): But you’re not with them now, right? Because I think you said

Elle (13:05): I’m not with them now

Emily (13:06): Sometimes, like the structure changed, but you, you ended the position basically last June.

Elle (13:11): Yes. So, um, I got my NRSA funded, um, and that started in 2024. And so the NIH has the stipulation that I can’t work more than 25% elsewhere. Um, and there was a little bit confusion around that. Um, I thought, great, I can, that’s financial wellness, 25%. Um, however, I’m at 21% effort with neurology. So essentially what it boiled down to is, um, if I had taken the financial wellness position for this coming year, I would be at 46%, which is significantly different. Um, and, and then, so, so I wouldn’t be able to take that position. Um, and I would still be able to continue it theoretically, um, if I was willing to, to decrease my neurology appointment. So essentially I would be paid less for the same work. ’cause I’m really working, um, for neurology no matter what.

Emily (13:59): Yeah, the PhD has to get finished.

Elle (14:01): Yeah, exactly. I’m like, well, I have no other choice. Um, but so that was, so that became the question to me is, uh, am I willing to essentially not get paid anymore to keep this position? Um, and because I had to make sacrifices in my life that cost more, um, I wasn’t able to, I decided against, um, against maintaining and keeping that position. Um, and so, um, I I’m so excited, like financial, well, they’re right across the street from my, my lab. Um, I told them I will be at their events. I’m still in touch with, uh, coaches in that office and with the director. Um, but, uh, in terms of can I do 10 hours a week for the next year, um, without additional pay? Um, the, the answer to that was no.

Emily (14:44): Yeah. And so I’m wondering, you know, you mentioned your Reddit usage came back <laugh> once the, uh, once the position ended. Have you made any other shifts to like sort of scratch this itch in the personal areas of your life? Like, are you back to chatting with your peers more like what’s changed?

Elle (14:59): Absolutely. Um, yes. So, um, I think my peers are tired of listening to me. Um, I do post a lot on our Slack. Um, we have a, I I created financial, uh, channel on our slack. So if there’s something that I discover, um, for instance, you can pay taxes with PayPal, um, <laugh>. And, um, uh, so, so that’s one way I scratched the, the, the NSID or the neuroscience and PhD specific itch. Um, I also started volunteering for junior achievement in SoCal, and so that’s more focused on educating, um, young people, so middle schoolers and high school students. And so that’s been incredibly rewarding. And I just started this summer, um, because I knew I, this, there is an itch to scratch and their headquarters are fortunately really close to where I live. Um, and so, uh, and so just doing a lot of like, work in the community, um, and, and talking to individuals and sort of just always being open. I like if I’m introducing myself, um, not necessarily the first thing I say, but also it’s always, it’s a huge part of my identity in that like, I have a passion for personal finances. And so, um, and so I just have friends who aren’t associated with the university at all, who are then open to budgeting. I have friends who do a lot of like freelance work in the entertainment industry, and so I talk about YNAB with them. Um, and so I think just sort of putting myself out there, I I, there are things that I don’t need to share. I don’t need to share what, what banks I bank with or my net worth or anything to have a, have a good discussion in that like, oh, I love my budget budgeting software, or, oh, I have so many thoughts about student loan repayments, um, and things like that. So yeah, just putting myself out there and, and doing more work in the community, but on a more flexible schedule and timeline.

Commercial

Emily (16:46): 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.

Writing a Book About Lessons Learned During Financial Coaching Sessions

Emily (18:02): So I see a lot of, um, parallels with my situation when I was in graduate school, um, engaging in many of the same activities. Um, what I was doing at the time was blogging about personal finance, because blogging was a thing back then, um, 10 plus years ago. So I think because I had this blog and it wasn’t like anonymous, like I would, you know, link to it, you know, on like my personal, like social media page or something like, and I would talk about it with my peers too. I was open, it was clear to other people that I was open to talking about this stuff because I talked about it on the internet. Um, now fast forward, you know, we’re in 2024, blogging is not so much of a thing now, but, uh, creating social content is, so you’ve talked a lot about creating actual in-person face-to-face connections, you know, with your peers and with the, the people you’ve met through the financial wellness office, and that’s amazing. I’m wondering if you do any content creation or if you’re interested in that, um, sort of for the wider internet.

Elle (18:55): Ah, great question. I am actually writing a book, um, which is nowhere near, uh, being ready for a manuscript or anything. Um, but something that came up as, uh, a QuestBridge scholar and a PhD student is that a lot of people just need to know where to start. Um, and I, I think a lot of people, and probably a lot of listeners know like, okay, I know I need to invest. I know I need to save, I know I need to pay off debt. Um, but it’s really hard to know what order to do things in, um, and to feel comfortable in whatever you pick. And so, um, I’m sort of putting together lessons that I’ve learned for, from those coaching appointments, um, into a book that will hopefully be available for very, very cheap or free, um, and, and sort of putting that together in a more synthesized, very thoughtful way. Um, I do avoid social media, um, just for my own like mental health and benefit. Um, Reddit is really as far as I go, Reddit and LinkedIn. Um, but I’ve never really like posted on LinkedIn, um, except for like one review article that I wrote. And so, um, but yeah, so I, I do want to have like a choose your own adventure book. Um, hopefully physical, but maybe just published, um, as an ebook as well. Um, and that’s sort of the brainchild of conversations I’ve had with, with fellow QuestBridge students and with the founder of QuestBridge as well. So they’ve been hugely supportive even after I’ve long graduated from undergrad in, in helping alumni try to figure out where, where to go from here. Like, okay, great, you have, you started your new job, um, now what? And, and I think it’s, that’s not, that’s not a unique situation for people to be in. I think that’s very widespread. So, um, yes, uh, that, that will eventually come out. Um,

Emily (20:37): I’m so glad to hear that my question was not a suggestion, honestly, <laugh>, because social media can be, as you already know, because you’re not really using many forms of it, um, such an incredible, uh, time suck. And it also doesn’t necessarily, some people can blow up from it and, you know, make it their whole thing or their whole business or whatever. But I think because you have this other career <laugh> that you’re pursuing, um, a book is an amazing like, place to put all of your like thoughts and knowledge and, and observations and what you would guide other people to do. And it’s such a, I I’m a reader, like I love consuming books. And so I just think it’s a wonderful format, like for teaching, and you can obviously have a great teaching experience through a book and not have it take over your entire life <laugh> the way that social media can. So I actually really love like the balance of your striking, and you obviously need to strike that balance because we’ve talked about the time management, like you can’t be on socials like all day long because you have so much to do. Um, so I’m, I’m really, I’m really glad to hear that and I would love to, you know, when it’s finished, like I’ll help promote it, like let me know, you know, podcast listeners I’m sure would be interested in, in seeing it as well. So that’s amazing. I’m really glad you’re working on that project.

Elle (21:42): Thank you. Yeah. Um, I’m very, I’m very excited about it and I think I, I, in terms of content creation, I do do it like I do investing. I set it, forget it. Like I don’t want to have to maintain something, um, because I know that it’ll just always be omnipresent. Um, and, and so I would like to focus on, on my research, um, but I absolutely want to to sort of, uh, compile everything that I’ve learned and, and put it out there because I’m gonna do it anyway. Um, may as well be something that’s accessible.

Supporting Financial Institutional Knowledge at Your University

Emily (22:12): Yes. I’m so glad to hear that. Maybe there are some other listeners to the podcast who, like you listening for a long time, you know, got really excited about personal finances, wanted to, you know, read the books. Consume other <inaudible> Learn a lot and they have a lot of insight into how things work at their university in particular, and all the idiosyncrasies that go along with their, their own experience as a graduate student at their university. Um, do you have any suggestions for listeners on how they might do some of the things that you’ve done or similar things, just how to help their peers because they have so much of institutional knowledge and how can they pass that on?

Elle (22:47): Yes. Institutional knowledge is the first phrase that popped into my mind. So, um, do whatever is sustainable and if there’s one particular person who’s driving this, um, or one particular person, for instance, like a student affairs officer who will be at the university for a long time or even a professor, um, if they are okay with just like owning a Google Drive, that’s really what my resources are. They’re just all in a Google Drive. I can share it with anyone, it’s publicly available. Um, people can share the links to it. I don’t care if anyone from outside of UCLA sees it, it’s great. Um, but sort of just, I think whether it’s an individual effort or a group effort, just start. Um, so if you give a presentation, um, even if it’s 15 minutes of how to sign up for direct deposit or how to enroll in your university’s retirement plan, et cetera, um, just write it and just put it somewhere. And I think once you have somewhere to put it, then it makes writing it even easier. And a lot of the content I’ve created and a lot of the resources I created took me maybe an hour, sometimes less, sometimes a little bit more, but just having a place to stick it where it could be organized. Um, and then I can create copies of, for instance, I create copies of my managing finances presentation for orientation every year and I edit it. Um, but it always just gives me a launching point. And so, um, finding a place to stick that institutional knowledge and then just, just doing it or hosting a conversation, um, creating an outline of, um, of what you might wanna talk about with your peers. Maybe there’s a question you don’t know the answer to that, um, that maybe just a discussion with a few people who are older or have been in the program longer, um, that they can answer, I think is, is huge. Um, so few people know exactly what they’re doing, <laugh>. Um, and so I think the more we talk about it, especially with people in similar situations with us as us, um, are are is incredibly useful just to have those conversations and then, you know, someone can just take notes and then stick it in whatever Google drive or box account, um, that they have. But, you know, it’s, it’s surprising how quickly those resources build up once you just dedicate yourself to, okay, every time I have a discussion that’s a little bit more structured, every time I have a presentation that’s a little bit structured, um, this is where I’m going to put it, um, I think is useful. Even if that’s like a, something that’s pinned on a Slack channel, which is currently what mine is. <laugh>. Yeah,

Emily (25:13): I think that makes so much sense. Um, especially the part about like where you started, which is to find like a sponsor who’s going to, whose tenure at the institution is gonna last longer than any one individual graduate students. Um, I love the idea of asking a staff member or a faculty member to house that, um, so they can for, you know, years and so to speak, generations of students to come can keep pointing to it. Another suggestion to throw in there is to maybe involve a student organization, like your graduate student organization in your school or your university or even at the departmental level, if that’s where you went to start, like that’s where you started. Those institutions, although the people change, the group itself stays on for, you know, decades. And so that could be another place too, how these kinds of resources, and I love that the way you phrased it as like, um, sort of a collaborative effort. Like yeah, you might be creating some resources or having some conversations, but also if you make it known that this is the place where these sorts of things go, other people can create them too. Anything they learn can go in there. So our episode from season 18, episode three with Dr. Carolina Mendoza Cavazos, she talked about, again, this institutional knowledge, um, and how it built up with her over time, very similar to the story that you’ve told as well, like some of those weird things about pay schedules and, you know, tax withholding and all this stuff. Um, so, so practically useful and yet until you’ve lived through it, you don’t know that it’s coming. So like, yeah, just a place to house these resources so that people can get prepared for that month or two where they’re not gonna have paycheck, which is so scary. Or like with, which I talked about with Carolina, like lapses in benefits if you don’t handle like a transition between funding sources properly, like just giving people a heads up that stuff is coming is so, so important. So I love this idea. Thank you so much for suggesting it. Um, anything else on that topic of like how people can help their peers if they’re excited about this topic?

Elle (26:56): Um, I think if you don’t have a financial wellness, uh, program or office at your university already, I think talking with administration, whether that’s, um, of your program or even higher, um, the, the way financial wellness at UCLA was started is like 10 years ago. Um, student feedback was, please give us a resource that where we can learn about things like credit, like credit cards, we’re getting this great education, but also there’s things in our daily lives that we need to know that we currently don’t have a great way of learning, at least through the university. So, um, if your financial, well, if a financial wellness office exists already at your institution, I think just going and seeing what resources they have. Um, I didn’t know that financial wellness created all these workshop presentations that are publicly available, um, to anyone even outside of UCLA. And, uh, so just seeing, seeing what resources they have, um, getting involved, if it’s also a passion of yours, um, which I’m sure a lot of listeners of this podcast it might be. Um, but if it doesn’t exist, if that office doesn’t exist and that resource doesn’t exist yet, make it known that you want it and, um, you’re definitely not alone in that. Um, I think just having a lot of names on a letter could at least get the ball rolling for those future generations of students because it worked at UCLA. Um, and I think it’s sort of, uh, continuing across the country as more and more financial wellness offices and programs pop up and, and start really helping students in a way that really matters.

Emily (28:25): Yeah, so I’m part of this, um, community, I guess called the Higher Education Financial Wellness Alliance, and it’s, it brings together financial wellness professionals from universities and colleges across the country. So when I attend like their conference, it seems to me like everybody has a financial wellness office. Maybe that’s not the case, but I will tell you that a lot of universities have financial wellness offices. It’s just that they might be focused on the undergraduate population. Now at UCLA, it sounds like they had like a position for like a graduate student, you know, two, two graduate student peers, um, peer counselors at a time, which is amazing. I’ll tell you that that’s not common. But the more and more graduate students who go to their financial wellness offices and say, we want these resources, and by the way, we want them tailored to our specific situation because it is different than an undergraduate situation. Um, the more and more they hear those requests, they will try to meet them, um, eventually <laugh>, but I think right now a lot of these offices don’t see graduate students ever. And so they don’t, it’s like the two popula-, they’re just not talking to each other, right? It’s not that graduate students don’t need this information, it’s just that they’re not going to that specific source and asking for it, but they should. So yes, I agree.

Elle (29:33): Amazing. Yeah, I think if you, if you never speak up right then, then um, it’s great to have, yeah, one Google Drive folder housed by like a professor, but, um, think about how great it would be to yeah, expand, uh, a university’s financial wellness program to include or be more inclusive of, um, graduate students. I think there’s always going to be work to be done, but um, I think it needs to start with, with a voice.

Best Financial Advice for Another Early-Career PhD

Emily (29:55): Awesome. Okay, well let’s end 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 already touched on in the interview, or it could be something completely new.

Elle (30:09): Yes. Um, I thought a lot about this, um, because I knew the question was coming. Um, but I think, you know, there’s, there’s of course the, the starting a Roth IRA and budgeting, but I think the main advice I would give is to make time. Um, I think it’s so easy to put off something because this is sometimes scary for a lot of people. If you’ve never invested before, if you’ve never even heard of something, um, just make time, set a schedule maybe for me, I set aside two hours every week where I focus only on, or sorry, two hours every two weeks to focus on only my finances. So I pay off my credit cards, I check my credit report sometimes. Um, and, um, I, I look at, I update my net worth tracker, I look into if there’s a credit card that might have a good bonus. Um, I sort of see where I am in terms of my budget and my, my goals. Um, and then I also look at like potential investing opportunities. My, my investing is strategy is pretty set, um, and that I don’t want to really touch it, but, um, but when I was first starting, I think just making myself make time for it and then dedicating only those like two hours of just educating myself, figuring out what an index fund is, um, what, what I wanted to do, uh, in, in terms of like tax strategy, all that stuff, paying taxes, et cetera. Um, I think make, it starts with, with making time to do it, um, and not putting it off.

Emily (31:39): I love that piece of advice. Some people call this a money date, um, a recurring money date that you have by yourself or with your partner or whatever your applicable situation is. Um, I would also add in there like, I mean, all the things that you listed are things that, um, you can do either every time you have the money date or maybe they’re sort of seasonal or occasional. Um, but I would also add in, uh, consuming content. So like maybe that’s okay, I have two hours set aside every two weeks and it took me 75 minutes to do my tasks and I have another 45 and I’m gonna read a book, or I’m gonna listen to this certain podcast, whatever, just to like further that. And I, I love that, you know, keeping that space on the calendar, you obviously, um, do block scheduling with your calendar time block planning. Um, so that’s like an amazing way to do things and just to have that protected time because then if something does come up in your financial life, like I had something come up recently, which is that, um, my 401k provider is no longer my 401k provider. They ended the program for everyone. So like, I had a lot of administrative things to do to like, get this 401k moved elsewhere. And so just having that protected time on your calendar is great when something like that comes up because you can sit, you don’t have to steal time from, you know, some other aspect of your life. It’s already recurring there. So I really love that suggestion. Um, Elle, thank you so much for coming on the podcast, spending this time with us. I hope the listeners really enjoyed this episode, got a ton out of it and are inspired like I am to continue the work. So thank you again.

Elle (32:58): Thank you so much. Yeah, it’s, I’ve, I’ve been hoping to come on this podcast for so long and I was just always like, maybe I’m not ready, but, um, I hope, yeah, I hope this is useful to your listeners and thank you so much for having me. I, I really had fun.

Emily (33:09): Awesome. And a note to the listeners. Yes. So Elle and I happen to meet each other in person and I said, why do you not come on the podcast? Like, let’s make that happen. And as she just said, she’d been waiting and waiting, waiting to volunteer and yeah, there’s never gonna seem like a perfect time. Your story is done and whatever. Just go ahead and volunteer pfforphds.com/podcastvolunteer. That’s the form you can go and fill out and uh, I would love to have you and have another wonderful conversation like the one we just said. So yeah, I hope uh, more people volunteer and more people will take up the mantle for what you’re doing as well.

Elle (33:38): Absolutely. Thank you so much.

Outtro

Emily (33:50): 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.

How This International Graduate Student Grew His Career and Social Wealth Alongside His Net Worth

June 17, 2024 by Jill Hoffman

In this episode, Emily interviews Dr. Cyrus Liu, a postdoctoral fellow in computer science at Grinnell College. Cyrus came to the US from China as a graduate student without any knowledge of how the US financial system works. Over the course of his PhD, Cyrus found ways to minimize his expenses and increase his income so that he could meet his goal of investing $500 per month into a Roth IRA and a taxable brokerage account. He also invested in his physical and mental health and grew his career and social wealth in a frugal manner. Cyrus ends the interview with incredible insights into why he was motivated to work on his finances during graduate school and in what ways academics are truly wealthy.

Links mentioned in the Episode

How This International Graduate Student Grew His Career and Social Wealth Alongside His Net Worth

Teaser

Cyrus (00:00): Don’t underestimate yourself because you are a PhD student and you definitely have the knowledge base and then sharing those knowledge with the community, and you are passing to the knowledge. This is the wealth we possess, right? Normally people think we are poor, but actually, and a wider definition of the wealth here we have this part to share with someone else.

Introduction

Emily (00:33): Welcome to the Personal Finance for PhDs Podcast: A Higher Education in Personal Finance. This podcast is for PhDs and PhDs-to-be who want to explore the hidden curriculum of finances to learn the best practices for money management, career advancement, and advocacy for yourself and others. I’m your host, Dr. Emily Roberts, a financial educator specializing in early-career PhDs and founder of Personal Finance for PhDs.

Emily (01:01): This is Season 18, Episode 2, and today my guest is Dr. Cyrus Liu, a postdoctoral fellow in computer science at Grinnell College. Cyrus came to the US from China as a graduate student without any knowledge of how the US financial system works. Over the course of his PhD, Cyrus found ways to minimize his expenses and increase his income so that he could meet his goal of investing $500 per month into a Roth IRA and a taxable brokerage account. He also invested in his physical and mental health and grew his career and social wealth in a frugal manner. Cyrus ends the interview with incredible insights into why he was motivated to work on his finances during graduate school and in what ways academics are truly wealthy.

Emily (01:45): I’m offering a new slate of workshops for my university clients this fall, and over the summer I’m practicing delivering these workshops for free to a limited number of graduate students and postdocs on the Personal Finance for PhDs mailing list. Last month, we did “Seven Steps to Start Investing as a Graduate Student or Postdoc,” and later in the summer we’ll do “Your Financial Orientation to Graduate School” and “Tax Season Preparation Starts Now for Graduate Students” and possibly more. If you’re not currently on my mailing list but want to receive notice about the upcoming pilot sessions once they are scheduled, please join now! The best way to get on the mailing list as a podcast listener is to sign up through PFforPhDs.com/advice/; you’ll receive a document that summarizes all of my interviewees’ responses regarding their best financial advice. You can find the show notes for this episode at PFforPhDs.com/s18e2/. Without further ado, here’s my interview with Dr. Cyrus Liu.

Will You Please Introduce Yourself Further?

Emily (02:56): I am delighted to have joining me on the podcast today, Dr. Cyrus Liu. He’s currently a postdoctoral fellow in computer science at Grinnell College, and we are going to be talking about his fascinating financial journey, um, as a graduate student and now a postdoc in the US as an international student. And so, Cyrus, I’m so happy that you’ve decided to join me on the podcast today, and will you please introduce yourself a little bit further?

Cyrus (03:19): Yes. Hi, Emily. Thank you for having me here. So I graduated in December, 2022 from computer science degree. Um, after that I landed this, uh, postdoc, um, fellow in computer science. And the current position, I’m do- mostly doing research in the area of programming languages and security.

Money Mindset After Arriving in the US

Emily (03:45): Excellent. So let’s go kind of all the way back to when you first arrived in the US. I assume that was at the start of graduate school, but you can correct me if that’s wrong. Um, tell me like about what your money mindset was at that point and how, if at all, how familiar you were with the US financial system.

Cyrus (04:01): Also, this is my first time before I come to US. It’s actually, I’ve never been to us before my PhD and I’m from China, so I grew up in a poor family, in fact, there. So with that in mind that I’m kind of sort of inherently frugal. But what’s interesting is back then, like I never feel poor in terms of any financials. In general, I have no idea about in credit card scores, uh, credit cards and investing or retirement. And, and that’s later on. I discovered after I entered the US that I do have, uh, a saving and spending mindfully and because how my parents raised me. Right.

Grad School Stipend vs. Local Cost of Living

Emily (04:50): I see. And so when you arrived for, um, graduate school here, can you tell me about, um, what your stipend was and how that struck you, maybe versus like the local cost of living?

Cyrus (05:02): I was living in Hoboken for, um, two years and a half, and also Stevens Institute with the university. I finished my PhD is located in this really beautiful city and it, it is, the local cost is like 60% higher than the national average. I would just say and put in the number that means like I think if you got two bedroom apartments that you might need to spend, um, at least 1700 for one bedroom, that means you need a a roommate. And back then the stipends, uh, I would say it’s like a 28 thousandish and it’s roughly, I remember we got paid like a biweekly, it’s like 2000 a hundred per month after tax.

Increasing Income During Grad School

Emily (05:55): Okay. Well, I really wanna dig into this, uh, with that, you know, relatively expensive cost of living and the relatively low stipend. Um, and the listeners don’t know yet, but this is a financial success story that we’re about to talk about <laugh>. So we’re gonna see how, you know, I wanted to see that starting point and now let’s see how you got to the end point that you got to. Um, so let’s kind of break this down, um, systematically. So during the course of your time in graduate school, how did you, what did you do to increase your income?

Cyrus (06:24): Yeah, so there are a couple things. Um, like I said that before I entering, uh, US, I have, I really have no idea what’s the, uh, um, investment, investment investing or credit cards, and that’s a totally different systems, but I do have a mindset that I need to save, right? And it is how I grew up. Um, but it’s not too much. So most of the case, um, I start to reaching out, um, all the resources I can, I, I think I start with reading the book first and then also I love reading. And then the first book I get to know is basically, uh, it is called I Will Teach Rich by the Ramit. And, and he, he actually kind of introduced me to the whole US financial system from credit card, from the, uh, uh, Roth IRA and then how you would you, uh, increase, uh, your finance and manage your, your spending habits and to how would you invest if you have extra money, even though if you don’t have extra money, just put maybe one, uh, 100 or $50 you can squeeze out. Just experience how things work. Uh, at the beginning it was a little bit overwhelming, but I, I enjoyed read his book. I I think this is also helps me to manage my life, uh, here in a completely, uh, foreign nation. Right?

Emily (08:04): Yeah, that’s a wonderful first book to get started with. I will teach you to be rich by Ramit Sethi. Um, yeah, great, great introduction. He’s very firm about how to tell if someone, someone, you know, an institution is trying to take advantage of you. Like he’s really helping you, like recognize that and push back against it. So I can definitely see how that would be useful when you’re entering a new system, um, entirely. So awesome recommendation, you started there, you read that book,

Cyrus (08:28): And then I start to act <laugh>.

Emily (08:31): Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>.

Cyrus (08:31): And then I open the credit card and then I, I, I take the, the same strategy that I recommended by the, by the book. It, it’s not promotion for the book, but it’s more like, I think around nothing to think of that it is really like you try to minimize all the possible interest, right? Rates I would have and then, or a lot of promotions provided by the credit card and then try to take advantage of that because now we think about that credit cards more like the more you expense and then the more you can potentially save and also they encourage you to spend. So, but I personally very mindful with my expense, but the same times I think they do, credit cards do offer a lot of discounts in terms of purchasing. So that’s the first step.

Emily (09:24): So are you saying that you pursued credit card rewards, like points and cash back and stuff after? Of course, you initially need to establish credit and get started there.

Cyrus (09:32): Yes, exactly.

Emily (09:32): But is that where this led eventually?

Cyrus (09:34): The, the signing bonus and also the cashback reward, that’s also something new to me that I never did, uh, touch before. And then also we do have, uh, I think the first one is the discovery. I think most of international students would get to discovery first because we don’t have any, uh, credit score history here. And so they also have these online stores that will give you 10% or 5% discount. And then when I go out to buy clothes in, or I was living in New York City area, so there’s a lot of department store that can use with this discount opportunities.

Emily (10:16): Mm-Hmm, <affirmative>. Okay. So both increasing income through credit card, um, bonuses and cash back and so forth. Also finding a way to be even more frugal in saving certain percent, percentages on the purchases that you do make.

Cyrus (10:28): After that, um, uh, I started to opening a investment account that was also a little bit struggling because I, first of all, as an international student, I do not know if I was allowed to do that. So I, that’s kind of for research myself. But in the end, after like, um, as long as we are considering as a tax payer resident, and then, so you should have the same opportunity to open all those investment account. And then I, I remembered I started with, uh, uh, 500 ish, um, over the month for the first month. So I just put, I think I, I, I was not expecting to gain anything. I just, uh, put 500 to get to understanding, uh, how the investments work and buying individual stocks. And I think I bought, that was 2018. I bought a Tesla <laugh> because I really like, uh, Elon Musk.

Cyrus (11:30): Um, but that was another story. It was really funny. And so that’s one part. And then, uh, after that, uh, I get to know the, Roth IRA and then the retirement account. Um, it’s also be, uh, I, I get to understand how the tax work here and then the tax deferred account. And I think that’s whether in long term if, uh, I am staying here or not. I, for me, it’s like, I think it’s, uh, uh, beneficial to open this account as soon as possible because I do pay a lot of taxes. I mean, it’s, uh, in terms of graduate students. Uh, so I think, uh, that’s one way you should take benefit of that. And then I did that, but um, although I didn’t have much money to put on that, and then, uh, in the end, I would, my, my goal was, uh, try to save like, uh, 500 and put into other way to the Roth IRA or the personal, um, uh, investment brokerage and yeah. But this all comes with the risk. So with the mind that you, the money you put in, in the investment account, like it’s possible to lose all of them. Right. But I was fine with that.

Contributing to a Retirement Account as an International Student

Emily (12:47): Couple things there, uh, because I get so many questions from international students and postdocs, um, yeah, maybe they know, they, you know, in theory could contribute money to a Roth ira for example. They, they understand the eligibility, but they’re more questioning like, is this a good idea? And it sounds like you came down on Yep. As soon as possible, whether I end up in the US long term or not, this is a good idea. Can you tell us a little bit more about that thought process and how you made that decision?

Cyrus (13:15): Uh, I think that this decision is very personal for me. Um, because that, that’s all really depends, um, where you going to stay, where are you going to retire in, in the future, right? Um, for me, I didn’t really think that too long. Um, I can in, in the long run, I, I prefer this. I might not stay in United States. Uh, but, uh, I, but uh, for me, you, you got to understand what, what, what’s your, uh, long-term goal. Uh, if you are not going to come back to us at all, or even this is the case, but it is still helpful that because, uh, you are kind of tax deferred assuming you grow your money over there, right? Um, and it just take some penalties if you break the, the rules that you’re taking out the money before your retirement age. But if you can stand with that, it is nothing comparing that if you in your future that you might want to settle down in US or you go want you coming back in us in a later life, it, it, it, it can benefit you a lot, but without risk balance you got assessment, what’s your goal, it is. And then for me, I would like to take that even though maybe a few years I have to, uh, uh, leave or, or for, or I have to withdraw the money, but I need to take a 20% or I don’t know exactly number the penalty for that.

Emily (14:53): Mm-Hmm, <affirmative>, yeah, if I’m remembering correctly, it’s, I think it’s only 10% and it’s only on the gains. And if we’re talking about the Roth IRA, right, because you can withdraw the contribution. So it’s, as you said, you know, there’s a, um, a, a risk there in a sense. Okay, well maybe I will need to remove this money early for some reason. Well, this is the penalty. Am I willing to accept that? Do you know, I’m, and the penalty again, is only on the growth. So it’s only if, yeah, if there things have actually gone well with that investment account, um, in the intervening years. So thank you for giving us a little bit more insight there.

Investing as a Graduate Student

Emily (15:24): And then I also wanted to ask about the taxable brokerage account. Um, you mentioned you bought Tesla. Yeah. Were you, um, cashing out, like making trades and actually taking income from this money over the years? Or is it more been like just sitting there for like, for the long term and you’re not taking income from it?

Cyrus (15:40): So for me, it’s more like a, um, a personal habit. Like, um, uh, I do, I don’t, I didn’t, I did not have much money to invest, and I think I was just bought two or three, few five shares of Tesla, but in 2018, and, but after that, Tesla was like a, like a high rocket, and I do, I did sold a couple share, but those number I really like comparing it, it’s not much. And so no, it, it, it’s more like, uh, a habit. That one is a habit. The another one is I, I did not really have much extra money to invest in this account.

Emily (16:24): Yeah. And I, you said the number of $500 earlier, was that your, was it your goal to invest $500 per month or is that over a different period of time?

Cyrus (16:32): Uh, yeah, I was, uh, uh, a month.

Minimizing Expenses as a Graduate Student

Emily (16:34): Let’s talk about keeping a lid on expenses or decreasing expenses then, because we’ve already heard that the cost of living is very challenging on your grad student stipend. So you already mentioned having multiple roommates. I think you said you were sharing a bedroom, right? So like maybe four people in a two bedroom apartment, is that right?

Cyrus (16:49): Um, um, no, that, that was like, uh, we do have five bedrooms in, uh, a big house, but we, we have our own bedroom. But the things like, uh, in that case we did cutting down a lot of expenses. We share everything.

Emily (17:05): Mm-Hmm, <affirmative>. Okay. So kind of the, the frugal tip there is like larger residents, more roommates, more people to split everything among, right?

Cyrus (17:15): Yeah. Not many PhD students actually live in Hoboken. I was lucky to find this place. Uh, but the same times, like I personally, I don’t think roommates are bad. And because I, I get a chance to know different people and, uh, in my case, uh, there’s a, a little, uh, uh, that, but I can stand with because we do sharing, uh, things, uh, and then sometimes can getting busy, but most of the case are fine with that. So we, I have four other roommates, but they are working in a different area. So basically we would have a different schedule. So in this case, uh, it’s doable and especially, uh, given the resources I have, I don’t commute that much. And then I enjoy in the on campus resource, I like to do it to gym. So it’s like a 10 minutes away from my, uh, my, my lab and then also the, to the gym. So the, I spend most of the time in the lab. And then after that, I go to the gym really just, uh, over the night, come back. And then sometimes we have the good parties, you have roommates, and you can have some little party on the weekends and watch a movie together. That was pretty nice.

Emily (18:30): Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. Yeah. I actually really like the setup of a single family home that’s shared among multiple different, multiple, you know, people at their own bedrooms. I feel like that’s a pretty, in most areas of the country, that’s a pretty economical way to live if that type of housing is available to you as opposed to like the apartments or, you know, the townhouses or whatever. Yeah. Um, yeah. So what other ways did you find to decrease or minimize your expenses?

Cyrus (18:55): So at the same time, um, we, we do have, uh, uh, so I try to, uh, take a break from my research sometimes. And another way is like, um, travel. When, when it comes to travel, um, I prefer to go with my friends or in a group, and in, in generally I do meal prep. I do, uh, regularly do, uh, exercise and eat healthy. Um, the meal prep myself, it’s also cost less. So I think it is a, it is beneficial in two ways. Um, also in long run, I do value work workout regularly and keep your mental health checked. This would’ve, uh, stopped me going to hospital that often. Like I remember when the seasoning transitions during the transition seasonings and you catch flu isn’t sometimes it’s not just going to the hospital suffering. It’s more like you take at least one week to recover and then you get behind with my research and then that kind of padding up. It’s a lot of stress. So I, I, I wouldn’t, so I, I realized that like, and I, the good way is like take, do more exercise and then to, to keep your immune system robust, <laugh> against that. Um, another thing is like, it, it’s very funny, like when we pay in taxes, right? We, we considering as a, a tax resident. And, uh, but at the same time, I really appreciate my student id. I was living in New York City area and then using student id, you got a lot of free, uh, tickets and also discount tickets to the art gallery and museums and, and gardens. So although I, I, I was, uh, frugal, but I didn’t miss out any fun things over there. I, I still go to museums, gardens, and sometimes, uh, uh, uh, meetups and, and, and local, uh, parties. I, I was, was really fun. And it didn’t really cost you much.

Emily (21:10): Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. So your entertainment was also satisfactory to you, but you found a way to do it in a frugal manner.

Cyrus (21:16): Yeah. Yeah.

Emily (21:18): Anything else on your list of, of expenses that you managed to minimize?

Cyrus (21:22): I don’t drive, right? So it is also, I was living in the city. It’s really, uh, so those expenses not really, uh, a thing for me. I personally, I do not really purchase too much clothing for me. I’m very minimal. Like, uh, as long I have, uh, uh, a clean fit clothing, that’s enough for me. And for shoes, like, uh, I don’t like to switch too much, and also maybe I have two or three, two, uh, three pair of shoes that one for winter and one or two I can switch during the summer or something like that. So, uh, wearing the things like to the, to the most, um, I think this is preco- probably also because the way that I, how I raised that I am fine with that. And I think that’s kind of, uh, one part, uh, that can cut off the cost in my case.

Emily (22:26): Yeah, definitely.

Commercial

Emily (22:29): Emily here for a brief interlude. Would you like to learn directly from me on a personal finance topic, such as taxes, goal-setting, investing, frugality, increasing income, or student loans, each tailored specifically for graduate students and postdocs? I offer seminars and workshops on these topics and more in a variety of formats, and I’m now booking for the 2024-2025 academic year. If you would like to bring my content to your institution, would you please recommend me as a speaker or facilitator to your university, graduate school, graduate student association, or postdoc office? My seminars are usually slated as professional development or personal wellness. Orientations or very close to the start of the academic year would be a perfect time for tax education or general personal finance content. Ask the potential host to go to PFforPhDs.com/financial-education/ or simply email me at [email protected] to start the process. I really appreciate these recommendations, which are the best way for me to start a conversation with a potential host. The paid work I do with universities and institutions enables me to keep producing this podcast and all my other free resources. Thank you in advance if you decide to issue a recommendation! Now back to our interview.

Increasing Social Wealth

Emily (23:56): Is there anything else that you would like to add about overall how you increased your net worth during graduate school? We talked about investing in the Roth, IRA and also in the taxable brokerage account. Anything else in that category?

Cyrus (24:09): Uh, I think one thing that is more intangible, the the wealth and the finance that, uh, the, it is kind of the, the social wealth, the, which I, I, I, I was not really proud of that, um, and try to, uh, take advantage of the local resources, right? And then I was lucky to live in New York City area, and then that’s, and also Hoboken locally and is very nice community, but I think no matter where you live, the local community more often, have more resources that you can imagine and you might not be aware, just try to reach out. And for example, I was attending almost like every weekend I go out and then join the meetup and conference, and most of, of the time they provide you these free meals, lunch or dinner, and then it, it, it’s a, it’s a nice way you can social and also you don’t need to cook your meal yourself. So these things are very subtle and the same things happening on campus that, um, in, in your department, uh, no matter which major you are, um, try to join the, uh, the, if you have any habit, right, join the club and then your peers, and those are most likely have this, uh, social events that can help you, uh, to reduce sometimes if you don’t want to cook or for breakfast meal. And then those are all great ways to, to do

Emily (25:59): Classic grad student strategy. Um, but I like that your focus here and kind of your spin on it is both like, yeah, you can get some free meals from time to time, but also you get, you get your entertainment and your social interaction. Um, and so it fills your, your calendar and helps you again with your work life balance and your wellness overall. And I like that you mentioned not just doing this on campus, but in the community too. And the thing is that if people are putting on events and they’re giving food and all those things, they really want you there. They really want people to come. So like you’re also, you know, you’re contributing to their community as well.

Cyrus (26:32): Yeah. Yeah. I, I think, um, one of the things not just about the meals, and another thing is about the, the, the social wealth. I would say it’s all, uh, it’s also the concept I learned from the books that, uh, it’s more how would you connect to the people? And then that was, uh, kind of potentially, and the connection may or may not be lead you to in the future when you are in the job market, you could have used these connections, but, uh, I wouldn’t say put this in more like a transactional way, but you should try genuinely more just enjoying the life. But at the same times, you might not realize by doing that, you kind of gain the social wealth.

Freedom as the Ultimate Goal

Emily (27:20): You were obviously putting in a lot of effort with your finances, right? All the things we went through, ways that you keep your lifestyle to a minimum ways you figured out how to increase your income, you know, self-education, and then that turned into more investing and so forth. Um, why, why weren’t you just satisfied with getting by day to day and saving all of that for after you finish graduate school?

Cyrus (27:45): I, I think that’s awesome. One role of the reason is due to my personality, I guess. Um, I think the, the ultimate goal is the freedom to achieve the freedom and to be confident. W- with the any decisions I’m going to make. So I would like to, we are talking about freedom and confidence. It’s more like in the sense that I was, I can make decisions based on my own personal demand, not really subject to any resources surrounding me, right? Like, like I said, like before I entering us, I never felt I’m, I’m poor <laugh> because I don’t really have, have much need and I was spending most of my life and time with school. And then after you explore the world, I have this dream, and then now the time’s moving on, and then I start to realize that I really, it’s not what you think, like ideas are great, but you have these obstacles that related to this, uh, money topic, and then you actually making decisions based on what the resources are available for you. So the final goal, then I would start to thinking like, yeah, this comes so natural, you save more, but saving is just one of those strategies. So, and then that’s why I end up start to find out the other opportunities and yeah. So I, I would say the ultimate goal is to be freedom.

Emily (29:30): Do you feel like, you know, you are, I don’t know, five, six or so years into this now, um, do you feel like you’ve attained that to a degree? Obviously you’re not, maybe, you know, complete financial independence is still, still some time away, but, um, I guess I’m, I’m wondering about, yeah, like does it feel like you are a percentage ways, like towards that at this point?

Cyrus (29:53): Uh, in terms of the net worth, obvious, No, that is a far away, but I think in terms of mindset and the knowledge, and then I am preparing myself and then I’m being mindful with my personal life. It’s called personal finance, right? And then you, I i, I was now I’m able to figuring out in the big picture and then what’s the come in flow, what’s the outflow? And I’m, I’m very mindful of that. And then in the end, it, it’s really also, it’s another pro- a question for myself. Do I really want to be retired early or not, or, so the, the, the, the freedom for me is in a more, in a wider definition that it’s more about the resource management and the organize myself, and it, it, it, it includes material and, but also my mind. I think this kind of, uh, uh, knowledge and skills over these past five to six years that I develop, it’s very helpful. Um, in the long term. I, I think if I stick to that and then keep this growth mindset and in the future, the net worth is just a number, whether you choose retire 40 at 40 or 50 a a it is, can is this is the freedom that I, I’m talking about. I can decide, doesn’t matter if, if I have to work or not, right?

Emily (31:33): Absolutely. I love that. Thank you much for pointing that out. I similarly, I think I came to this similar kinds of reflections after I had finished graduate school, after I’d been on that path for a few years, like recognizing how, um, having not only some money in terms of the net worth, but also those mindsets and the habits and the skills and everything that it took to start down that path really afforded me more, uh, choices even at that relatively early stage, um, in life. So thank you so much for sharing that. Exactly.

Personal Finance Resources for Grad Students

Emily (32:07): Um, do you have any additional resources that you’d like to recommend, either to specifically the international graduate student population or maybe graduate students and postdocs more widely? I mean, your first recommendation, I will teach you to be rich by Ramit Sethi was an excellent one. Were there any other books or I don’t know, podcasts or YouTube channels or anything else that you, uh, that you felt was really helpful along the way?

Cyrus (32:27): Yeah, I think, um, so I, I think books are really, uh, good to start with. And in terms of which books you should read, uh, um, uh, I would recommend if you use Reddit, and that there’s a personal finance Reddit channel, uh, you can join that one. There’s a lot of resources about personal finance and what books you’re getting started. And if you like a podcast, and I think this one is very nice since, uh, at the beginning I, I couldn’t find much resources. That’s also how I get to know this podcast. And I was very excited that actually someone thanks to you <laugh>, um, so you, you, you can get, keep get informed to make a good decision, right? Um, and this, uh, this, this is, uh, complete within your reach if you want to do that. And then I would suggest you do that.

Cyrus (33:28): And in terms of, uh, um, tangible resources, be mindful for the, uh, reach out to your university resources. Like, um, especially I was using this, uh, psycho, uh, psychological services therapy and be open-minded. And for those like, um, we are PhD students, we are graduate students, and then it’s can definitely be very lonely. And then even you are in a relationship, so, and those resources are really just find somewhere to talk. And this I think is the part that can easily be ignored by the students, especially international students thinking I’m really, because I’m alien here and then I feel constrained. But actually, uh, uh, in us, you can definitely, especially in your university, you have a lot of resources, uh, uh, to help you out. And then when you graduated, and actually the careers, uh, service is also very helpful, but you need to know that and you need to reach out for yourself.

Cyrus (34:41): And in terms of local community, no matter where you live, try to find a city. And what I did is like get engaged with the locals and I like running and then I go to 5K races. So those are, you can, um, reach out without any cost, right? And also you can, uh, remain your, uh, healthy mind, mind, uh, mental health. So yeah, I, I think overall just be open-minded. We are living in this, uh, information liberal age is really, you don’t feel missing out, and then you have the access to other information you can figure out yourself. And what’s, one thing I, I learned is, um, what makes you, uh, anxious is mostly the things that you actually didn’t do right? And then if you act on it, it, it, it doesn’t matter how challenging the, the things itself, and then you will be fine. But sitting there <laugh> doing nothing, that that’s the big problem.

Emily (35:54): Mm-Hmm, <affirmative>, I’ve absolutely seen that in, I mean, it, it applies widely, but certainly in the case of finances, um, it’s better to just face it and engage. Yeah. And try something. Um, yeah, instead of, as you said, kind of avoiding or spending a long time in analysis paralysis, not sure which direction you should go, just try something. And you’ve tried a lot of things and I love that we got through all of that in this interview.

Best Financial Advice for Another Early-Career PhD

Emily (36:16): Let’s wrap up with our last question that I ask all of my guests. What is your best financial advice for another early career PhD? And it could be something that we’ve touched on already in the interview, or it could be something completely new.

Cyrus (36:28): Yeah, so, um, I think everyone has a very unique experience, uh, in terms of giving. Otherwise, I would just say I wish what I have done or done more to in my PhD. Um, so one thing I think, like I mentioned couple times, um, value social wealth. And that means that, uh, try to, uh, go out and in, in your spare time, sometimes you might think you don’t have time, especially as a PhD student. And, but I tried, I have the similar mindset, uh, at a certain amount of time. But the thing is like you stick in the lab and the home, you might, you become less productive and then it might take more time than comparing that you just go out and do some activities and then come back with, uh, more energy and fresh mind. So this is the thing that I, I think I did, uh, less, uh, whether it, if you are in a relationship or not, it is the similar thing sometimes, like go out with friends and, and to the meetups and or more importantly, um, it’s also more, uh, career wise or professionally. Like we, we as a graduate student, we don’t really have money to give out, but the same, uh, idea applies. The more you give the, the, the, the, the better. So, but as a scholar, that means that volunteer to giving talks in the meetups, workshops, seminars in your neighboring institutions, I think, uh, don’t underestimate yourself because you are a PhD student and you definitely have the knowledge base and then sharing those knowledge with the community, and you are passing to the knowledge. This is the wealth we possess, right? Normally people think we are poor, but actually, um, a wider definition of the wealth here, we have this part to share with someone else. And then the same times you will get rewarding back, right? Because you, you go out and people get your idea, you get a chance to talk about your research, and the same times you build this genuine connections with the community, and in the future, this connections might help you to navigate your, your future career path.

Cyrus (38:58): So this is the thing that I, I think I missed out a lot also because we was in the covid times, and that’s really dark age. Um, on the other side, as I, I would like to share is I think what I did to contribute the success of my PhD is one thing is really be open-minded. I considering myself a very open-minded person, I, I, at the same time, very minimal for me. And then, but I do exercise more and then, and try new things at the beginning. All those investment accounts really scares me because every time I open the account, that’s a whole for legal documents I have to read. And I, as an international, I’m concerned that I fly-, am I breaking the law or something like that. But if, if you are looking into it and it’s really not that scary, right?

Cyrus (39:56): So I think, I think I, I stand with myself and then I, I try all those things. And then the, the, the, the idea is you need to realize that if you don’t do that, and it’s actually you are paying that, you are not doing that, right? Because the inflations and the interest rates, rates all the things that you have to, you kind of, everyone should open their investment account and, and, and do the investment and manage that to beat the, at least the inflation. So another thing I think I value, uh, more is the people itself, whether it be your significant others or friends. I do valuable value those things. Um, uh, that means that if, if there’s a chance I can spend more time with my friends, like, uh, we go out for a nice, a night, a fancy dinner. Sometimes we go out for, to New York, Manhattan to try different restaurants. I, I, I, I really not at that moment, I value more with the time with my friends. And even though the meal is expensive sometimes, I remember one time we spent almost a hundred each of us for one meal <laugh> was like, but I think that was really, uh, um, uh, valuable for me.

Emily (41:15): Yeah, so insightful. Thank you so much for sharing that with us. Thank you for this entire interview Cyrus, for volunteering to come on the podcast. Um, it’s been absolute pleasure to have you.

Cyrus (41:24): Thank you. And thank you for having me and it is great to sharing the stories with everyone. Thank you so much.

Outtro

Emily (41:41): 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 Grad Student Took Control of Her Finances to Shift Her Income Sources

April 15, 2024 by Jill Hoffman

In this episode, Emily interviews Fern Wolburg Martinez, a 4th-year PhD student in Industrial/Organizational Psychology at Portland State University. Fern shares the pros and cons of the various income sources she’s used for her graduate work: a teaching assistantship, a fellowship, student loans, side jobs, and social safety net programs. When Fern was offered a fellowship, she realized she would no longer be eligible to take out student loans and had to decline it. Fern subsequently worked on her spending and budgeting to put herself in a position to accept the fellowship and increase her income later on. Finally, Fern and Emily discuss how you can employ a researcher’s skills and mindset in the personal finance arena.

Links mentioned in the Episode

This Grad Student Took Control of Her Finances to Shift Her Income Sources

Teaser

Fern (00:00): No idea where my money was going, how much money I was spending, and how, what my stable fixed expenses looked like every month. And then finally what my advisor offered the fellowship and she’s like, Hey, you should go on this fellowship. I was like, oh, I don’t know. I can’t do student loans. I have to look into it, so maybe I can afford it, but I’m not sure. So this is where the scientist mindset came in. It’s like, okay, I need objective data to look at my situation and make an informed decision.

Introduction

Emily (00:36): 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 (01:05): This is Season 17, Episode 8, and today my guest is Fern Wolburg Martinez, a 4th-year PhD student in Industrial/Organizational Psychology at Portland State. Fern shares the pros and cons of the various income sources she’s used for her graduate work: a teaching assistantship, a fellowship, student loans, side jobs, and social safety net programs. When Fern was offered a fellowship, she realized she would no longer be eligible to take out student loans and had to decline it. Fern subsequently worked on her spending and budgeting to put herself in a position to accept the fellowship and increase her income later on. Finally, Fern and I discuss how you can employ a researcher’s skills and mindset in the personal finance arena.

Emily (01:51): If you’re listening to this episode on the day it drops, you know that it is Tax Day! I hope that you have already submitted your 2023 tax return, paid your 2023 tax bill, and made your 2024 quarter 1 estimated tax payment for your fellowship, if required. However, there have been many years in which I was still working on any or all of those elements right up to and even past the deadline. If you’re in that position and need additional resources on taxes tailored to the graduate student, postdoc, or postbac experience, join one of my asynchronous tax workshops to immediately access my best teaching on these topics. Go to PFforPhDs.com/tax/ and scroll to the bottom of the page to learn more about the tax return preparation workshop and the estimated tax workshop. Best of luck to you in these final hours of tax season! You can find the show notes for this episode at PFforPhDs.com/s17e8/. Without further ado, here’s my interview with Fern Wolburg Martinez.

Will You Please Introduce Yourself Further?

Emily (03:10): I am delighted how joining me on the podcast today, Fern Wolburg Martinez. She’s a current graduate student at Portland State in industrial organizational psychology. And we are going to talk about how Fern has funded her graduate program, both, you know, through the graduate program, through side hustles. Um, we’re also gonna talk about budgeting and just really get into the numbers today of like what a current graduate student is, um, is making and spending. So, Fern, I’m so delighted to have you on. Thank you so much for volunteering to come on and be open about this subject. And would you please introduce yourself a little bit further for the listeners?

Fern (03:41): Yeah, thank you, Emily. So, like you mentioned, I’m Fernanda, I go by Fern and I am currently in my fourth year of my graduate program preparing for my comprehensive exams. And my expertise is on occupational health psychology. Specifically, I explore how sexual harassment and customer sexual harassment affects the wellbeing of employees.

PhD Program Funding and Stipend Advocacy Efforts

Emily (04:03): Okay, thank you so much. Can you tell us about how your program has been funded to date?

Fern (04:09): Yeah, so the nice thing about my program is just a master’s to PhD program and it’s fully funded if you get accepted. So they cover tuition, everything. And it was an interesting trajectory because we had a stipend that was very low. It was like after taxes, it was about a thousand a month. And then the students really advocated for more because that’s barely covers rent in Portland. Portland’s a pretty expensive city. And then they raised the stipend by almost like 200%. So after taxes, it ended up being like $2,000. Um, and that’s just for the graduate teaching assistantships. And we also have a, an amazing funding program from the National Institute of Health, which is under the CDC, which is an OHP or occupational health psychology type of training where they give a fellowship to up to three to four students per year. And you can have it for two years. And that’s what I’m currently on, and that one is not taxed. And it’s about like 2,400 a month.

Emily (05:14): Okay. I wanna hear more about this advocacy process. It doesn’t sound like, was there an official union going on or was it just like, Nope, we’re all just talking together and saying you have to pay us more. This is unsustainable.

Fern (05:25): Yeah, so I cannot take full credit for that. Not even partial credit because I have to say it’s when I started the program, it’s kind of like, oh, I’m so excited to have a PhD and join this program and I don’t care how much money it is. And then I face the realities of actually having to live on that stipend and take out student loans. And the stress comes with that because grad student loans are different from undergrad student loans with the interest and the plus loans. Um, so I was just dealing with it and I was like, this is fine. This is the way it is. And stressfully. And, but thankfully I was, uh, I started during covid, so I was still living at home in Arizona at this time, so I could still save on rent, but it was still nothing. Right. Um, and it’s not until the cohort after me that the program really focused on diversifying our population of students.

Fern (06:14): And these students from different backgrounds were all about fighting for themselves and for the collective wellbeing. And they were like, this is not a livable stipend and if you wanna be a diverse and competitive program, you need to do something about it. So they really insisted with the faculty. And we do have a union, but the union, you know, the students can barely afford to pay for the rent. So like, nevermind paying for a union due. Right. Um, so they didn’t go through the union. It was more like the psychology department students from that specific cohort just really advocated with the faculty. And then the faculty were also really amazing at being receptive about it and talking to the dean about it. And I’m not sure how they moved the funds around, but they were able to increase the stipend for everybody.

Emily (07:00): Wow. Love to hear that success story especially.

Fern (07:03): Yeah. Shout out to them.

Emily (07:04): I mean, the union as like approach is certainly powerful, but it’s, but it’s slow and it’s, um, it’s onerous. And so this sounds like kind of a quicker if if the faculty and so forth, everybody is, um, amenable to it. This is kind of like a quicker route. So I’m so glad to hear that story of how that cohort after you, um, helped themselves and everybody else by just talking about this. And it’s, I mean, a thousand dollars a month is just ridiculous for an amount of stipend to try to live on that. Okay. So it sounds like you had been on a teaching assistantship at first, is that right? For at least a couple years,

Fern (07:36): Yes, for the first three years.

Emily (07:38): Okay. So for three years on a teaching assistantship, now you’re on this fellowship through the federal funding kind of route. Can you tell us, um, in terms of your experience as a graduate student, what the advantages or the pros and cons were for each of these different, um, types of funding?

Fern (07:54): Yeah, so the teaching assistantship, it’s like a regular W2 job. So you, your taxes are taken out, you don’t have to worry about that. You get the same money at the same time every month. It’s less money though. So it’s about, oh my God, what’s the difference? Like $500 less, probably more in comparison to the fellowship. Um, but the good, the biggest pro about that, besides the fact that they give you the W2 and the taxes, is that you can take out student loans with that. So with having the teaching assistantship, I was also able to qualify for loans and then like my teaching assistantship would pay for rent and some credit card bills or whatever else I had to pay. And then I would use the student loans to pay for, like, if I wanted to visit my family, if I have to travel to conferences, if I have to buy food, if I want to go eat up food with my friends, everything else was covered by the loans.

Fern (08:51): And then the pro of the fellowship is the time flexibility, because I’m just doing research. I don’t have to do a teaching assistantship. And sometimes, uh, just working with professors and instructors can be a great experience and sometimes not such a great experience, and you never know who you’re gonna get and if it’s gonna be a more stressful term in comparison to the previous one. So having the time flexibility to do research on my own time and work on my own projects and get paid for that is amazing. It’s also more money, but the cons is, it’s, um, it’s weirdly coded this grant, I think there’s only like three universities in the, in the United States that have this type of fellowship. And it’s coded so that it counts the tuition reimbursement as part of the fellowship that we receive. So it counts as salary. So we no longer qualify for loans because we’re making too much money.

Fern (09:44): So beyond our monthly stipend, that tuition money was also, it also looked like from the tax perspective, from the, uh, government’s perspective, that that money goes to us instead of it going to the university for tuition. So I no longer qualify for student loans at the moment. So that’s why I waited my three years until I was at a place where I had like, I could afford rent and I had paid off all my debt so that I could actually take out this fellowship and not have to rely on student loans, which was always my goal to only take out loans for two to three years, and then not for the last two years of my program.

Emily (10:17): I see. So it sounds like you actually had a degree of agency over when you had one position versus another, so you could kind of coordinate that with your personal finances. Um, I haven’t heard of that before. I, I guess I’m more accustomed to people like sort of being, um, the timing of fellowships happening just based on like your timing in your program or something like that, or like when you happen to win it. Um, but that sounds really, really smart that you worked on your personal finances while you had access to those loans. Um, before switching over, I’m a little surprised to hear that you don’t have access to loans anymore, but I don’t know.

Fern (10:50): Yeah.

Emily (10:50): I don’t know all the details about it, so.

Fern (10:52): It’s so weird.

Emily (10:52): I’m sure you’ve been through the technical specifications.

Fern (10:54): Yeah, it was, it was a whole thing because I actually got it offered my second year and I said, yeah, I’ll take it. And then I found out, they didn’t let me know it was miscommunication. I found out that I couldn’t qualify for loans anymore and I had to tell my advisor like, Hey, I, I didn’t know about this and I can no longer afford anything if I can’t take a loan. So they had to switch me back to being a TA ship. So after that I was like, okay, next time I, if I do switch back to a fellowship, I wanna be more conscious and in a good place where I can actually take advantage of that.

Emily (11:24): Hmm. Yeah, I think the generalizable like, you know, lesson here for the audience is just to be really, um, heavily consider how these different types of funding are going to affect your personal finances. Whether it’s, you know, the tax implications, whether it’s the student loan implications, whether it’s the increasing amount of take home income, decreased amount of take home income, and just as, as best you’re able to, like you did, um, exert, you know, agency in this process and or prepare on the personal finance side for the changes that are upcoming so that you’re not caught. I mean, what would you have done, like if you had to, had to accept this fellowship? Couldn’t afford everything, couldn’t take out student loans? Well, we’re gonna talk more about how you’ve like, um, made the budget balance. Um, in a moment. But yeah, it would’ve been a harder financial position for sure.

Fern (12:08): Yeah, absolutely. I think it’s very important for people who are in grad school and are considering one versus the other to look into, like you said, taxes, student loans, and just asking all the questions to their advisor regarding these things. I think that, uh, supervisor support is very important if you have a supervisor who’s transparent about the process and helping you to the best of their capabilities on everything that entails going into a fellowship versus having a regular, uh, teaching assistantship, um, with all that stuff.

Side Jobs During the PhD Program

Emily (12:38): Yeah. Um, did you also have a side job at any point during these four years?

Fern (12:45): Yeah, I worked my first two years and, you know, as I was like in college I had two jobs and I was going to the gym at five in the morning and it’s like, yeah. But I was also 18, 20 years old. It’s very different, uh, than going to grad school. Grad school is a different beast. So I had a job for the first two years I was working in the restaurant industry, which is what inspired my thesis topic. And it was really stressful because, you know, I don’t know if you remember what your first two years were like, but it would take me four hours to read like a 20 page article because the content is so dense and so difficult and so different from just a textbook. So I was spending my time with the four hours, uh, classes per week and two classes, uh, for every week.

Fern (13:33): And then also on top of that, reading the articles. And then on the weekends I was working. So I was just exhausted all the time. I was burnt out. It, yeah. I wasn’t great for my health, so I decided on my second year to quit. And then on my third year, again, before I moved to Portland, I decided to get a job to be able to afford to move to Portland. So I started working back in the restaurant industry. So a lot of respect for restaurant employees because that industry’s always there when we need it, but it’s definitely a sacrifice. The quality of my work and the quality of my health did decline, but it’s also a trade off of then I can have more money that is not, that I don’t have to give back to the government.

Emily (14:16): Hmm. Yeah, I mean, because you were, you had the stipend, you had the student loan, um, kind of bridge coming in and you had the side work. You really had to find that balance among all three of those things in which funding source is most appropriate and how much energy would you have to use and so forth. So, um, that’s really tricky. And since you’ve switched over to the fellowship, it sounds like you haven’t been working on the side, right? With the higher income?

Fern (14:40): No, I did hold a, so this was another opportunity that just came to me and follow my lab. This student recently graduated and her and I just had a really good working relationship and worked on a lot of projects together. So she really liked my work ethic, so she recommended me to do a summer internship that she had to turn down and that worked great for me. So I was doing analysis for the university factor analysis where they wanted to reduce the items in a course evaluation scale. And that was awesome because I was able to make a couple extra, like 2000 that month or that summer. Uh, so opportunities like that arise as I progress through the program and I become more skilled. Like now I’m at the point that with my master’s I can get an internship and that’s a lot more money than any part-time job can give me. Right. Um, so opportunities come and go. And also it’s just every year is different and just have to adapt and find ways to make the finances work.

Using SNAP (Food Stamps) During the PhD Program

Emily (15:35): Yeah, I like that you pointed that out. Like as you progress in your program, you become more skilled, you become more knowledgeable, there are different opportunities that come up for you. I’m like, you, you’ve probably heard me say on the podcast before, but I’m like a big advocate of people, um, being paid a high hourly rate as much as they can. And that probably means employing your unique skills that you’re developing inside of academia, maybe inside of academia, maybe outside of academia. So in addition to the stipend from the assistantship and the fellowship in addition to the student loans for some time, in addition to the side work, I understand that you also relied on government programs for a period of time. Can you tell us more about the types of programs that you accessed and what they did for you?

Fern (16:14): Yes. So I need to give credit again to the cohort that came after me because I was like, oh, I’m just stuck in this. And some people mentioned food stamps, but I went into the snap and SNAP is, I don’t know what it stands for, but it’s the Food Stamps Assistance program. And they said that graduate students didn’t qualify and I didn’t look further into it. I was like, okay, I just don’t qualify. Undergrads do, but graduates don’t for whatever reason. And then the cohort after me said, yeah, you do qualify. I’m on it. And I had never been on food stamps before and I also had this perception that food stamps was for people that were very low income and really needed it and were like below the poverty level. And I was, I’m a grad student so I can still rely on my parents if I need to.

Fern (16:56): So I just didn’t see myself in that realm. But if anything, once they told me that they were on it and I could apply for it, and I applied and I got it and I got an extra $200 a month to be able to pay for groceries, it was great. And it just gave me a lot of independence and freedom and just a lot of relief for my expenses because sometimes if I have to pay for conferences and I have to pay my bills and everything else, then I would just buy less food. And with the food stamps it’s like, oh, now I can afford it. And also relying on the food pantry at my university. And a lot of us got on food stamps. And what’s also great about this program is that at, at least in Portland, they’re very supportive of the arts.

Fern (17:38): So if you show your EBT card, which is how you pay for the food stamps, I a lot, I thought it was actual stamps, it’s not actual stamps. It’s like they give you like a little debit card and they refill it every month with X amount of dollars that they give you every month. And like it never expires until you no longer qualify for the program. But if you show your EBT card, then you can also get $5 entries to like museums and opera concerts and ballet concerts. So it’s great also for that experience if you also can’t afford hobbies and to get out there and have um, things to do, it also brings that option on the table.

Emily (18:12): Um, so I wanna follow up on two pieces to that for the first is the mindset. Um, this is not for people like me. But you mentioned you were making a thousand dollars a month. Yeah. Like that’s not a lot of money in an expensive city. Yeah. As you mentioned. So like, I, I’m glad that you brought up like the fluctuating expenses too, because you might think in a given month, I don’t have any problems paying for food this month. So I don’t need this program. But then the next month you have an unexpected expense that comes up. And like you said, the food is like the variable thing that can get sacrificed that month and it’s just not a position that you want to be in. It’s better to be precautionary, take all the benefits that you’re eligible for, um, use them to the fullest extent, and then have more reserves to be able to build up for those unexpected, um, expenses that might come up. So I’m really glad that you mentioned this and that and that you did take advantage. I want to learn more about, okay. You initially read grad students weren’t eligible, then you found out that you were, what, what changed? What was the difference?

Fern (19:07): I don’t know. I didn’t ask. I just, I just applied. I told them how much I made and they said yes. I, I don’t know if it’s one of those things where it’s like, we’re gonna look the other way. Um, it’s just graduate students are in this unique position where we’re students, but we’re employees and the taxes are different. And like, I’m not poor, but I’m below the poverty line, but I have an iPhone. So it’s really weird mindset and like thing to get into. And also this, like, I don’t wanna take resources from the people that really need it, but also I qualify for these resources. So it’s this like weird situation that I had to just get over and be like, just apply if they say no, no. Which eventually they did say no once I got my fellowship and I now I make too much money for them.

Fern (19:55): Um, but yeah, I think it’s important that if there’s resources out there, if it’s food stamps and this and that, I was like, oh my God, I can’t believe I’m gonna be on food stamps. And I was like, no, this is great. I love ’em. I can go to $5 Chinese gardens and explore. It’s something that otherwise I wouldn’t be able to afford because it’s too expensive and I can afford food, which is great, and I don’t have to stress out about buying that. And it’s nice because it’s an allocated amount of money that’s specific for groceries. I cannot go and spend it on anything else. So yeah, I, I don’t know what was different in the application process. The website says that I shouldn’t have qualified, but I did qualify. So worked out for me.

Emily (20:34): I like that approach of just like, make them tell you no. Just, just apply, just push if they say no. Okay. You weren’t any worse off than you were beforehand, but hey, they said yes. And like again, credit to that cohort behind you for like experimenting with this and just pushing for it and helping everybody by, you know, sharing what they found out.

Fern (20:54): Yeah, definitely. They’re, they helped change my mindset and they’re helping change the program for the better.

Using Medicaid for Health Insurance During the PhD Program

Emily (21:00): I love it. Okay. So were there any other public benefits that you’ve been taking advantage of?

Fern (21:05): Yeah, the, I can’t remember the difference between Medicare and Medicaid, but I’m on that and that’s for health insurance. Portland State University has mandatory health insurance, so this is crazy. One thing that I don’t like about my university is that if you don’t have health insurance, they automatically enroll you in the university’s health insurance, which is very expensive. It’s like 300 a month. And that’s a little ridiculous to me because if you can’t afford to have health insurance, then they get you on their expensive health insurance. And yeah, it’s, it’s weird. I appreciate the aspect of wanting to keep the overall community healthy, but at the same time as employees wouldn’t qualify for health insurance from the university whereas other universities do. So I, uh, decided to apply for the, uh, Obamacare and again, I qualified for that and I have it and it’s in Oregon. It’s actually great. It’s a, it’s completely free for me and I have a really great doctors and a really good network of doctors. I was able to go to the dentist after like five years of not being able to afford it. So another great benefit to use.

Emily (22:12): Yeah, absolutely. I mean it’s so common. All universities require that their students have health insurance. Um, it’s unfortunate. It sounds like their internal option is, is unaffordable, like you said for the students, but, um, it’s so great. Obviously this is a very state by state thing, but great that Oregon has a robust exchange and with your income and everything you were able to qualify at that, um, it sounds like zero premium, right? Yeah. So that’s immediate. Yeah. And another great thing to look into.

Fern (22:38): Yeah. And it’s like above a percentage of the poverty level. So you can be, I think 200% above the poverty level and still qualify in Oregon, but it varies by state.

Commercial

Emily (22:49): 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.

Changes to Budgeting Throughout Graduate School

Emily (23:41): Now you mentioned to me that the way you budget has changed throughout graduate school. We’ve already seen some hints of that in the changing of the funding and the different, you know, sources of income and so forth. But can you tell us about how you used to budget and then how you budget now?

Fern (23:55): Yeah, so the simple storyline is that I didn’t budget. I was just have my money and spend it and not know where it went. And I would get my, uh, student loans and I would put half of them ’cause I get them per term. So every three months. Um, so I would put half of them on my savings accounts. That was not a high yield savings account, so they was just sitting there doing nothing. And then I would just keep the rest of my, uh, checking accounts and just hope that the number didn’t get to, to zero. So try to keep it as high as possible, but no idea where my money was going, how much money I was spending, and how what my stable fixed expenses looked like every month. And then finally what my advisor offered the fellowship and she’s like, Hey, you should go on this fellowship.

Fern (24:42): I was like, oh, I don’t know. I can’t do student loans. I have to look into it. And at the time I had moved in with my partner and I was like, well, my rent is about to be cheaper. My, I have, I’m on food stamps, so my groceries about to be cheaper, so maybe I can afford it, but I’m not sure. So this is where the scientists mindset came in. It’s like, okay, I need objective data to look at my situation and make an informed decision. So that’s when I had a breakdown for what I first did is track my expenses for a month. And that’s when I realized like, oh, I go to the grocery, like I buy little snacks here and there way too much and I’m spending too much at the bars and why am I buying shoes that I can’t afford?

Fern (25:19): And that was like a wake up call for me. So then I decided to look at my fixed expenses and see what that looks like and see if I had any money left over for me to have a decent living because again, I couldn’t take out student loans and I didn’t wanna take on an extra job to protect my wellbeing and my mental health. So if my remaining balance after all my fixed expenses was something like a hundred, that’s just not realistic. That’s just not enough. Especially right now with inflation, everything’s very expensive. So if there was an emergency, anything, I wouldn’t have been able to do it. So it’s like, okay, first thing I need to do is set up my emergency savings. And then I started learning about finances and I was like, okay, I need a high yield savings account so that the money that I have extra is not just sitting there. It’s actually like accumulating interest. And I started doing that and now I know exactly how much I spend on what each month. I know how much I have left over each month. And it’s, yeah, it’s a really good feeling.

Emily (26:16): I’m, I’m so glad to hear about that positive kind of transformation. Um, it sounds like your income source is changing is what really prompted you. You knew you weren’t gonna have that cushion of the student loans, so like you had to get more granular about what was going on in your finances.

Fern (26:30): I’ve always been pretty good at not spending and saving, but now I wanna take it to the next step and make my money work for me. So investing in a a retirement account and knowing what I’m spending on and being more essential with like my buckets of money of like skincare makes me really happy. So I wanna spend more on that and I don’t wanna eat out as much, so I’m cooking a lot more now. So I wanna be a lot smarter with my money beyond just saving and not spending.

Using a Researcher Mindset With Personal Finances

Emily (26:56): Now you mentioned earlier kind of taking, um, the, the researcher’s approach actually looking at the data, um, to figure out where your spending was going and what you would, you really started budgeting, like what were you going to be able to afford? Were you going to be able afford to switch onto this fellowship given the new rent, given all the other changes that were going on? Um, are there any other ways that you’ve employed this like researcher mindset within your personal finances? Aside from setting up the budget?

Fern (27:21): I mean beyond finding you and your account. You know, ’cause my, my friend Morgan always says this to me every time I’m like, oh, I need to do something really hard. And she’s like, you’re getting a PhD, you can do anything. It’s like, you’re right. Like I know how to investigate, I know how to learn. I need to start doing that. So I remember I wanted to get more broad skill sets with data analysis and I was like, well, Excel is always required, so I’m gonna learn how to use Excel. So I’m gonna use a nice spreadsheet as an excuse to learn Excel. And my excuse to do that is gonna be by budgeting. So I have this like really fancy spreadsheet that has formulas that are connected through different tabs and different cells. And I really learned how to use Excel for my advantage and use, uh, data visualization to look like my most expense categories.

Fern (28:09): And I have different percentages for everything. And it’s, yeah. And with that is just learning how to use Excel. So looking at tutorials and then actually doing the work, which is a lot of what we have to do as PhDs when our advisors don’t know how to use something in SPSS and no one else knows how to do it. And you just have to learn how to use an SPSS macro yourself. Um, and then learning the lingo. So like, okay, if I wanna go beyond saving and uh, start investing, what does that look like and what does that mean? And where does it start looking at the experts? Kind of like when you’re doing a lit review and you just have no idea what the topic is about. So you have to read a bunch of articles until you get an like a, an an understanding of what that topic is.

Fern (28:53): It’s the same skill sets can be applied to budgeting and knowing where your money goes and then just implementing that behavioral change. Whenever we write our research articles, and at least in psychology, we always try to make practical recommendations of what organizations can do with the research findings that we have. It’s like, okay, how can we expect other people to follow these behaviors that we’re suggesting to do if we can’t follow the own behaviors that we are learning from budgeting and all these other behavioral things. ’cause also saving money and spending money is very psychological, right? So just the same skills that we learn on research can be applied to anything in particular right now talking about budgeting.

Emily (29:37): I love it. I love the way you articulated that and that mindset and kind of going back to the beginning of what you said, like where your friend Morgan has been telling you. Um, I totally agree and I never like felt so, um, accomplished or like expansive in my person as I did like right after I defended, like I literally felt like I was like on top of a mountain. Like I can do, I finished the, like I finished my dissertation, I defended it, it’s done. I literally can do anything I put my mind to. And even though personal finances are challenging in psychological ways and logistical ways and all that, um, like you said, when you take, I mean all, everyone who gets into a PhD program is so capable and so talented and so smart. And like if you just decide to apply what you card kind of already innately can do in these other areas of your life to your personal finances, like you’re going to be successful. It’s just a matter of time. Yeah. It’s a matter of time and a matter of increasing that income eventually when you get out of graduate school. So eventually. Um, I just love that approach.

Best Financial Advice for Another Early-Career PhD

Emily (30:32): Well Fern, would you like to wrap up now by telling us your best financial advice for another early career of PhD? And it could be something that we’ve touched on already in the interview or it could be something completely new.

Fern (30:43): Advice. Oh my God, I don’t know if I have any advice. I just feel like advice is so like personal individualized, but I have like a thought that just occurred to me both with what you were saying is that a lot of new PhDs have this huge, especially underrepresented PhDs, you know, women, women of color or people from like low socioeconomic backgrounds whose parents never went, uh, to college or immigrants. It’s, there’s this huge imposter syndrome that we start with. There’s like, oh, I’m not supposed to be here. And now looking back, I think if like the Fern first year Fern saw met with the Fern right now, fourth year Fern, she would be like, oh my God, that girl is so smart and I’ll just never be like her. And like, you know, that is me. So I think it’s really important to understand that it imposter syndrome is just your social comparison of where you think you need to get and where you are.

Fern (31:38): And it’s all about learning. The only way to get over that imposter syndrome is to actually do and increase our self-efficacy and our belief that we can do these things. So just it, and that can apply to anything, right? With budgeting, it’s like, it’s not this imposter syndrome of like, I have to have X amount of money in order to be successful. It’s like you just have to learn how to budget and learn those skills and just do it. And then once you feel confident about it, that imposter syndrome will just eventually dissipate and just pass on that knowledge to people who are just getting started.

Emily (32:09): And that ties in back so well with what we were talking about with like the social programs that you learned about from like your peers and everything. Just not counting yourself out as like, oh, I’m not the type of person who should be doing this at this stage. Yes you are. These programs are designed for you at this current stage. You’re not gonna use them forever. It’s gonna be a temporary thing, but it’s really gonna help you get your feet under you, you know, and you only needed to be on them for, you know, two, three years and now you have this fantastic fellowship and like things are so different in your finances now, just, just after the passage of a little bit of time and a little bit of change of income sources. So again, I’m so glad that you share these, these tips and these insights with the audience. Um, thank you so much for volunteering to come on and being so transparent and I really think people got a ton outta this interview, so thank you.

Fern (32:50): I hope so. Yeah. Thank you so much for having me.

Outtro

Emily (33:03): 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.