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The Process Behind Landing a Dream Job with a Jaw-Dropping Salary

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In this episode, Emily interviews My-Linh Luong, a PhD candidate in physiotherapy at the University of Melbourne in Australia. My-Linh is at the all but dissertation stage of her PhD and recently accepted a dream job with a dream salary. She tells the story of how she prepared for and executed her job search, which involved an amazing degree of intentionality during her years in grad school, including plumbing her values, working on her mindset, and utilizing professional development resources. My-Linh’s job search took about a year and a half, and she shares how she stayed motivated and hopeful throughout the long process. She even shares some specific scripts regarding salary negotiation. Prepare to take notes or at least be ready to hit rewind to catch all of the gold nuggets My-Linh gives in this interview.

Links Mentioned in the Episode

process behind landing dream job with jaw-dropping salary

Teaser

00:00 My-Linh: I want everyone to find a job where they’re paid well and using the skillsets and talents that they have. And so I just want to hold vision for everyone who’s listening. You know, like I’m not sharing the story to say, this is the magic bullet to do things. I’m sharing this story so that you can also see and plant the seed that it’s possible for you, too.

Introduction

00:27 Emily: Welcome to the Personal Finance for PhDs Podcast: A Higher Education in Personal Finance. I’m your host, Dr. Emily Roberts. This is Season 10, Episode 10, and today my guest is My-Linh Luong, a PhD candidate in physiotherapy at the University of Melbourne in Australia. My-Linh is at the all but dissertation stage of her PhD and recently accepted a dream job with a dream salary. She tells the story of how she prepared for and executed her job search, which involved an amazing degree of intentionality during her years in grad school, including plumbing her values, working on her mindset, and utilizing professional development resources. My-Linh’s job search took about a year and a half, and she shares how she stayed motivated and hopeful throughout the long process. She even shares some specific scripts regarding salary negotiation. Prepare to take notes or at least be ready to hit rewind to catch all of the gold nuggets My-Linh gives in this interview.

01:29 Emily: My pre-recorded workshop that helps funded graduate students prepare their 2021 tax returns will be ready by early January 2022. The title is How to Complete Your Grad Student Tax Return (and Understand It, Too!). While I have sold this workshop to individuals for several years and will continue to do so, this year I’m making a big push to license it to university hosts as well. On my end, I can grant access to the pre-recorded workshop materials very quickly—like, within minutes of a host telling me they want it. But you know what can take a while? Budgetary approval. That’s why I’m bringing up the workshop at this time of year. If you have used this workshop in the past or wanted to, will you please ask your graduate school, department, graduate student association, etc. if they will buy it on behalf of yourself and your interested peers? I give a discount for bulk purchases and additionally will provide a private live Q&A call just for your group if a minimum order size is reached. I’ve noticed that these personal requests and testimonials go very far in bringing these purchases to fruition so I really appreciate you making this ask. Please send the decision-maker the PDF at PFforPhDs.com/taxflyer/ to introduce the workshop and ask them to contact me via email. Do it now so they have time to sort out the funding before the workshop goes live in January! Thank you! Without further ado, here’s my interview with My-Linh Luong.

Will You Please Introduce Yourself Further?

03:05 Emily: I am over the moon to introduce My-Linh Luong to you all. I’m so happy to have her on as a guest. She has an amazing story to tell you of her career progression, kind of throughout graduate school and post graduate school. But I want to get back up and tell you how we met. So My-Linh was part of my pilot program of The Wealthy PhD back in fall 2019. The Wealthy PhD is my group coaching program. My-Linh I’m so happy to have you here. Will you please introduce yourself a bit further for the audience?

03:35 My-Linh: Thanks Emily, I’m super excited to be here as well. So for the audience, I’m a behavioral scientist and public health researcher, and I completed my master’s in public health at UNC, and then I’m finishing up my PhD in health behavior change at the University of Melbourne. And I currently work as a medical and behavioral strategist in the healthcare industry. And more specifically in terms of what I do in the day-to-day is I use my training in behavioral science to improve the implementation of clinical trials.

Career Goals at the Start of Grad School

04:07 Emily: So let’s take it back to the start of graduate school. Maybe that’s the start of your master’s program. Maybe we’re even going back to undergrad. You know, what were those career goals that you set out with when you started your graduate journey?

04:19 My-Linh: Yeah, so I think when I look in retrospect and sort of reconnect with my values of why I started graduate school, it makes perfect sense how I landed here. So I was really interested sort of from my advocacy health research standpoint to improve the health and wellbeing of people in communities. So that’s why I went to a public health program. And I think somewhere along the way, you know, in the decade that I’ve been in graduate school, some of that messaging that lost in terms of what I was hearing about, you know, what people do with their PhDs. And, you know, there were moments where I was like, oh, you know, do I want to stay in the academic research track? You know, my friends are in that track. I see basically no conversation from my professors about what happens afterwards.

05:06 My-Linh: But I think it was helpful I have a sister and a parent who has a PhD who aren’t in academic spaces. So that definitely planted the seed for me to say, I don’t need to be in the academic space to be successful with how I use my PhD. And so now that I’m thinking back, it’s that reconnection, you know, with what I wanted to do in improving health and wellbeing and being able to increase in scale and impact and the work that I do. And the more I thought about being in academia first, honestly, I was like, I don’t think I’m cut out for this. And then secondly, I just wasn’t that interested in what that day-to-day looked like. Grant writing, teaching just became not as appealing to me. And as I figured out what is it that I like about what I’m doing? Because there are definitely aspects of academia I liked, right? The flexibility, sort of the autonomy, being able to be remote if I needed to be, that helped me get a lot more clear as I was getting sort of to the end of my PhD about what it is that I valued in what my life looked like post-PhD. So yeah, I think I was pretty early on in the mindset of, you know, I don’t think the academic track is the right track for me. So I was always open and curious about what opportunities were beyond that.

Professional Development and Career Exploration

06:36 Emily: I know that when you were in graduate school, you were taking advantage of a lot of the like professional development type career exploration type opportunities that your university made available to you. And you’re probably going outside of those as well. So what were you doing during that time to get this process going of what do I want to do with my next career phase, and how do I present myself so that I am competitive for those kinds of jobs?

06:57 My-Linh: So one of the things I found really valuable is, as I knew I wasn’t probably going to stay in academia, trying to find ways to apply research in settings outside of that. So doing short-term internships or consultancies. You know, when I was stateside, I worked with the Orange County department on aging to develop their master aging plan. When I was in the states, I worked for the productivity commission on sort of this systematic review to develop an evidence-base around the public health approach to child welfare. So having these opportunities outside of academia allowed me to see, I can apply research in spaces that are not specifically academic, whether that’s public service, whether that’s in the government. And I hadn’t had as much experience in industry. So, I wasn’t sure about what that connection was going to look like in terms of sharing my skills and expertise there.

Short-term Paid Internships and Consultancies During the PhD

07:52 Emily: So I’m curious with these like internships and other project-based experience. Was that something that you had to take like official timeout from your program to do? Is it something you did alongside continuing with your research and whatever duties you had in academia? And also were those paid opportunities or were they volunteer?

08:10 My-Linh: So they were both paid opportunities and I did them while I was in the PhD. I think being able to have flexibility with the program I mean, full disclosure, I didn’t share that much with my PhD advisors that I was doing this extra work. But I knew what was best for me. And this was what was best for me in terms of getting the experience I wanted and keeping me passionate about the work.

08:36 Emily: Yeah, I think that’s really helpful because oftentimes current graduate students do struggle with is taking this opportunity, which could be great for my career, is that going to detract from my progress towards my degree? And also the question of, will my advisor allow it? Sounds like you took the position of, you know, better to ask for forgiveness than permission and it ended up working out. So that’s great. Not everyone might have that approach, but I just like hearing from people who are facing those decisions, like, what did you do about it.

08:59 My-Linh: Yeah, I think you have to know what’s best for you, so you do whatever you need to do to get the experiences that you want that are fulfilling. And I will say also in full disclosure, I love professional development. Emily knows this, anybody who knows me well knows that I love this. So I’m speaking from the perspective of, I enjoy going to workshops and learning more and there is so much free career information out there. And one of the things I think, in retrospect, thinking about what’s helpful is not trying to feel like you have to do everything at once. Like there are stages to doing a job search that aren’t just like, okay, all of a sudden I have to like apply, interview, and get the job. There’s a much longer phase to that of sort of career exploration and understanding, and there are different workshops that universities might offer around that.

Evaluate Your Own Interests, Skills, and Values

09:57 My-Linh: I think there’s a lot around people talking about, oh, what are these transferable skills that you have? And I think about it less as like, oh, this is the transferable skill that makes me marketable in the marketplace. But more of doing that deep inner work. I did a lot more sort of on my own. And there’s plenty in that space around evaluating sort of your interests and your skills and your values in alignment. So one free resource that I really liked using was ImaginePhD, which has lots of assessments around that very specific around the type of things that PhD folks are doing. So that really helped me to better articulate to myself and then to other people what I wanted, but I definitely spent a lot of time sort of lurking.

10:44 My-Linh: You know, going to lots of career panels, hearing about that career journey. And just knowing that like, you know, even what I share today, it’s not like a magic bullet of things. Like you sort of take what works for you and leave what doesn’t work for you. And that’s something I just want folks who are listening to just remember that there’s a lot of information out there. If you disagree with it, that’s okay. You know, but part of, I think when I was going to all these workshops, because I was hearing a lot of the same things over and over. And at that point I knew I had reached saturation. And I think as a PhD student, I love doing the research. I want to know everything. I was very comprehensive in that. So in retrospect, I probably could have done a lot fewer workshops, but that worked for me. I don’t know. I don’t think everyone needs to like have all the professional development to be successful in their job search. I think there are really some very key strategies to how to approach the job search, and being thoughtful about that in phases is really important.

Give Yourself Time in this Process

11:48 Emily: I think just that like insight alone, one gold nugget already takeaway from this interview is like, you need to give yourself time in this process, and it’s not something you can take on, like in the few months before you have your defense, you’re submitting your dissertation and so forth, like when you’re actually looking for a job. This is something that, you have to let this breathe a little bit, give it more time. And if like you, you like professional development, you should be attending these kinds of things throughout your entire PhD, it sounds like, just to sort of, as you were saying, gain all the information and be able to give yourself time to sort through it, figure out what’s going to work for you, what’s not. What connects with you, what doesn’t. So that you have all of that background knowledge and the skills for when you actually jump into the, okay, I’ve decided on the career and I’m actually going after a job now or a set of jobs. Does that make sense?

12:37 My-Linh: Yeah. And I would emphasize that there are definitely people who are able to get jobs really quickly at the end of that. And so, you know, not saying that everyone has to spend all this time into professional development, but that when you are a graduate student and you do have that flexibility to spend time thinking about it, to take advantage of those opportunities, even if they don’t immediately apply. And that’s something that I definitely found is that, you know, going into this thing on interviewing, wasn’t helpful to me at the stage when that was in exploration, but it was still helpful to just sort of hear like what’s going to come down the path. So, I just recommend like, obviously there are people who are on an accelerated job search, but that feels panicked to me. So to be just prepared for that to be, you know, like sitting in and just hearing this and being familiar with what that job search looks like to be better prepared. Because I imagine that people don’t want to get to the end of their PhD and not know what’s next. So that’s part of just being prepared in graduate school is taking advantage of those opportunities when you have the time and space to think about them.

13:42 Emily: And I think another kind of factor in this, which we’ll talk about how this worked for you and your individual story in a moment. But another factor is what is your degree of flexibility at the end of the PhD if you don’t have a job at the second you think you want one? So like my own story, for example, is my PhD advisor decided to leave my university. And so he basically graduated like half of his graduate students, including me all at one time. Whereas I might’ve wanted to take maybe like another six months before defending and I did not have, like, I could not stay on as a postdoc. My PI was leaving. So there was no like sort of fallback opportunity or like flexibility around that timeline. And that was never something that I anticipated getting towards the end of graduate school that I would suddenly be like without a job, without a paycheck, without any control over that timeline.

14:32 Emily: So that was what happened to me. I’ll give another example of like my husband. He found a job very easily at a time that worked well for him because his advisor was very flexible with him about how long to keep him on. So he defended, then stayed on as a postdoc for about a year. That was totally open-ended. And so got a job at a time that it just was fine because there was that flexibility there. So you really need to think about your own funding situation, your relationship with your advisor, and what your opportunities are to know how well-timed this job search needs to be.

My-Linh’s Story: 2019-2020

15:06 Emily: So let’s talk about your story with this. And let’s go back to like that fall 2019 time when you and I met. Where were you in your graduate program at the time? And then take us through the next almost two years now.

15:18 My-Linh: Yeah. So the time that we met, I had already sort of gone through my confirmations. In U.S. terms, that’s basically ABD. And I was sort of, again, I had mentioned earlier that I knew that I wasn’t going to stay in academia. And wanting to be prepared, I just sort of started kind of putting out feelers there around job searching. And then I moved back stateside around December, I guess, is when I moved back stateside and was sort of trying to figure out I didn’t know where I was going to be geographically. There was just a lot of uncertainty in my life that felt out of my control. And I wasn’t finished with the PhD yet as well, right? So it was, I think what you were saying earlier about what does the end of the PhD look like, or when is the best time to start the job search?

16:17 My-Linh: I would say it’s never too early to start the job search. And it’s never too late to start either. And it’s never tidy. And so I didn’t know exactly when I was going to finish. I ended up actually taking a personal leave of absence, a medical leave of absence. So that kind of changed my timeline, that changed the structure of how I was doing my job search. And so there were a lot of like different conditions in my situation that kind of put a lot of things up in the air. So I understand, I know lots of listeners here understand, like there’s just a lot of uncertainty and a lot of precariousness in being a graduate student and lots of change. So I resonate a lot with that because it was a really chaotic period of time.

17:04 Emily: And let’s not forget that this period of time, March, 2020 is when the entire world was feeling some of the same, like precarity and uncertainty that you were already going through in your personal life. So all of that stuff that you were just saying was, okay, you’re not done with the PhD yet. So you’re still working on the dissertation, you’re getting close to the end. But you also decided to take a leave of absence. So there’s no real, like, I think there weren’t like deadlines for you to particularly meet like milestones on. And so you could take a little bit more flexibility. But you also, I think didn’t have an income or maybe your income was, you know, dramatically cut during that time. Do you want to talk about how you managed basically from the time that you stopped being paid by your PhD program until landing this job eventually?

Paid Leave in Grad School

17:46 My-Linh: Yeah. So I will say that it’s amazing be at University of Melbourne where they allow you to take a paid leave of absence for three months, which is, I think completely unheard of in a U.S. program. So, I was fortunate. And then when I decided to take my leave of absence, that I had a little bit of time in between either to figure out how I was going to, you know, gain more money or just how to be more financially stable. So having that bit of time where I was able to just have some funding and not have to get a job immediately, I could have a roof over my head and have my bills paid. I’m also fortunate in that, you know, my partner was working and he and I had a long discussion about whether or not I needed to just find something temporary to keep things moving and how I needed to contribute financially to the household.

18:34 My-Linh: And we made the decision to say, you know, I took a leave of absence for a reason to kind of give myself space in my own healing. And so, to add this additional stressor wasn’t really feasible and that we could live on his income. So in full disclosure, I did have the benefit of having a partner who was able to basically float me financially and that we could live on his income. And it wasn’t huge. And I think as graduate students, we’re used to living on very small salaries. So it wasn’t a huge quality of life change for me. And I will say you know, sometimes there’s no shame in taking a job that pays money that isn’t aligned with your future career goals or what you’re doing in your PhD. It’s not your job forever. So if you need to get a job doing something you don’t like just pay the bills. There’s absolutely no shame in that, regardless of what other people are saying. You know what’s best for you and you need a roof over your head and to be able to pay the bills.

Job Search Strategies

19:34 Emily: So, if I’m getting the timeline right, it was something like between a year and a year and a half between when you were starting to apply for positions, and when you actually finally got the job that we’ll be talking about later on. And so, what strategies were you using during that time? Did you change any of your strategies? Figure out something wasn’t working pivot to something else. And of course, keeping in mind like this was 2020, so I don’t know. Maybe everyone had to change their strategies during that time.

19:59 My-Linh: Yeah. So to speak to that, I think, you know, we spoke earlier about this and that I was very intentional about my job search. And I think I was feeling sort of this internal pressure and this extra pressure to be like, apply to jobs, apply to jobs, put applications in, and you’re not doing your job search unless you’re putting applications in. And I just want to recommend to the listeners if they have the time to really do that self-reflection, again, the ImaginePhD assessments, or just in general, understanding what your values are. I think about it as sort of being the compass for job searching so that you’re certain that the jobs that you’re applying to are a good fit for you. Because there’s certainly a bunch jobs that I could do and could be good at, but might not like, or might not be aligned with my values.

20:53 My-Linh: So I think getting a lot of clarity around what it is you want, both, you know, in your life professionally, but then needs to meet your personal values as well, sort of like what fits your life. So that’s why for me, I knew when I was looking at my job search, I wanted to prioritize working remote. I wanted to have autonomy. I want it to be intellectually challenged. I wanted to be at a relaxed pace. There were very, very specific parameters around which I was able to evaluate different types of jobs. So I think that’s the number one thing that I would do that I think people miss, I guess don’t necessarily think about it as being part of the job search, but like doing that deep work and reflecting to know what it is that you really want. Because then, that helps you articulate to other people, your friends, first of all, what it is that you’re looking for and helps you identify positions that are a good match.

21:48 My-Linh: So I definitely spent a lot of time just collating a bunch of different job titles, which mean like research associate at one place looks very different than research associate at another place. So I did a lot of that sort of just like information gathering and just like plugging it into my Evernote to just review and be like, “Oh, that sounds interesting. Oh, I hate that.” This sounds really cool. So I got a better sense of what the market was looking like, how they were describing things, and where I might fit or how I might be able to use my skills to meet those needs. And then from there, I definitely did. You know, once I had a better idea of maybe the types of jobs I wanted, I reached out to my immediate network to help connect me with people in those types of jobs. For example, UX research or behavioral science.

22:35 My-Linh: So just getting me connected to get a better sense of what the industry looked like, you know, either in government, in the private sector. Just to get a better sense of what people’s day to day look like and be like, “That sounds terrible. I don’t want to do what you do. That’s great. I’m glad you love it.” But just getting a chance to talk to people. And you mentioned, right, this is during COVID times. And I would say that people were very happy to connect. People want to help if they can, especially if it’s talking about themselves in a job that they love. So I think that, you know, please reach out to me on LinkedIn, because I will be happy to talk more about any specifics around the job search. So that’s what I also found helpful. And then having a community of people to hold me accountable and to talk through things. I love my partner, but he doesn’t want to hear everything about my job search. So finding those opportunities you know, with The Wealthy PhD, with other communities of people where I feel safe sharing my journeys and disappointments and challenges and sharing successes were definitely enormously helpful in my job search.

Quality Over Quantity Approach

23:47 Emily: Yeah. I have a couple of follow-up comments in there. So one is, it definitely sounds like you took this like quality over quantity approach. You’re not just blast in CVs everywhere, but you’re really curating the jobs that you actually end up applying to. And I think that is, you said this and I’m maybe just rephrasing what you said earlier, but when you have that intentionality and you’re limiting yourself and not just applying everywhere, you’re able to very clearly understand and articulate what it is that you’re looking for and why you’re excited about this particular opportunity. And, you know, that’s what an employer wants to hear in the interview process is like why you’re a great fit for them in particular. If you know, a lot, you know, very deeply, you’ve done informational interviews with their employees. Like that puts you at a huge advantage for actually being the one to, you know, receive the job offer.

24:37 Emily: So I love the way you phrased, why you did things that way, but I I’ll just call that like quality over quantity in terms of number of applications you’re putting out there. And then the other comment, you said when you started this, that like you felt pressure to just be submitting job applications. And I recently read James Clear’s Atomic Habits, and I’m just excited about a lot of the ideas in that book. And so also one of the things that he talks about is like metrics and tracking the right things. And so if you’re only tracking, did you submit an application? That’s not the most useful thing to be measuring and promoting in your job search and application process. It’s what you were doing of like, okay, well, how many job listings did I look at today and gathered the information that I needed and analyze it to figure out what I want and what I don’t want? That could be a useful metric to track, even if you end up not submitting any applications that day, that’s still a really useful step forward in your process. So yeah, I just like that you emphasized not applying all the time is like the only thing that matters. A lot of that deeper work, self-reflective work is really important to this process as well. One other tool I know about, a little bit similar to ImaginePhD, is Beyond the Professoriate. Were you part of that community, or did you use that tool at all?

Community Support

25:54 My-Linh: Yeah, I was a part of that community. And it’s transitioning, so it looks a little bit different now, but I definitely have some folks from that community as well who I continue to work with in a professional development, co-working space. So that was a really great opportunity. Again, everyone in that space was job searching. Also had a PhD as well. So it was just a great community to be a part of. I can’t emphasize that enough is finding people to support you in the job search, because it often is long. There are a lot of barriers, perhaps mentally, that people are trying to overcome in transitioning. And so I can’t emphasize enough how valuable being a part of a community and having that support and accountability was.

26:38 Emily: It sounds like that’s one component of how you managed to keep going through this, you know, long job search process. I mean, you already mentioned the financial support from your partner, well first from your graduate program, but then eventually from your partner. That’s one way that you were able to sustain yourself through this. Sounds like community is another way. Were there any other factors that went into you being able to you know, keep your eye on the prize that like this job is out there and you’re eventually going to land it?

The Stages of Job Searching

27:05 My-Linh: Yeah. One thing I think about, and I mentioned earlier, is just job searching is overwhelming. If you just think about, I need to get a job. And so when you think about it in stages of job searching where you’re like, I’m focused right now on career exploration, or I’m really focused right now on doing my networking and learning more about this, or now I’m really, you know, I know the jobs that I want to apply to and the companies that are really interesting to me. Now, I’m ready to sort of like curate my materials. You know, now I’m going to move my CV into a resume. Okay. Now I’m ready to start applying. Okay, now I’m ready to start interviewing. Okay, now I’m ready to start negotiating. When you break it down into like lots of different parts and see that the job search includes more than just what I call the spray and pray approach.

27:54 My-Linh: So you just like put everything out there and you’re not prepared and you’re not articulating things well. And so just understanding to reduce the overwhelm, you don’t have to do everything at once. It’s just like, there are certain things that you can do at certain times to help move that ball forward in a way that isn’t overwhelming. And I think also to be really intentional about distinguishing your value as a person and how that’s connected to the work that you do. And not, yeah, just not connecting your self-worth to your job and not having a job. I think also, right, taking a leave of absence when I was not a student, I was like, how do I identify myself? I’m not, I mean, I am a student, but I’m not a student. I don’t have a job. So just recognizing that you are inherently valuable as a person and you’re worthy.

Self-Care and Boundaries

28:49 My-Linh: I think it’s really helpful in the job search to kind of, those are two separate things. Who I am and who I am in this job are two separate things. And to be intentional about boundaries that you have with people. You know, like who are the people you feel comfortable sharing your materials with to get feedback? That’s not everybody. Do you want to share your successes with everybody? Do you want to share challenges with only a certain set of people? So really being intentional about how you feel comfortable disclosing your own job search, I think is valuable. And I don’t think people, you know, thinking about whether your advisor’s going to ask you about it and how you want to respond. So for me, thinking about, you know, how do I have my emotional regulation up so that I feel prepared to have that conversation because it’s going to happen? Or your neighbor’s going to ask you, or your family’s going to ask you, and having kind of your own self-care on how you want to respond, what your boundaries are for that, because not everyone needs to know all your business.

29:58 My-Linh: What’s yours is yours and what’s theirs is thiers. And then just in general, just job search or just self-care around, like, what are the practices that ground you and having your daily practices so that you don’t just wake up and you’re just like job search. It’s sort of like who am I as a person beyond me getting a job?

30:21 Emily: I think so much of what you said is just like generally applicable to being a PhD student, being a PhD, and like that whole sort of conflation of your identity with your job, whether that’s as a student or not as a student. Like I can see how this was really helpful to you in this process, but this is going to be helpful to everybody listening. Even people who are not currently engaged in that or are approaching that process.

Commercial

30:46 Emily: Emily here for a brief interlude. This announcement is for prospective and first-year graduate students. My colleague, Dr. Toyin Alli of The Academic Society, offers a fantastic course just for you called Grad School Prep. The course teaches you Toyin’s four-step Grad Boss method, which is to uncover grad school secrets, transform your mindset, uplevel your productivity, and master time management. I contributed a very comprehensive webinar to the course titled, “Set Yourself Up for Financial Success in Graduate School.” It explores the financial norms of grad school and the financial secrets of grad school. I also give you a plan for what to focus on in your finances in each season of the year that you apply to and into your first year of grad school. If this all sounds great to you, please register at theacademicsociety.com/emily for Toyin’s free masterclass on what to expect in your first semester of grad school and the three big mistakes that keep grad students stuck in a cycle of anxiety, overwhelm, and procrastination. You’ll also learn more about how to join Grad School Prep if you’d like to go a step further. Again, that’s theacademic society.com/e m i l y for my affiliate link for the course. Now back to our interview.

Applying For and Landing Current Job

32:13 Emily: So let’s talk about the job that you finally got. And I don’t know if this was the first job offer and you had declined other things, or what was going on. But the job that you eventually took, let’s hear about whatever you’d like to share about the process of applying for that job and landing that job.

32:27 My-Linh: Yeah. So I ultimately applied to, like put in applications for four different places. That’s the total. Just so folks have an idea of how many I actually put in. The way that I actually got the job I did right now was through sort of a casual connection that my friend had made for me on LinkedIn. I didn’t know the person actually very well, and so I had a very casual conversation. And I wasn’t sure if it was the right fit at the time, I was very just sort of like, let me just be open to what, you know, open to the conversation and see where that goes. And so she was very, my hiring manager and now my current manager, was very excited about me. And so I was really excited. I’m like, “Oh, this could be a really good fit. I’m not sure I’m like connecting the dots, but like she’s connecting the dots.”

33:21 My-Linh: And I did end up applying and interviewing. And I didn’t actually get the job. You know, when I heard back from them, I think in December, I think is when I heard. But she said, you know, we’ve hired somebody else who has 10 years of experience in this, but we might be hiring again in the future. So, you know, let’s just keep in touch. And to me, I was like, “Oh, okay. You know, whatever. It’s fine I didn’t love the job anyway, I’ll move on.” But then an opportunity, she reached out to me, she actually got back to me and said, “Hey, we have a job opening for this position. You know, we can do an accelerated interview process because we’ve gone through some of these initial things, and I think you’re great. You’re a great fit for this.” So, part of that was sort of like having that set up of that initial opening, networking conversation earlier on, getting rejected from that job, and then having them come back. And that’s very common in the work place, I think. Yeah. I didn’t necessarily know that, but I have since read that it’s very common, right? Like we’ll just sort of have a backlog of people who could be good for this position, and they’ll hire for it. And so then when they’re ready to make the hire, they have those people in the pool already,

Interviewing as a Way to Network

34:33 Emily: I had never thought about that either actually interviewing for jobs as networking, like, and even just looking at it that way of like, there are more positive outcomes from this interview, other than you getting this particular job. Because in your case, they had another job later on that was a good fit. Or, you know, what, they might even be able to refer you to someone else they know at some other company, because they realize you’re a good fit for them or whatever. So had not thought about that before. That’s so interesting.

34:57 My-Linh: Exactly. I mean, I hadn’t shared this earlier, but I had actually talked to a recruiter, and I had gotten connected through from another connection on LinkedIn. And she wasn’t quite sure where to fit me. She’s like, “But I really like you. I want to find a place for you.” And so, that didn’t lead to a job immediately. But now I have a really great connection. I continue to have a great professional relationship with this recruiter. And just having, you know, having planted all those seeds, not knowing where they were going to go. And I think that’s reality is like, you know, that first conversation I had in November with somebody who was like, we had a really good connection. I wasn’t sure about the job yet. And that just sort of continued progressing, you know, 3, 4 months later when we were getting closer to more interviews and meeting more people where it became a lot more clear that the job was a good fit for me.

35:52 My-Linh: And I was very fortunate in the sense that I had another job that I was applying to that I almost thought was a good fit for me. It looked very different. It was a, you know, small behavioral science think tank, mostly government focused. And I would be doing sort of like end-to-end research as a research associate. So, in this job that I ended up landing, I’m a medical and behavioral strategist in the healthcare industry. And you can look me up on LinkedIn to find out what that company is. And so my department specifically focuses on using behavioral science to improve clinical trials, the training and engagement for that. And, you know, as a behavioral scientist, that’s a perfect place for me to be, but I would never have put myself there. But they saw. They saw those connections before I did.

36:41 My-Linh: So I ended up getting offers the same week. And I don’t know how common that is. I wasn’t trying to be super aggressive in the job search. It was just sort of happenstance that the timelines worked out because this other job for this think tank, I had just started applying, you know, maybe a month and a half previous. So it was happenstance that yeah, just the way that the timeline progressed to get offers in the same week. Yeah, it was very, very fortunate on my end. So in terms of the actual job offer, when I had first interviewed, I had had a chance to talk with the recruiter. And so when our recruiter had asked me, you know, what are my salary requirements, which is very common for a recruiter to ask, you know, this is not a time for negotiation and this is not a time to give numbers.

Keep the Conversation Going

37:37 My-Linh: So you want to keep the conversation going. So what I typically recommend is to say, thanks so much for asking about salary. You know, it’s not the top priority and I’m sure this is a really good fit for me and I’m sure we can find something that’s amenable for both of us. With that in mind, could you tell me what range you had in mind? Or what range you had budgeted for the role, right? So like to turn it back on them. And so that’s how I knew that the range for this, what they pitched to me back in November actually, was you know, probably 95 to $100,000. I was like, you know, I didn’t have any emotional response to that, but I knew that’s sort of where I was. And so when I was going into the second time I talked with the recruiter, he asked me the same question again.

38:26 My-Linh: And I literally just said the same thing to him. He talks with lots of folks so I don’t think he remembered my particular script. And he said to me, you know probably between, you know, the low end would probably be $115K to $130K. And so, right, without saying, I had thought a lot about like, you know, do I want to say, “Oh, well, last time you told me this.” I just kept it open and just sort of was open to that. So I knew that the salary band had increased. So I thought, okay, well maybe, you know, coming up not even having my PhD yet. And you know, I do have some experience, but I don’t have any industry experience, you know, probably I could get 120 maybe with that. So when I found out that I got the job offer, they called me up and their offer was within the salary band of 130 to $150,000, upper end of that. And my jaw just dropped. I pretended to stay cool, but it was completely unfathomable to me what they had offered. Yeah, I just, I didn’t think that I would ever be in that salary range at all. Based off of right, just like my own limiting beliefs about what I could make or how I deserve to be compensated.

39:49 Emily: Because I’m thinking that’s probably like four to five to six times what you were making as a grad student, right?

39:54 My-Linh: That’s right. Yeah.

39:55 Emily: So never anchor yourself on that grad student salary.

Normalizing Negotiation

39:59 My-Linh: Exactly. And so another part of, I guess, being open to that is when I talked to people, informational interviews, I also specifically asked them if I knew them well enough to say, how much do you make? Just so I could get a sense of where people were. So I knew that $80,000 was probably on the low end of what would be acceptable for my training and knowledge and that, you know, a hundred, 120 is sort of where people are at. So to come in above that at the offer, I was like, okay. So being again, someone who loves professional development, I knew I had to negotiate. And it felt very uncomfortable to negotiate because I was like, no one’s ever valued me, like at that. And again, right, I’m not talking about tying my value to my salary, but that was just completely unfathomable to me.

40:52 My-Linh: I would’ve been happy to accept, you know, with that salary range. And so I took some time to kind of reflect and say, they’re expecting this of me. You know, it’s a large company. All recruiters expect you to negotiate. But you can’t just come to say, like, I deserve more money because I know I should negotiate, right? So again, to be prepared for those negotiation conversations, like, you need to have a rationale for why you want that increase and sort of what you’re bringing to the table for them. And I knew that there was nothing to lose. You know, I was already happy with the salary. And I think that the common myth that people have is like, oh, if you ask for more, you seem greedy. When in reality, you know, you value the work that you bring to them and you are going to be a top performer for them.

41:42 My-Linh: And it’s in their best interest. Having gone through the whole hiring process, they want you, so that’s when the cards are in your hand to make a negotiation and at no time before that, until they give you an offer. They want you, and they will do everything that they can to go to bat for you, if you provide them with enough information. So that’s what I did. You know, ultimately it was a five minute conversation with the recruiter and that, you know, that got me increased by 15K within a five minute conversation. And part of that was being prepared for that, all the anxiety and nerves that come with having a negotiation and knowing that recruiters do this day in and day out. So they’re not phased at all when they asked you for a number, but even if it was a five-minute conversation, that was like three days of me preparing for that conversation, getting prepped, mentally, knowing what my scripts were and how to respond, but that five-minute conversation increased my base salary immediately.

42:43 My-Linh: And so, I just really want to advocate, you know, as a woman, as a person of color, anybody should be negotiating, even if the offer is amazing. Because 1000% my offer was amazing and I would be happy just signing off on that. But like five minutes, you know, someone went to bat for me, they were excited and it said to me, yeah, this is the right place. You know, for me, they really valued what I’m bringing. So that’s just what I want to emphasize to everybody is that even if they’re coming at you with a really impressive salary, that it’s always in the cards for you to negotiate, and if they’re going to low ball you from the beginning, I personally would walk away, because you know that they’re not valuing you for what you want. So like, when they low ball you, you might get maybe 2000 more, maybe.

43:36 My-Linh: And if that’s where you’re starting, all of your bonuses, all of your pay increases from there, start from that point. So that’s why I want to just emphasize for everybody that having that base salary is really important to negotiate. And then there’s other things you can do in terms of like, you know, PTO or other professional development things, which fortunately they were already included in my package. So there wasn’t really that much more for me to ask because they had given me what I wanted with salary. So the worst they can say is no. The best is, you know, you get some increase in that base.

5 Minutes Could Gain You $15K

44:12 Emily: I really like that you mentioned these timelines. So it was a five-minute conversation that you spent three days intensely preparing for, especially emotionally. But I think also some logistically, so you put scripts together and so forth. But as we talked about earlier, it’s also the years of building towards this moment that gave you those tools and the mindset to know to ask for that extra $15,000. And that, I mean, that is a big amount of money, even on top of an already generous salary. I mean, that’s almost going to be your whole 401(k) for like the whole year. So it’s an amazing amount of money, but just knowing there was so much preparation, just to keep in mind, there was so much preparation that went into that five-minute conversation. Not even just the three days immediately spent before it. Is there anything else that you want to share about that negotiation process?

45:05 My-Linh: I would say that it is stressful, but there are a lot of resources out there on how to prepare for that. And practicing is crucial. Again, like I mentioned, you know, you probably get to negotiate maybe like three, four times in your life, maybe on a salary, whereas recruiters do this all the time. So it does take preparation and you can do it, and there are lots of resources and I’d be happy to share those with you. And practice. Practicing it out loud so that you feel comfortable.

Balancing Work and Finishing the PhD

45:36 Emily: That’s a very generous offer. Just to give like a quick update. So you’re, I don’t know, a month or two into actually, you’ve started this job now. But you’re also still finishing your dissertation. So can you just give us an update on how things are going now that you’ve started this fantastic job and what your plans are for the coming months?

45:57 My-Linh: Yeah, so actually part of the negotiation was asking for a later start date. And yeah, being able to actually have like three extra months to put in full-time work on my PhD, knowing that I had a job, gave me some peace of mind. So, also, right, you can negotiate for a later start date. But yeah, it’s been tough navigating both, right, when you’re sort of like onboarding. And I knew I wanted to get to a certain place in my thesis to just sort of feel comfortable with doing both. And, fortunately, I work on a globally distributed team. I can work flexible hours. And so I mostly work on Eastern time hours. So I worked from 7:00 AM to 3:00 PM, take a break. And then I do thesis work for between like two to three hours. And I take Thursdays off from doing any additional thesis work.

46:50 My-Linh: But it’s a lot, so it’s a lot to be managing that. And I, like I said, I wanted to get to a certain part of my thesis where I didn’t have to do as much analytical work so that I can really focus on the writing. And not everyone has, you know, things don’t always work up with the timing. But yeah, that’s sort of where I am right now. My job, you know, knows that I’m working on my PhD, is 1000% behind me finishing my PhD. And so that’s another thing I think I wanted to mention is that people oftentimes think that, you know, organizations don’t value your PhD or you need to your PhD. There are institutions that want you because you have that credential and because you have that knowledge. And being at a place that recognizes the effort that you’ve put in and wants you to fulfill, you know, your degree is a place that you want to be. You know, a place that you can use your PhD and that values that. So that’s another thing I want to emphasize in job searching.

Money Mindset Influenced by The Wealthy PhD

47:53 Emily: With our second to last question here, I want to come back to where we started the conversation, which is where you and I met, which was through The Wealthy PhD. And one of the sort of effects of The Wealthy PhD that I could see on you especially is that you really took to the mindset, the financial mindset, the money mindset aspect of that curriculum. And you really, even more so than I do, like were implementing the strategies from, you know, working on your money mindset. So can you just speak a little bit about what influence The Wealthy PhD or the mindset stuff that you learned from The Wealthy PhD, what effect that has had on this job career search process?

48:31 My-Linh: Now, I think The Wealthy PhD was so crucial right at that time when I was job searching and also just ready to like get my finances in order and be responsible. And so yeah, one of the first activities was around mindset and just understanding how many limiting beliefs there are as a PhD student about money. Especially around yeah, how you should be valued in the workspaces if you’re not in academia. And so this idea of like PhDs, we’re so passionate about research, it’s fine if we don’t make a ton of money, that’s not the priority. And it still isn’t, you know, my salary isn’t my priority. Or this idea that like I have all this specialized knowledge and people outside aren’t going to value that. And, you know, I shouldn’t work at these places because they don’t value what I do or, you know, there’s so many limiting beliefs around money.

49:27 My-Linh: And being one of the first activities that we did, I think it was helpful to say like, well do the research that proves or disproves this. You know, where do you see this being affirmed, and where do you not? And then anyone who knows me knows that I love a good affirmation or two or 10. So to share those affirmations, I have them on sticky notes and I continue to share them with other people who are job searching, which is my skills and talents are in demand, and I deserve to be paid well. Those two, you know, they’re very simple, but I kept looking back at those, you know, on my sticky note to kind of ground me in my search. And so that was huge. For me, you know, when I sort of got the job offer to be like, yes, this is the affirmation realized. My skills and talents are in demand, and I deserve to be paid well.

50:23 My-Linh: And obviously this wasn’t some like woo-woo magic, right? Like there’s a lot of work that went into realizing that, but that definitely, you know, when we talked earlier about what sustained me, having that to ground me in my job search was exceptionally helpful. So yeah, people are going to come in with all sorts of, you know, mindsets about money, about the job search. And, you know, even people listening today and be like, “Oh, this isn’t for me. You know, I’m not there. I don’t have those circumstances.” So, you know, what I have to say to that is like, you find what works for you. Maybe the affirmation doesn’t work. But you have to find the mindset that’s going to facilitate you doing what you need to do. And if you want to continue having the limiting belief, then that’s only a disservice to you. And so how do you get yourself in this space? Not from a toxic positivity mindframe, but the idea of like what is going to help me be successful initiating my goals? And having a healthy mindset is a part of that.

Overcome Your Limiting Beliefs

51:24 Emily: I think you phrased that so well. And this interview, and this part of this interview, I think can be one of those examples of when someone listening has a limiting belief around how their skills can be valued outside of academia, or whatever. They can say, “Well, I heard My-Linh talk about this wonderful job that was such a good fit for her that’s paying her fabulously,” and look at that. That is an example of, you know, a counterexample from this limiting belief that I have. I’m glad you mentioned, like, this is not woo-woo, this is not toxic positivity because there’s a phrase that I see kind of thrown around sometimes, which is whether you believe you can, or you can’t, you’re right. Which is not a hundred percent true, right? There are actual, in real life, not in your head barriers to you achieving something that you want to achieve, whether it’s in your finances or your career or whatever. But it is also true that your mind and your mindset will limit you if you allow it to. So, like, in addition to those real, in the world, barriers that many, many people face, don’t add your own mindset on top of that, right? Like do the work to get your mindset in the right place so that you can do the best you can in the circumstances that you’re in. And also of course, work to dismantle those barriers for yourself and for other people later on. So is there anything else you wanted to add about this before we conclude the interview?

52:45 My-Linh: Yeah, I guess I wanted to just be open with our listeners and to say, you know, I don’t share my story to say, “Oh, look at me. I make all this money, I have this great job and look what I’ve achieved.” I share this story to say, imagine the unfathomable happening. Imagine that I’m in your corner rooting for you, too. This is not about a competition. This is not about who gets paid more. Who’s valued more. I want everyone to find a job where they’re paid well, and using the skillsets and talents that they have. And so I just want to hold vision for everyone who’s listening. You know, like I’m not sharing this story to say, this is the magic bullet to do things. I’m sharing the story so that you can also see and plant the seed that it’s possible for you, too. And, you know, again, when I said earlier about, you know, who’s kind of in your support system, you want people who are rooting for you for that job that you want, and that pays you well. And, you know, count me in that corner.

Best Financial Advice for Another Early-Career PhD

53:44 Emily: Oh, thank you so much for that thought, My-Linh. I wish we actually were ending the interview there, but I have one more question for you, which is the one I ask of all my guests. Which is what is your best financial advice for another early-career PhD?

53:58 My-Linh: Yeah, I think for me thinking about, we talk a lot about investing, and I think about investing in quality of life. Investing in the things that are important to you. And there’s a lot of like scarcity in the PhD world. We don’t have large salaries. I’ve lived in that space. But spending money on things that you know are going to be helpful in supporting you professionally, personally, in achieving your goals. And I can’t emphasize enough. Like I invested in myself by being a part of the Wealthy PhD, and other PhD communities that I’m a part of. And yes, that’s money, and it seems like a lot of money. And it’s not directly related to your research, but taking time to figure out where you want to invest in yourself and what that looks like monetarily, to help support you in your goals is something that I would recommend to all early-career PhDs or in general to anybody. But I think oftentimes, right, this idea of just we have to save all this money. I don’t have money for this, find places where you can invest money in yourself. Not the market, but yourself for the longterm.

55:10 Emily: I love that sentiment, of course. And I’ll add onto that as well. Like just to broaden that thought into the rest of our conversation on this job search and career exploration process. Like you’re investing heavily in yourself by getting a PhD by all the opportunity costs that you are incurring, by all the time, heavy, heavy investment. But getting the PhD is like maybe an 80% solution to getting the job that you want. Like you need to put in that last 20% of the career exploration, of the networking, of the professional development, of all the stuff that we’ve been talking about during this conversation to really ultimately land that job that’s a great fit for you and compensate you on everything that we’ve been talking about today. So like, it’s just getting, we’ve used this ball metaphor a couple times, but just getting to that, like finish line, getting to the end zone, like just that last couple of steps of the process to give you that amazing satisfaction in your career that you are hopefully now going to enjoy.

56:02 Emily: Yeah, you need to do that last little bit of investment on top of what you’re already putting into the PhD or else, you know, you could enter the PhD and not be super happy with a job that you end up with because PhD programs don’t really prepare you that well for the many, many types of jobs that are available to PhDs. You have to do just that bit more that we’ve been talking about. So My-Linh, I loved this conversation, and thank you so much for coming on the podcast and sharing all of this with the listeners. You’ve mentioned LinkedIn a couple of times. Is there any other good place where people can find you?

56:33 My-Linh: That’s probably the best place to find me, and yeah. Feel free to connect with me. I’d be happy to talk more specifically about my job search or about my job. So yeah, feel free to link up with me on LinkedIn.

56:45 Emily: Very good. Thank you so much.

56:46 My-Linh: Thanks, Emily!

Outtro

56:53 Emily: Listeners, thank you for joining me for this episode! pfforphds.com/podcast/ is the hub for the Personal Finance for PhDs podcast. On that page are links to all the episodes’ show notes, which include full transcripts and videos of the interviews. There is also a form to volunteer to be interviewed on the podcast. I’d love for you to check it out and get more involved! If you’ve been enjoying the podcast, here are 4 ways you can help it grow: 1. Subscribe to the podcast and rate and review it on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or whatever platform you use. 2. Share an episode you found particularly valuable on social media, with a email list-serv, or as a link from your website. 3. Recommend me as a speaker to your university or association. My seminars cover the personal finance topics PhDs are most interested in, like investing, debt repayment, and effective budgeting. I also license pre-recorded workshops on taxes. 4. Subscribe to my mailing list at PFforPhDs.com/subscribe/. Through that list, you’ll keep up with all the new content and special opportunities for Personal Finance for PhDs. See you in the next episode, and remember: You don’t have to have a PhD to succeed with personal finance… but it helps! The music is “Stages of Awakening” by Podington Bear from the Free Music Archive and is shared under CC by NC. Podcast editing by Lourdes Bobbio and show notes creation by Meryem Ok.

This Grad Student Eliminated Her Housing Expense to Pay Off Her Student Loans

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In this episode, Emily interviews Dr. Erika Moore Taylor, an assistant professor at the University of Florida and the founder of Moore Wealth. When Erika started her PhD at Duke, she had $65,000 of student loan debt, which she committed to paying off before her graduation. One of the strategies she used that made the biggest impact was to serve as a resident advisor, thereby eliminating her housing expense. Erika shares how her money mindset fueled her motivation to achieve her debt repayment goal and how she is now pursuing FIRE.

Links Mentioned in the Episode

Eliminate housing expense to pay off student loans

Teaser

00:00 Erika: I did factor in cost of living. So being the poor broke graduate student is a trope that we’re all familiar with, but I think some areas lend to that trope more strongly than others.

Introduction

00:16 Emily: Welcome to the Personal Finance for PhDs Podcast: A Higher Education in Personal Finance. I’m your host, Dr. Emily Roberts. This is season 10, episode eight, and today my guest is Dr. Erika Moore Taylor, an assistant professor at the University of Florida and the founder of Moore Wealth. When Erika started her PhD at Duke, she had $65,000 of student loan debt, which she committed to paying off before her graduation. One of the strategies she used that made the biggest impact was to serve as a resident advisor, thereby eliminating her housing expense. Erika shares how her money mindset fueled her motivation to achieve her debt repayment goal and how she’s now pursuing financial independence and early retirement. If you want to be inspired to set an audacious financial goal and also plot your path to achieve that goal, I highly recommend joining the Personal Finance for PhDs Community at PFforPhds.community.

01:14 Emily: There are numerous courses, webinars, recordings, and eBooks to help you figure out what financial goal to pursue right now, for example, repaying student loans versus investing, and how to go about it. Just to take some examples that relate to today’s subject: I recently recorded a set of four workshops for the Community, two of which are titled, “Whether and How to Pay Off Debt as an Early Career PhD,” and, “How to Uplevel your Cashflow as an Early Career PhD.” These workshops teach frameworks and strategies for pursuing goals, like the ones Erika set during grad school, and actually can guide you for years and decades post-PhD as well. Best of all is the community aspect of the Community. There’s a forum available 24/7 to which you can post your questions and prompts, and I host a monthly live call for discussion and Q&A. We’ve spent a lot of our live call time in recent months, discussing homeownership, investing, and career and life transitions. But of course, any financial topic is welcome. To learn more about the excellent content and other opportunities available inside the Community, go to P F F O R P H D S.Community. I hope to see you in our October live call. Without further ado, here’s my interview with Dr. Erikca Moore Taylor.

Will You Please Introduce Yourself Further?

02:39 Emily: I am absolutely thrilled to have joining me on the podcast today, Dr. Erika Moore Taylor. She is actually an assistant professor at the University of Florida, and she finished her PhD in 2018 from none other than the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Duke University, which is the same department that I graduated from four years earlier. So we did overlap I think a little bit, but Erika is joining us today to tell us an incredible debt repayment story from her time in graduate school, as well as giving us some updates on what she’s been up to since she defended. So Erika, it’s a real pleasure to have you on. Welcome! And will you please tell the audience a little bit more about yourself?

03:17 Erika: Yes, thank you so much for having me Emily, or should I say, Dr. Roberts? It’s nice that we have that connection from Duke. And as you said, after I left Duke, actually before I got to Duke, I started thinking about finances and basically use my time at Duke to understand and learn my own personal finance mindset as well as what I wanted my journey to look like. And since then, I’ve been fortunate enough to start my position at the University of Florida, but also start a company focused on personal finance and financial literacy. So I think that’s all I want the audience to know about me so far.

Financial Mindset at the Start of Grad School

03:56 Emily: That is awesome. We’re going to talk so much more about that. So let’s take it back, rewind to when you were getting out of undergrad and starting graduate school. What was your financial mindset like at the time, and what did your finances look like at that time?

04:09 Erika: Yeah, so taking it all the way back to I think it was 2012, this was the year before I started graduate school and I was fortunate enough to do an internship in Boston. And I was kind of bored during the internship, and so I took up personal finance. I started reading books about personal finance because I realized that if I graduated on time from my undergraduate institution, I’d be graduating with $65,000 worth of debt. So in 2013, when I started my graduate program at Duke, I had the mindset of being shackled and weighed down with debt. I was very concerned about debt because I knew that no matter what I did after graduate school, that debt would follow me. It would be with me like a shadow that I couldn’t shake. And so it scared me because I felt like I had done the right moves in graduating and surviving undergraduate and getting into grad school, but I hadn’t made the right financial moves. So my mindset was scarcity.

05:11 Emily: It’s so interesting to me that that student loans, in particular, provoked that scarcity mindset. By the way, did you have any other debt at that time? Aside from the student loans?

05:20 Erika: I didn’t, but when I first started grad school, I bought a car for about 13 or $14,000. So then that added to my debt. So the fear amplified.

05:31 Emily: I think that some people have, I don’t necessarily want to say, like, they feel casually about their student loan debt, but especially when you’re going straight from undergrad into grad school, like you never entered repayment. So maybe the pain of the student loan repayment was not upon you logistically, although it was still there like psychologically. And so some other people I think are just a little bit more, maybe dismissive. And I’m talking about myself. I was very dismissive about the student loan debt that I had from undergrad. It was less than yours, but I was just like, “Oh, it’s subsidized. I’m going to grad school. It’ll still be deferred. No big deal.” Yes, I did know on the other side of graduate school that I would have to pay it off. But it did not bother me psychologically. So why do you think you had the view that you did instead of just feeling a little bit more comfortable with it?

06:18 Erika: Yeah. I think I had the view that I did because I knew I would have to get a job afterwards. And before I entered grad school, I had a job at a daycare working about $7 or $8 an hour. And I had never seen $65,000 in my bank account. I had never seen $65,000 in a job that I could work. And so the fact that I had that much debt was alarming to me, like you said, psychologically, because I had never secured a job that earned that much. And so I, again, was operating in scarcity saying like, “Well, if I have this much debt, I need to pay it off because, you know, I don’t know if I will be able to pay it off.” I didn’t know, you know, how much money I’d make in a job setting in using my degree. And so I was just motivated by that number by the sticker shock, I think price of my undergraduate degree, that really motivated me to pay it off.

Savings and Stipends

07:18 Emily: So starting in grad school, can you share with us did you have any savings or any kind of assets at that time, and also what was your stipend when you started?

07:26 Erika: Yeah, so starting in graduate school, my net worth was I think about negative $60,000. So I had $65,000 worth of debt. And then I had saved around maybe six or $7,000. I saved that money because I knew I would need to put a down payment on my car that I would need to buy in North Carolina, it’s not really public transportation friendly. So I knew that I needed a car as a vehicle. And then I saved a couple of other thousand dollars for a down payment on securing the place that I was going to rent. So first and last month’s rent as well as, you know, a security deposit. So I had, you know, maybe six or $7,000 in my checking account. I was fortunate enough to secure the National Science Graduate Research Fellowship, [GRFP]. And that set my stipend, I think at the time around $32,000 a year.

08:20 Emily: Yeah. Fantastic. And three years of guaranteed funding. That’s awesome. And so actually I want to rewind for a second because having won the NSF GRFP, you, I would imagine, had your selection of graduate programs. So why Duke instead of a different program?

Factoring in Cost of Living

08:40 Erika: Yeah, that’s an excellent question. And you’re right, securing the NSF GRFP, you’re kind of hot on the market, so to speak. So lots of schools will take you even if you didn’t even apply to the school. Thankfully I had already been encouraged to consider Duke because of my graduate research advisor who had just recently moved there. But specifically when I was making my list and considering what schools or programs I would attend, I did factor in cost of living. So being the poor broke graduate student is a trope that we’re all familiar with, but I think some areas lend to that trope more strongly than others. So I kind of eliminated going to Boston or going to San Francisco, even going to San Diego, where there are very strong biomedical engineering programs, but where the cost of living would make it extremely challenging to live independent of my stipend.

09:33 Erika: Additionally, I eliminated any program that had to add on top of the NSF GRFP to meet the standard of living. So that’s something that I don’t think a lot of people know. The NSF GRFP is already above the average stipend in most cases, but in some schools or programs where the cost of living is so high, they have to add on top of that. And so I was like, that means that even if I’m making above average, that’s still not enough to cover the cost of living in this area. So I eliminated those, which is how I landed at Duke.

10:07 Emily: I’m really glad you brought that up. I was thinking, you know, maybe you’re looking at, you know, $32K everywhere and then, oh, wow. It’s an easy choice to go to Durham over, you know, Boston or San Francisco or something. But even knowing that you were going to get a supplement above that, that’s really great that you consider that as well, because you’re right. Like if you look at the median cost of living in Durham, I’m pretty sure for a single person it’s still below $32K, or even below $30K, maybe at this point, I haven’t looked at the data super recently, but I know that when I was there, I did look at the living wage database from MIT. I think when I started at Duke, my stipend was $24,000, because I was getting the base stipend from the department, but I believe the living wage was something like 18, $19,000.

10:45 Emily: And so it was well above that number for a single person. That is not the situation when you go to these more high cost of living cities, but also just graduate programs that don’t pay super well. Duke pays fine for its base stipend as far as I’m aware. Okay. So I’m glad we, you know, we’re seeing how intentional you are when you are going into the selection of graduate school. Now we’re going to go back to where you are, you know, you’re entering graduate school. You have the student loan debt kind of hanging above you and you’ve talked about, you know, what motivated you. What was the exact goal that you set regarding your student loans? Did you want to pay them off entirely? Did you want to pay them off partially? Did you want to be doing retirement savings? Like what was your financial goal at that time?

Student Loan Goals

11:25 Erika: This is a great question, Emily, and I love this because it does break down where my mind was. So I had two buckets of student loans, the first were my own personal federally secured student loans, the second bucket were parent plus secured federal loans. And my parents made it very clear that I was expected to pay back both of those. So they were not going to pay back the parent plus loans. I was expected to cover both of them. The parent plus loan was in essence, a loan that they gave me through the federal government. And so my strategy initially was just to pay off the parent plus loans because I said, if I can lower the debt that I owe my parents or the federal government through my parents, then I’ll be in a much better shape. Additionally, those were the largest loans that I had. So I think I had one that was $20,000 and one that was about $25,000 in parent plus loans. My own personal federal loans were much smaller, you know, by comparison. So I said, it’d be great if, while I was in grad school, I could just pay those off. That was stage one.

12:31 Emily: Yeah. And so just to gain a little bit more clarity here. So your student loans that were in your name, those were deferred because you were in graduate school. Were they also subsidized? It wasn’t like you only took out the subsidized portion?

12:43 Erika: No, I had subsidized and unsubsidized loans.

12:46 Emily: Okay. So part of it subsidized, part of it’s un-subsidized. And then the parent loans that your parents had, those are not in deferment because they’re not yours, technically. So it’s so interesting. So you sort of considered yourself to be in repayment because your parents were in repayment for that portion of the loans. Do you remember what that minimum, like the minimum payment that they had to make that you were trying to make for them, was when you started?

13:08 Erika: Yeah, so actually, because I am the obsessive person that I am, I made a massive spreadsheet, which is something that I recommend to anyone who’s in debt, right? Making a spreadsheet of every single loan, all of the interest and all of the, you know, what the minimum payment is. So at the time, just for my parent plus loans, not my un-subsidized personalized loans, the payment was around $250 a month. The interest rates were low. So it wasn’t that high of a number.

Reducing Housing Expenses and Increasing Income

13:38 Emily: Okay. So let’s sort of progress in time through graduate school. What did you start doing during graduate school to, because I know you did, how did you increase your income? You’re already on the NSF GRFP, but I know you did even more to increase your income.

13:54 Erika: Yeah. So I was very fortunate to be encouraged to look outside of the box. And so when you look outside of the box, you start thinking about what are the most expensive items in my budget and how can I eliminate or dramatically reduce those? And for most people, the most expensive item is where you live. And so I applied to be a graduate resident at Duke, which is a very awesome program. I highly recommend it if you’re in grad school, look in to see if your university has a graduate resident program, because it allowed me to connect better with the undergraduate community, but most importantly, it allowed me to live for free. And so I applied and was awarded that role. And the first year was very challenging, but I served as a graduate resident for four out of the five years of my PhD. That was one major prong.

14:45 Emily: Yeah. Wow. So you completely eliminated your housing expense. That’s incredible. And I’m actually thinking, did that role play a part in your subsequent faculty applications? Like did that come up at all later on? Was it an asset, I guess, on your CV as it is what I’m asking?

15:00 Erika: Yes. It was an asset on my CV due to my familiarity with the administration and the structure as it relates to undergraduate curriculum and undergraduate engagement. And it also bridged me into serving as the Duke University Graduate and Professional Young Trustee. So it definitely allowed me to keep my hands in many pots at Duke and then it allowed me to leverage those opportunities into a faculty position.

15:32 Emily: Yeah. I love it when I can find something that benefits someone both financially and on the CV, and for future funding applications or, you know, whatever it might be. Did you do anything else on the increasing income side?

15:44 Erika: Yes. So the second prong of my approach was I sort of started serving as a house sitter or pet sitter. So this was a hustle that I was not able to maintain. Just because it took so much bandwidth. I was in lab, you know, a lot of time that I was also serving as a graduate resident, which took when I started out about 20 hours a week. So it was a tremendous time commitment. But I essentially wrote how much of the job was worth. And I wrote it in big letters and I just posted it on my door. And I said, you know, whenever you want to complain, just look at that dollar amount. And then during years two and three, I would house sit for professors for different professionals who were going out of town or who were in transient positions, watching their pets, doing things around their houses. So those are the main ways that I accelerated my debt repayment plan.

16:40 Emily: And you said that you didn’t maintain the house and pet sitting. It was too time intensive. Was that the main reason?

16:45 Erika: Yes. The house and pet sitting, I just found that, you know, in life you’re juggling a few balls and then you throw in the graduate resident ball, and then you throw in the stresses of graduate school and trying to complete your PhD. And then I threw in this other ball of house sitting and pet sitting. So it was just one too many balls and I had to think, what can I let drop? And it honestly wasn’t worth the time commitment always. So I definitely let it drop.

17:08 Emily: Yeah. Very, very strategic.

Commercial

17:13 Emily: Emily here, for a brief interlude. This announcement is for prospective and first-year graduate students. My colleague, Dr. Toyin Alli of The Academic Society, offers a fantastic course just for you called Grad School Prep. The course teaches you Toyin’s four-step grad boss method, which is to uncover grad school secrets, transform your mindset, up-level your productivity, and master time management. I contributed a very comprehensive webinar to the course titled, “Set Yourself Up for Financial Success in Graduate School.” It explores the financial norms of grad school and the financial secrets of grad school. I also give you a plan for what to focus on in your finances each season of the year that you apply to and into your first year of grad school. If this all sounds great to you, please register at theacademicsociety.com/emily for Toyin’s free masterclass on what to expect in your first semester of grad school and the three big mistakes that keep grad students stuck in a cycle of anxiety, overwhelm, and procrastination. You’ll also learn more about how to join Grad School Prep, if you’d like to go a step further. Again, that’s theacademicsociety.com/E M I L Y for my affiliate link for the course. Now, back to our interview.

Anything Else to Control Expenses?

18:40 Emily: Okay. So that’s on the income side. Did you do anything else on the, you know, controlling expenses, decreasing expenses side of the equation?

18:47 Erika: Yes, even though I purchased my car, I paid off my car within the first year that I had the loan. So that was really important to me because at the time that was my highest interest debt. And then I actually didn’t drive that much because I didn’t want to pay for maintenance of the car. So I think I got my oil changed about every 12 to 18 months. And because I drove that infrequently, I would, you know, get a ride with friends or I would just walk to a location or I would take, you know, some of the commuter trains into downtown. Commuter buses, excuse me, into downtown. And so I basically decreased my use of the car. And then also my friends know I’m pretty cheap or frugal as a person. So I ate out a lot, but I strategically ate out. So part of the graduate resident job comes with a food stipend. And so I would have meetings or hang out with friends, but it’d be on campus where I could use my meal points. And then also a part of the role was also facilitating community development. So that meant ordering food. And so I would go to the events because that was part of my job. But if there were leftovers, I would take that food and that would be lunch for the week. So I reduced my food expenses and I reduced my transportation expenses.

Balance Sheet and Loans at the End of Grad School

20:00 Emily: Yeah. I think the taking leftovers home from events is a very classic grad student. I think a lot of people are employing that strategy, but you combined it with the, “Oh no, I have a job that actually pays me to eat on occasion.” Okay. So let’s then jump ahead to the end of graduate school. What was your balance sheet at the time? How did you do against these student loans?

20:21 Erika: Yeah, so by the end of graduate school, I had completely eliminated my student loan debt, my parent plus loans and my personal loans. And I had, I think it was still around six or $7,000 saved.

20:35 Emily: Okay.

20:36 Erika: So positive net worth.

20:38 Emily: Yeah. Complete debt elimination. That’s amazing. Congratulations on achieving that goal. And obviously you, I mean, to pay off $65,000 of debt during graduate school while on a graduate student stipend, it’s just, it’s an amazing, amazing accomplishment. I did, if the listeners are interested and you want motivation for your own debt repayment journey during graduate school, I did actually do an interview back in season one with Dr. Jenni Rinker, who also went to Duke, who also had the NSF GRFP. And she also paid off, I think it was yeah, in the low sixties thousand dollars of student loan debt, while in graduate school. She had a different approach than yours. I think she was like a major, major side hustler, whereas you went this like RA route. They both can work fantastically. So really happy to have that. And actually also from season one, there’s another example of an interview I did with an RA. And he also had amazing benefits associated with his resident advisor position.

Would You Have Done it Again the Same Way?

21:26 Emily: So, okay. I still want to think about you back in 2018 when you defended, you’ve conquered the student loan debt. Would you have done it again the same way?

21:35 Erika: I would do it again the same way, because the skills that I’ve learned through the process of accumulating that debt and then paying it off are now with me today. So I apply them in different ways, but I think showing that I could be disciplined over wh at, at the time, seemed like a massive amount of debt to me has transitioned my discipline in so many different ways. So I’m grateful for the experience. Sometimes you kind of need to be slowed down or you need to learn a lesson. So I look at my student loan debt as the lesson that I needed to learn. And then I just try to apply those skills in many different ways.

22:14 Emily: I feel like, so when I finished my PhD, like literally, like when I passed my defense, like finished my PhD, I had this feeling, a very expansive feeling of, I can do literally anything. I can conquer any mountain, like in front of me. I felt that way a couple of other times in my life. But in the financial arena, I don’t know if I’ve had that. But did you have a moment like that? Like with the last payment that you made, did you feel, you know, you had these insights and so forth. Can you tell us about that?

22:44 Erika: Yeah. When I made the final payment, it was kind of anticlimactic. And maybe this is the scarcity mindset in me, but I have sisters and family members who had been working and contributing to their retirement accounts. I hadn’t done any of that. I was just focused on eliminating debt. And so I was like 27, I think, when I defended. No, 26, when I defended and I was kind of like, okay, now I’m really behind because I don’t have any retirement savings. So it kind of just clicked, you know, gears from debt repayment to retirement savings. And it wasn’t quite as I think, as momentous as I would’ve hoped.

Finances in Marriage

26:07 Emily: Yeah. Is there anything else you want to tell us about like, sort of what your life looks like now, financially?

26:12 Erika: Yes. So I got married, which has been an interesting journey. I think it’s been fun. But I love talking about finances. So I immerse that immediately into my relationship. And my husband actually came into the marriage with student loan debt. So there was a moment of panic where I was like, I don’t want to go back to that. And so we came up with a plan to basically, even though we’re dual income, we only live off of one income, and we attacked his debt. And now we’re just full steam ahead planning for really important things in our lives. And so I’m anti-debt now in a major way. And so we were talking about, oh, maybe in few years, we’ll buy a car. And so I’m like, okay, what’s our savings plan to afford this car? Because I’m not going back into debt.

27:01 Erika: Or we talk about going on trips. So later this summer, we’re going to Hawaii, which we’re really excited about. But we are trying to save and plan for that now. Right? All of the excursions and activities we want to go on, I’m not charging them. I want to have the cash to pay for them. And so that means we have to make sacrifices in other areas, but it’s been really fun, fine tuning. What are our shared, you know, drivers, what do we enjoy spending money on, and what things do we not care about as much? So that’s what we are continually working on now as a couple.

27:34 Emily: Yeah, that sounds amazing. I don’t want to put this in like a light where like, “Oh, it’s a great experience to have a low-income for a long time during graduate school with no hope of increasing it.” It’s not great. It’s not great. The silver lining on that very, very, very dark cloud is that in some situations you can embrace some good habits, maybe develop your mindset and so forth. And it really does sound like what you did. You mentioned the word discipline earlier. So you developed your discipline again over this long debt repayment journey. And again, within, you know, the confined circumstances that you had financially during graduate school. So I think that’s amazing. I certainly also developed really good financial habits during graduate school that have continued. And I’m happy now with a higher income to have them serving me well at this point because it’s really gratifying to have a higher income to work with when you have those good habits in place.

Moore Wealth

28:24 Emily: So you mentioned at the top that you have a company now, Moore Wealth, would you please tell us more about what you do through that?

28:30 Erika: Yeah, so Moore Wealth is kind of my love letter to what I wish I would have done when I was a younger student. And so I think one of the plights of education in the United States is a lack of financial literacy training. Like I made the joke the other day, we learned how to write cursive, but we don’t learn how to budget, which is insane because you don’t need to write cursive in life, but you do need to know how to budget if you’re going to, you know, have command over your finances. And so through Moore Wealth, we have a two-pronged approach to addressing this. Our mission is just empowerment through financial literacy. And so the first prong is our scholarships and fellowships. And so I was really excited because I finally have the income to give my money away to people who I think are deserving.

29:17 Erika: And so we established a nonprofit organization to basically grant scholarships and we had our first cohort that was awarded in February. And so that’s a lifelong dream of mine that we’re doing through Moore Wealth. And then the second prong is financial seminars, mainly targeted to high school students. So before you even get to college, take a step back and figure out what you want your life to look like and how finances are going to play a in that. And that’s what we do. So seminars and scholarships, and that’s the company, that’s the mission of Moore Wealth.

29:49 Emily: That sounds so incredible, amazing that you decided to set that up after having this journey. Tell us more about the scholarships and fellowships. Like who are the kinds of candidates you give them to, and then how does that benefit them? What do they get to do with it?

30:02 Erika: Yeah, great question. So right now we had our inaugural class that was awarded in February. And so we solicit proposals and we solicited proposals from over 50 universities. It was actually a tremendous response. That was kind of unexpected for this first year. And we awarded them to anyone who was entering into or completing a degree granting program. So we are specific in that terminology because we consider certificates and trade school or nontraditional routes of access also really important. And so it’s a very inclusive scholarship at this point. There was a Google form that’s on our webpage where people had to respond to a series of short answer questions. And then we had a blinded review that basically scored the essays based on the rubric that was established by the scholarship committee. Those were the only requirements or prerequisites for entering into the scholarship. We did have a GPA minimum of a 3.00 on a 4.0 scale. But other than that, there were no limits in terms of if the person was in graduate school, if the person was entering high school, if the person was completing their plumbing certificate, or anything else like that, we wanted to be as inclusive as possible.

31:24 Emily: And is it a grant that they then do work with, or is it just completely goes into your pocket? You can do whatever you want with it?

31:32 Erika: Yes. At this stage we awarded each of the recipients, they did have to send a follow up about how they’re going to try to implement financial literacy skills that they learned in their reflection essays into their life. And what we’re hoping to do in the future as this builds out is actually have small courses for them and potentially get them up to date with their financial literacy skills. And yeah, so currently they’ve gotten their money and they’ve reflected on financial literacy concepts. But to date, that’s it for that first cohort. So we’re looking to add additional responses and interactions with them in the future.

Best Advice for An Early-Career PhD

32:11 Emily: Incredible, wonderful. We can easily tell the passion that you have for this material in your voice. I’m so excited that you’re in the space as well. Erika, the question that I ask all of my interviewees at the end of our conversation is what is your best advice for an early-career PhD? And it could be something that we’ve touched on already in the interview, or it could be something completely else.

32:33 Erika: Yes. I love this question and I love the responses that you’ve gotten in the podcast so far to it. So I’ll echo what a few other people have said, which is to say that the advice that I have for you is two-pronged: if you have debt, understand what your debt is. Generate a spreadsheet, get clarity on that debt. It’s so important to do now than just ignoring it. And I know it’s hard because you’re like, “I live in denial. It’s the best thing, you know, it’s the best. Ignorance is bliss.” But getting clarity on your debt really can inform what lifestyle you need to live in the future and what lifestyle you want to live and how your finances interact with that. The second piece of advice, if you don’t have debt: contribute to a retirement savings account. This is something I wish I would have done. I didn’t have a lot of extra money, but I know that there were opportunities that I passed up because of ignorance and because of fear for how to interact with a Roth IRA, for example. And so you can never get back time. And so while you’re in grad school, I really recommend just contributing to a Roth IRA if you have any extra money.

33:41 Emily: Absolutely, absolutely. Totally co-Sign each of those pieces of advice. Wonderful. Erika, thank you so much for this wonderful conversation. And I hope that the listeners will find you after this. What is your website?

33:53 Erika: Yes. My website is Moore Wealth, M O O R E W E A L T H.org. And you can also just email me or find me on Twitter. My handle is @DrErika E R I K A Moore M O O R E. And then you’ll find more information there.

34:15 Emily: Wonderful. Thank you again for joining me.

34:18 Erika: Thank you, Dr. Roberts.

Outtro

34:25 Emily: Listeners, thank you for joining me for this episode. PFforPhDs.com/podcast is the hub for the Personal Finance for PhDs Podcast. On that page are links to all the episode show notes, which include full transcripts and videos of the interviews. There is also a form to volunteer to be interviewed on the podcast. I’d love for you to check it out and get more involved. If you’ve been enjoying the podcast, here are four ways you can help it grow. One, subscribe to the podcast and rate and review it on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or whatever platform you use. Two, share an episode you found particularly valuable on social media, with an email listserv, or as a link from your website. Three, recommend me as a speaker to your university or association. My seminars cover the personal finance topics PhDs are most interested in like investing, debt repayment, and effective budgeting. I also license prerecorded workshops on taxes. Four, subscribe to my mailing list at PFforPhDs.com/subscribe. Through that list, you’ll keep up with all the new content and special opportunities for Personal Finance for PhDs. See you in the next episode! And remember, you don’t have to have a PhD to succeed with personal finance, but it helps! The music is Stages of Awakening by Podington Bear from the free music archive and is shared under CC by NC. Podcast editing by Lourdes Bobbio and show notes creation by Meryem Ok.

How This JD/PhD Overcame Money Terror and Avoidance

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In this episode, Emily interviews Dr. Michelle Thompson, who has had multiple careers as a lawyer, an adjunct, and now a coach and business owner. Michelle observed her mother’s terror and her father’s avoidance regarding money and combined the two in her own adulthood. Emily and Michelle discuss the financial struggle of earning a low stipend as a graduate student in NYC and taking on student debt for summer research and daycare/preschool. It wasn’t until Michelle started her business that she proactively changed her relationship with money through a book and coaching. Michelle speaks to the merits of facing the dark side of your relationship with money; she is now in the best financial shape of her life.

Links Mentioned in this Episode

money mindset PhD

Teaser

00:00 Michelle: Whatever bedevils you about money, you have to look at because whatever bedevils you will sabotage your relationship with money. Take time to do that work and I promise you whatever is screwing with you with money will screw with you about actually getting the doctorate done.

Introduction

00:23 Emily: Welcome to the Personal Finance for PhDs Podcast: A Higher Education in Personal Finance. I’m your host, Dr. Emily Roberts.

00:32 Emily: This is Season 9, Episode 6, and today my guest is Dr. Michelle Thompson, who has had multiple careers as a lawyer, an adjunct, and now a coach and business owner. Michelle observed her mother’s terror and her father’s avoidance regarding money and combined the two in her own adulthood. Michelle and I discuss the financial struggle of earning a low stipend as a graduate student in New York City and taking on student debt for summer research and daycare and preschool. It wasn’t until Michelle started her business that she proactively changed her relationship with money through a book and coaching. Michelle speaks to the merits of facing the dark side of your relationship with money; she is now in the best financial shape of her life. Quick content warning. There is a brief mention of suicidal ideation in the interview.

01:24 Emily: It’s the end of July, and I know that taxes are probably the furthest thing from your mind at the moment. However, I do have a special request for every one of you who is going to be on fellowship in the upcoming academic year, whether as a new fellow or continuing fellow. If your university does not offer automatic income tax withholding on non-W-2 fellowship income: Would you please request that my workshop, Quarterly Estimated Tax for Fellowship Recipients, be purchased on behalf of those who want to take it? You could make this request of your graduate school, postdoc office, department, graduate student association, etc.

01:57 Emily: The workshop assists graduate student and postdoc fellowship recipients who are not having income tax withheld from their stipends or salaries figure out whether they are required to pay estimated tax and if so how much and when. The workshop consists of numerous short videos, a spreadsheet, and a live Q&A call just prior to the next quarterly deadline. You can find more details at PF for PhDs dot com slash q e tax. That’s q for quarterly e for estimated T A X.

02:28 Emily: I’ve been enrolling individuals in this workshop for several years, and in the last year have branched out to bulk purchases for university offices and groups. Purchasing this workshop on behalf of students and postdocs is incredibly helpful because it can reach people who aren’t even clued in about the possibility of having to pay quarterly estimated tax or who are unable to pay for the workshop.

02:51 Emily: I’m making this request now because the next quarterly deadline is September 15, 2021, and the office or group you approach may need some time to arrange the purchase. If they are interested, they can get in touch with me at emily at PF for PhDs dot com. The start of the academic year is the perfect time to learn about estimated tax because you can start saving for your eventual payment from your very first fellowship paycheck.

03:18 Emily: Thank you for helping me spread the word about this workshop and prevent financial hardship next tax season!

Book Giveaway

03:31 Emily: Now onto the book giveaway contest!

03:36 Emily: In July 2021 I’m giving away one copy of Get Good with Money: Ten Simple Steps to Becoming Financially Whole by Tiffany ‘The Budgetnista’ Aliche, which is the Personal Finance for PhDs Community Book Club selection for September 2021. Everyone who enters the contest during July will have a chance to win a copy of this book.

03:56 Emily: Not only will Get Good with Money be our Book Club selection for September, but we will also devote our monthly Challenge to assessing and working through the ten aspects of financial wholeness as individuals.

04:09 Emily: If you would like to enter the giveaway contest, please rate AND REVIEW this podcast on Apple Podcasts, take a screenshot of your review, and email it to me at emily at PFforPhDs dot com. I’ll choose a winner at the end of July from all the entries. You can find full instructions at PFforPhDs.com/podcast.

04:31 Emily: Without further ado, here’s my interview with Dr. Michelle Thompson.

Will You Please Introduce Yourself Further?

04:41 Emily: I’m delighted to have joining me on the podcast today, Dr. Michelle Thompson. She’s had quite a career. She is a JD and a PhD, actually. She’s now self-employed, although she’s had many other jobs in the meantime, and what we’re going to talk through today is kind of her life in stages and also what she’s learned at each stage, the kind of money mindset that she developed at each stage. She has some very interesting things to say to us about academia. I’m really looking forward to this conversation. Michelle, thank you so much for joining me and would you please introduce yourself to the audience a little bit further?

05:14 Michelle: Absolutely! It’s my pleasure to be here. Thank you for having me. I am the founder of a boutique coaching firm called Michelle Dionne Thompson Coaching and Consulting. I work with clients to marry their purpose with their expertise in communities. In addition to that, I do teach part time. I love to teach. I love being with college students. I teach in the black studies department at City College of New York. And I am currently a publishing scholar as well. I’m turning my dissertation into a monograph. It’s called Resistant Vision: The post-emancipation realities of Jamaican’s Accompong Maroons from 1842 to 1901. Because I’m a glutton for punishment, my first career rodeo was as a lawyer. I was a member of the inaugural class of what is now Equal Justice Works fellows. And I used that fellowship to deliver legal services to people living with AIDS in Anacostia, in Washington, DC. And after that, I negotiated collective bargaining agreements with service employees international union district 1199, EDC in Baltimore, Maryland, and Washington DC.

06:20 Emily: Wow. I wish that we were going to talk more about your career specifically today. It sounds fascinating. But where you are going to focus on the finances through a few of those stages.

Money Mindset Developed in Early Childhood

06:30 Emily: Let’s start where all good therapy sessions do in your childhood. What money mindsets did you observe in your parents and also develop during your childhood?

06:43 Michelle: My parents were raised poor people from Jamaica and my mom immigrated from Jamaica to England to become a nurse. It was her goal in life and it probably opened up more than she ever thought. She was shrewd about money, but she was absolutely terrified about handling money. My mom died of dementia and at the one of the few last times that she could really comprehend her money, this I use lightly because dementia, her money situation, she actually had an estate worth over a million dollars, way more than she ever, ever thought she would ever, ever have in her natural life.

07:38 Michelle: But to get there, she was shrewd. She knew how to save. For a girl who didn’t have much food, she was blown away with how much food she could acquire with so little money in the United States. And every single time she got paid, she was absolutely terrified — “I have to pay the bills!” She’d take out her checkbook. She would balance her checkbook. She would make sure all of the transactions were recorded in the check register. She was flawless about it, but she was absolutely terrified every single time it happened. She worked at University of Chicago, hospitals and clinics for many, many years, and that allowed her to send my sister and I to those schools for many years, because we got half off of the tuition. Every single time the tuition bill came, she would be like, “Oh my gosh, I have to pay the tuition!” She would work overtime. It’s a hard life in some ways. She would have to work overtime for a few shifts and the money was there. If you think about it in the more woo-woo world, she could manifest money. That wasn’t the problem, but the energy of fear, always behind that. And I think that actually very much shaped my relationship with money as a young person and actually shaped this as a new thought. It shaped an attitude of avoidance of money.

09:10 Emily: Yeah. Wow. Thank you so much for that. That really, it passed down to you. It rubbed off on you in a way that you were treating money, thinking about money similarly. It wasn’t like you went the opposite direction. You were sort of more a little bit in line with what your mom was thinking.

09:25 Michelle: Well, the fear was totally intact. I think as an adult, that’s what I grappled with the fear of not having money. But instead of being on top of it, I would avoid handling it. And my dad apparently was more of the avoidance end of things. My mom would get mad because they would get the mail and he would just set them aside. She’s like, you have to open that. She would move towards it, he would move away from it. I took his move away from it and the fear.

09:56 Emily: I see, I see. Actually I’m remembering there are these there’s this framework, I’ve actually talked about it on the podcast before — we’ll link the episode in the show notes — but there’s a framework around it’s called money scripts. There’s four personality types around money and I remember one of them is money vigilance. So sort of what your mom was doing, being really on top of it. And then another one is money avoidance.

10:18 Michelle: I didn’t know these scripts, but here we go.

10:21 Emily: You’re falling very neatly into those boxes sound like, but in both cases it’s motivated by fear, which is very interesting.

10:26 Michelle: Absolutely, absolutely.

10:27 Emily: Did that actually, this fear part of it, did that play into your first career choice as a lawyer? Was that like a stable thing for you financially or that you perceived it would be?

10:38 Michelle: I remember being 12 and writing down in a journal, I want to be a lawyer. And I think I wanted to be a lawyer because I knew it was a way to make sure I earned the money I needed and not have to worry about it. Earned enough money so I could avoid it, now that I think about it. Right. I do think that because I was doing public interest work, I wasn’t making that kind of money. It didn’t manifest that way, but I think that was part of the intentionality behind becoming a lawyer.

11:11 Emily: Yeah and that’s part of the public perception of lawyers, maybe, especially at that time. I think now we have maybe a better understanding, post-recession, what law careers are, but before then it’s like, oh, you know, doctor, lawyer engineer, like great salary.

Money Mindset During Law School

11:27 Emily: Let’s talk about your money mindset, money situation during law school and then as you were working as a lawyer.

11:33 Michelle: With my fellowship came up a component that was loan forgiveness, but it wasn’t mashed in the same check. They would give me two separate payments, so I would get my paycheck and then I would get the loan forgiveness. And it was the first time I’d been held that accountable for money, so every single time I got that check — again, everything was about fear — I couldn’t figure out how to save money really during that time. I think if I had the tools I have now, then I probably could have, but I couldn’t actually figure it out at the time. I was really scared of handling checking accounts. There was all of this stuff. I had actually lost a checking account. And so I was unable to open one. I can have a savings account. I was paying everything cash and I was holding onto things through a savings account or cash. My whole money systems were really very, very janky and it was spending money to pay bills. I was good about making sure I paid the rent, generally about paying my student loans, paying the utilities, but again, every single pay period, I was absolutely terrified of doing it.

12:51 Michelle: By the time I got to working at the union, it was enough time that I could reopen a checking account. And I needed a car. That was the first like huge purchase I had to make. And, oh my gosh! I did research. I’m like, okay, this is the car I want. What really, really scared me was car insurance. I started to do it and I was in my early thirties and I was like, I can’t afford to have a car. And I just stopped the process. Avoidance. I just stopped the process. I can’t do this. When I worked for a couple more months, I’m like, okay, this clearly is not going to work. I need a car. And so it was like, okay, you have to look into other insurance companies. Then I finally found All State. I’ll say it actually gave me a rate that I was like, “okay, that I can do.” But I was absolutely terrified to actually make that purchase. I was terrified to do the insurance. I would shake is I handed them the check to actually do the down payment on the car. Complete the fear that my parents brought to handling money.

14:02 Emily: So that terror was specifically that you could not actually afford the car, that you would not be able to make the payments on the loan and the payments on the insurance?

14:12 Michelle: I think going into it, that was certainly the fear. Although, clearly I had budgeted and saw, “oh, I could do this,” but I was scared about it anyway, the way that my mom was scared about tuition.

14:28 Emily: Yeah. And I guess her solution was working more with that also a solution for you, or was earning more through overtime not a possibility?

14:37 Michelle: That wasn’t a possibility but I budgeted it. I could see the budget and how it would work. I don’t think, I believed the budget, which is funny, right? But I don’t think I believed the budget. And then shortly after that, there was an opportunity. I was thinking about buying a piece of real estate and I could do it because my employer had a 401k set aside for me that I could actually use to apply to a first-time home purchase. I saw cute place. I was like, oh, wow, this would be good. Actually, it wasn’t that expensive, especially given Washington DC. I was too scared to do it. I’m like, I can’t afford this responsibility. Oh my gosh, I’d have to tear up the floors. You know what I mean? The whole, “I can’t afford it. I can’t do it. I can’t afford it. I can’t do it.” That was the recording, if you will. That was the greatest hits that I played and I backed out of it until later.

Money Mindset During the PhD

15:31 Emily: Wow. Yeah. Let’s talk about you moving towards your PhD then. Maybe a little bit about why you did that.

15:39 Michelle: Sure. So a couple of things. On my mother’s side, we’re the descendants of a community of runaway slaves called Maroons. And those were some of the earliest historical narratives I heard. I had met my partner, my current partner in Washington, DC, when I was practicing law, who was a full professor at a major public institution in the Midwest and had gotten an offer to come to a school in New York city. And she said, you could get a doctorate. And I was like, what? Because I assumed that that process was only open to people who like went from undergrad and they got like A’s and whatever. She’s like, “no, no, no, you could totally do it.” And that’s what inspired me to do it. But also having a partner who earned a lot more than I did actually provided me with a level of financial security that actually made this easier. Like it made it look like a possibility. I didn’t have to be in New York city, paying York rents, trying to cobble a life together for myself. There’s a different kind of security for the first time in my life. And as a feminist, it’s like really, really hard for me to say that, but to be real about my money story, actually being partnered did provide a level of financial security that I had never experienced before.

17:02 Emily: Yeah. I mean, of course your finances naturally always change in some degree when you partner up, but I’m wondering, were you still feeling terror? Were you still feeling avoidance? Did you ask your partner to take over not only some of the financial, like literal paying for things, but also maybe the management? How did that work out?

17:25 Michelle: I did the management, she did the paying. We actually had split it up so we would pay for things according to percentage. Like if we put our income together, if we added it all up together, my income would come to a percentage of her income, so I was responsible for that percentage of what we were doing in the household. And that’s how we set it up. I found that I was a lot less scared to handle money with a partner. There’s something about being on your own and handling it that was far more terrifying to me than doing it with somebody else.

18:01 Emily: Yeah, I think along those lines of like your relationship with money, I think does change a bit when you, when you are partnered. I really enjoyed the, um, having like sort of the team aspect, like we are working together towards these goals and I had someone to bounce ideas off of and sort of talk over decisions. And when you’re the only one responsible for your money, it’s all on you. Because it is such a taboo topic, most people don’t have an accountability partner, they talk to, or like a friend that they’re comfortable talking to about this. It’s really like you just finally have someone who you can really share and be open about these things.

18:34 Michelle: I wouldn’t go that crazy with it. I don’t feel like we ever did that. But at least I knew that, I mean, for me, it was important to know that I wasn’t going to be homeless and that I would be able to eat, which is very tight again, it’s very tied to my parents own fears because they were raised poor. So I knew that part would be covered.

18:57 Emily: And this is specifically during your PhD program, right? Salary as a lawyer, you’re doing okay. But as a PhD student, it’s a very different situation. Can you talk about what your stipend was? And you mentioned you were living in New York, can you tell us about what the finances on your side of things were?

19:13 Michelle: Sure. I was earning, I want to say $20,000 a year and nothing over the summer.

19:19 Emily: And what year was that in?

19:23 Michelle: This was 2001. I started my doctorate in 2003. I did a master’s in 2001. Yeah, I think it was something like that. Then I gave birth to my son in 2004. So I actually borrowed because you can’t have a little, little one and write anything. Like you can’t, you can’t be doing the full-time childcare. The first year I worked, I didn’t really borrow. I was a teaching assistant and that actually worked for that year, but the following year I needed to do research in Jamaica. I actually think things worked out. There was a fellowship I got, um, that was part of New York university, so that worked out that year. But the following year, when we returned to the states, that’s when I needed him to be a preschool. It’s the years between when they’re three and five, when they’re — New York city now has public preschool, but there was very little of that at the time. I couldn’t afford in terms of getting my work done to have an hour and a half of childcare. That was useless. By the time you get to an hour and a half, you could write for 15 minutes and then you’re up and you have to get the child’s again. I actually borrowed a lot to make sure that he was in preschool. That’s what I assumed on my end during graduate school and I would also borrow to get through the summers because I never could get summer funding, which is, I think that’s a really hard part of being a doctoral student, summer funding. I never could get summer funding, so I borrowed, so I could go into the field in Jamaica. Although it was cheaper to live in Jamaica, I would borrow it to go there. And, I would borrow to do my research and I would borrow to do childcare so I could do my research.

21:30 Emily: Yeah, absolutely. This is bringing another element to the conversation, which is being the parent of a child who needs full-time attention, and how to balance that with doing your dissertation. I have talked to some people who try to work and do the childcare and trade off with their partners and such, and that’s often motivated by a philosophy around like what child-rearing should be and they try to make it work. I know it’s challenging, but it’s also on the other challenging —

21:58 Michelle: I found that the person who earns the most money will do the least childcare. That’s how it worked out in my relationship. And I’m not going to negotiate about whether I need the childcare, the childcare has to happen. So that was the deal with the devil I made. Fine.

22:17 Emily: Yeah. I have another episode that I don’t know if it’ll be published before or after this one, so this might be a preview of coming events for the listener, about another story of a parent who actually became a single parent at some point during graduate school and the same kind of thing of how much student debt had to be taken out to finance the daycare and so forth for the child. And it’s another huge layer of financial pressure that can happen for PhD students who parents during that time, or already were parents before starting graduate school.

22:46 Michelle: Exactly.

Commercial

22:49 Emily: Emily here for a brief interlude!

Emily: This announcement is for prospective and first-year graduate students.

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Emily: I contributed a very comprehensive webinar to the course, titled “Set Yourself Up for Financial Success in Graduate School.” It explores the financial norms of grad school and the financial secrets of grad school. I also give you a plan for what to focus on in your finances in each season of the year that you apply to and into your first year of grad school.

Emily: If this all sounds great to you, please register at theacademicsociety.com/emily for Toyin’s free masterclass on what to expect in your first semester of grad school and the three big mistakes that keep grad students stuck in a cycle of anxiety, overwhelm, and procrastination. You’ll also learn more about how to join Grad School Prep if you’d like to go a step further. Again, that’s the academic society dot com slash e m i l y for my affiliate link for the course.

Emily: Now back to our interview.

Financial Stress during the PhD

24:16 Emily: So what does it do to a developing scholar to be under financial stress, like $20K per year in New York City, kind of financial stress?

24:26 Michelle: You know, again like this is where my spouse or partner at the time really provided. I can’t imagine what it’s like having to come up with rent in New York City on $20,000 a year. I just can’t. Actually, if I had to do that, I think I definitely would’ve practiced law part-time. I would’ve by hook or crook figured out how to do it and it would have taken me a lot more time to finish my doctorate. It’s just because they’re two huge things. I didn’t have to do that. My partner, we were in university housing, so we were paying far less rent. It was actually embarrassing. I had colleagues who lived in my building who were doctoral students. They paid more for rent than we did. We had a lot more space in our apartment. That was actually something that was in place. For me, you house me, you feed me, I’m good. I could cover the food, the housing was covered and it was okay for me.

Michelle: What was stressful was how am I going to fund the summers? It was always like, I guess I’m going to borrow. That was what was hard for me. For me, I just have to know there’s a pot of money I can go to, to make it work. I actually did a good job of saying, I have this much for the summer, this is how I’m going to handle that. Or, okay, good. This is the, this is the pot of money for childcare. Got it. I think at another point in my life, because I felt less secure, I might’ve dipped into that for other things and then would always be scrambling to make it up. That actually didn’t happen. Childcare always got paid. I could always make my summer bills. I could always pay for the flights. That actually worked out. And so I think in some ways I wasn’t as pressed, but I was borrowing out of my ears to actually make it happen.

26:19 Emily: And did financing your PhD feel different than financing your JD?

26:24 Michelle: No. Because I borrowed to get my JD. But for the JD, I went to a state school and they actually gave me, I wasn’t an Iowa resident, but they actually gave me in-state tuition, so it was so little money. It was ridiculous.

26:40 Emily: I guess I’m just thinking about like the norms in fields, like it’s normal to borrow for your JD. It’s fantastic if you get a discount or get a scholarship or whatever. For the PhD, it’s much more, well, it’s kind of field dependent, whether or not it’s normal to borrow. And I’m sure it’s city dependent. I mean, in places like New York, it’s gonna be more likely.

27:00 Michelle: I find in the humanities it also depends on where your advisor’s willing to go to bat for you. And my advisor, wasn’t super thrilled to go to bat for me. If they’re willing to go to bat for you, they’ll find money, they’ll help you find money, but that wasn’t the case for me. And I’m determined. I’m like, “oh, I’m here, I’m gonna finish this, I see this through to its completion.” For me, it’s just raw determination that has me doing things. I’ll just do what it takes.

Finances as Gatekeeper for Academia

27:42 Emily: How do finances serve as a gatekeeper for academia? I mean, you’re obviously tenacious, but maybe to someone else, would it have been more of an impediment or even maybe for you at a different time of life, if you weren’t partnered, like you said, you may have been doing it part time. What’s the gatekeeping aspect of this?

27:59 Michelle: There’s so many things. If you don’t come from a family who has an academic background in this particular way. Okay, it’s great. Like it’s a fully funded program, they’re covering your tuition and they’ve given you a stipend. That’s what I received. And that is great, I’m not knocking that. And there are things that you don’t know about. The cost of research is high. There’s a reason why faculty have research accounts. Just saying. If you have to travel to do any of your research and most of us have to travel to do our research, even if it’s domestic or international, you don’t have a handle on…I think what really turns the screws on people, if you’re not clear about it, is that you really have to pay to do the research to make this happen. And that’s where the the rubber hits the road. We act like we don’t have to talk about people having families in academia, but people have families in academia and you can’t raise a child full-time and do any meaningful research and write up that research. You can’t square, you can’t square the circle. It doesn’t work.

29:33 Emily: Yeah, academia might be flexible, but that doesn’t mean it’s not hours and hours and hours of work that have to be done with a degree of concentration.

29:41 Michelle: Exactly. If you’re going to sleep at any rate. I’m a fan of sleep. I think that’s the gatekeeping part of it. If you’re male and you’re married to a female, it’s expected that that spouse is going to pick that up for you. It’s expected that you’re doing the thing that’s going to make you the breadwinner of the family. That’s not expected the other way around. Programs don’t feel any obligation to make that happen for you. And then again, who’s going to bat for you to actually find funding for summers, etc. That’s a whole other whole other.

30:15 Emily: Yeah, and I think we’ve seen this thrown into super sharp relief during COVID. It’s a recession that’s largely women are losing or leaving their jobs at much higher rates than men are. Lot of that has to do with caregiving responsibility.

30:29 Michelle: Exactly. Women are publishing substantially less during COVID. For academic women it’s just dropped precipitously because Junior’s on zoom over here.

30:39 Emily: Yeah. These stresses have been there for many, many decades, but they’re much more obvious in the current crisis and things have sped up and become much more acute right now.

Finances and Money Mindset Post-PhD

30:50 Emily: Let’s talk about your story a little bit more. Once you did finish the PhD, where did your career go after that and where did your relationship with your finances go after that?

30:58 Michelle: I finished and it was like number one, “Oh, I’m not, I’m not getting institutional support from New York University anymore.” I was an adjunct at three different schools. I live in Manhattan. I was commuting to New Jersey and I was commuting to Staten island, which can take just as long as commuting to New Jersey. I was working these jobs, exhausted and I couldn’t make my credit card bills. I put my loans on forbearance but I couldn’t make my credit card bills. All of that fear about money was popping up again. And actually got to a point where I was getting suicidal and I would look at my eight year old and I go, you can’t do that to him.

31:52 Michelle: I think if I give my mind a solution for a problem, I can focus on the solution and not the problem. I decided I’m not going to pay the credit card bills for now, which is actually probably a good decision. It wasn’t great for my credit history, but it was a good decision. I was like, okay, maybe I could do journalism. Turns out journalism is in the same free fall that academia is in, pro-tip. I had been part of this peer counseling organization for years, and I knew that I had skills of listening to people and helping them shift their lives. I was thinking, I wish I could make money doing that. I come to my computer and there’s an email that says giving away scholarships to learn how to become a coach and I was like, that would be, thank you. I applied for the scholarship and I got it and I hadn’t looked back, but it turns out, just because there’s a possibility of how you could like build something so that you can support yourself doesn’t mean that you don’t have all the same money dredge that you had. And actually it’s been being a business owner that has put in sharp relief that I cannot carry this abject terror about handling my money with me the rest of my life, because I’m going to be handling a business side of finances and my own personal finances.

33:14 Emily: Yeah, I hadn’t thought about that, but you really… being an employee is vastly different financially from being a business owner and I can see how that would really bleed over and affect your entire relationship with money and not just handling the business finances.

A Shift in Money Mindset

33:28 Michelle: Exactly, exactly. I noticed that once clients paid me, it would be this absolute fear. Like, “oh my gosh, they paid me.” I’m here to be paid by clients! I mean, I’m here to help people, I’m here to serve, but people pay me to serve them. That’s the arrangement. This is not, this is not an energetic moment here. I hired a coach in part to help me sort this out. There’s a book that I use to actually help me deal with this constant worry about finances and to actually look at the emotional bedrocks connected to me and my money story. I actually started to incorporate a series of tools to help me manage the money and it got me to a point where I could call the credit card company to go, “okay, look, I know I owe you money, what’s the arrangement we’re going to make? Money wasn’t doing things to me. I was starting to shape the narrative I wanted to about money.

34:37 Emily: Wow what a shift, what an incredible shift!

34:37 Michelle: That’s been a huge, huge shift.

34:42 Emily: I’m going to get that title from you after the interview and I’ll put it in the shownotes.

34:47 Michelle: That’s what it is, Overcoming Underearning by Barbara Stanny.

34:52 Emily: Yes! I have read a different one of her books, but yes, I’m familiar with that author.

34:55 Michelle: This is the foundational book that actually helped me turn things around with money.

35:03 Emily: Wow what a recommendation!

35:03 Michelle: Again, it was all of the overcome your money fears and earn what you deserve. That was what I needed to do. Amazing.

35:12 Emily: That you still have this at your fingertips. Literally did not have to get up out of your chair to get it.

35:16 Michelle: I know, it’s like right there. I’ve worked through it twice. And if I find I’m up against another something, I’m going to pull it back out again and I’m going to work the exercises again. This book has been absolutely foundational for me. Working with a coach about my business and part of why — my coach was Britt Bolnick with In Arms Coaching is so amazing is that she understands that to run a business, you have to tackle all of these inner demons that like show up and try to sabotage you, otherwise you can’t build a business, you can’t serve people. That’s really the bottom line — you can’t serve people if you’re afraid of the money.

35:57 Michelle: She brought in other people who helped you think about what is your personality with money? I’m an investor, apparently. Who knew? I got to assess that. This man ran a workshop that we did. It was like, oh, I could save. You know, it’s not a lot, but for the first time in my life, I actually have saved in a regular savings account, a little over a thousand dollars. It’s not much, but considering that I could not figure this out at all, it’s huge! I paid off a line of credit. I paid down, I finally had room on my credit card. If I needed to rent a car, I could do it. These things have changed. A friend of mine told me about You Need A Budget. Game changer. This is a work in progress, but it’s actually been a point where it’s like, oh, I need to set up regular times with my money and we need to have hot and heavy dates. It’s set up a set of habits that I don’t worry about having money.

37:06 Michelle: Last year my mother died. God bless her. She did enough work with her estate that there was actually, after actually her care for having dementia, there was an estate. Not the biggest estate in the world. I don’t need the biggest estate. It’s a modest estate. I already got some of that. I got the apartment in DC. I sold it some years ago and I got the profit from it and I just handed half of it to my partner because I was afraid of what I was going to do with the money. This time, I was like, hmm, excellent. I’m a member of business networking international. There was someone in my chapter who does financial advising. I was like, hi, I’m on the phone with you. I need you to help me handle this money. I didn’t blink. I wasn’t freaked out by it. I replaced my hardware. This is a very different…I don’t have to be an abject fear every single time I’m dealing with money. That it’s like, wow. That has been a big shift.

38:04 Emily: Yeah! This is an incredible, incredible shift. And especially because your initial relationship with your money, the avoidance and the fear and so forth was in place for decades. Starting your childhood, for decades in your adulthood as well, and this leveling up. Well, I don’t know if it’s up, but getting to the level of being a business owner forced you to totally work on this and really master it. I’m so glad to hear those examples. I think during our initial phone call, you mentioned You Need A Budget, but you said that you couldn’t have used it prior to this transformation. It’s a great tool, but you have to be ready to use the tool.

38:45 Michelle: If you’re terrified of looking at your money and I’m not saying I’ve conquered it. You don’t like, it shows up in different ways. But if I don’t understand that, oh right, I can be really scared when I handle my money, I would have just avoided using the tools. Like that’s great. And not use it. But now I’m like, okay, do you know you’re scared. Let’s just get into it. Let’s get into it and do it.

39:12 Emily: Yeah. Wow. What a fantastic shift!

Money Mindset as a Business Owner

39:13 Emily: Is there anything else that you’d like to tell us about your money mindset now, or your relationship with money as a business owner?

39:22 Michelle: I really firmly believe that…I’m a big follower of Carolyn L. Elliott who wrote the book, Existential Kink. One of my coach for coaches, her approach to coaching is about looking at shadow sides. It’s the very Yung-ian and approach both of them have very Yung-ian approaches to the world. And I really firmly believe that if you do not turn and face the shadow, if you will, the dark side of yourself, when it comes to money and actually just really bring that dark side to life. It’s not just about money. It’s about pretty much anything you’re doing about writing, about building your career — if you do not turn and face the places that might scare the bejesus out of you, whatever it is, you’re not going to get a handle on your money, on your love, your sex, whatever it is, your career options, anything that means anything to you, you’re not going to be able to handle it. You’ve got to be able to walk and spend time in those dark places, because once you actually really clear about what the peanut gallery is doing, you can actually go, okay, I understand that’s a peanut gallery. We’re going to do this.

40:41 Emily: I see. And I’m so glad that you mentioned the different tools that you use, the book, the coaching, and so forth, to get to this point, to be facing that aspect of your personality or that side of yourself. Thank you so much for sharing this story with us and I know, again, it’s not something we talk about a whole lot, and I’m sure there’s people in the audience. Well, I’m not sure. I don’t know if someone experiencing money avoidance will be listening to a podcast about money, but maybe someone knows someone and they can send this episode and say, you know, we grew up this way with money. You want to listen to what Michelle has to say about this, because maybe what she experienced can help you.

41:17 Michelle: I’ll say this. I know that I’ve listened to all sorts of resources about money before I actually did anything about it. So I know you money avoiders. You actually would like to not avoid money and you’ll acquire resources. The next step is to actually turn and use them.

41:33 Emily: Yeah. And I think for you, part of your money avoidance, and part of your solution to this was the book Overcoming Underearning. There might be a different book that’s appropriate for different people, depending on because that’s really like an entrepreneurial type. That’s for entrepreneurs.

41:48 Michelle: There’s Jen Cincero, You’re a Badass at Handling Money, which is funny, but also really concrete tools. You see, I’ve read them all. But that’s a really lovely starting point to actually manage money as well.

42:04 Emily: I’ve read that one too. It’s a lot about money mindset stuff, so it’s a wonderful one if you want to start learning about that and start to change your mental relationship with money.

Best Financial Advice for an Early Career PhD

42:15 Emily: Michelle, thank you so much for this interview and standard question that I ask all of my guests to wrap up is what financial advice do you have for an early career PhD? What’s your best financial advice? And that could be something that we touched on in the interview, or it could be something completely other.

42:33 Michelle: Number one, you may need to do the research necessary to find funding for those times where your academic institution isn’t going to fund you. And they may not be super supportive in doing it, but do it anyway. That’s number one. Number two, it’s never too early — All right, I have three pieces of lights. So that’s number one: do the research. Start in September, to look for money for the spring. I mean, for the summer.

43:06 Michelle: Number two, whatever bedevils you about money, you have to look at because whatever bedevils, you will sabotage your relationship with money in a time where you actually are going to need to budget and be really on top of your finances, because I assume I’m presuming that you’re single and you don’t have a lot of the fundamental support that you need. So take time to do that work and I promise you, whatever is screwing with you with money will screw with you about actually getting the doctorate done.

43:39 Michelle: And number three, once you start to clarify what the, what those devils are, find the tools to help you make it work. YNAB is, I think it’s $90 a year. It is worth every dime, as a way of actually managing what you have and sticking with it. Those would be my three pieces of advice.

44:05 Emily: Yeah. Thank you so much. I think that’s a wonderful quick summary of kind of the journey that we’ve gone through during the interview. Thank you again, Michelle. Thank you so much for this interview and for joining me.

44:13 Michelle: You’re welcome! Thank you for having me.

Outtro

44:20 Emily: Listeners, thank you for joining me for this episode!

Emily: pfforphds.com/podcast/ is the hub for the Personal Finance for PhDs podcast. On that page are links to all the episodes’ show notes, which include full transcripts and videos of the interviews. There is also a form to volunteer to be interviewed on the podcast and instructions for entering the book giveaway contest. I’d love for you to check it out and get more involved!

If you’ve been enjoying the podcast, here are 4 ways you can help it grow:

  1. Subscribe to the podcast and rate and review it on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or whatever platform you use. If you leave a review, be sure to send it to me!
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Emily: See you in the next episode, and remember: You don’t have to have a PhD to succeed with personal finance… but it helps!

Emily: The music is “Stages of Awakening” by Podington Bear from the Free Music Archive and is shared under CC by NC.

Emily: Podcast editing and show notes creation by Lourdes Bobbio.

This PhD’s Money Mindset from Childhood Has Served Her Well Through Multiple Phases

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In this episode, Emily interviews Dr. Judy Chan, a PhD and staff member at the University of British Columbia. As a child of immigrants to Canada, Judy learned early on the virtues of hard work, saving, and the value of a dollar. She applied these principles consistently while she earned her PhD, started her business, and became a parent—to great effect.

Links Mentioned in This Episode

Teaser

00:00 Judy: And it was hard. I do feel that I have more advanced knowledge than my average colleague or my friend, and even going to the bank, they didn’t really take me seriously when I asked them questions. Or they assigned a very junior financial advisor to me when I actually knew all the answers myself. But I didn’t have enough money to get more experience. I don’t know. Is it just my money, my net worth, or my look, or my age, but I was never able to talk to someone who’s more experienced. So I had to do a lot of my own learning.

Introduction

00:49 Emily: Welcome to the Personal Finance for PhDs Podcast: A Higher Education in Personal Finance. I’m your host, Dr. Emily Roberts. This is Season 9, Episode 5, and today my guest is Dr. Judy Chan, a PhD and staff member at the University of British Columbia. As a child of immigrants to Canada, Judy learned early on the virtues of hard work, saving, and the value of a dollar. She applied these principles consistently while she earned her PhD, started her business, and became a parent—to great effect. We have a special event coming up on Sunday, July 18, 2021! It’s the second installment of my Wealthy PhD Workshop series, and it’s on everyone’s favorite subject: investing! This workshop is for you if you want to learn how to start investing, particularly if you are a grad student or postdoc who is not covered by a workplace-based retirement plan like a 401(k) or 403(b). I will also teach you about passive investing, which is the most effective, least expensive, and most time-efficient manner of investing. Even if you’re not a novice investor, you can use this workshop to double-check that your current investing strategy is appropriate for your goals. Furthermore, we will discuss the relative merits of discount brokerage firms, roboadvisors, and microinvesting platforms. This is going to be a value-packed session, so please join us on July 18th. You can register at PFforPhDs.com/WPhDinvest/. That’s PF for PhDs dot com slash W for Wealthy P H D I N V E S T. By the way, after you register, you’ll be asked if you want to upgrade into a membership in the Personal Finance for PhDs Community. I do recommend this upgrade because you will have access to the recording of the previous workshop in the Wealthy PhD series, among other things. That workshop on financial goals will help you figure out if now is the right time to start investing or whether you should instead be focusing on saving up cash or paying down debt. Again, please go to PFforPhDs.com/WPhDinvest to register for the workshop this coming Sunday.

Book Giveaway Contest

03:19 Emily: Now onto the book giveaway contest! In July 2021 I’m giving away one copy of Get Good with Money: Ten Simple Steps to Becoming Financially Whole by Tiffany ‘The Budgetnista’ Aliche, which is the Personal Finance for PhDs Community Book Club selection for September 2021. Everyone who enters the contest during July will have a chance to win a copy of this book. Over the last year or so, I’ve become quite a fan of Tiffany’s. I am a loyal listener of her podcast, Brown Ambition, which she co-hosts with Mandi Woodruff, and we read one of her self-published books last September in the Book Club. I was thrilled when her first traditionally published book became a runaway bestseller this past spring, and I knew I had to schedule it into the Book Club. I hope you will join us inside the Community in September to follow The Budgetnista’s plan to become financially whole. If you would like to enter the giveaway contest, please rate AND REVIEW this podcast on Apple Podcasts, take a screenshot of your review, and email it to me at emily at PFforPhDs dot com. I’ll choose a winner at the end of July from all the entries. You can find full instructions at PFforPhDs.com/podcast. Without further ado, here’s my interview with Dr. Judy Chan.

Will You Please Introduce Yourself Further?

04:43 Emily: I have joining me on the podcast today, Dr. Judy Chan. She’s a staff member at the University of British Columbia, and she is going to kind of tell us about her life through a financial lens. So we’re going to start with her childhood, we’re going to go all the way up to now. It’s a real pleasure for me to speak with Judy today because, you know, I interview a lot of grad students and recent PhDs on the podcast, and I love it, but I also love getting to hear from people who are more than a few years removed from that because they have a perspective on, you know, the post-PhD stages as well. So I’m really happy to welcome Judy to the podcast. Judy, will you please introduce yourself a little bit further for the audience?

05:20 Judy: So my name is Judy. I am a staff member at my university, UBC, and I have a side business and I am also a busy mom of two kids. Parents around in the city, so yes, busy, and that’s me.

05:38 Emily: Yeah. Great. Well, we’re going to hear your kind of whole life story coming up and we’re going to insert some financial advice for anyone, you know, coming up on that stage as we go through. So Judy, as everyone in therapy will do, let’s start with your childhood. You know, tell us about your childhood and how it, you know, helped you develop a money mindset.

06:00 Judy: I think I grew up in a very hardworking household. My dad was a restaurant owner back in Hong Kong and I remember him. We would hardly see him. He worked 18 hours a day. I remember him sleeping in the back storage area. But he worked really hard. And we didn’t see him. He doesn’t take days off. I remember we are the only business that opened on Chinese New Year day in the whole entire street. We can go in the middle of the road and play. So that’s how I grew up. I remember not spending any time off meaning that I was actually helping early in the restaurant throughout the Chinese New Year.

Childhood Memories and Life Lessons in Canada

06:45 Emily: Yeah. Tell us about what happened upon your parents immigrating to Canada.

06:49 Judy: I think I also learned big lessons because we are very fortunate that growing up, like we were able to move to Canada in a pretty good, solid financial stage. I remember we got a house. In Hong Kong, we lived in apartments, so we got a house here. Everything was good. My parents, my dad was telling us that he’s retired now. So looking back, it was like he worked really, really hard for 15, 20 years, and then he was able to enjoy his retirement in Canada. He also opened a restaurant for a very short amount of time. We helped out. But it was all very good and fun memories. It’s hardworking, but it was a really good memory for us. Every time when I see people who, other people who also grew up in the restaurant, I think we have some shared memory there.

07:41 Emily: I see. However, you did not take that route in your own life. So I’m wondering, you know, looking back on your childhood, I’m glad you have such positive memories, but what have you taken from that about how, you know, you’re raising your own children?

07:56 Judy: Raising my own children, we just have to work really hard and be very sensitive to money. I remember back then getting wholesale, on average, is actually more expensive than trying to get your cans of pops from the super market, from the big retail supermarket, where the retail price is lower than the wholesale price. So my dad would take us to the big supermarket and we would be loading, like hand carry, trays and trays of pops and juice to bring it back to the restaurant. So my dad got us helping all the time and he would tell us, this is how much we are buying. This is how much we are selling, and this is the price difference. And this is how we mark up, or he doesn’t say it, he just said, look, this is how people do business.

08:49 Judy: And people might pay $10 for a burger, but it may only cost us a dollar. But if we can find ways to cut the cost down to 80 cents, that’s an extra 20 cents for us, for the family. So when we go out, my kids are very lucky. They grew up, I think they are in a very privileged space, but we will continue to remind them that things that we get, there’s a huge markup out there. And we may be able to make it on our own, or like clothings or other things, at a lower cost. So telling them the value of the product that we are getting every day.

09:31 Emily: Yeah. So, it sounds like you had some real, you know, organic lessons around cost and value and the value of the dollar and what, you know, what you can add to the situation because you grew up in that entrepreneurial family, and that’s also something that you’re instilling in your children.

Funding During Grad School

09:47 Emily: So let’s move on to your university days. You were at UBC for undergrad and grad school. Tell us about your funding situation during grad school.

09:56 Judy: Oh, grad school was amazing. I didn’t know that there’s so much funding available for grad students. There’s scholarship and fellowship and TA ship. There’s also a lots of smaller scholarship that I never realized. I think in the way, undergraduate in order to get scholarship and fellowship it’s very competitive. My experience is that grad school is so much easier. And so there’s funding and scholarship everywhere, just apply to them and start saving. So again, in my situation, I was lucky enough that I started as early as six years old, I was able to continue to see the numbers in my bank book, bank account, grow. But I do feel that for most grad students that, hopefully, you will get enough fellowship and scholarship for your basic needs. And there are other source of income around campus. Like I work at UBC now. So I see there’s actually a lots of employment opportunities out there and use them to start building your own wealth, your own saving. Those are extra income that you don’t need now. The basics should be covered by your fellowship, scholarship, and the extra money should go towards the savings, if possible.

11:24 Emily: Yeah, I totally agree that probably there’s going to be a lot of work in the life of a graduate student. You know, there’s going to be your work and your dissertation. There may be an assistantship that you’re performing. Hopefully you’re applying for fellowships and winning some of them on top of that. Maybe you have a side job. There’s a lot of different opportunities. Now, some of those opportunities might be restricted by the, you know, the rules of where you’re living. So one, you know, in the U.S., international students, they’re not going to be allowed to have those side jobs, right? It’s only the, you know, 20 hours per week on campus that they’ve been granted. That’s it. Another thing would be like, if your university, or rather your department, restricts outside work in some manner. So you of course have to check into your, you know, specific situation there. But yes, there are a lot of opportunities in theory for graduate students. I also want to ask you, so did you continue to live with your parents during graduate school, or did you get your own place?

12:16 Judy: I continue to live with my parents.

12:19 Emily: So I ask this because I know that Vancouver is an incredibly high cost-of-living city, and that a grad student stipend may not be enough to support someone if they are living independently. And so that’s a real boon to your finances that you stayed in the same city, I’m sure it was partially by design that you did that. Yes. And you had that opportunity. So that’s wonderful. So you were able to work and save and, you know, live with your parents and yeah. Any advice that you have for a current graduate student or an entering graduate student aside from just apply, apply, apply?

12:56 Judy: I also worked really hard. Like I did my research during the daytime, and then I definitely carved out time to do my teaching assistantship, of the fellowship. There are times that I was doing more hours than what my department allowed. But I did work six days a week, seven to seven sometimes or later into the evening. And I was very disciplined. Any money that I earned on the side, I would spend it, you know, let’s go out for a drink, but they would go straight into my savings account.

Side Business as a Franchisee

13:34 Emily: I also understand that, you know, you mentioned during your college years, you were doing a lot of tutoring as a side job, but you also started a business during graduate school as a tutor. Can you tell us about that and why you decided to take that on?

13:46 Judy: Everything is luck, but then it’s also an opportunity. Like I was doing a lot of tutoring, and I noticed there’s a gap and there’s something that is not available here. And a friend introduced me to a franchise, and I think my friend actually asked me, wanted me, was asking me to be a manager to help him out. But I looked at the franchise, I love it. I like it. I really, I really felt the gap that I noticed myself. So I started a franchise, and at that time with my boyfriend then, he always wanted his own business. It doesn’t matter what it is. That boyfriend is now my husband. So, it worked out quite well. And to be honest, now that I look back, I take risks, but it’s all very calculated risk. Running a tutoring center has minimal cost. There’s no inventory. You just need to rent a space, very minimal decoration and renovation. So, I started a tutoring center when I was in the middle of my PhD.

15:00 Emily: Wow. And, you know, you said that a friend initially approached you about this opportunity. Was that a friend who was also in grad school or somebody from another, oh, wow. Okay. So, did he also have a tutoring center locally?

15:12 Judy: So he started, he looked into the franchise and then he started, he became a franchisee. So, then I asked him, well, how can I be one too? So he was also a grad student at that time.

15:27 Emily: Wow. This is a fascinating idea. I’ve never thought about people becoming franchisees during graduate school, except I’m now remembering that I actually knew someone who did that in a different business. So when I was in graduate school, I was friends with someone who was a franchisee for PhD Posters. I don’t know if they’re still in existence, but they had multiple locations around the U.S. And it’s a poster printing service. And so it wouldn’t be, you know, it would be grad students usually affiliated with the university and they would, you know, drop off posters that people ordered to the various lab spaces. And anyway, it seemed like a great kind of business model for a grad student wanting to run a side business. And it sounds like your business was also, you know, in a similar way, a little bit of overhead for the space, but I’m imagining you paid contractors, right? To do the tutoring. So that’s not any, you know, serious payroll costs. Yeah. Interesting.

Investing and Self-Learning Personal Finance

16:17 Emily: Okay. So when, you know, you’re getting to the end of graduate school, it sounds like you had a healthy savings account at that point. Do you want to tell us, you know, what your net worth was? Or were you doing any, like investing, or was it strictly just cash savings?

16:31 Judy: It was, oh, whoa. I started looking into mutual funds. Someone introduced me to the idea of mutual funds. My dad did a lot of stock trading. So I understand the buy low sell high idea. But he only knows about the trademark that’s in Hong Kong. He has no idea how the Canadian or the American system work. So I wasn’t able to get any support from him. Like, he doesn’t understand the system. And he’s, I don’t know, he doesn’t share much about how he managed his finances. So I had to learn everything on my own. And it was hard. I think, I do feel that I have more advanced knowledge than my average colleague or my friend, and even going to the bank, they didn’t really take me seriously when I asked them questions.

17:23 Judy: Or they assigned a very junior financial advisor to me when I actually knew all the answers myself. But I didn’t have enough money to get like more experience. I don’t know if it’s just my money, my net worth, or my look, or my age, but I was never able to talk to someone who’s more experienced. So I had to do a lot of my own learning. But I was lucky during our grad years, one of our technicians in the lab, he’s a very advanced investor. So there were a few of us, we would spend our afternoon tea time. Oh, by the way, I studied food science. So we would spend our ice cream time talking about finance. So there are a few of us who would exchange ideas on what can we do with our money, stocks, mutual funds. But I had to do a lot of my own learning.

18:30 Emily: And so that process did start during graduate school.

18:33 Judy: Yes. Officially start in graduate school. I’ve always been curious and interested about trading, buying stocks, but I just didn’t have enough confidence as a high schooler. I think in high school, I was already keen to know more, but it was, no, I would say I started in undergrad, in college, that I wanted to know more.

18:57 Emily: Yeah. That’s a really kind of interesting combination of like, seeing an example from your parent and getting some of the mindset of the importance of investing from your parent, yet not being able to receive the practical help because of being in a different context. I hadn’t heard of that before, but yeah. So it’s actually for you maybe a little bit the best of both worlds, because you got to be inspired by your parents, but still had to do all the legwork on your own to figure it out. Which of course means you really internalize what you’re learning.

19:25 Judy: I also learned how to do my own income tax when I was in high school. I had to help my parents because English is not their first language. My parents actually relied on me to look for an accountant. And I am someone who loves numbers and money. And so actually read into personal income tax when I was in high school. And so yeah, I had to do all that education on my own. So till today I still do my own income tax.

19:52 Emily: Yeah. They certainly, you were forced to grow up, and it’s benefited you. Right?

19:57 Judy: Thank you. Yes.

Commercial

20:00 Emily: Emily here for a brief interlude! This announcement is for prospective and first-year graduate students. My colleague, Dr. Toyin Alli of The Academic Society, offers a fantastic course just for you called Grad School Prep. The course teaches you Toyin’s 4-step Gradboss Method, which is to uncover grad school secrets, transform your mindset, uplevel your productivity, and master time management. I contributed a very comprehensive webinar to the course, titled “Set Yourself Up for Financial Success in Graduate School.” It explores the financial norms of grad school and the financial secrets of grad school. I also give you a plan for what to focus on in your finances in each season of the year that you apply to and into your first year of grad school. If this all sounds great to you, please register at theacademicsociety.com/emily for Toyin’s free masterclass on what to expect in your first semester of grad school and the three big mistakes that keep grad students stuck in a cycle of anxiety, overwhelm, and procrastination. You’ll also learn more about how to join Grad School Prep if you’d like to go a step further. Again, that’s the academic society dot com slash e m i l y for my affiliate link for the course. Now back to our interview.

Finances Post-PhD: Real Estate Advenures

21:27 Emily: Okay. Let’s talk about the post-PhD phase. But we’re not going to quite get to kids yet. So let’s talk about your finances, you know, after you finished grad school.

21:37 Judy: Yes. So it was time to get married. Looking back, my boyfriend then, my husband now, he said I was crazy. Because we just started a new business. We were still very young, and before we got married, because we were in a very stable relationship, we knew we were going to get married. It’s just a matter of Judy finishing her PhD. Everything was on hold until I was able to finish my PhD, and my choice.

22:06 Emily: I think that’s a common story.

22:09 Judy : And then sometime around that, after the business, before my PhD, before we got married, I said, “Let’s get an apartment. We need to get into the real estate market.” The real estate market in Vancouver has been crazy for the last 15, 20 years. It’s been always up with a little dip, a little dip, but it’s always up. So I said let’s go buy our first apartment. So we got our first apartment, and one of my criteria is we need to have a tenant in the apartment. It will be a bonus if there’s an existing tenant in the apartment. We would just carry over the rental lease. So we did that before my PhD was done, before we got married.

22:58 Emily: Wow. So I’ve learned that this, this term is house hacking. Buy a property, live in it with your tenant. And whether that is, you know, in an apartment where you’re sort of, it’s a roommate situation. That could also be like a multi-family if you went that route. But yeah, really glad to hear that you used that strategy. It’s one I’m very excited about, learning more about this spring. We did a focus on, well, I’m not sure when this will be published, so it’s either in the past or upcoming, but in March, 2021, we are reading The House Hacking Strategy in our book club, inside the Personal Finance for PhDs Community. So if that hasn’t happened yet, listeners check that out if this strategy interests you. I’d like to know some of the numbers on that. Like how much did having a tenant there help you out? You know, was it worthwhile to sacrifice, you know, the privacy and so forth?

23:47 Judy: Yes!

23:48 Emily: And how many years did you do that for?

23:50 Judy: So we had the tenant for less than a year, and then we got married. So we moved into, we asked the tenant to leave because we need to get into, that’s our place. So that’s when I officially moved out from my, our parents, same for him. He was living with his parents. And then, so we got married, I finished my PhD. Finished PhD, got married, and you know, all those orders are important in Chinese culture. So, and then I was pregnant. And then when I was pregnant, I was in the elevator in the apartment, and I go, no, I don’t want my kids to grow up in an apartment. I want my kids to grow in a house. You know, this is why we come to North America. We want to live in a house. And then I did like very quick, it wasn’t too hard to find out that we can actually afford a house. If we rent out the basement, that fits into what you just told us now, the house hacking, because the tenant will basically be able to pay for the difference that we have to pay in our mortgage. That’s it? Why not? Right? We got to sell our apartment, get a bigger house. The rental that we can get from our basement will pay for the difference. So it was a very logical change or purchase for us, for me.

From House Hacking to House Upgrading

25:14 Emily: Yeah. It enabled you to upgrade your housing situation, get more space and so forth without having the full, full burden of the cost solely on your incomes. And so how long did you stay in that arrangement?

25:26 Judy: We stayed in that arrangement for about four years. That was after my second kid was born. And, again, I’m so lucky. I have a girl and a son. A girl and a boy. And then at that time I had that illusion, because I came to Vancouver, Canada when I was 14 and my parents put us in the basement. I was happy. Like my sister and I, we were just happy to be in the basement. So I had that illusion that I can put my kids in the basement. So we can ask our tenant to leave. They can go into the basement. But I forgot that in between five years old and 12 years old, I cannot put them in the basement. So we, at that time in the main floor, we had two bedrooms. So, we really need a third bedroom, because you know, two kids. So, and then we were really lucky again. We were looking for, it was about time to upgrade, oh, by the way, my money advice, any extra money we have, we put it into our mortgage. So, when I shop for mortgage, I really look for a very flexible repayment method. So any extra money goes in, we actually, every month we pay more than we need to. And then at the end of the year, we also put all the savings into the house.

26:51 Emily: That’s on top of investing though. Right? Because you’re still, were you doing any like retirement stuff through your work?

26:57 Judy: Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Retirement stuff. Take advantage of the retirement pension plan at work and then putting any extra money into the mortgage. So we were able to, four years into the house, we were able to upgrade to a bigger house.

27:17 Emily: So that strategy, it sounds like is because you knew that you would be not in that house for decades, you knew you’d be changing. And so you get the mortgage paid down. So you have a lot of equity to go into your next property. Is that the idea?

27:29 Judy: No, no. We didn’t know that. Like, when I purchased the house with the, I call that a smaller house with the two bedroom in the main floor and two bedroom in the basement, I really thought that my kids would grow up in the basement because I enjoyed it as a teenager, but I forgot about that “in the middle” time. And so, when it was time, when I needed to have two bedrooms, one bedroom for my son and one for my daughter, I felt that we need, to upgrade the house. And having so much of the mortgage that’s been paid down, helped us upgrade our house.

28:06 Emily: Gotcha.

28:07 Judy: I paid it then, what was the reason, I just don’t want to own that much money. I have extra money, then just pay down the mortgage because everything that I pay then will go straight to the principal, and then I don’t have to pay interest on them.

28:24 Emily: Yeah, absolutely. I’m inquiring about this because, you know, we are in a super low interest rate environment right now.

28:32 Judy: Yes.

28:33 Emily: What was your interest rate at that time?

28:36 Judy: 2.5. It was super low. Yeah. It was super low. Yeah.

28:40 Emily: So this was really about you, as you just said, not being comfortable with holding that much debt and as you know, I’m tracking through your story, this is the first debt that you’ve actually taken out, right?

28:50 Judy: Yeah.

28:50 Emily: Yeah. So you’re just, you’re just a naturally debt-averse person. And this is part of that.

28:58 Judy: But at the same time, it doesn’t matter. Okay. Let’s say just pick a number. 3%. 3% is pretty low. I see where you’re going, why don’t I put the money into the stock market? I have to earn 6% return because I have to pay tax on that return in order for me to earn that 3%. And so to me, and the stock market is known to be volatile. It’s not a guarantee. So on one hand I feel that I am getting that guaranteed 3% saving instead of putting the money in a stock market that I need at least just like rough number. Right. I need at least 6% because I have to pay tax on my, on my earning. And I don’t want to do that calculation. I don’t want to worry about that.

Business Updates and Additional Family Expenses

29:53 Emily: Yeah, no, the guaranteed return on debt repayment is very attractive. I agree. So we’ve talked about, you know, real estate changes. Let’s get an update on your business, you know, from that time period.

30:08 Judy: Business was going well. It was going well, we were happy, word of mouth. We were able to generate the money that we forecast. It was going well. Until the pandemic. I have to admit, pandemic has a huge impact on our finance right now. But it’s okay because I do have a stable job at the university.

30:30 Emily: Yeah. So you have your full-time position. Was your husband’s full-time job the business, or did he have a job in addition to that?

30:35 Judy: No, very soon once we made the decision to go into the franchise, and as we were doing our renovations and as we’re getting the prep work going, he had a full-time job at that time. He felt that he needed to dedicate, and he wanted to. And I said, sure. Because I knew he always wanted to be a business owner, and I was doing my PhD. So it made sense that there’s a dedicated person at the business. So he’s full-time there.

31:06 Emily: Gotcha. And let’s talk then about the addition of the children. And you’ve already mentioned that that’s caused some real estate, you know upheavals, but you know, how else have your finances changed upon having children?

How Have Your Finances Changed Upon Having Children?

31:20 Judy: A lot. A lot. Children are very expensive for financial life. Yeah. It’s like daycare. Daycare is expensive in Canada. You know, every month is one TV, right? Every month is one iPhone, if you have to compare it to material. Also because, in Canada, the illusion is we can get a whole year off, but the whole year off for me also means a significant pay cut, right? Yes. Legally, we can get the time off, and then we will go back to having a job, but there’s a difference in income. So, that was okay. Because I think the business was doing well, and I have enough savings. I never need to worry about that. But I have to say that every month that the childcare, the daycare fee, was hard to swallow in the beginning. Whoa, that’s another iPhone. That’s another TV. So, it’s expensive to have kids.

32:26 Emily: So then what happened with your finances overall? Does that translate to a lower savings rate or, you know, did you change your lifestyle during that period?

32:36 Judy: I think we had to change our saving strategy. Like we just have to put more expenses, and less saving. Yes.

32:45 Emily: Yeah. So I have two children, they’re ages four and two. Of course, pandemic year is a weird year, and we’re not paying for childcare right now, but I am looking forward to my daughter turning five and starting kindergarten. And maybe there’ll be some, you know, before or aftercare, I don’t know, but I’m really looking forward to that state-sponsored childcare that’s coming. I’ll still have to pay for the little one for another, you know, few years, but yeah, it’s a really, really significant bite. And so it’s kind of a, you know, it’s a phase of life, right? When you have to pay for childcare, it’s a phase of life you have to accept. Yeah. Your savings rate is going to be lower than it would have been, but Hey, once the expense goes away, you just can put all that money back into savings and your rate will shoot up.

33:28 Judy: Oh, Emily, I don’t know when that will be, when we can get into that stage. Because when they are four and two is the daycare. When they are five to nine is all the extra curriculum activities. My daughter, she dances. Her first dance dress that she needs for her performance was more expensive than my wedding dress. That’s it. That’s it. That’s expensive.

33:57 Emily: Yeah. I’ve heard that too. Both about expenses with kids, is that, yeah, the daycare is a lot of the beginning, but also just shifts later on to being other things. And then also, you know, the intensity of the parenting is much more like it’s physical when they’re young, but it’s very emotional when they’re older and you just have different kind of roles to play as they age. And how old are your children now?

34:18 Judy: They are 10 and 12.

Financial Advice for First-Time Parents

34:19 Emily: Okay. And so what is your advice for someone, you know, anticipating the birth of their first child or who has young children, you know, financial advice for that person?

34:30 Judy: For kids stuff? I would say, I feel a lot of people, they would like to invest into one thing like a car seat, a stroller. I would say, go ahead, buy that luxurious thing that you really want for your kids. But everything else, get hand-me-downs. Get it from your friend. Because they grow up so fast. They grow up so fast. They don’t need all these fancy little cute dresses. And by the time you actually can fit into the dress, we live in Vancouver. So the summer time we only have three sunny days ever. Like hot sunny days. I mean, I remember we had so many cute little dressed that we really couldn’t use them. So, hand-me-downs. Get hand-me-downs.

35:11 Emily: Yeah. I think we followed your advice for our children. The one big, nice expensive thing that we bought was a Bob stroller. Right. Jogging stroller. And then everything else, we did buy new cribs, but we bought like Ikea, like bottom of the line, like so simple, stripped down Ikea cribs and tons and tons of used clothes. We were so fortunate to be, you know, sort of passed used clothes and then we pass them on to the next family afterwards. That’s exactly it worked. Yeah. Yeah. It’s a wonderful boon, if you can get into a parenting community that does that sort of thing. But yeah, I do think we followed your advice. We picked one thing that we wanted and everything else was just really just as cheap as we could get it.

35:49 Judy: And then the other one advice, well, for me that works really well, is I told my kids that I would pay for their education, for their readings, and everything. Because I think my mom was really frugal to a point that looking back, there are moments I go, mom, you know, you could have spent a little bit more money on my education. Because I think we have PhDs. So we care about education. So I really wanted to let my kids know. I am willing to spend money on things that are important to me. And the thing that is important to me is your education. So they know, they know that they can go into the local bookstore, we call it the bookstore. They can buy almost anything in the bookstore, including toys, you know, the bookstore has so many other gadgets. But they take advantage of it. And I actually allow them to, you know, as a bookstore, we will buy something educational. So I don’t, when it comes to book, I have no limit for my kids. Yes.

36:52 Emily: And is there any other advice that you want to add in at this stage for new parents or parents of littles?

36:59 Judy: The phone is a very attractive thing. You know, it’s just one phone. You have so many toys in there, but stay away from it as much as possible. Get your toys from your friends. Get your free toys from your friends. That costs very little money. And, for me before the pandemic, I’ve been strictly using cash in front of my kids. I carry cash. I really want to show them the exchange of money. But during the pandemic it was a lot harder, but they are older now. I think they understand the money, they have some understanding of money, but before the pandemic, I strictly used cash, especially in front of the kids.

37:44 Emily: Yeah. I think that’s a really good tip. Actually, so I mentioned, my daughter is four, she turned four during the pandemic. And at four we were like, okay, we’re going to start really teaching her about money. Like, what is this concept? You know? But because it was during the pandemic, there was no way that we wanted to handle cash coins, anything. So we did get a toy that, you know, represents money, but it’s something that I feel she’s missing out on a little bit now. And I want to somehow, you know, establish that for her later.

38:11 Judy: Well, four is still young. Right? So you still have a lot of time. There’s no hurry. And yeah. She still has a whole lifetime to learn about money.

Best Financial Advice for Another Early-Career PhD

38:22 Emily: Yes. So Judy, thank you so much for this interview. I loved hearing about kind of your journey and your advice. To wrap up my interviews, I always ask my guests, what is your best financial advice for another early-career PhD? It could something that we haven’t mentioned so far in the interview or something you just want to circle back to and emphasize.

38:40 Judy: You don’t really need to spend money on things that you need to impress other people. You know, just really know what is important to you and what you need. Really understand what you need and what you want, the difference between the two. I mean, I’m not saying that you cannot get the thing you want, but knowing that this purchase is what I need, and this is a purchase that is what I want. And have that differentiation in your head, in your mind. I think that’s already a very good start.

39:11 Emily: Yeah. I think that’s an incredible insight. Especially, to me, I always think about this when it comes to recurring expenses like recurring, fixed expenses. So, you know, we talked about housing a bit earlier. So what in your housing cost is a need, and what is an upgrade to that, a want? And I think it’s important just to keep in mind in case you ever come upon a situation where, you know, you want to cut back, you’ll know, okay, well, you know what, the house actually is bigger than what we needed at this point, or the car, or whatever it is. Like if you differentiate between, okay, well, I could have this, I can afford this, you know, more of a want thing right now, but just to keep in mind. Yeah. There is a way that I can scale this down, you know, should it come to it in the future. Like you said, to differentiate in your mind, I really like that advice. And will you let us know, you know, about your business and you said, you know, it’s a little bit on the skids during the pandemic, give us kind of an update on that and where people can find you if they’re interested in learning more about it?

40:06 Judy: Well, my business is more catered to kids. And so it’s a reading center, we specialize in fostering reading and writing. We have lots of books. Good levels from the state. And so it’s called Reading Town, it’s a franchise and, and I love reading with kids. And we have programs that are good from Kindergarten all the way to grade 12. Lots of readings. Yes.

40:38 Emily: Yeah. Thank you so much for letting me know about that. And thank you so much for joining me today.

40:41 Judy: Thank you, Emily.

Outtro

40:43 Emily: Listeners, thank you for joining me for this episode! pfforphds.com/podcast/ is the hub for the Personal Finance for PhDs podcast. On that page are links to all the episodes’ show notes, which include full transcripts and videos of the interviews. There is also a form to volunteer to be interviewed on the podcast and instructions for entering the book giveaway contest. I’d love for you to check it out and get more involved! If you’ve been enjoying the podcast, here are 4 ways you can help it grow: 1. Subscribe to the podcast and rate and review it on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or whatever platform you use. If you leave a review, be sure to send it to me! 2. Share an episode you found particularly valuable on social media, with a email list-serv, or as a link from your website. 3. Recommend me as a speaker to your university or association. My seminars cover the personal finance topics PhDs are most interested in, like investing, debt repayment, and effective budgeting. I also license pre-recorded workshops on taxes. 4. Subscribe to my mailing list at PFforPhDs.com/subscribe/. Through that list, you’ll keep up with all the new content and special opportunities for Personal Finance for PhDs. See you in the next episode, and remember: You don’t have to have a PhD to succeed with personal finance… but it helps! The music is “Stages of Awakening” by Podington Bear from the Free Music Archive and is shared under CC by NC. Podcast editing and show notes creation by Meryem Ok.

Pursuing Your Passion in a Financially Healthy Manner

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This episode is a podcast swap! Emily’s guest is Dr. Stephanie Schuttler of Fancy Scientist. Emily and Stephanie interview one another on the financial challenges of a career in wildlife biology and how to pursue your passion while preserving financial balance and health. They discuss the necessity and prevalence of volunteer and pay-to-play experiences in wildlife biology and how to have realistic expectations about the job availability and compensation at various levels of education. Stephanie is an expert in careers in wildlife biology, but this conversation is applicable to PhDs who are following their passions into many other competitive fields.

Links Mentioned in This Episode

Teaser

00:00 Stephanie: In this field, so much is about those experiences. So if you really want those pay-to-play experiences, because, I mean, some of them are super cool, you could focus more on getting into a school that’s more affordable and do some of those things rather than go to a really expensive school.

Introduction

00:21 Emily: Welcome to the Personal Finance for PhDs Podcast: A Higher Education in Personal Finance. I’m your host, Dr. Emily Roberts. This is Season 9, Episode 3, and today Dr. Stephanie Schuttler of Fancy Scientist and I are publishing a dual interview! Stephanie is a wildlife biologist-turned-science communicator and expert in careers in wildlife biology. We have a great topic: How to pursue your passion in a financially healthy manner. Stephanie gives the financial and career lay of the land for wildlife biology, a popular and competitive field that requires volunteer and pay-to-play experiences prior to being admitted to graduate school. Even completing a graduate degree in wildlife biology doesn’t necessarily lead to the type of job young people dream about when they enter the field. Sound familiar? Stephanie and I discuss how to limit the financial risk of pursuing a career in a field that you are passionate about.

I have some exciting personal news, which is that I finally received my full vaccination course against COVID-19! I have to say, it was tough to watch my friends and acquaintances who have university and hospital affiliations receive their vaccinations over the last several months while I was waiting for them to become available to my age bracket in California. But my turn finally came. I am ecstatic that my parents are visiting us this week, whom we have not seen in person since November 2019.

01:51 Emily: Prior to COVID, as you likely know, I gave in-person seminars and workshops at universities. I honestly wasn’t sure how my business would fare without being able to travel and with universities facing the uncertainty that they did early on. As it turned out, in the 2020-2021 academic year, my speaking services in the virtual format were more in demand than ever, particularly this last spring. I feel really, really fortunate about that! My calendar is now open for engagements in the 2021-2022 academic year. I am of course offering virtual events, which I assume will continue to be popular. I’m not sure if professional development events and conferences are switching back to being in person this year to any degree, but if they are and I am asked to present, I will certainly consider it. I am over the moon about how I have adjusted my offerings for early-career PhDs this year, which you can check out at PFforPhDs.com/speaking/.

02:53 Emily: First, I got honest with myself about my most popular seminar, The Graduate Student and Postdoc’s Guide to Personal Finance. The Guide is my comprehensive overview of multiple personal finance topics. I was trying to cram it into 90 minutes, but it really is a two-hour seminar with Q&A. It’s great for the end of a workday, not so much for a lunch hour.

03:15 Emily: Second, I clarified the topics for my in-depth seminars, which are financial goals, investing, debt repayment, saving, and cash flow management. Each of these seminars comes in a one-hour lecture and Q&A version or a two-hour workshop version. The workshop version includes the teaching from the lecture version plus spreadsheet templates, worksheets, and/or small group discussion prompts. These seminars work well as stand-alone events or part of a series.

03:45 Emily: Third, I took my tax seminars off my slate of offerings. This is honestly a big risk for my business because my annual tax return seminar was second to The Guide in popularity and always drew my biggest audiences. The preparation of an annual tax return and calculating estimated tax on fellowships are my audience’s most universal financial pain points.

04:10 Emily: However, I am not leaving you in the lurch with respect to tax education and assistance. Stepping back from giving live seminars on this topic actually enables me to scale the delivery of the help. In place of these live seminars, I am licensing access to my pre-recorded workshops on the same topics. I have been offering these workshops for the past several years, and I know that they are even more effective than live events in guiding graduate students and postdocs to their goal of an accurate tax return and up-to-date income tax payments on their fellowships. Please keep these workshops in mind as we draw closer to tax season for 2021. If you would like to book a virtual or in-person event with me or recommend me to your graduate school, postdoc office, or graduate student association, the best place to go is PFforPhDs.com/speaking/. From there you can learn about all my seminar offerings, read reviews from previous event hosts and attendees, view my speaking fees, and schedule a call with me to discuss your event. I look forward to partnering with you this year to deliver high-quality, high-impact financial education to the early-career PhDs at your university, in your association, or at your conference.

Book Giveaway Contest

05:29 Emily: Now onto the book giveaway contest! In June 2021 I’m giving away one copy of The Automatic Millionaire: A Powerful One-Step Plan to Live and Finish Rich by David Bach, which is the Personal Finance for PhDs Community Book Club selection for August 2021. Everyone who enters the contest during June will have a chance to win a copy of this book. The Automatic Millionaire was one of the first personal finance books I ever read, and it had an enormous impact on my financial mindset and behavior. The path to becoming a millionaire is not necessarily quick or easy, but it can be simple and automatic. I can absolutely credit the key strategy that this book teaches as the reason my net worth is as high as it is today. I hope this book effects a similar result for you. If you would like to enter the giveaway contest, please rate and review this podcast on Apple Podcasts, take a screenshot of your review, and email it to me at emily at PFforPhDs dot com. I’ll choose a winner at the end of June from all the entries. You can find full instructions at PFforPhDs.com/podcast. Without further ado, here’s my interview with Dr. Stephanie Schuttler.

Will You Please Introduce Yourself Further?

06:49 Stephanie: Hi, I am Dr. Stephanie Schuttler, and I am a wildlife biologist, and now I’ve turned a science communication entrepreneur. A brief background of myself is that I kind of stumbled into this career. I didn’t know I wanted to be a wildlife biologist until my last year in college when I decided to study abroad and I randomly chose a wildlife management program in Kenya. So that changed my life. And I knew from there that I had to go to graduate school. So I got some experience doing three different types of internships over the course of three years. And then I went to graduate school to get my PhD at the University of Missouri, where I spent close to seven years there, followed by one short postdoc and one long postdoc, lasting, probably about, honestly, seven years. Yeah, so my short postdoc was at Missouri and my long postdoc was at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences where I got to work on a lot of camera trap stuff that I talk about today. Yeah, and now the last part is I started my own business last year. I’ve been blogging for the past few years and I officially made it a business last year where I spread knowledge about science communication, I educate people, I started kids’ programs, and then of course I help people in their wildlife biology careers.

08:20 Emily: Fantastic. What is the name of your business?

08:23 Stephanie: A Fancy Scientist.

08:25 Emily: Great. I’m really excited to speak with you, Stephanie, today because are subject is kind of, you know, the finances of pursuing a career in wildlife biology, but it’s a little bit more general than that really, because we’re really talking about how to stay sort of financially balanced and healthy while you’re pursuing a passion that is not necessarily, or immediately, lucrative. And in fact might, you know, you might be paying for, in the form of your education, you might be paying for career experiences. So that’s kind of our general topic. So even if those of you who are coming to the podcast are not in wildlife biology, like still stick around because this is going to be generalizable information.

09:03 Stephanie: Yeah, absolutely. I would even add that our field can be more lucrative in terms of going to graduate school than other fields. Like I’ve heard about people who are getting their PhDs in English and their TAships get paid just so poorly. So a lot of the experience and advice here will definitely transfer over.

How People Develop a Passion for Wildlife Biology

09:25 Emily: Yeah. Let’s talk more about specifically how wildlife biology is positioned because it’s a science field, of course, which you might immediately think, oh, like you make money in science, of course. But on the other side of it, it’s a very competitive field and people follow it because of long-held passions. So let’s talk more about that. Like how do people develop their passion for wildlife biology and pursue that?

09:47 Stephanie: I think people develop it usually from a young age. That’s what happened for me. I always loved animals and I love nature. And like I said, I didn’t discover it until a career as later on. Like when you’re young, people always say, like, why don’t you become a vet if you really like animals? So I didn’t know it was a career option. Some people do, but when you track back to like, why people want to do it, it usually has to do with those experiences of being outside in nature when you’re young. And actually a lot of wildlife biologists, a lot of them start off like hunting and they just spend a lot of time outdoors. So I think that a big reason why people are so attracted to the field is that they think they will be spending a lot of time outside.

10:35 Stephanie: And this is definitely true for some careers. It depends on what level of education you have, and of course, what job you have. But in general, the more education you have, the less time you spend outside. It’s like an inverse relationship. And you know, we get really cool experiences. A lot of us get to travel. Of course, some of us get these really close interactions with animals that regular people can’t have, or even just accessing different types of places. Like some of the field sites I’ve been to would have been difficult to visit as a tourist and some of the experiences you have. So yeah, I think that’s what’s really attractive about it. And you’re right. It’s really interesting because there’s so much push for STEM education and especially getting People of Color and girls interested in STEM because our field is not very diversified.

11:33 Stephanie: And a reason to advocate for STEM careers is often actually like finances, that it’s a really financially beneficial career. But again, it totally depends on what you do, and wildlife biology is not very lucrative. And it’s just simply because there’s not a lot of money in wildlife and conservation work. A lot of our employment is nonprofits. The universities and, I mean, universities, you can definitely get paid well. And any of these jobs you can get paid well. But in general, if you think of like disease research, there’s going to be so much more money from the U.S. government and other sources to invest in like medical research than there is in saving wildlife. So, that’s really the big difference. But I think most people go into it because they love it so much. And that’s what I always said. I knew I wasn’t going to make a lot of money, but I loved it so much. So that’s why I went into it.

12:38 Emily: It’s so important to go into these kinds of career choices with your eyes wide open as to what the possibilities are, including the financial possibilities. So it sounds like people, maybe from the time they’re children, have a very like romantic idea of what this career is going to be, but the reality does not necessarily line up with that, especially as you advance further and further.

12:57 Stephanie: It’s interesting though, that you said that about like the romantic version, because I have a book, Getting a Job in Wildlife Biology: What It’s Like and What You Need to Know. And I had a review on there recently, it wasn’t a bad review, it was a four-star review, so it was good, but it was a parent that bought it for her daughter and she read it first, and with the intention of getting it to her daughter. And after she read it, she was kind of like, I’ll leave it up to my daughter to read. And her review was all about how realistic I was. And, and that’s exactly why I wrote it because people have this really romantic view of what wildlife biology is, like myself growing up, I saw Jane Goodall. And I mean, Jane Goodall, isn’t really considered a wildlife biologist. She’s more of a primatologist, but still that’s what you imagine it to look like, or Steve Irwin. And the reality is you’re not doing those types of things. So I pride myself on telling the truth, and I don’t want to dissuade anyone from entering this field. I just want them to know like what it’s like going into it.

Volunteer and Pay-to-Play: Are They Really Required?

14:01 Emily: So, one thing that I learned from our prior conversations is that in your field, it’s very common for people to have to do volunteer experiences or even pay-to-play experiences, to get into graduate school, to get a job, to advance. And this is not necessarily as common in other areas. So could you please tell us more about what, you know, what does pay-to-play mean? What are the kinds of volunteer experiences that people may be required to have? And are they really required?

14:30 Stephanie: Yeah, absolutely. This is a really hot topic right now. I personally think that you cannot get into graduate school without having some sort of experience. And in order to get that first paid experience, honestly, you really need experience for that. And you can, I would say you can get it in college if you volunteer with a lab and you get college credit for it. So that’s essentially not totally volunteering. And there are some work-study programs in colleges as well, but really to get your first experience, you need to volunteer. And that’s just the unfortunate reality of it. And this is a big problem because it discourages diversity from our field. So, I’m in no way, like advocating for these experiences. I just feel like that’s the reality of the situation. So there’s lots of experiences. And even our museum, when we had interns in our lab, we did have money for some of them.

15:27 Stephanie: And I constantly applied for grants to get money to pay interns, but they don’t come through. So either like I would have people email me and be like, I’m so interested in your research. Can I help you out? Or I would have a lot of research to do, and I would come across people and offer them experiences to help me with this. And there are exchanges in other ways. Like I write them letters of recommendations and I invite them to be on journal publications and stuff like that. But yeah, we can’t afford to pay for everyone. So it’s hard to deny people experiences who want them. But also, the pay-to-play thing is that some experiences are so desirable that they can afford to charge for them. And I do think there are some sort of scammy experiences out there where they profit off of it, but there are also legit scientists who are working in another country and they have to pay for the field site and the food costs and things like that.

16:35 Stephanie: So I’ve seen job advertisements where you get to maybe go to like South Africa for a summer and you have to pay to stay there. And they mention that it just covers the field costs and they’re not making money off of it, but still, I know a big reason why I got certain opportunities was because of my experience in Kenya. I had a study abroad program and an internship in Kenya. And Kenya was, it really was volunteering because I did get paid, but I got paid a Kenyan salary. And then I did have to pay for half of my airfare. So it ended up being a year where I didn’t make anything. And yeah, if I didn’t have those experiences, then I would have not had like my graduate school experience of studying forest elephants. So if somebody who comes from a financially disadvantaged background really wants to do something like work internationally, honestly, it’s really tough because those experiences are more desirable and people are willing to pay for them.

17:42 Emily: Yeah. You outlined a couple of reasons why these experiences exist. It really sounds like the field is in a bind. There’s not enough funding coming in for all the work that needs to be done, sort of from above, but from below, from the people coming up the ranks, there is an eagerness for people to do the work, even if it’s on a volunteer basis, even if they have to pay out of pocket for it. But it sounds like this just comes back to a funding squeeze, right? And the field being so popular and competitive. Those things combined have set up the conditions for this system to develop. And I agree with you. It sounds nightmarish, actually, for someone who doesn’t come from a financially advantaged background. And it’s a little bit like, you know, in the recent, I don’t know, last decade or two, there’s been so many more conversations about unpaid internships and the elimination of unpaid internships in most fields because they’re not great for anybody. Especially people who, you know, can’t afford to do them. But it sounds like that hasn’t quite touched the field of wildlife biology yet. Because these are essentially unpaid internships like on steroids, because you actually have to, in some cases, pay to access the site or what have you.

18:53 Stephanie: Yeah, absolutely. And that’s, like I said, that’s a huge conversation right now. And I think it’s especially difficult for nonprofit organizations because, you know, they obviously always need more funding. And they have been under attack, like posting unpaid internships. And I understand both sides. Like I understand that people need to get paid for their time, but I also don’t think it solves the diversity problem because if you’re just taking experiences away in general, then anything that is available is going to be so, so, so competitive. So it’s like a lose-lose situation.

Financial Risks in Pursuing a Wildlife Biology Career

19:32 Emily: Yeah. It definitely sounds like that. Okay. So we’ve kind of talked about the downsides to the field of kind of relying on these volunteer and pay-to-play experiences in the pipeline, at the beginning of the pipeline. To get into graduate school, you need to have some kind of experience. To get that first experience that maybe you get paid, well, you have to have an unpaid experience before that point. There are downsides to the field of like losing out on having great scientists, budding scientists who could be part of the field, maybe being turned away for financial reasons. What are the financial risks that are posed to an individual who tries to pursue a career in wildlife biology?

20:06 Stephanie: I think, I mean, just going into debt or living paycheck to paycheck constantly, that’s like super common in our field, but I know many people who have gone into debt for these like pay-to-play experiences or to do a volunteer experience, but they don’t have the means to cover themselves financially while they’re doing that experience. And it affects your entire life. The opportunities, I guess, like they kind of go away, but they manifest in different ways. So like once you get your PhD, well actually after your master’s too, like I talked about my friend, Rebecca, a lot of times you have these temporary opportunities, and it’s really difficult to get things lined up financially. And it’s a very demanding career. There are always things that you could be doing for your career, especially once you get to like the science route of doing more research-based things, then you are going to want to be working on your publications and things like that to get you that next job. So you don’t necessarily have the time to be able to like take on another job. So I mean, it’s really just that you have the potential to go into debt. People do go into debt, and then they don’t have the finances saved to be able to keep going, in the future, if opportunities don’t line up.

21:40 Emily: Yeah. This does remind me of the general like pursuit of the tenure-track in some fields where you need a PhD to get, and your goal is to get, a faculty position, but the employment opportunities, if you don’t end up, you know, landing that faculty position, are non-existent, very rare, not very lucrative. And so it’s like, yeah, if the stars completely align and you get that job that you’re going for, it all works out. But for most people who pursue that, it’s not going to work out. And so you have to realize that going in, it doesn’t mean you can’t like, you know, shoot for the stars and everything, but you need to have some kind of nets and backup plans and safety. Because the stats are that a tenure-track position is not going to work out for the vast majority of people who pursue one. And so it seems like there’s, you know, an analogy here with the field, the career in wildlife biology,

22:33 Stephanie: Do you see any additional downsides or risks?

Debt and Opportunity Cost: Loss of Compound Interest

22:38 Emily: I mean, mentioning, going into debt like you did is absolutely perfect. But to me there’s another layer on top of that, which is the loss of opportunity to get compound interest working for you. So if you go for many years in your twenties and into your thirties, maybe doing temporary work and underpaid work, and maybe you’re accumulating some debt, or even if you’re not, but you’re not doing anything like on the saving, investing front to get ahead with your finances, then that’s lost time. That decade or so is lost time. And it’s possible to make up for lost time, but you just have to save so much more later. But what if you end up, maybe in your thirties, in a job that pays, as you mentioned before, $50,000 a year, when you were hoping for something that paid more or was more stable or something like that? Like that’s where you are, and that’s what you have to live off of and save off of after that point and still try to make up for that lost time. So I think that people can be financially successful at all different kinds of salary levels, but like we were talking about earlier, you just have to be realistic about what the opportunities are, the salary opportunities are in the field that you’re pursuing, and also in your backup plans, if that primary plan doesn’t work out that well. So yeah, the loss of time to get compound interest working for you is the main one that I see there.

23:48 Stephanie: And I think that people in our field don’t think about that stuff at all and even, or I know they don’t think about that stuff at all. And even like talking about the loss of time with your first starting salary. You really don’t have at least a good first starting salary. I had a starting salary in graduate school, but like how most jobs work is you get your first job, and that’s your starting salary. And then that’s like the bar for you to negotiate a higher salary every job that you get. So for myself, when I graduated from my PhD, I was, what, thirties, close to 30. And you know, my husband who is an electrical engineer, he had been in his career for, for several years already. So not only are we getting paid little when we’re starting out, but we’re starting out later in age.

24:45 Stephanie: And another thing is people don’t do retirement investments either. So my dad grew up poor. His dad died when he was younger, and he had his brothers to take care of. So he was always like financially worried, and he always had us read financial books and stuff like that. So I’ve had a retirement account since legally you can have one, I think maybe 16 or 18. But yeah, like we’re not taught that. Like, you’re right. Like nobody’s talking about this stuff. And they, like, my friends would be like, well, I’ll get it through my job, when I get my first job, but some of my friends didn’t get their first jobs until they were close to their forties, and your retirement compounds. And that’s really where the money comes from. So if you are waiting a while to start that, then you’re missing out on a lot of that income compounding.

25:42 Emily: Yeah. And I think, again, to generalize, like this is something that I see with graduate students all the time, postdocs all the time is that there’s an optimism about what the future salaries are going to be post-PhD, post postdoc. And I certainly have the same optimism for them. But the other thing that happens as you age, generally speaking, is that your life gets more expensive in a variety of ways. You know, maybe you buy a house, maybe you have a child, maybe you have to take care of aging parents or other family members, like, so even if you do see a post-PhD, jump in salary in whatever field that you’re in, it might not go as far as you were hoping that it would. And so to me, my attitude is more like, you know, work with what you have now, that is, try as best you can to live a sort of financially balanced lifestyle and do some of that retirement investing or paying off debt or whatever it is that your goal is while you still have a lower salary, while you’re still in graduate school. And yes, like I do hope that that higher salary comes, the permanent job comes and it will all be much easier later, but just in case it’s not, let’s get started now so that you have that time, as we were talking about for, you know, your money to compound, or at least your debt to not compound as much.

26:54 Stephanie: Absolutely.

Commercial

26:57 Emily: Emily here for a brief interlude! Heads up, fellows: The next quarterly estimated tax payment deadline is Tuesday, June 15, 2021! This one always catches me by surprise because quarter two, strangely, is only two months long, while quarter four is four months long. Yet, a full quarter’s payment is due on June 15th. If you aren’t having income tax withheld from your stipend or salary and haven’t yet filled out the Estimated Tax Worksheet in Form 1040-ES, now is the time to do so. The worksheet will tell you how much you can expect your tax liability to be this year and whether you are required to pay estimated tax. If you need some help with the Estimated Tax Worksheet or want to ask me a question, please join my workshop, Quarterly Estimated Tax for Fellowship Recipients. It explains every line of the worksheet and answers the common questions that postbacs, grad students, and postdocs have about estimated tax, such as what to do when you switch on or off of fellowship in the middle of a calendar year. Go to PF for PhDs dot com slash Q E tax to learn more about and join the workshop. Now back to our interview.

Advice for Pursuing a Financially Risky Career

28:13 Stephanie: Okay. So knowing that this is a financially risky career, what do you think, like, what’s your advice to people who want to pursue it in like, they’re absolutely sure they want to do this and maybe they don’t have a financial safety net or they don’t come from a really, really wealthy background? What can they do?

28:33 Emily: I think the first thing to acknowledge is that you, as an individual, are a whole person and that you have needs and desires that are perhaps independent of this career in wildlife biology that you want to pursue, or any kind of competitive and perhaps not lucrative kind of career. And what I mean by that is that I would love for you to pursue like your career kind of passion, but just as you’re doing that, keep in mind that you still have needs as a person. You have financial needs, you have relational needs, you have spiritual needs, health needs, all these things matter as well. And I think there’s a tendency for people, especially when they’re younger and in their twenties and so forth, to drive hard at their career goals at the expense of some of these other areas of life. And it will catch up to you, eventually. You will reach age 30 or age 40 and realize that you have some deficits or dearths in these other areas, because you were trying to sort of suppress your needs and desires in those areas for so long to pursue this career.

29:35 Emily: So I don’t think that’s healthy and don’t do it. So try your best. Right? And so we’re going to talk about the finances, but there’s all these other areas of life as well. So don’t forget that you’re a whole human and you’re more than just your future career or job in wildlife biology. So that’s kind of the first thing to keep in mind. So, as we’re talking about sort of financial health and financial wholeness, as you pursue these careers, I do think you need to create your own safety net and your own financial security and backup plans as you go. And so that may mean that it will take you a little bit longer to get to graduate schoo, for example, if that’s like your next goal. Maybe you might take an extra year instead of, you know, taking a one or two year gap, take a three or four year gap between finishing undergrad and that graduate degree, for example. And that’s to build up more of your own financial security in the meantime.

30:25 Emily: And so one of the things we talked about earlier, these pay-to-play or volunteer experiences, is it possible for example, for you to plan around that and say, I’m going to have a summer job? Maybe it’s not even a job, I’m going to have a summer experience, and it’s going to cost this much money, or I’m going to be paid this much, but my lifestyle needs are this much. And how can you save in advance for that? And what kind of job can you have when you’re not actively engaged with these experiences? How can you pursue a job and a career that will allow you to have the experiences, but still give you some financial stability in the meantime? And one of the things I end up talking a lot about, and that I’ve learned a lot about from people I’ve interviewed on my podcast is regarding money mindset and limiting beliefs.

Navigate Limiting Beliefs

31:06 Emily: And so a limiting belief that someone in the field of wildlife biology might hear, and they might even get this from your work, again, the realism, is I can only ever have a temporary job and I can’t have a job the other seven or eight months of the year, because that’s not in my field, whatever. But maybe there is a way for you to build a job or an income or a career in that part of the year and still have that balance where you want to do, you know, these special experiences in the summer or the spring, or what have you, but still be making money in the other part of the year. And honestly, I think one of the most accessible ways is what you and I are now pursuing, which is entrepreneurship. So maybe there’s a way to have, you know, set up your own stream of income.

31:45 Emily: Maybe you work on it more intensely in one part of the year and less intensely in the other part of the year. And you can create that balance for yourself to still allow you to pursue the experiences in the career that you want to have, but still be making money in the other part of a year or a little bit, you know, while you’re having those experiences still. So that’s one idea. The other one is about this debt, you know, either going to have experiences or on the flip side, maybe not paying down student loan debt that you’ve accumulated in the past. I mean, we’ve had a student loan debt crisis that’s been building and building ahead of steam for a long time, but especially in the last decade. And, you know, in the last decade, I think many people have come to realize, you know, your student loans, your education, especially at the bachelor’s level is not necessarily an investment.

32:30 Emily: It’s not automatically an investment. You can’t pursue any bachelor’s at any price and, you know, be sure that that’s going to pay off. Same thing for graduate degrees. You know, your home is not always an investment. There are things that used to feel safe that used to give you a path to the middle class that are not there, they’re not guaranteed any longer. And so I think you have to be really, like, in thinking about pay-to-play experiences as an extension of student loan debt. So like I’m taking out student loan debt to pursue my education. I’m taking out some kind of personal loan or consumer debt to pursue this experience that I want to have to get into graduate school. You can think about them sort of analogously. And so one rule of thumb that works for student loan debt that maybe you could extend to, if you’re going into debt for these experiences in wildlife biology, is don’t take out more debt than one year, your first-year starting salary.

33:20 Emily: That’s like the rule of thumb for an undergraduate degree. And so if you’re, you know, going into a little bit better or forgoing salary to pursue these volunteer pay-to-play experiences, can you keep the debt level down to one year of your current salary or lower? Is that possible? So like, so yes, pursue these experiences, but make sure you’re not giving yourself carte blanche, right? To spend and go into as much debt as you might want to. You’re sort of putting some checks and balances on yourself along the way to make sure that you’re not getting in too far over your head.

Consider the Cost of Your Education

33:56 Stephanie: Yeah, absolutely. And actually one of my big, I have a lot of advice for people, something I think that people should do is not worry about the school so much. Like a lot of students are super obsessed with like, what’s the best graduate program or what’s the best college to go to. And I honestly think that students should really, especially at the college level, focus on getting in the school that’s going to cost them the least, because like you mentioned your degree doesn’t necessarily pay off. If you’re going to invest, you know, $120,000 for a college degree and you can get the same result with one that’s going to cost you $10,000. I mean, I actually regretted for a long time, my experience because I didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t know what I wanted to be.

34:49 Stephanie: An, I even applied poorly to schools. I applied to like only Ivy league schools because that’s what I knew. And the only schools I got into were my local state school and other schools that cost like $30,000 a year or a semester. And I was like, okay, I’m just going to start from my state school because I don’t know what I’m doing. And then it also felt weird to dorm at my state school, which is like 20 minutes down the road from me. So I stayed with my parents and I regret not having the college experience, but I also love that I don’t have debt and that it was, I mean, I paid, I think a thousand dollars a semester for school. So in the long run it definitely was worth it.

35:34 Stephanie: And in this field so much is about those experiences. So if you really want those pay-to-play experiences, because I mean, some of them are super cool. You could focus more on getting into a school that’s more affordable and do some of those things rather than go to a really expensive school. And this is true for graduate school, too. And graduate school in science, you do get paid, you get a stipend, but you get paid different amounts according to the different schools and even according to the different programs. So I was actually not in the wildlife biology program for my PhD, or in the department. I was in the biological sciences department, and they had a fellowship. So I was paid a lot more and I didn’t have to TA. And that played a huge role in me deciding to do that as opposed to another program where I would have to TA and get paid less.

36:31 Emily: I think that’s a great point. Both at the graduate and the undergraduate level. It’s more about what is the actual work that you could be doing? Who can you be working with? Rather than maybe the name of the school. And of course the finances come into play as well. Because again, I think my basic point here is like shore up security for yourself as you go as best you can to keep you on this route, as long as you want to be on it in pursuit of a career in wildlife biology. So that if you get to the end, let’s say of your PhD and you realize, okay, I can get the permanent job. I’ve achieved all my goals. Everything is wonderful. Well, you have some good, you know, financial, a nest egg behind you perhaps, or at least not as much debt as you could have been in.

37:15 Emily: That would be great. But if you get to that point and you say, Nope, I’m going to exit this career now. I’m not going to have the type of job that I thought I would have. I’m going to have some other type of job. At least you won’t have the financial regret behind you of, oh my gosh, I pursued this school, that school, they didn’t pay me well enough. I spent too much on this experience. Yeah. I think what you said is perfect is like focus more on the experiences. If you want to go for, you know, a less expensive college education, but save your dollars for some pay-to-play experiences that are really high impact, then that makes a lot of strategic sense to me.

FIRE: Financial Independence, Retire Early

37:45 Stephanie: Yeah. And another route, I think we talked about this in our chat, you talked about an acronym FIRE.

37:51 Emily: Yeah. So FIRE stands for Financial Independence Retire Early, or Early Retirement.

37:57 Stephanie: Yeah. So you could either do that or do a sort of hybrid model. And I interviewed somebody who did something kind of similar to that, inadvertently. He didn’t, I mean, he didn’t retire early, but he had 20 years in a corporation that was a really good job. And he participated, he volunteered in the Citizen Science programs on the weekends and in his spare time. And his corporation actually paid for him to go back to school. So he did get a degree in environmental sciences. But when he was finished and on the job market, he got the second job he applied for. And I could not believe that I was like, oh my gosh. Wow. And it was because of those volunteer experiences, he had so much experience that he was like leading groups and organizing events and stuff like that. So that all translated really well.

38:48 Stephanie: So you could start off in a more lucrative career and volunteer with conservation organizations, with Citizen Science, and make enough money then where you can take a less lucrative career. Or if you’re a real go-getter in today’s world, like, I mean, there’s really not a financial limit to like what you can do online and with entrepreneurship and stuff like that. Like, it is tough to do, but it’s, I mean, there’s so many like millionaires who are six-figure earners from selling courses online, and in practical stuff, too. Like I remember I was listening to this one podcast, this woman, she had a podcast all about goats and she made six figures just from selling a course on how to raise backyard goats. And she had like, she had like different courses, too. So it’s like, you know, you just don’t think like, oh wow, like you can make a lot of money off of information and goats, but you can. So there’s a lot of opportunities out there.

Combining FIRE with Passion Careers

39:52 Emily: Yeah. What I think is really interesting about the FIRE movement and combined with like these sort of passion careers, whether it’s wildlife biology or whether it’s maybe some other things you want to get a PhD in. So if, you know, the most intense people in the FIRE movement, the goal is to retire in about 10 years, not retire necessarily, but become financially independent in about 10 years. That would be like a fast goal. So you get out of college when you’re 22, you know, by 32, if you’re really intense about it and chose the right career, maybe you were an engineer or something like that. You could be retired by that point or, you know, financially independent, optional to retire at that point. Now that is a route to free up the entire rest of your life from age 32, to whatever, to do anything that you want.

40:37 Emily: As long as your lifestyle expenses don’t creep up to the point they exceed your investments’ ability to support you. And so that is where you could spend the next 50, 70, a hundred years of your career working in wildlife biology in any kind of capacity that you can achieve knowing that your finances are already taken care of. And that’s a very unconventional route, right? But I think it’s something that maybe more people should consider if their passion is in a field where it’s so difficult and so competitive to get a full-time position. And, you know, I think it also goes back to the realism discussion we’re having earlier. You know, maybe there’s something about wildlife biology or whatever field that you’re in that you would like that romantic version, but you are not so enamored with the reality of having a career in that field version, and maybe becoming financially independent allows you to experience the romantic versions of the career, you know, of rather the field to a great extent without having to commit to having to earn in the career and doing maybe the work that’s not quite as exciting to you.

41:43 Emily: And so that’s, I don’t know, it’s a very like interesting idea. I actually did meet someone one time at a financial bloggers’ conference who had reached financial independence in his early thirties through, whatever, he’s like a finance guy or something. And he was telling me, oh yeah, I’m considering going back and getting my PhD in some completely unrelated area because I can do whatever I want now, essentially. It doesn’t matter if I get a stipend or not. I can support myself. He can pursue anything he likes. And so I’ve never really like discussed this idea with anyone in terms of PhDs before, but I think it’s, I don’t know. It’s not the most outlandish thing.

Wildlife Bio: Career or Lifestyle?

42:19 Stephanie: Yeah, absolutely. And I actually, I mention this in the last chapter of my book is, like you said, maybe you don’t want it as a career, too. And maybe that’ll actually be more satisfying to you. So I had this talk with this very prominent biologist and he was talking about his friends, how like they’re traveling all over the world and showing him all these cool pictures and all these cool places that they’ve been to. And one of the countries that he said was a country that he does a lot of work in. And I was like, you work there, you’re like always traveling there. And he’s like, yeah, but I am in like conference rooms, I’m in meetings. I’m not going to see like this beautiful waterfall or go to the beaches. So again, it might be that romantic version of like, once you get higher up with your education, you’re going to be doing like more administrative work.

43:10 Stephanie: And you’re going to be writing scientific papers and writing grants and stuff like that. And, to be honest, that’s sitting behind a desk writing. So I just want people to like really understand what it’s like and what they’re getting into. And, yeah, like, if you’re really driven because you want to travel or have cool experiences with animals, there are Citizen Science vacations, Earth Watch does this, that you can pay for that give you those opportunities. Like you can pay to work with a sea turtle biologist and help him tag turtles or help them tagged hurdles. And so you can still have these experiences. But you’re not the one leading them, which actually might be nice because then you don’t have to worry about like all the logistics of setting everything up, and yeah. And managing people and things like that.

44:03 Emily: Yeah. I love that idea. And it’s just kind of thinking outside the box, right? Like how can I get to have this lifestyle that I want? Does it have to be my career, or can it be something I do on the side as you’re building a career in another area? Or I’ve retired from my career. And so now I can do it afterwards. I think that’s a really exciting idea that you can be in wildlife biology in more ways than just a full-time professional scientist.

44:32 Stephanie: You’re so right, too, about your, your life choices changing when you get older. I talk to a lot of young people who are like, I don’t need to live in a big house. Or maybe not necessarily live in a big house, but you do want more things as you grow up. Like you want more stability and things like that. You don’t want to be moving around all the time. And like, even myself, I didn’t want to have children, but yeah, like I want to be stable and I want to stay put and not going from here to there all the time.

45:02 Emily: Yeah. What I often repeat on my podcast is money gives you options. And so really what you’re doing when you, for instance, take out a bunch of student loan debt and then go into even more debt for these, like, pay-to-play experiences and eventually go into graduate school. And you’re there for a long time. And then, you know, all the things that you might have to do to get this final career that you are going for, if all that while you’re just accumulating debt and you’re not putting money into retirement, you’re basically hamstringing yourself into this career has to work out, or I am sunk, you know? And instead if you try to pursue it, but in a more balanced manner in terms of finances and other areas of life, you can get to that point, maybe when you’re done with your PhD and say, okay, I have options. I can still pursue this career that I’ve been going for. I can get another type of job because you have built up some financial stability along the way. So it gives you options. You don’t feel like you’re stuck in just the one type of job that you’ve been going for that whole time, which might not even be available to you.

46:06 Stephanie: Absolutely.

Best Financial Advice for Another Early-Career PhD

46:08 Emily: Okay. Well, as we’re wrapping up the interview, Stephanie, one thing that I ask all of my guests is what is your best financial advice for another early-career PhD?

46:18 Stephanie: I think probably the best is, and this is where I always tell people to start out in this career, is to look at the jobs out there now that they ultimately want. And I have a tool on my website for this it’s called the Job Tracker. And you basically just like write down, or you copy and paste, like what jobs you like, how much they pay, what your education is. And then, in my course, I actually, I also have a budget planner too. And like, see if you can afford that career and see if it works out to be the type of lifestyle that you want. So really like copy the salary and the location, and look up houses in that area and how much they cost, and see if this fits into your lifestyle. But again, like really get an idea of like, where you want to end up. So there’s no surprises and you can pivot more easily along the way if you decide, okay, I love this, but I really want to make more money. Which is okay, because, like I said, some of these jobs, they pay very little and it can be difficult to live with those jobs. I knew somebody who had what other students thought was like an absolute dream job, but she was just so sick of not making money.

47:38 Emily: Absolutely. I love that advice. It goes along with the general theme of like being realistic. Okay. So where can listeners find you, Stephanie?

47:49 Stephanie: They can go to fancyscientist.com or just Google, fancy scientist I’ll come up and they can contact me any way. I check all my messages. I’m happy to answer their questions. And I love hearing from people.

48:02 Emily: And what is the title of your book?

48:05 Stephanie: Getting a Job in Wildlife Biology: What It’s Like and What You Need to Know.

48:10 Emily: Great.

48:11 Stephanie: Very blunt. Well, thanks so much for doing this. I had a good time talking to you and I learned a lot.

48:17 Emily: Thank you. It’s exciting to me to learn about a new field and kind of wrap my mind around like particular financial challenges within that field.

Outro

48:26 Emily: Listeners, thank you for joining me for this episode! pfforphds.com/podcast/ is the hub for the Personal Finance for PhDs podcast. On that page are links to all the episodes’ show notes, which include full transcripts and videos of the interviews. There is also a form to volunteer to be interviewed on the podcast and instructions for entering the book giveaway contest. I’d love for you to check it out and get more involved! If you’ve been enjoying the podcast, here are 4 ways you can help it grow: 1. Subscribe to the podcast and rate and review it on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or whatever platform you use. If you leave a review, be sure to send it to me! 2. Share an episode you found particularly valuable on social media, with an email listserv, or as a link from your website. 3. Recommend me as a speaker to your university or association. My seminars cover the personal finance topics PhDs are most interested in, like investing, debt repayment, and effective budgeting. I also license pre-recorded workshops on taxes. 4. Subscribe to my mailing list at PFforPhDs.com/subscribe/. Through that list, you’ll keep up with all the new content and special opportunities for Personal Finance for PhDs. See you in the next episode, and remember: You don’t have to have a PhD to succeed with personal finance… but it helps! The music is “Stages of Awakening” by Podington Bear from the Free Music Archive and is shared under CC by NC. Podcast editing and show notes creation by Meryem Ok.

This PhD Found Financial Peace through Pursuing FIRE

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In this episode, Emily interviews Dr. 50 of By 50 Journey, a federal employee who is pursuing financial independence and early retirement (FIRE). Dr. 50 came to the US after finishing college, but worked minimum wage jobs while she learned English until she could apply to PhD programs. She worked full-time to self-fund her PhD over six years. Ultimately the PhD was a game-changer for Dr. 50’s income, and within three or four years of finishing she was earning a six-figure salary. However, a higher salary was not the solution to her family’s financial problems. Dr. 50 describes her emotions at their financial low point, when they completed their debt repayment journey, and upon discovering the FIRE movement. Dr. 50 concludes the interview with an incredible insight regarding financial struggle and striving.

Links Mentioned in This Episode

PhD FIRE

Teaser

00:00 Dr. 50: And one day I was like, okay, this is it. I am making a six-figure salary and I couldn’t even afford a lunch at the cafeteria. And it’s like a wake-up call. I need to do something. We need to do something.

Introduction

00:21 Emily: Welcome to the Personal Finance for PhDs Podcast: A Higher Education in Personal Finance. I’m your host, Dr. Emily Roberts. This is season eight, episode 16, and today my guest is Dr. 50 of By 50 Journey, a federal employee who is pursuing financial independence and early retirement: FIRE. Dr. 50 came to the U.S. after finishing college, but worked minimum wage jobs while she learned English until she could apply for PhD programs. She worked full-time to self-fund her PhD over six years. Ultimately, the PhD was a game-changer for Dr. 50’s income, and within three or four years of finishing, she was earning a six-figure salary. However, a higher salary was not the solution to her family’s financial problems. Dr. 50 describes her emotions at their financial low point when they completed their debt repayment journey. And upon discovering the FIRE movement. Listen through to the end for an incredible insight from Dr. 50 regarding financial struggle and striving.

01:28 Emily: We’ve just passed decision day, April 15th, so I’d like to extend a massive congratulations to everyone who committed to a graduate program for fall 2021. This is an incredibly exciting period of time. As you dream about and plan this new phase of your life, keep your finances top of mind. You’ve already made the biggest financial decision of your graduate career by one, choosing to attend graduate school, and two, committing to a specific stipend and location. The next biggest decisions are housing and transportation, which presumably you will lock in over the next few months. Before making those big commitments, I recommend that you sketch a budget to figure out how much you can afford while ideally maintaining some kind of savings rate. If you would like some help with that process, join the Personal Finance for PhDs Community at pfforphds.community. Inside the Community, you’ll find my How to Draft a Budget From a Distance webinar and custom spreadsheet. We also have a forum and monthly live calls where we can chat more about your specific situation. I would love to assist you with this process in any way that I can.

Book Giveaway Contest

02:44 Emily: Now, it’s time for the book giveaway contest. In April, 2021, I’m giving away one copy of Walden on Wheels by Ken Ilgunas, which is the Personal Finance for PhDs Community book club selection for June 2021. Everyone who enters the contest during April will have a chance to win a copy of this book. If you would like to enter the giveaway contest, please rate and review this podcast on Apple Podcasts, take a screenshot of your review, and email it to me at [email protected]. I’ll choose a winner at the end of April from all the entries. You can find full instructions at pfforphds.com/podcast. The podcast received a review recently titled exactly what I was looking for. Quote, having read a lot of scattered news articles and attending college workshops, I still felt a need for expert advice on investment strategies for international students. I stumbled upon this podcast while doing my weekly finance research, and I can say that Dr. Roberts does a phenomenal job at it. PF for PhDs is one of the few resources I could find which has got something for every grad student trying to figure out personal finances. Highly recommend it to incoming and current students alike. End quote. Thank you so much for this review. I am focusing more energy in 2021 on serving international students, postdocs, and workers, and I’m so glad that is coming across. Without further ado, here’s my interview with Dr. 50 from By 50 Journey.

Will You Please Introduce Yourself Further?

04:19 Emily: I am delighted to have joining me on the podcast today, Dr. 50. She actually goes by Mrs. 50 on her blog, By 50 Journey, which is a FIRE journey blog. However, she does have a PhD. So, we’re going to call her Dr. 50 today. She has an incredible story to tell us about coming to the U.S. As an immigrant, speaking no English, having no money, and you know, pursuing a PhD and ultimately being on this path to financial independence and early retirement. So, really delighted to get her story today. Dr. 50, welcome to the podcast. And will you please tell us a little bit more about yourself?

04:55 Dr. 50: Thank you so much. That was a really great introduction. Yes. That was a long time ago. I would say like over two decades, I came to this country and I had nothing. I mean, it’s nothing. So, I was trying to get a job, but I didn’t get any, because of course I didn’t speak any English. I couldn’t even answer a simple question like, how are you, what are you doing? Because I could understand, but I couldn’t express myself. So meaning trying to get a job, even a simple job. I couldn’t get it. So I was thinking, ah, this is, this is tougher than I thought it would be to start spending my life in a new country with my new husband. And I was trying, okay, let’s go back to grad school. That way I have friends. I have professor, I have, everybody so I can practice on my English. Because back in the day I didn’t have any friends, I don’t have anybody, except just for my husband. Right?

05:59 Dr. 50: And years later, I got accepted into grad school. I was so happy, but on the back of my mind, Oh well, okay, now here I am, I didn’t have any money. I didn’t have any financial support. And then I was trying to get funding, trying to get an assistantship, fellowship, whatever that was available. I didn’t get it. So, my first semester I used my credit card to pay for the tuition. I was, Oh, this is not going well. I have to do it better. So I was trying to find a job on campus. But as a student, we couldn’t work more than 20 hours. I said, this is not going to be enough to pay for everything. And not even the rent. Finally, in my second year of grad school, I got a full-time job which was wonderful. I was so grateful and I worked my way and then time flies.

07:07 Dr. 50: I got my master’s and PhD in six years because I was like, okay, let’s get this done as soon as possible so I can get a job and make real money. Right after I finished my PhD, I got a very great offer, even though I finished in the year 2008. So, everybody knows 2008 was the financial crisis. So I denied that job offer. I don’t know why, maybe because of the years, years, and the struggle of the grad school, I didn’t want to get that job because it was so stressful. So I accepted, I was a post-doc for a year and a half. During that time I was trying to find a real job. So I got a great job offer again. And then I got that job. And then my income was increased significantly. I would say, like triple. But unfortunately that job, it was in the city and I was traveling 90% of the time.

08:11 Dr. 50: And I just had a baby. I was happy with my job, but the work-life balance was not great. So I quit my dream job and then I had to find a job that’s not in the city. And then I got that with a negotiation that I negotiated with them. I managed to get the same salary that I had in the city, but I would live in the country. So, which is great. So, the struggle that was in grad school and a great job offer and determination and then patience. So I would say this is from, didn’t speak English to have a career that I wanted because of my PhD, and I was really happy. So, I’m ready to go on to the next level.

Pre-Grad School Finances

09:12 Emily: Yeah. I want to tease out a couple other pieces of that stories so that I understand it correctly. And thank you for giving us that like overarching view of how your career has evolved. So, it sounds like when you came to the U.S., it was a few years in between when you first arrived and when you were accepted to graduate school, is that right?

09:33 Dr. 50: That is correct.

09:35 Emily: And so, were you ultimately able to find some kind of job? I know that you said that you struggled at first, but how were the finances for you and your husband during that pre-grad school period?

09:46 Dr. 50: Yeah, I had odd jobs washing dishes. I answered the phone. I worked in a Chinese restaurant. I worked in a factory. I worked night shift. I did everything that I could do to earn money. And back in the day, it was the minimum wage. I believe it was $4.75 an hour. And yes, we were struggling before I got accepted into school. Even though after I accepted into grad school, we were still struggling because okay, now I spend my time studying during the day. I didn’t have time to earn money, so it was zero, but yeah. And using credit cards to pay for living expenses, even to pay for rent.

10:33 Emily: Yeah. So, it sounds like you very clearly identified the PhD, having that credential, as the path out of these minimum wage positions, is that correct?

10:44 Dr. 50: Yes. Yes. Definitely.

PhD as a Path to Professorship

10:47 Emily: If you had stayed in your home country, do you think you would have pursued a PhD?

10:53 Dr. 50: Yes, because before I met my husband I had a fellowship lined up for me, which they would pay for my school expenses, tuition, and living expenses. And yeah, I was about to go to doing my masters at the time, but decision between, okay, stay here and pursue my dream of becoming a professor or go there and be with my husband, and the love all my life. So, it’s a life-changing decision.

11:28 Emily: I am glad to hear, though, that you were already oriented in that direction. You were already planning on doing the PhD. It’s just, you decided to do it in a different country and had to take a couple steps back and learn the language and so forth. But you still got to, in terms of doing the PhD, you still got to that same goal.

11:44 Dr. 50: Yes. I always wanted to be a professor. A university professor.

Making Ends Meet in Grad School

11:49 Emily: And one other question I had about kind of the finances during graduate school. You said that you initially started out financing, you know, you weren’t funded, so you were financing it through consumer debt, and ultimately you got, I think you said a full-time job, right? So was it the case that your PhD was never funded? You didn’t have an assistantship or a fellowship, but you worked aside from doing the PhD?

12:10 Dr. 50: Yes. I worked 20 hours at the university dining hall in the morning from 3:30 to eight o’clock. And then during the day I worked as a lab technician for 40 hours. So yeah, my week was full. I would get up at three o’clock and then wouldn’t come home until 11 at night.

12:38 Emily: So you were working 60 hours at jobs plus the PhD work?

12:45 Dr. 50: Yes. And I enrolled full-time because if I did it part-time, it would drag me to eight or 10 years. I couldn’t afford that. That’s too long.

12:57 Emily: Wow. Incredible. I can’t, I can’t even fathom how you got through that. And you said it took six years, right?

13:07 Dr. 50: Yeah. It took six years, a master’s for two years and PhD for four years.

13:11 Emily: And you kept up that, I mean, I’m just like flabbergasted, you kept up that schedule the whole time?

13:16 Dr. 50: Yes. And finally, when I did my research, I quit my dining hall job because it was, Oh, it’s early. And I had that job because I got free meals. So, to save money, so I got free meals for five days. So, that’s awesome. Finally, I didn’t have time to do my research, so I quit that job and then I just kept my full-time job.

Post-PhD Finances

13:45 Emily: Yeah. I think we’re getting a real picture of how your finances were, but what it took, the work it took to keep yourself afloat, you and your husband afloat, during that time. And you know, clearly why you had the motivation to do the PhD. So, I’m really glad to hear that element of the story. Thank you. And so, you told us a little bit earlier about, you know, having the postdoc position and then, you know, taking a couple of different jobs, post-PhD. Did you want to add anything in there about how your income has been or anything like that?

14:20 Dr. 50: Yeah, sure. So, during my grad school years, the part-time one was the dining hall one. That was minimum paid. So, it was like, six or $7 an hour for 20 hours. So, that wasn’t that much. My full-time job, I worked as a lab technician that was $15 an hour. Back in the day, that was, I’d say 15 years ago, that was a lot for me. So, I’d say that I earned the most was $34,000 a year. That was awesome. That’s great money for us. That allowed us to buy a house, this would be our first house, and I didn’t have to worry much about my school tuition. And during that time I was able to talk to my boss, have them pay for a couple of classes. So, that was great. And so, post-PhD I had a postdoc and that doubled my income. I earned $63,000. That was in 2009. I graduated in 2008. So, it was double wage. Our finances were starting to get a lot, a lot better.

15:42 Emily: I just want to ask there, what kind of setting was that postdoc position in? Because that sounds like a pretty well-paid one, especially for that time.

15:52 Dr. 50: I was in the federal agency.

15:55 Emily: Okay. Gotcha.

Money Mindset: Salary Negotiation

Dr. 50 (15:56): And I, again, I negotiated my salary. I always had this mindset, even though with the federal, we have to follow rules and although certain staff follow certain salary level. Yeah. I negotiated. So, actually, it started at, I believe back in the day, was like $51,000 and I was able to get $63,000.

16:23 Emily: I think that’s a really great tip for anyone else who’s looking to apply for federal jobs because you have the, it’s the GS system, is that right?

16:31 Dr. 50: Yeah, it’s the GS system. Even though you’ve been told, okay, this position will give you the GS level this or accept this, you can always negotiate with them. Even though they have the fixed table to follow, you always can negotiate. Yeah. So, after the postdoc, I got a really great job offer in the city. This is in New York city. I was like, Oh my God, New York city, that’s a high cost of living. But it was a job of my dreams. So, I took it and my salary was doubled again. So, I made a six-figure salary. So I came from making minimum wage and then making a six-figure salary within, I would say, three or four years after I got my PhD. So, it was very quick.

17:28 Emily: Yeah. And then you said you maintained that salary even though you didn’t live in New York anymore.

17:33 Dr. 50: Yes.

17:33 Emily: Yeah. That’s fantastic.

17:35 Dr. 50: I came back to the federal, and I negotiated with them again. Different agency. And then they said, yes. I said, Oh my gosh. Yeah. It was so wonderful.

17:46 Emily: And do you still work for the federal government?

17:47 Dr. 50: Yes.

Overcoming a Large Financial Struggle

17:48 Emily: Okay. Yes. Thank you so much. It’s an incredible income trajectory. Also in this period post-PhD, I understand you overcame a large financial struggle. Can you tell us about that?

18:01 Dr. 50: Yes. So, during my graduate school years, I mean, as I already told you guys, we didn’t have much. Plus I supported myself and my family, husband, because he was still trying to finish his college also. So, I’d been using credit cards to pay for my tuition. And I was trying to pay it off every month. Some months I did, and some months I did not. So, it’s accumulated from there. And also, when I got my first real job in the New York City, we had our first child and then baby came and husband still couldn’t find any jobs. So, he was unemployed for a long time. Plus, the daycare cost was like so high. So, it’s better for him to be at home and take care of the baby. And then I’ll take care of the financial side of it.

19:04 Dr. 50: And yes, during this time we have surgeries, hospital, car wreck, and everything you can imagine. So, we accumulated a lot of debt. And one day I was like, okay, this is it. I am making a six-figure salary, and I couldn’t even afford a lunch at the cafeteria. And it’s like a wake up call. I need to do something. We need to do something. So, I say to myself, okay, no more excuses. I don’t want to wait until he got a job or I don’t want to wait until the baby leaves the daycare and goes to school. Let’s start now. Let’s do it. Yeah, all of the frustration. I just made our plan, trying to pay off the debt and made a budget and started doing my excel sheets. And then we go from there. And then in less than six years, all the debt was gone, including the mortgage.

20:04 Emily: Wow. What was the total debt balance then? Between the mortgage and the consumer debt that you were working on?

20:10 Dr. 50: Yeah, we had one car payment that was $18,000 and credit card debt was almost $80,000 and the mortgage was $114,000. So, I would say that 230 to $240,000.

20:26 Emily: Wow. So, within six years you paid off 230, $240,000 of debt on $120k ish, it sounds like, salary. Plus your husband was not working or maybe started working at some point during that period?

20:43 Dr. 50: No.

20:43 Emily: Not working during that period.

20:45 Dr. 50: He was not working yet.

20:45 Emily: Okay. Home with the baby.

20:48 Dr. 50: Yes, home with the baby.

A Shift in Money Mindset

20:48 Emily: Yes, plenty of work there. But it doesn’t sound to me, I want to ask you a little bit more about that transition about that day you couldn’t buy the lunch, you were so frustrated. Because the things that you mentioned, you know, that got you into the debt, the medical bills and the car wreck, none of that was frivolous spending. So, what did change actually at that point?

21:13 Dr. 50: It changed because, it’s kind of embarrassing to say, but I spent hours, hours just to pay a couple of bills. Because I have to think in advance, okay, if we have enough to pay for this and that before the next paycheck comes in. So, basically, we were living paycheck to paycheck. We stressed ourselves financially. Okay, the baby crying, I was trying to pay the bills. And I spent a lot to pay a couple of bills. This is, something’s wrong here. It’s not right. So I was, yeah. From there. Okay. Let’s make a decision to tackle this issue from the cause. Yeah. I was struggling and sad, and then I had nobody else to turn to. And I would say, let’s do this. I don’t want to wait any longer. Let’s do it. Our lifestyle will change, no more shopping, no more eating out. Let’s do this. If we do this, we can do this in under 10 years. In 10 years, we will be a whole new person, a new family, and then life will be much better.

22:29 Emily: And is that how you felt when you, you know, sent off the last payment?

22:33 Dr. 50: I felt relief. Okay, I don’t have to make all these calculations and then try to predict the future if my paycheck will be the same or if we will have any unexpected expenses. But I was like, Oh, well, okay, now we are definitely, the debt is gone. I still, so surprisingly, I still felt the same. It wasn’t the financial that I was looking for. I feel I miss something. We were missing something, but I couldn’t put a word to it until I found the FIRE movement.

Discovering the FIRE Movement

23:16 Emily: Yeah. So FIRE, acronym for financial independence and early retirement or retire early. Would you please explain for my audience, you know, your version of what FIRE is and why that spoke to you, and why you decided to pursue it?

23:31 Dr. 50: Yeah. So, before I knew it was a thing I always, Oh, wait, I don’t want to work. I don’t want to do this for the next 40 years. I mean, I only get one take on this planet. I want to do something that really matters, really matters to me and to my family, and really matters, that I am passionate about. I don’t want to spend my 40 years doing this. So, but I didn’t know what that feeling was until I met the FIRE movement, which you already said stands for financial independence, retire early. So, at this point, I want to be financially independent. The retire early can come back later. So, to me, FIRE means that you don’t have to worry about money anymore, meaning you don’t have to be worried about making a living, making money to support your lifestyle, your life. I mean, you can spend your time doing what really matters. To me, I really have a passion about helping animals in need, dogs and cats at the shelter. So, I really want to pursue that.

Commercial

24:50 Emily: Emily here for a brief interlude. This announcement is for prospective and first-year graduate students. My colleague, Dr. Toyin Alli of The Academic Society, offers a fantastic course just for you called Grad School Prep. The course teaches you Toyin’s four-step Grad Boss method, which is to uncover grad school secrets, transform your mindset, up-level your productivity, and master time management. I contributed a very comprehensive webinar to the course titled Set Yourself Up for Financial Success in Graduate School. It explores the financial norms of grad school and the financial secrets of grad school. I also give you a plan for what to focus on in your finances in each season of the year that you apply to and into your first year of grad school. If this all sounds great to you, please register at theacademicsociety.com/Emily for Toyin’s free masterclass on what to expect in your first semester of grad school, and the three big mistakes that keep grad students stuck in a cycle of anxiety, overwhelm, and procrastination. You’ll also learn more about how to join Grad School Prep, if you’d like to go a step further. Again, that’s theacademic society.com/E M I L Y for my affiliate link for the course. Now, back to our interview.

Striving for Financial Independence

26:18 Emily: It sounds like when you were heavily in consumer debt and you had your mortgage, you were stressed out and you thought that it was because you were playing this paycheck-to-paycheck game, right? Which is super common, that you have to really figure out, you know, when things can be paid so you have money in the bank to do it and all that. But then, once you got out of that level of stress, you said you still kind of felt the same. And so it sounds like you realized that it wasn’t just the paycheck to paycheck game. It was that you had to have a paycheck at all. You wanted to be freed of needing to work to support your lifestyle.

26:53 Dr. 50: Exactly. Yes. I still felt the same. I was surprised. Oh my gosh. I should just be, feel very happy. Definitely I felt relieved, but it wasn’t the happiness that I was looking for. And then, yeah, I just don’t want to have any paychecks at all. I just want to have my money working for me instead of working for the money. I had been working for the money for a long time, and I don’t want to work for the money anymore.

27:19 Emily: I see. Can you give us a little bit of more of the technicalities of how FIRE works, at least in your example? Like, do you have a number that you’re shooting for, and what are the strategies that you’re using to get to that point?

27:31 Dr. 50: Yes. I have several options. So, because my older child and my husband had a chronic disease that the health insurance is the other issue, but yeah, I have a couple options here. So, the first option would be, we accumulate enough money that we can live off the investments, mainly to live off the dividends or the 4% rules. If you Google 4% rules, you will know what it is.

FIRE: The 4% Rule

28:03 Emily: Yeah. I’ll just say for the listener that there’s kind of a rule of thumb in the FIRE movement, which is that if you are supporting yourself through paper assets, stocks and bonds and so forth, the rule is that you save up, invest, 25 times your expected spending level in your retirement, or if that’s what you’re doing, and that you can withdraw 4% per year from your portfolio over the long-term without endangering, you know, that you’re going to draw it down to zero. That’s a really brief explanation. There’s a lot more underneath that, but that’s the gist of the 4% rule.

28:40 Dr. 50: Yes. So, the first option would just live off the 4% rules and everybody will be staying home and taking care of the kids. So, I just had a baby this year, so yeah, the FIRE just came back to me again. And then the second option would be like my husband keeps working. So, we will have the health insurance that we desperately need. And I would be at home and taking care of the baby. And then the third option would be to move to another country that has the universal health insurance. So, we would get that issue covered, and then we’d just live off of the investment.

29:20 Emily: Yeah. So, which one is your plan A?

29:23 Dr. 50: My plan A is the option two. So, have him keep working so we don’t have to move. And then, because by that time they’d be about to get close to the number. The younger one was still be in elementary school. So, would be just like six or seven years old.

29:40 Emily: Okay. And I think this, you know, this health insurance thing that you brought up is something that is such a big conversation in the FIRE movement in the United States, not necessarily elsewhere. And there are plenty of people who are keeping jobs, not because they need the money, but just because health insurance or the risk that you take, if you went on certain kinds of health insurance plans, is so great here. So, it sounds like either your husband will keep working, or maybe at some point we will have a universal option and then that’ll give you a lot more flexibility.

30:11 Dr. 50: Yes, that’s true. Yeah. If you have that flexibility, that would be great. He doesn’t mind working at all. He loves working. So, I’m really grateful for that.

Federal Retirement Benefits

30:21 Emily: Since you’re a federal government employee, do you have a pension? Or do you have like defined contribution plans, or what’s the deal with your retirement?

30:30 Dr. 50: Yes, I do have a pension that is very, very small. So, let’s say if I worked for 30 years plus if you meet MRA, MRA stands for minimal retirement age, if you meet 30 years at your minimum retirement age, you will get 1% of your high three of your salary. The high three is your last three years of your salary. Let’s say, to make the math easier, if you make a hundred thousand a year for the last three years before you resign. So, 1% of that, and times 30 years, so it’s only $30,000 a year, plus tax and all the deduction, it wouldn’t be much. And we have a 401(k), like any other industry, but what we call it TSP. TSP stands for Thrift Savings Plans. So, it works just like 401(k), but it’s just called differently.

Investment Changes Toward  Achieving the FIRE Goal

31:39 Emily: And since you already went through that massive debt payoff journey before discovering the FIRE movement, was there anything that you actually started changing in your finances once you had that identified as your goal?

31:52 Dr. 50: Yes. I’m glad that you asked that question. So, it changed dramatically. So, I’ve always been maxing out my 401(k), or my TSP, every year. Okay. So, we agreed as a family that we’re going to pursue FIRE. Let’s do something different. Because if I keep my job, if I still continue trying to do a traditional retirement, I would work into my MRA at 57 or 60 years. And if you want to pursue FIRE, we need to fill a gap between that because I cannot take the money out until 59 and a half. So that gap, we cannot draw our 401(k) or any retirement account. So, we opened a broker’s account and instead of maxing out my 401(k) and his 401(k), we just contribute to the match just enough to get the match from our employer. And then divert all the money from that into the brokerage account, the taxable account.

33:00 Emily: So, that sounds like you felt like your post-60 retirement was well-funded enough. And I mean, you’re still going to get the match, so there’s still more growth and a little bit more contribution there, but it sounded like you thought that that was well-funded enough. So, now you’re going to focus on those years between whenever you do stop working and when you can start to access those retirement accounts.

33:21 Dr. 50: Yes. It would be about 10 years. So, the “50” came from, I would like to retire by the time I turn 50. Yeah, so, 10 years I calculated it. All the expenses in the future. I came up with the numbers that we have to have at least $600,000, or $600,000 to be okay, that’s the lean FIRE. If you want to get more comfortable, I say $750,000. That will get up to be better than lean FIRE. Lean FIRE is just like, minimal, barely enough to live on.

34:00 Emily: Anything else that you changed aside from the destination of your investments?

34:05 Dr. 50: Yeah, that’s the one thing. And then we also, any leftover money that we can save, any activity that we cannot pass by, like re-doing our budget, do the meal plan. Budget system number one and meal planning, not going out, basically just frugal living. And then I started a side business. Anything that I can sell. And as a family we like, talk, okay, this is the goal that we want to do. And everybody was on board and yeah. Every little thing, side hustles, living frugally, anything will go to the FIRE account.

Lifestyle and Money Mindset Pre- vs. Post-Grad School

34:54 Emily: How does, how you’re living now–you know, frugally and so forth, saving a lot, working hard–how does that compare to that pre-grad school period, or even the time when you were in graduate school, and you had that heavy workload? I guess I’m asking, how does your lifestyle compare, and also how do you feel about your finances now compared to back then?

35:18 Dr. 50: I would say I feel a little bit better. Because back in the day, we were struggling financially trying to put food on the table, trying to pay rent and then trying to pay the mortgage. Right now, we’ve comfortably more than enough to pay all the expenses, living expenses and mortgage, everything is on auto pay. I didn’t have to worry about if we have enough money. If the bill comes in, if we have a roof leak, if we have a broken pipe, we have emergency funds. So yes, my feeling was much better, but financially I was still trying to meet my financial goal, which is the financial independence. So it’s a different feeling, but I would say a different feeling kind of between struggle and the finish line, I would say.

36:14 Emily: So, sort of like struggling to get off the starting blocks. Right? To even make it, you know, to have a tiny bit of financial security, versus now, like you just said, you can see the finish line. You’re striving and you’re racing for that finish line. And yeah, I would imagine that, even if your lifestyle is pretty low, like you’ve tried to like be pretty frugal and stuff, having that financial security of the, you know, X, many hundreds of thousands of dollars, you know, in the bank and the investments, it has to be a massive, massive relief on your mind.

36:49 Dr. 50: Yes. Yeah. It would be a relief because right now we trying, I would say we are in an accumulation phase trying to get as much money into the FIRE as much as possible, as soon as possible. But at the same time, I just don’t want to stress myself out. Because one thing that I learned from our debt-free journey, our debt journey was like, because at the end of the day, you just want to be happy, right? The money doesn’t make you happy. You just need to learn to live in the moment, even though you are trying to achieve something or aim for something, but overall you just want to be happy and just trying to live in the day. I just don’t want to stress out too much because during our debt journey, I was so stressed out. I just wanted to be out of debt so badly. I just didn’t want to spend at all.

37:47 Dr. 50: And I wasn’t happy. And when we were debt-free, I still wasn’t happy. Now, we are on the FIRE path, FIRE journey. I just don’t want to be the same. I just want to enjoy a little bit more of my life. I just want to stop and breathe and enjoy every single day. I just don’t want to wait, because if you wait, you will feel depressed. And if you ever feel like it will never come. So yes, I take it easy and just live in the day. And that day will come before you know it.

Was the PhD Financially Worthwhile?

38:24 Emily: I’m really glad to hear you say that. That’s a message I need to hear. I need to hear that and be able to focus on living in the moment more and not striving. And I’m really glad to hear you say that because I know that some people in the FIRE movement do stay very caught up in the end goal. And even though sort of the philosophy around FIRE would be to be living in the moment both while you’re pursuing it and once you’ve achieved it, a lot of people do fall into just thinking about the future and living for the future and you know, not taking the time to enjoy the time they have at the moment, which is all we have. Right? Really. So, I’m really glad to hear that you’ve, based on your debt free journey, you’ve already learned that lesson. And you’re now, you know, beyond that and into still enjoying your life even while you’re pursuing FIRE. So, I’m really pleased to hear that. Do you think the PhD was financially worthwhile?

39:14 Dr. 50: Oh, yes. In my case, for me. For me, it was worthwhile. I am glad that I made the right decision to pursue a PhD because it’s opened so many doors for us. If I were working at my minimum wage job at a factory, or I was afraid to take the risk of not having any paycheck and then just went straight to grad school without any backup plan. We wouldn’t be here today. Yes. It was very worthwhile. Yeah.

Best Financial Advice for an Early-Career PhD

39:47 Emily: Yes. I can see that clearly from the story now. And so, Dr. 50, I conclude all my interviews by asking my guest what is your best financial advice for an early-career PhD? That could be something we’ve talked about already. It could be something completely different, but would you please share that with us?

40:04 Dr. 50: Yeah, sure. I say, from my past experience as a PhD graduate, you feel like, Oh my gosh, I have a PhD behind my name now. I make a ton of money. Even though it’s not a ton, I would say, it’s increased your income. My one piece of advice would be trying to live the same. Don’t let the life inflation get you. Because if you do that, it will be never enough. I mean, it’s how much you make, how advancing your career brings you. It will not be enough. You just, if you just keep inflating your lifestyle. I’m not saying that you should be conscious as a graduate student, but on the back of your mind, trying to do like other peers are doing. I’m not saying like, you should live this way, but yeah. Lifestyle inflation, it really hurts your financial life.

40:59 Emily: Yeah. And it definitely sounds like you were there, you did that for a little while. I like to say, don’t inflate your lifestyle, but increase your lifestyle. Increase it intentionally, mindfully. But don’t, yeah. Don’t just let it float up to, you know, whatever your salary is.

41:16 Dr. 50: Yes.

41:17 Emily: Yes. I love that advice. Thank you so much. Dr. 50, it’s been a real pleasure talking to you. Thank you so much for joining me on the podcast.

41:22 Dr. 50: Oh, thank you so much. I’m glad to be here. And I’m so honored to be on this podcast. I am. I hope that my life lesson and experience will be helpful to you guys in some way, some small way. Thank you so much for having me here.

Listener Q&A: Financial Independence

41:42 Emily: Now on to the listener question and answer segment. Today’s question was asked in advance of a live webinar I gave recently for a university client. So, it is anonymous. Here is the question. Quote, can you start a journey to financial independence in grad school. End quote. Wow. It is awesome that this person is already thinking about long-term financial independence as a graduate student. The answer is, unequivocally, yes. In fact, if you’d like to think about it this way, you have already started your journey to financial independence in grad school, because you are making a long-term investment in your career, and presumably, your earning potential. While FIRE is achievable in theory by anyone, it’s definitely an easier road if you have a good salary. So, in that sense, if getting a graduate degree is going to put you on a road to a good salary, you’re already pursuing financial independence. Now, what can you do while you’re actually in graduate school to pursue financial independence?

42:46 Emily: No matter what your income, you can work on your mindset. You can learn more about personal finance. You can put strong habits into place, which you’ll definitely need during graduate school, like budgeting and frugality. Your income is always going to be rather low during grad school, but that’s not the only side of the equation when it comes to financial independence. Your expenses matter a lot as well. I would say, during this period of time, when your income is suppressed, you should take the time to master the controlling expenses side of the equation. But that’s not all. Even with a lower income during grad school, you can work on increasing your net worth. This is what I put a lot of focus on when I was in graduate school. Tactically, once you have your budget set up and hopefully a bit of free cashflow, you can put that towards saving, debt repayment, or investing, following, like I’ve talked about in recent weeks, the financial framework that I developed for PhDs.

43:43 Emily: Now, here’s one key concept that might not have occurred to you yet. While you’re in graduate school and you have this lower income, you also have a lower tax rate. Graduate students tend to, unless they’re married to someone with a much higher income, top out in the 12% federal marginal tax bracket or lower. And that means that it is a perfect time to use a Roth IRA for your retirement investments. Especially, again, if you anticipate a large income increase postgraduate school, this is probably the most optimal time in your life to be using a Roth IRA. And presumably it’s also the earliest investing you’ll do, so it has the longest timeline to compound and grow. People are crazy for the Roth IRA, and they will contribute even when they’re in incredibly high tax bracket. So, you really have, if you think about it, a great opportunity to be able to contribute to the Roth IRA without paying a high tax rate. And five years or so investing in a Roth IRA and then decades compounding after that, this will be a very big portion of your portfolio, ultimately, even if you don’t contribute in absolute numbers a lot of money during grad school. Thank you so much for this question, Anonymous, and I’m so glad to learn that you are already on your journey to financial independence. If you’d like to submit a question to be answered in a future episode, please go to pfforphds.com/podcast and follow the instructions you find there. I love answering questions, so please submit yours.

Outtro

45:18 Emily: Listeners, thank you for joining me for this episode. Pfforphds.com/podcast is the hub for the Personal Finance for PhDs Podcast. On that page are links to all the episode show notes, which include full transcripts and videos of the interviews. There is also a form to volunteer to be interviewed on the podcast, and instructions for entering the book giveaway contest and submitting a question for the Q&A segment. I’d love for you to check it out and get more involved. If you’ve been enjoying the podcast, here are four ways you can help it grow. One, subscribe to the podcast and rate and review it on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or whatever platform you use. If you leave a review, be sure to send it to me. Two, share an episode you found particularly valuable on social media, with an email listserv, or as a link from your website. Three, recommend me as a speaker to your university or association. My seminars cover the personal finance topics PhDs are most interested in, like investing, debt repayment, and taxes. Four, subscribe to my mailing list at pfforphds.com/subscribe. Through that list, you’ll keep up with all the new content and special opportunities for Personal Finance for PhDs. See you in the next episode! And remember you don’t have to have a PhD to succeed with personal finance, but it helps. The music is Stages of Awakening by Podington bear from the free music archive and is shared under CC by NC. Podcast editing and show notes creation by Meryem Ok.