parenting

How This Grad Student-Parent Managed Her Money and Time in the Bay Area

October 23, 2023 by Jill Hoffman Leave a Comment

In this episode, Emily interviews Dr. Ilana Horwitz, an assistant professor of Jewish Studies and Sociology at Tulane University. Ilana started her PhD at Stanford when her first child was nine months old, and she had a second child after her third year. Emily and Ilana discuss the frugal tactics and time management strategies that she employed while her children were young. They also discuss the income disparity and gender dynamics that came into play between Ilana and her husband during that period and when Ilana was on the academic job market. Finally, Ilana makes the case for having children as a grad student instead of as a faculty member. If you are a parent in academia, whether as a grad student or full-time employee, don’t miss this episode!

Links mentioned in the Episode

How This Grad Student-Parent Managed Her Money and Time in the Bay Area

Teaser

Ilana H (00:00): I think really creatively and outside the box about how you can garner resources in your community, in your social network to help you sort of accomplish things. And it’s not necessarily like a specific amount of money, but that, you know, if you have a talent, like maybe you can tutor somebody in statistics and in exchange they can watch your kids for a couple of hours.

Introduction

Emily (00:32): Welcome to the Personal Finance for PhDs Podcast: A Higher Education in Personal Finance. I’m your host, Dr. Emily Roberts, a financial educator specializing in early-career PhDs and founder of Personal Finance for PhDs. This podcast is for PhDs and PhDs-to-be who want to explore the hidden curriculum of finances to learn the best practices for money management, career advancement, and advocacy for yourself and others.

Emily (01:03): This is Season 16, Episode 4, and today my guest is Dr. Ilana Horwitz, an assistant professor of Jewish Studies and Sociology at Tulane University. Ilana started her PhD at Stanford when her first child was nine months old, and she had a second child after her third year. Ilana and I discuss the frugal tactics and time management strategies that she employed while her children were young. We also discuss the income disparity and gender dynamics that came into play between Ilana and her husband during that period and when Ilana was on the academic job market. Finally, Ilana makes the case for having children as a grad student instead of as a faculty member. If you are a parent in academia, whether as a grad student or full-time employee, don’t miss this episode!

Emily (01:50): This is your official invitation to please volunteer as a guest for one of the upcoming episodes! I love that on this podcast I get to feature PhDs and PhDs-to-be who are almost exclusively regular people and learn and share their real-life stories and strategies. Please go to PFforPhDs.com/podcastvolunteer/ and fill out the quick form, and I’ll be in touch over email. I look forward to interviewing you in the coming months! You can find the show notes for this episode at PFforPhDs.com/s16e4/. Without further ado, here’s my interview with Dr. Ilana Horwitz.

Will You Please Introduce Yourself Further?

Ilana H (02:57): Sure. Thank you so much for having me on on this podcast, Emily. I am an assistant professor of Jewish Studies and Sociology at Tulane University. I went to graduate school at Stanford in the Graduate School of Education and I got my PhD in Sociology of Education and Jewish Studies. But I had a long career before I started graduate school. I worked in management consulting and in several sort of researchy and evaluation kind of roles and a couple of startups. And so I didn’t start my PhD until I was 30. And then after I did my PhD, I stayed at Stanford for a two year postdoc and then joined the Tulane faculty. And I’m now in my third year at Tulane.

Ilana’s Book: The Entrepreneurial Scholar

Emily (03:44): Excellent. And please tell us the subject of this book, ’cause I can already see there’s overlap with your professional history there and the subject and everything.

Ilana H (03:51): Yeah, absolutely. The title of the book is called The Entrepreneurial Scholar and it’s really a book about how early career scholars and PhD students can think about generating influential ideas while working with very limited resources and navigating an environment of high uncertainty. This is something that people who are entrepreneurial are really good at, but people who are really good at school tend to not be as good at. So it’s really a book that tries to get people to think differently about the dispositions and sort of habits that they bring to graduate school.

Emily (04:26): I love it. Absolutely. There’s no way I’m gonna miss this when it comes out. So we are recording this interview in September, 2023. The book is expected to be out in summer 2024, and I will have Ilana back on the pro on the podcast during that post book period promotional period. ’cause I’m so curious about this whole process, not just the subject of the book, but the making of the book. So is really exciting, but this is not our subject for today. Our subject for today is the fact that you had a child before you even started graduate school, and then you had another one during graduate school. And so we’re gonna talk about kind of the financial stuff that you did to, you know, make that work while you were a graduate student. And so let’s start off by talking about kind of what was your family structure and and what were the finances like at that time and all those details.

Family Structure and Finances During Graduate School

Ilana H (05:09): Yeah, so I had my first kid in January of 2013. And at the time I was working and I had applied to graduate school. And ironically today actually my kids are off from school. So if you’re watching the video here, they are in the background. here, they are much older. But I had Aria I was working and then when I had her, I, a few weeks after she was born, actually my advisor called me and said he had accepted me into the program and so I decided not to go back to work. And I was able to stay home with my first one for eight months. And then I started graduate school when she was nine months old. We had our second baby between my third and fourth year we actually tried to plan it to h her between my second and third year because of sort of but it takes so long to get pregnant sometimes that I realized that planning. It was a very silly attempt. At the time, in terms of our finances, we were pretty financially stable. My husband and I had both worked at that point for about a decade. And so we had a lot of money saved up and he had a pretty stable job in the Bay Area. I had about $40,000 of loans from undergrad and from my first master’s at Teachers Columbia. But they were in deferment and we, I had a pretty generous stipend from Stanford. It was only, it was $25,000, but I had an additional sort of $20,000 for four for a couple of years from an outside source. So I was making about 45,000. But we had very high expenses. So living, we lived on Stanford’s campus in the family housing, which I’ll talk a lot about. But we, our rent started at about $2,000 at the start of graduate school. And then it was up to 2,700 by the time I finished graduate school a month. And then we had really high childcare expenses. We did put our children in daycare full-time. And basically by the time sort of my last few years of grad school, we were paying $50,000 a year in childcare expenses. ’cause Each kid cost over $2,000 per year. So that pretty much all wiped out my entire salary. But we did have my husband’s income to get us through it.

Emily (07:39): Wow, okay. Thank you so much for all those details. So it sounds like your stipend from Stanford at least initially was around 45 k. Did you get any supplement for like a childcare grant or anything? I’ve, I’ve noticed that some other students have had access to those kinds of resources.

Ilana H (07:55): I did not. While I was at Stanford, there was a big push to help parents because parents were really struggling. One of my classmates, actually, Tina Cheuk, somebody you could talk to someday started a whole campaign around mothers and parents in academia. And as a result of this like amazing advocacy work that she did, I think parents were able to apply for grants of up to $10,000, partly to cover not just childcare, but also healthcare. My understanding is that the healthcare expenses through Stanford were in extraordinarily expensive and people weren’t able to pay for it. I was on my husband’s insurance, and so we were able to do it that way. But the sort of advocacy work that she did made a big difference to some parents. And I think by the time I left, there were more resources available to parents.

Emily (08:44): Thank you so much for telling us about that effort because it just goes to show that these advocacy efforts are effective in, in various places. I love to hear that. Tell me a little bit about, more about like, okay, you said we’re basically trying to basically getting by on your husband’s salary because yours is effectively going to childcare. I just wanna know because you said it’s high cost of living, but presumably your husband also has a good Bay Area type salary. I’m trying to understand how much of a strain this was being in graduate school. So like, were you guys still able to invest? Were you guys still able to save or was it like, Hmm, nope. Like there’s no, the building towards the future is the career thing here. It’s not the financial thing at this time.

Ilana H (09:22): We were able to, I think, continue saving, but part of I think my own challenge was that I I had grown up sort of like a, as a working class immigrant, my family moved from the former Soviet Union when I was seven. And then my my, my parents had sort of like pretty working class jobs and then my father unexpectedly passed away when I was 14. And so I think having grown up sort of in some economic precarity and also seeing my mom really having to figure out her finances on her own has always made me very like nervous about being reliant on somebody else’s income, which is, you know, nothing that my, is my husband’s fault, but it’s my own sort of struggle. And so even though we were fine financially, I was constantly trying to think about ways to sort of be frugal, ways to be creative about resources which I know we’re gonna talk about. But I, I felt like I had to sort of because I wasn’t working and I’d been so used to working, I felt like I had to find all sorts of ways to save money and be really, really efficient with our resources.

Creative Financial Strategies During Graduate School

Emily (10:25): So what kinds of things were you doing? Like what could be helpful maybe for other people in a similar situation to hear in terms of how you could keep a lid on expenses related to your children?

Ilana H (10:36): I tried to think really creatively about using and harnessing the communal resources of the Stanford community. So I mentioned that we lived in graduate student housing and our apartments were tiny. But what was amazing is that we had these communal playgrounds and I started spending time hanging out with other parents, you know, on the swing set and whatever. And I realized that like everyone had a lot of really interesting skills and I was like, how can we all sort of bring together all of our unique skills to help each other? And so one thing I knew I was good at was taking family photographs. I had like a background in photography, I really loved it. And so I posted, there was like a parent listerv, and so I posted an email saying like, I would like to barter my photography services in exchange for somebody coming to help me build my furniture. I don’t have time to build my baby crib and the dresser and all these things. And so if you come and build my furniture, I will take family photos. And so that was one thing I started doing. I also sent out an email saying, who wants to do like a meal swap? Because during my winter breaks, spring breaks and summer breaks, I would go on a intensive sort of cooking frenzy where I would cook a ton of stews and soups and chilies and then freeze them in mason jars. And I was like, but I would get sick of the same soup. So I was like, if other people did this, we could have a big soup swap. So I thought about doing that. I also realized, you know, your kids wear some of their clothes like five times and they’re brand new. And so I started organizing baby clothing swaps and also not just for clothing, but like strollers and cribs and all these other things. And I, I think the key thing was like not being shy to ask and sort of put the ideas out there because I think some people feel like, oh you know, I have to, we live in this very individualistic society and I had to get out of this mindset and think about what is the, what can the community do together that’s bigger than what all of us can do individually. I also started all of our houses were attached and I realized that our baby monitors would reach across homes. And so like we had good friends who lived like one door down, like there was somebody separating us. But our monitor reached over there and I said like, we wanna go out to dinner. We don’t wanna pay for our babysitter once we put our baby to bed. Can we give you the monitor and like you just check on our baby? And we did that and we, and then we would exchange those sort of services for each other. So those were some of the ways that I creatively thought about using and leveraging all the parents in the community to help each other.

Emily (13:15): Well, I love those ideas, not just for the specifics of baby clothes or bartering services, but because you were leading by example and you’re still leading by example by sharing this with us on the podcast. So did you find that people were very receptive to these ideas? I would be if I heard them, then again, I’m a pretty frugal person. So how, how were they received?

Ilana H (13:34): Yeah, I think they were received great. I think people were really in the same boat. And I think everybody was trying to make ends meet. There was a lot of stay-at-home parents and graduate housing. It was very typical for men to be getting their graduate degrees and for moms to be full-time with childcare responsibilities. Because basically if you have more than like two kids, it doesn’t sort of make sense to pay for care. It’s often, you know, cheaper for the mom to stay home. And so people who had three or four children did that arrangement and they were still really struggling. So people, yeah, definitely embraced the idea of communal sharing. They loved it. And we also lived in the Bay area where there was like a mentality of recycle, reuse, repurpose. So I think that helped us also,

Emily (14:30): Yeah, my mind is boggling a little bit, thinking about a family being supported by a grad student or postdoc kind of salary or stipend in the Bay area. But I know this often comes up for, for instance, international students and postdocs, right, whose spouse doesn’t have a working type visa, so they literally have no choice. But to be, you know, the stay at home parent or a stay at home home spouse wow, okay. That’s such an awesome idea and I think it really helped in your case that you all did live. I mean, it sounds like you put things out to the parent listserv, but also many of you were actually neighbors. And so that like proximity and the familiarity that that breeds, I would imagine helped a lot with that initiative.

Ilana H (15:08): Yeah, because I think what that did was develop a sense of trust. Like it wasn’t random people who who you didn’t know who you were trying to collaborate with, right? We had this like, I’m a sociologist, so I’ll just say like we had developed this sort of these networks of trust of social capital. And so I knew that like giving my monitor to you and other parent, I knew who they were, I knew who their children were, their children had probably played at my house. There was a sort of sense of trust and reciprocity that developed by the virtue of the fact that we were all in the same boat and living in close proximity to each other. I also took advantage of a bunch of some Stanford resources that I think some parents don’t, didn’t even know exist. And I wanna put this out there, like for students to see if this exists on your campus. So Stanford dining halls had amazing food and children ate for free, completely for free. And so not only did I not have to cook and clean for my kids, you know, but also it was free. And so we went to the dining hall on a very, very regular basis. It was also like nice to see other families there. It got my children to try new foods, but that was an incredible resource. I also did some things like I co-oped at my kids’ school. If you co-op meaning like you volunteer in the classroom for two hours a week, you can get a discounted tuition rate. So I did that. I also served on the board, which got me 10% off of the tuition. And then I also thought creatively about outsourcing and when I wanted to outsource things. So I come from a business background. Sometimes I like to think like an economist. And so there was a period of time in my sort of fifth year I was taking really some really hard classes trying to finish my work on my dissertation. And it was just too much and I just like wasn’t able to do all the cooking. And so I had talked to one of the parents I’m sorry, not the parents, one of the teachers in my kid’s school and she mentioned like she lived on her own. She was kind of lonely and she loved to cook. And I was like, would you like to come and like spend a couple hours at my house cooking on a Saturday or Sunday and I will pay you? And so I paid her $25 an hour and she came and she did a couple hours of cooking that basically would hold us over for the rest of the week. And the way I thought about that expense was like I was also doing some side hustling and had some consulting jobs on the side and I was like, for me to do an hour of work, you know, I would generally get paid, you know, between like 50 to a hundred dollars depending on the job. Sometimes it was a lot less. But generally I was like, for an hour of my work I could basically get, you know, several hours of time from for somebody to cook. And so I thought about outsourcing in a pretty strategic way because I had this other income coming in from side hustling.

Emily (17:58): Yeah, I love that point and thank you so much for bringing it up. A lot of people within the personal finance community talk about your hourly rate, like your hourly compensation rate and say, ah, anything you know, below that you should outsource it if you can get it done for less. I don’t quite agree with that, but in your situation there’s an exact corollary, which you just said this was not your base salary that you were comparing to. This was the extra hours you could put towards the side hustle that you were comparing to. So it directly freed up your time for that particular income source. So that’s why the comparison works really well. And I love this idea of you like, you know, in your first four years of graduate school doing all this batch cooking during your breaks and like getting prepared and getting your family used to the system of we eat freezer meals and we do this bulk cooking stuff. And then after that realizing, oh wow, I don’t, I now don’t even have time for the cooking part of it, but we’re already used to kind of the system and so you can just outsource that last leg of it and make it work for you. So yeah, thank you so much for like talking about your thought process through that. Was there anything else that you considered outsourcing other than cooking or, or did outsource? I mean,

Ilana H (19:03): Occasionally I would outsource some childcare help. So my kids were in school full time, which was like eight to six. And occasionally I would have people some of their teachers would come on the weekend and I would pay them hourly to watch my kids if I ne needed to do something over the weekend and couldn’t real, you know, ask my husband to sort of watch the kids yet again. I don’t think there was anything else that I can think of.

Time Management During Graduate School

Emily (19:29): Okay. Well now that we’re into kind of the time management portion of the conversation, can you share with us any other like time management related strategies used to make this period of your life work?

Ilana H (19:40): Yeah, so I in the beginning of graduate school, probably my first and second year I would put my, my daughter, I just had one at the time and she would go to bed pretty early, right? That’s the great thing about babies. They go to bed by like seven 30 and I would do a lot of work at night, but then I realized I couldn’t sleep particularly when I was working on my qualifying paper, which is what we have instead of comps. Because I was just thinking about the data in my head all the time and like trying to resolve puzzles as I was trying to sleep and it just wasn’t working. And so I decided to totally shift my schedule to go to bed by about 9 30, 10 at the latest and then wake up five to five 30. And my kids, especially in sort of the later years, were not waking up until like seven. And so I would get a solid hour and a half of work time in the morning and I felt so productive and so fabulous. It took, you know, other people I’ve given this advice to have started it. And then they give up really quickly. The, the trick is you have to stick with it for a couple weeks. Like the first couple days are so hard ’cause your body is not used to doing that. So stick with it and for, you know, it, it can work.

Emily (20:48): So this strategy is called the split shift. It’s something that I learned about in Laura Vander cam’s, I know how she does it, which is about working moms with high impact jobs. And yeah, it’s super, super common as you said, because your kids are only awake for those limited windows. If you’re working for a lot of that window, then you don’t get to see them that much. So you sort of shift the work around, like you said, you tried it in the evening, that’s what most people do, but it didn’t work for you for the reasons you said. And so I love that you just didn’t give up on the strategy entirely. You just shifted the window. Now it is very challenging to get up before young children, at least most young children, but it sounds like it was working for you all. And I know actually from the podcast that Laura Vander cam co-hosts, which is called Best of both worlds, that her co-host is also a very, very early riser. So she loves that morning split shift as well. So yeah, and I totally agree with you. I changed my own sleep habits sort of early on the pandemic. I had never been one to consistently be waking up at the same time every day. And I was a bit of a night owl, but I started getting up at 6:00 AM every day. And you’re exactly right, it’s the, you have to stick with the schedule, you have to power through the initial like difficult early part, and then it becomes more easy as your body then regulates itself towards that schedule that you’ve set instead of like me just being haphazard all over the place when you go to sleep and when you wake up.

Ilana H (22:03): Yeah, that’s absolutely right. Being consistent with a sleep schedule is really important. So I wake up really early on the weekends also. Another thing that I did or things people often said to me in graduate school, like, I don’t understand how you do it. Like, how can you be a mom and a grad student? And actually I think I was more productive than most people because I knew that I had this very finite period of time, right? Like, I have eight to six and that’s it. And so I didn’t, I wasn’t on social media. I like dilly, didn’t dilly dally. Like I didn’t waste any time, every moment that I had, I was incredibly productive because I knew my time was limited as opposed to, I think people who are like, I have all day, like, so what if I watch a couple hours of TV now as a result? I was like, had no idea what was going on in the world. I had no, I have no pop culture knowledge at all whatsoever. I pretty much lived under a rock, but I was really efficient. And so there’s something to be said about knowing that you have a finite period of time and being really efficient during those hours.

Emily (23:01): I think I have to imagine not only the the parenthood aspect of this, but your past work experience played into this as well because I think it’s really difficult for people sort of like me, I almost did this who go pretty much directly from undergrad to grad school and carry that like student mindset, the student schedule, the student finances, the student identity and so forth into their graduate careers if they haven’t had the kind of interruption like you did by a working career. So probably a lot of the habits and strategies you learned in your twenties were you, you were then able to apply once you got to graduate school.

Ilana H (23:30): Yeah, I, by the time I got to graduate school, I knew myself really, really well and I knew what worked for me and what didn’t. I think early in my career I was always like waiting till the last minute to do things and was a total procrastinator and submitted things late. And really I, and one of the things I, the biggest lesson I learned in my mid twenties when I tried working for a couple of organizations is that I didn’t do well having a boss. I really needed to have autonomy and agency in my work. And being a PhD student and now a faculty member is exactly what is, that’s exactly what I have and that’s what I love so much about my job because I learned that I really needed to set my own schedule. I wanna be able to work what I want on what I want and how I want. And I didn’t do well telling me to, having people tell me sort of how to do my job and when to do it. But so my biggest, you know, general advice for people when they come to me about career advice is to take time off between being an undergrad and a grad student because you learn so much about yourself as well as about the real world. As opposed to when you go straight through. There’s so many ideal things that we think about theoretical things we learn about in the classroom that just don’t translate or are much more difficult in reality. And when you actually go to work in the real world, you see some of those some of those things play out.

Emily (24:52): I love it. I give the same advice whenever anyone seems receptive to it.

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Family Roles and Responsibilities During Graduate School

Emily (26:17): Now, we already got a hint of this earlier in the email when you were talking about not wanting to rely on someone else financially. So I wanna ask about in your household during this period, how were the roles working between you and your husband? Did you have defined areas of responsibility? Was that something you were constantly negotiating? I’m sure it changed with time, but can you tell us about that process?

Ilana H (26:39): Yeah, absolutely. When I started graduate school at the time my husband had a very long commute to his job. This is in the day when people actually commuted to work. And so I was in charge both of childcare pick up and drop off. But also because I was, you know, in grad school and I had the more flexible schedule it was assumed and we never had like an outright conversation about it, but it was assumed that I was gonna be the one to take the time off. And so when my kid first started daycare, she was sick all the time. She had ear infections, she had flus, she had colds, all the stuff. And I also, at the time, Stanford operates on a quarter schedule, which I had never been on a quarter schedule. And it’s very different than a semester schedule because things move very fast. And so you can never say to yourself on a quarter schedule like, oh, I’ll get to that later. Or like, I missed that concept, I’ll get to it later because there is no later, it’s only 10 weeks. And so I just remember my first quarter it was really hard. I took this very difficult economics class or it was difficult for me ’cause I was trying to learn things that the other undergrad students in the class it was very intuitive to them, like integrals and derivatives. And my kid was constantly sick. And so even missing like two or three or four classes, which is what ended up happening set me back a lot. And so I really struggled with how to like navigate both, like the idea that the grad student is the more flexible one means that we are always having to, to take that on. And also as the mother, there’s so much of the like kind of invisible childcare responsibility. So for example I was the one that managed all the clothes. Like I knew when they would outgrow the clothes and where the next size was. And sort of keeping all of that organized. I did all the co-oping at the, at the school. I was the one that had to do all the paperwork for the school and do take with them to all the doctor’s appointments and hired, you know, anyone that we, you know, brought in outside of childcare hours. So sort of navigating all that kind of what was I think called the invisible responsibility of childcare fell on me. And that was really hard. Another thing that was especially hard is when I was on the job market when I went on the, I went on the job market three times and I was very unsuccessful up until I finally got this job at Tulane. But at one point I had been offered a job at or at least a postdoc at Brandeis. And at the time my husband, this was pre Covid and my husband said like, you want us to move to Boston for two years for you to make $50,000? Like that doesn’t make any sense. You know, it’s not a permanent job and it would mean that I would have to give up my job, which, you know, in terms of our household hold finances would make no sense. But for me it was hard to sort of navi like feel like, oh, when am I ever gonna get my turn? If it’s always about money I’m never gonna get to have a turn. And so when I finally got a job offer at Tulane, I said to my husband and he didn’t wanna move to New Orleans, I said, you know, if, if you, if we don’t move for this job, like I’m gonna be very resentful. Um and then Covid hit and he was able to take his job remotely with him, but he had even agreed to move to New Orleans before that happened. So and now actually he works from home. And when my kids are sick, he’s the one that now stays home with them and I go and teach and we have a much more even sort of distribution of childcare and it’s, it’s great. But because the grad school time is when you, you know, you’re more flexible, I think that compounded by the gender dynamics of childcare responsibility made it hard for me.

Emily (30:24): Absolutely. You were, it was a double whammy on you. Right? And you mentioned earlier about some of your peers and housing having like a stay-at-home spouse. Now I imagine, were there any women who were graduate students among that who had the stay-at-home husband? Or did you only see the opposite model?

Ilana H (30:40): I think I only saw the opposite model.

Emily (30:45): And isn’t that telling right?

Ilana H (30:47): It is telling.

Gender and Income Dynamics with a Working Partner

Emily (30:48): Yes. absolutely. So you had this, these two seemingly really good reasons right, why you should be the one to be handling the childcare and as you said later on, the roles changed and, and things shifted. But is there any like advice that you would give to your past self or someone else who’s in a similar gendered plus income differential, like kind of situation that would’ve helped you I don’t know, get to graduation faster, feel more balanced, whatever would’ve been a greater degree of success for you at that time?

Ilana H (31:18): This one is kind of maybe sort of silly, but you know, when I was on the job market maybe the second time and I was applying pretty widely, my husband and I would have these like extensive conversations before I applied anywhere. Like could we imagine living there and we would, you know, get into this whole thing. Like I’d apply to a job at Notre Dame and he’d be like, do you really wanna live in South Bend, Indiana? No offense to anybody listening from South Bend, Indiana, but he’s like . That wasn’t his first choice of places to move. But we would have these extensive conversations and in retrospect like that was a waste of time and, and a waste of emotional energy because none of those jobs panned out. So I don’t know why we bothered like sort of investing so much of our conversation time and emotional energy even having those conversations. Um and when I did apply to the job at Tulane, he was like, I, I had sort of given up by then about asking him where I should apply or not apply. That was my third time on the market and I was like, I’m just gonna apply wherever ’cause none of it’s gonna work out anyways. And when I applied he, he just kind of remarked like, oh by the way, like I have no interest in living in New Orleans. And I was like, oh well I won’t get the job anyways. And I did and it worked out. But I just, I wish I hadn’t spent so much emotional energy sort of thinking about whether we could actually move somewhere.

Emily (32:34): I would imagine compounded with this situation is the fact that you were living in the Bay Area and I’m imagining the type of job that your husband has, it’s very difficult to leave that area of the country and the job opportunities that it affords unless you’re really looking to get out, you know, and then you can, you know, leverage your experience and your high salary and all that when you go somewhere else. But if you’re not already desiring that, I can see that that area has a pull. I’m never gonna make as much money elsewhere, by the way. You don’t need as much, but I’m never gonna make as much money elsewhere as I do here. So I I imagine that plays into it as well.

Ilana H (33:04): It does. And also my husband has a job that he is really passionate about. He works in clean energy and I you know, he’s super, he was super supportive of me going to graduate school. I’m very supportive of his career. But it made it hard to look outside of the Bay area ’cause there’s not a lot of clean tech jobs elsewhere. And there was a point at which I was you know, interviewing for a job at a highly teaching focused university. I did not really want to be in a, in a teaching intensive university, but it was in the Bay Area. I didn’t end up getting the job, but that would’ve been probably a sacrifice I would’ve had to make for us to stay in the Bay Area so that we could at least kind of have you know have both of us be happy. But then, you know, because of the pandemic, his job did become remote and it enabled us to move to New Orleans and for him to be able to stay working for his Bay Area company,

Emily (33:54): That is one of the, so to speak, positive things that’s come out of our pandemic experiences. Like you mentioned the remote work possibility. I mean, child sick days are not easy, but it’s certainly much less of a strain if you didn’t have to leave the house in the first place for your job. And you don’t have to scramble for the backup childcare or sacrifice your whole day of going to classes like you had to do to stay home with the sick kids. So in, in that respect and the working remotely, you can work for a company here and live over here, which is something that my husband does. That’s all been very interesting and, and in some ways positive, but we’re still kind of working it out, right, as a society . Yeah. Is there anything else that you would like to say about that dynamic between you and your husband or anything that you would, you know, offer to other people by the way of advice or things to think about?

Ilana H (34:38): Yeah, I would say that no one really talks about the gender dynamics and sort of being the doctoral student and being a mother and all of that. Like, I just think I wasn’t psychologically prepared. It wasn’t a conversation that people were having, you know, people were talking about like where we don’t have lactation rooms and you know, sort of more the logistical challenges. But I was, I think navigating the sort of role dynamic challenge and didn’t have a lot of people I think who were part of that conversation. And I just wanna normalize that experience more for people.

Emily (35:19): Have you read Fair Play by Eve Rodsky?

Ilana H (35:23): I have not.

Emily (35:24): This is a suggestion for you slash anyone who has I would say a lot of work to be done in your household and maybe, maybe there’s children involved, maybe there’s not, but is feeling like my partner, I’m doing so much more, they’re not pulling their weight. And something that the book helped me realize was just the degree of work that is going on in my house and actually, wow, my husband is doing a lot and we both feel like we’re doing more than the other person just ’cause there’s so much to do and we don’t always see the labor that the other person is putting in. And so what that book does, and there’s like a sort of a game associated with like a card, like a, the cards have like responsibilities and you say, okay, this is your card, this is gonna be your responsibility, but I’m gonna take this card, it’s gonna be my responsibility. And so it’s a way of really putting that work of the household out in the open and making it much more explicit and splitting it in a way that makes sense for people’s time availability and interest and talents and all that sort of thing. So it’s, it’s a way of negotiating and maybe maybe taking the the edge out of that conversation by using this this game or this like set of tactics. So something to put out there as well. Now you mentioned earlier, for instance, your husband had a long commute and that is a day killer. Absolutely. So like really the availability, his availability was a legitimate barrier in that situation, you know, so we have to acknowledge that as well.

Ilana H (36:42): Yeah, absolutely. And he wanted to be, you know, really helpful. So part of it was like my own issue that I didn’t sort of maybe advocate for myself, but part of it was that, you know, yeah, he wasn’t, he wasn’t there and he was so, so, so incredibly encouraging and supportive of me going to grad school. I didn’t even wanna go at first. I didn’t think I’d be able to sort of do do it well. So I definitely don’t wanna paint a picture of him not being a supportive husband. He, he absolutely was. And now everything in our house is like, feels fantastic. But you know, it also took a little bit of couples counseling to figure out that dynamic, which is something I encourage people to consider.

Emily (37:21): And your kids are a little older than mine, but I’ve noticed it has gotten a bit easier as they’ve gotten out of the baby and toddler stage the workload.

Ilana H (37:28): Absolutely.

Emily (37:29): You know, once they can do some things for themselves, wow, okay, that’s your responsibility now getting dressed or whatever it is. So the workload comes down a little bit in that respect, although as I understand the emotional workload increases as the children get older. And I just wanna say like, I’m so glad that you were willing to have this, this aspect of the conversation with me. It is a very difficult thing to talk about. And it is a financial issue really because these kinds of thoughts and the gender dynamics and everything that we’re talking about plays into women’s careers and how much financial success they’re able to have, how much they’re able to bring to their household. You know, if you’re constantly the one who’s on for childcare, then are you really going to be viewed well by your boss and be up for that next promotion and so forth. So like these are real sacrifices that can have effect on the household finances as well as the individual finances. So it’s important to talk about it.

Ilana H (38:15): Yeah, absolutely.

The Benefits of Having Children During Graduate School

Emily (38:17): Okay, awesome. So one thing that you told me in our prep for this interview is that you were really glad that you had your children prior to and during graduate school instead of waiting until you had your faculty position. So I want you to make the case for why people who are emotionally and otherwise ready for children should just go ahead and do it while they’re in graduate school.

Ilana H (38:34): I think think there’s never gonna be a time where you have as much autonomy and agency as you do during graduate school. Like people in graduate school think they’re so busy. faculty life is, is much harder. Because now I not only have to teach at set hours, I also have to hold, you know, office hours. I have to go to faculty meetings. I have like real responsibilities that would make it so much harder if I had to worry about you know, my kid being sick or just like generally being tired. Because when you’re a grad student, like if you’re tired and you need to take a day off or a couple hours off, no one cares. But now people are gonna notice, or at least I would feel really self-conscious about it. And also you know, the, the sort of feeling of the tenure o clock is real now and it wasn’t real. Like if I needed to stay in grad school an extra year I could. And the, the sort of pressures that I feel now are much more significant. And so I think doing it during the freedom of graduate school if you can manage it financially is the way to go. Well,

Emily (39:47): I wanna probe on that point just one second further, if you can manage it financially. Now you had your husband’s income, so that’s great. And you have your, a generous stipend from Stanford. Do you think it would’ve been easier to do this as a faculty member with your faculty salary versus the grad student salary? What kind of difference would that have made?

Ilana H (40:05): No I mean I, my faculty salary is, faculty salary is, you know, it’s a little higher, but I live in New Orleans and salaries here aren’t that high. And so I don’t actually think it would’ve made a big difference. I, I mean also realistically, I couldn’t have waited. I was already 30 when I started graduate school. And I didn’t start my faculty job until I was in my very late thirties, so I needed to have kids then. But I think the, I think I would’ve preferred to just take out loans and still do it during graduate school as opposed to doing it as a faculty member.

Emily (40:46): Yeah, it’s interesting because you have to think about, especially like you said, when you’re starting graduate school at an older age, if your vision for your life is I wanna be a faculty member and I wanna have children and all this has to come together somehow, then really what you’re doing when you take out student loans is you’re betting on yourself and you’re, you’re borrowing from your future self to pay for your current life. And if you’re confident in the track that you’re on and that you’re gonna make enough income to be able to justify those loans and pay them back, then I do think that makes sense. And plenty of people do take out childcare to take out student loans, pay for childcare, for example. It’s a very reasonable thing to do when what you’re doing is investing in your career and your future earning potential.

Ilana H (41:21): Yeah, and I wanna just be clear that it doesn’t mean that you think you’re gonna make it into a faculty position. It means you’re betting on yourself having a job. And I knew that with a PhD I would get a job and that it would be a decent paying job. I did not expect to necessarily become a faculty member. As we’ll talk about a year from now the odds of getting a faculty position are incredibly low, like in the single digits. And so you have to be confident that you will get a job which you know, requires a, a whole sort of different kind of mindset but not necessarily a faculty job. And maybe you could get a job that pays much more than a faculty job because this job doesn’t pay all that much.

Emily (42:04): Yeah, absolutely. And I do think as you get higher up in the, you know, people with this degree level, you know, high school, college, graduate school, the people who have the highest degrees like doctorates have the lowest unemployment rates. So it’s pretty likely you’re gonna have some kind of job, probably a pretty decent paying job, even if it’s not the faculty member one, like you said, the consolation might be you make more outside of academia.

Best Financial Advice for Another Early-Career PhD

Emily (42:23): So Ilana, this has been such a wonderful conversation. I’ve really enjoyed talking with you and I’m looking forward to having you back once your book comes out. I wanna leave us with the last question I ask of all my guests, which is, what is your best financial advice for another early career PhD? And that could be something that we’ve touched on already in the interview or it could be something completely new.

Ilana H (42:40): So because this is a podcast specifically talking about childcare and directed at parents, my advice is gonna be particularly about that topic and that is to think really creatively and outside the box about how you can garner resources in your community, in your social network to help you sort of accomplish things. And it’s not necessarily like a specific amount of money, but that, you know, if you have a talent, like maybe you can tutor somebody in statistics and in exchange they can watch your kids for a couple of hours, but think creatively about the sort of non-financial resources in your community and how those can be exchanged to create, to create help for everybody.

Emily (43:24): And something I’ve noticed when I’ve started doing this actually in recent years with my neighbors, my immediate neighbors also have young families like I do, is that the exchange of resources also creates and reinforces the community. So like, it feels good to help someone else and it feels good to be helped by someone else so you can actually get, you know, stronger relationships out of this exchange as well.

Ilana H (43:43): Yeah, I think that’s absolutely right and I think it contributed to our feeling like we have a really strong community during graduate school and that people are really counting on each other. We again like live in this very individualistic society where we don’t want to ask other people for help. We wanna think that we can do it on our own and we just need to get out of that mindset.

Emily (44:03): Absolutely. Ilana, thank you again so much for volunteering to be on the podcast and I can’t wait to talk with you again in less than a year.

Ilana H (44:09): Thanks Emily.

Outtro

Emily (44:16): Listeners, thank you for joining me for this episode! I have a gift for you! You know that final question I ask of all my guests regarding their best financial advice? My team has collected short summaries of all the answers ever given on the podcast into a document that is updated with each new episode release. You can gain access to it by registering for my mailing list at PFforPhDs.com/advice/. Would you like to access transcripts or videos of each episode? I link the show notes for each episode from PFforPhDs.com/podcast/. See you in the next episode, and remember: You don’t have to have a PhD to succeed with personal finance… but it helps! Nothing you hear on this podcast should be taken as financial, tax, or legal advice for any individual. The music is “Stages of Awakening” by Podington Bear from the Free Music Archive and is shared under CC by NC. Podcast editing by Dr. Lourdes Bobbio and show notes creation by Dr. Jill Hoffman.

As a Single Parent, This Graduate Student Utilizes Every Possible Resource

January 14, 2019 by Jewel Lipps

In this podcast episode, Emily interview Lauri Lutes, a fourth-year PhD student at Oregon State University and single mother. Lauri’s stipend is equivalent to the local living wage for just one adult, yet she supports herself and her daughter on it without using student loans. Lauri details how she makes ends meet by taking advantage of every possible university and community benefit, such as subsidized and free childcare, food assistance, and recreation and arts scholarships. Lauri additionally serves her community by advocating for graduate student parents on two university boards.

Links mentioned in episode

Teaser

Lauri (00:00): My daughter was four when I was looking at graduate schools, and so I, I was looking at the family resources available, and I was surprised to find the Oregon State University actually offers quite a few resources to their students to help them be successful, and I’ve definitely taken advantage of those things.

Introduction

Emily (00:20): Welcome to the personal Finance for PhDs podcast, a Higher Education in Personal finance. I’m your host, Emily Roberts. This is season two, episode one, and today my guest is Lauri Lutes, a fourth year PhD student at Oregon State University. Lauri is a single parent to an elementary school age child whom she supports on her graduate stipend. We discussed the numerous on-campus and community resources that Lauri has enrolled in, such as subsidized childcare, food assistance, and recreational scholarships. This is a discussion that will benefit anyone who is struggling to make ends meet on a stipend. Without further ado, here’s my interview with Lauri Lutes.

Please Introduce Yourself

Emily (01:02): Well, welcome. I’m here with Lauri Lutes, my guest for our Money Story interview today, and we are going to be discussing making ends meet, or at least attempting to make ends meet as a parent in graduate school, especially, um, of an, of an older child, and in particular as a single parent. So, Lauri, welcome to the podcast. Um, please tell us a little bit more, more about yourself and about your family.

Lauri (01:27): Yeah, so, um, my name is Lauri Lutes and I’m a PhD student at Oregon State University. And, um, my research is to study viruses on, um, sweet cherry trees. So that’s the main reason why I am, have put myself in this situation. Um, I have a 7-year-old daughter who will be eight next week actually, and I am currently a single mom. So, as you can imagine, juggling all of that, um, there are some struggles.

What is your current annual income and expenses?

Emily (02:01): Yeah, I mean, I, I can’t even imagine, first of all the, the time challenges to being, having such important roles, obviously as a parent and also trying to finish your PhD, but we’re gonna focus on the financial side of things today. So yeah, let’s start off by talking about your income and your expenses. So what is your current income?

Lauri (02:22): So my income comes from a graduate stipend. Um, students in my program, unless you are performing poorly, are pretty much insured, some sort of an assistantship. So I’ve either had a teaching assistantship or a research assistant assistantship, um, the whole time I’ve been here and I make about $24,000 a year.

Emily (02:43): Compare that to what are your, what, what are your current expenses for the year?

Lauri (02:49): So my, my current expenses probably exceed that. A very modest estimate would be somewhere between 27 and $30,000. Um, but that, that is really just the bare minimum of paying rent and, um, you know, not having a car payment and also, um, not taking into consideration some supplemental income that I get from food assistance programs and things like that.

Emily (03:16): Yeah, we’ll definitely be talking more about that a little bit later on. And I just wanna give the listeners a little bit of context. So I looked up what the living wage is in, um, Benton County, and, um, so for, I, I really like this tool, it’s, it’s livingwage.mit.edu. So those of you who are looking at moving or something maybe for graduate school or for your postdoc, check this out by uh county. It tells you what living wages are for different family units. And so for one adult, um, with one child in Benton County, um, they suggest a living wage of $51,000 before tax 41 or about 42,000 after tax. So, I mean, you can tell <laugh> from the numbers that Lauri’s throwing out that she is living close to the bone here. Um, and so we’re certainly gonna learn more about her, her strategies and why she’s, why she’s chosen to make this work.

What benefits do you receive and how did you find these benefits?

Emily (04:11): Um, so we have your income and your expenses. And so you did mention, you know, you’re receiving some kind of assistance from OSU right? Some support, um, for yourself as a student and as a parent. So can you tell me more about what you found, uh, the benefits that you’ve been receiving and, and how you found out about them and enrolled in them?

Lauri (04:32): Sure. So when I was looking at different graduate schools, one thing I looked at, because I had a child at the time, I’ve been at Oregon State for, um, this is my fourth year now. So my daughter was four when I was looking at graduate schools. And so I, I was looking at the family resources available and I was surprised to find actually the Oregon State University actually offers, um, quite a few resources to their students to help them be successful. And I’ve definitely taken advantage of those things. So the two main ones that, um, I’ve taken advantage of are the childcare subsidy. So there are, um, student fees that are pulled together along with some, um, donor funding that supports a, a childcare stipend that pays up to 50% of childcare, which is for, um, children before they’re in school. And then once they’re eligible to be, um, in kindergarten where they can be in public school and not in full-time childcare. Um, even if you have before care or aftercare costs, the stipend can also be contributed to that. And so when we, uh, first moved, my daughter was able to use, we were able to use that to pay for her childcare before she was in school. And now that she’s in school, I receive the subsidy to help pay for her, um, aftercare program.

Emily (05:57): Yeah, that sounds, yeah, lemme just, just interrupt you there for a second. That sounds like really great that that’s being offered, especially because, you know, childcare isn’t just what’s, you know, during the, the hours of public school, like you need more time at work than that. So that’s really great that it extends beyond, um, beyond kindergarten. Um, I wanna go back to what you said that you were comparing what was being offered, um, by the different universities that you were applying to or admitted to. Did you find that this was, um, typical or, or did it really stand out to you as, as more than what other places were offering?

Lauri (06:31): Yeah, definitely more rare. Um, I didn’t, I was pretty much set on going to graduate school in the Pacific Northwest, so I didn’t thoroughly investigate a lot of other universities. Um, but it, it’s more rare to have this, uh, sort of stipend available to students in my experience. Um, and also because I’ve done research since then due to my different, uh, involvement with the Family resource Center, which I’ll talk about later probably. Um, but it’s, it’s more of a rare thing that a university has this sort of assistance and that it’s, um, and that it covers up to 50%. Like that’s pretty substantial as well.

Emily (07:13): Yeah. Please continue with what was the second benefit?

Lauri (07:16): Sure. So the second benefit, um, which you, uh, kind of hit the nail on the head with is that, you know, having assistance for non-school hours is another huge issue. Um, because being a student, there are many things that you need to do, um, outside of the, the school day for your child <laugh>, um, even up to like five o’clock or even in the evening sometimes. And so Oregon State also has two childcare facilities that are just a drop in, um, childcare where it is free, um, for up to three hours per day. And these are mostly offered in the evening and weekends. And so I think the hours on the weekends are something like 10:00 AM to 7:00 PM or you can go and drop your child off for three hours on the weekend and have free childcare while you’re getting work done or going to a conference or working out. One of the childcare facilities is actually at the recreation center.

Emily (08:15): I am like blown away by this <laugh>. Is there any kind of like limit on it, like a number of hours per week you’re allowed to use it?

Lauri (08:22): Um, there’s not, it’s just a three hours per day and, um, it is a first come first serve basis. And so the students who, um, are working there, student workers who, um, are the childcare providers, but a lot of them, it’s also a great experience for them because they’re students from, you know, child development or education related fields. And so they’re getting some hands on experience doing that. Um, but the, so there’s only a certain number of students and really they’re most limited by space. So the, the thing that it’s kind of first come, first serve, which I’ve only ran into one situation where instead of going to the childcare facility and the recreation center, I had to go to the one in the library. But, um, typically there, there is enough room and, um, I haven’t really run into that problem. So I, I think the, the folks that oversee that are, um, knowledgeable enough to know what the peak times are and know when to offer the hours and have that worked out to where it’s still a reliable resource for student parents.

What is your daily routine like? Is your advisor supportive?

Emily (09:31): Are you, um, are you an experimentalist? Are you in the lab or what’s your kind of day-to-day like?

Lauri (09:37): So my day-to-day, my work is, it ebbs and flows for sure. Um, so the first couple years of my work I was surveying in orchards throughout the entire state. And so my work was more, um, where I would need to take a trip for a day, uh, sometimes even overnight. And, um, so then I, you know, rely on my, um, friends and community to help me out with, with babysitting and things like that to fill in those hours. Um, but the day-to-day I can mostly fit my work in, in the lab, um, during, you know, nine to five hours. And so I really try to stick to that sort of schedule. I don’t really have, um, work that requires me to be here on the weekends. Not that I don’t ever work weekends, but I, you know, I don’t have those sorts of, uh, requirements for the type of work that I do. So usually it’s, you know, there are days where I’m gone for a couple days and have to be out in the field. Um, and my work is, the bulk of my work right now is about three hours away from, it’s in the Columbia River Gorge and I’m located in Corvallis, and so there’s some logistics to work out there. Um, but most of it on the day to day, that’s more of a, an exception. Most of my work day to day is from nine to five.

Emily (11:02): Yeah. So it sounds like you are able to kind of manage your hours so you’re not, I guess I always, maybe I wasn’t so good at time management when I was in graduate school, <laugh>, but, um, you know, there were plenty of times when I would stay into the evening, keep working if I had an experiment that I really needed to set up, you know, maybe I would underestimate the amount of time I would take. And I didn’t have children at the time, so I was, you know, free to <laugh> let my work run over if I needed to. But I, I did observe that the people in my lab, um, and in my department who are parents kept pretty strict, um, work hours and I assume it had to do with childcare. Um, so that’s great that your work has, you’ve made it at least lend itself most of the time to, you know, be able to keep hours that are compatible with the childcare you’ve set up.

Lauri (11:44): Yes. And, and thankfully, I think another piece that comes with that is I, um, I have an incredibly supportive advisor who, who understands my situation and, um, never puts me in a position where I feel like I have to compromise being a parent for being a student. And so I think, um, I’m very fortunate in that.

Emily (12:04): Is this something that you talked about during your interviews? Like you were vetting the people who you were interviewing with on this, on this aspect?

Lauri (12:13): Um, I wasn’t, it wasn’t a secret that I was a parent, and so, um, it wasn’t something that I was specifically looking for. Um, maybe in retrospect I definitely should have done that. I think it was more, it, it just happened to work out and I got myself into good situation, but I would definitely encourage <laugh> other people who, who might be a, a student parent considering graduate school to definitely consider that because I know other student parents who, um, haven’t been quite so fortunate in, in their situation. So I think for me, I wasn’t specifically looking for that, even though I probably should have been. Um, but my advisor knew that I was a mom and so at least you know that that information was, was out there and so he, he could consider that fully before taking me on as a student.

Tell us about your service experience on advisory boards and committees.

Emily (13:05): You mentioned earlier that, um, you’re serving on some kind of, um, board or council or something. Can you tell me more about that?

Lauri (13:12): Sure. So, um, I’ve taken advantage of a lot of the resources through the family resource center with the childcare stipend and with the, um, free childcare on campus. And, um, you know, there were, they were asking for people to join the family resources advisory board. And so I, I thought this would be a great place for me to get more involved and, um, sort of advocate for students and, um, I have, you know, have my voice heard and be able to share, uh, the perspective of other students that, um, other student parents in the graduate program. And so I serve on the Family Resources board in that regard. And that group, um, works together to decide on the budget, um, for the, uh, student fees and where those student fees, uh, where that funding goes, um, under the umbrella of the Family resource center. And, um, so that’s for the, um, childcare assistance stipend for different activities for students, um, with families on campus.

Lauri (14:22): And actually that also includes, um, employees with, um, dependents as well. And then more recently, because my involvement on that board, I am the, uh, graduate student representative on another committee for children, youth and families that is a part of the faculty Senate. And the really neat thing about that committee is that we report directly to the president of the university. And so, um, there’s really, uh, a lot of power there. And, um, I guess it’s, it’s inspiring to be a part of that because I feel like we can really make some changes, um, on the university level. And that one is really focused, um, focused students and faculty with dependents and so not just, um, not just children, you know. So we’re also looking at elder care and we’re looking at, um, folks who may have, um, adult dependents and all these different situations that people may find themselves in where they might need assistance because, um, you know, we want to cultivate this culture of care at the university, and, um, that includes being able to support the students and faculty in whatever life situation they might have going on.

Emily (15:52): Yeah, I’ve been reading, um, you know, there’s been more and more I think of the news about this issue of, you know, uh, parental leave right after a birth or, you know, yeah. Ongoing childcare assistance. And then as you mentioned, people, even if they don’t have children, <laugh>, they have other families and like plenty of people do, you know, need to care for, um, parents or other kinds of relatives as they age. And it really, like having your employer, um, be sensitive to these issues and have official programs in place can just make it so much, I mean, it really keeps people in the workforce honestly. Like, I don’t know if you’ve like thought about this, but the likelihood, I mean, half of people, half of people drop out of PhD programs, right? And so like you have extra challenges, um, logistical and financial and so forth, and like, would you be finishing your degree or on track to finish your degree if you didn’t have such a supportive, um, environment? It’s totally worth considering, um, going into graduate school if you already have children or if that’s something you’re interested, you know, in starting a family during graduate school. It’s just, I’m really glad that you found your way into a good situation and are working still to improve it for yourself and for other people at the university. So, you know, thank you for your work on that.

Commercial

Emily (17:04): Do you know what’s even scarier than an upcoming committee meeting the prospect of preparing your tax return? But it doesn’t have to be that way. I’ve created a variety of free and paid resources to help you get through tax season with as little pain as possible. These resources are specifically for grad students and fellowship recipients, postbac through postdoc, check them out at pfforphds.com/tax.

What strategies do you use to keep expenses down?

Emily (17:34): Let’s move on to kind of, um, the, the numbers again, right? So when we spoke before, uh, this interview, you told me you had a laundry list of different strategies you were using to keep your expenses down and to take advantages of, you know, take advantage of programs available to you. So let’s start talking about that. Like, how are you making this work or, or almost work on, on a yearly basis?

Lauri (18:00): Yeah, so I think the, the first thing to think about is that I had to come to a point where I, um, needed to let go of the stigma. The stigma of, um, asking for help and needing help. So before coming to graduate school, I had a, a stable position. I was, you know, working in the industry, I had a, you know, an income that could, um, support me and, and my daughter. And so coming to graduate school and having a drastic change in income was a, a bit of a challenge for me, I think one to accept, um, but, and then two, to deal with <laugh>. But I think once I got over the fact that like, you know, this is, this is the season of my life and right now in order for me to achieve this goal of getting a PhD, I need to, um, take advantage of all the help I can get.

Lauri (19:00): And so some of those resources, you know, I already mentioned some of the ones at OSU, there are also, um, other programs at OSU to help with, uh, food assistance. So there’s a food bank on campus. And, um, I have, um, taken advantage of that. And so I think I, I think there’s a certain stigma there of like, you know, actually taking yourself to a food bank is kind of like a bit of a hurdle to get over for some people. And, um, I guess I’ve just learned to embrace that this is just where I’m at right now.

Emily (19:32): I’ve heard about food insecurity, um, for graduate students on other campuses across the, the, this, the country. Um, and it’s not just people with families, right? I mean, there’s all kinds of reasons why your stipend would be insufficient for your living expenses, where, you know, maybe you can just make rent and do like nothing else. And so it’s an unfortunately very, I I don’t wanna say very, it’s an unfortunate, it’s an all too common issue. Um, and food banks are something that, you know, universities, um, have started and it’s great that they’re trying to help out a bit. Um, like you said, I think it would be hard to get past, um, the, to admit to yourself, I need this kind of help. Um, but you know, you like, especially for you with a child, like you have to put that food on the table for your child. And so you’re doing, you’re doing what it takes.

Lauri (20:23): And I think, I mean, you brought up a great point with the rent. You know, my well over half my income is in rent, and so that’s something that I can’t really change right now. There’s, there’s not really a way for me to, um, make that better. And so one way that I can supplement my income is, you know, in, in food assistance. And so, you know, I do get some funding through the Snap, uh, program or the food stamps program, um, there, and then, you know, if I need it, I will, I will go to the food bank on campus, or I will go to the food bank in the, um, in my community as well. And, um, you know, I think that <laugh> I think it takes a lot even for me right now to admit that, that that’s a thing. But you know, like I said, that’s just where I’m at right now. Um, there’s also, you know, plenty of opportunities on campus to, you know, go to a luncheon or get a free meal here and there. One thing that OSU does is they have a Twitter handle that is @eatfreeOSU. And whenever there’s an event on campus, you know, there’s pretty much always leftover food. They will post that and where it’s at, and then people can go and, um, take advantage of that. So I think that’s,

Emily (21:35): That’s such a great idea. Yeah. I’ve actually asked in, you know, some of the, the previous podcast episodes, I’ve asked people, how do you find out about food free food on your campus? And usually there’s not, I haven’t, I’ve not so far gotten a centralized answer like that. So this is something that all universities should have, right? A central place where everyone can say, Hey, you know, Twitter handle, there’s food here, and they can, you know, uh, amplify that. And that’s a great idea. It’s actually kind, it’s a little bit funny because I feel like graduate students are totally shameless about grabbing their free food from the seminars, and yet you’re right, there would be a stigma to go into the food bank. And you know what, for some people they need that free food at the seminars, um, but maybe there isn’t a food bank available to them. Very, very little difference in, um, uh, function, I guess. But big difference in getting yourself, I think, to, to veil yourself of it. That’s kind of interesting. I wanted to go back to, you mentioned the SNAP program, and I’ve seen this question, I’ve, I’ve received this question before about how do you actually apply for and get snap and what are the qualifications, for instance, you know, for your city or, or whoever’s administering the program, like how did you actually go about, you know, obtaining that benefit?

Lauri (22:43): Um, initially I applied online, so that was a fairly easy process. There’s, um, there’s an interview involved that can be done over the phone. And then, um, I mean, I’ve been doing this for a little while now, and so, you know, you’ll go through your periods of where you have to prove your income. So, you know, initially you have to give, um, proof of income and then every, um, I think it might be every six month, it six months, at least annually, unless there’s a change in between, you have to show proof of income and then your, um, benefit will be recalculated. So I honestly don’t know exactly the details of my qualifications right now because I actually think it’s the, uh, funding we receive. The benefit we, we receive is for my daughter and not really for me. And I know that there’s some, um, complications with students getting, uh, funding through snap, but definitely something to look into, I know. Um, so you can look online for those sorts of forms, at least in the state of Oregon. And also our Human Services resource center, which does a lot of these, um, programs that Twitter handle and the food bank. They also, um, are very helpful with getting students to apply for SNAP and seeing what their benefits might be.

Emily (24:04): Great idea to look to, to that kind of centralized place on campus for, for that kind of help, because it can be really difficult to navigate. Wow. You know, it’s clear my stipend is not sufficient either because a family situation or just because some programs don’t pay enough. Um, so there’s a lot of students kind of in the same boat, and so it’s really good that they have a centralized place that you can go to. I don’t know that that would be the case across all campuses, but at least worth checking out. Um, okay, so back to your, your frugal strategies that you employ.

Lauri (24:33): Um, so another one through the Human, um, resources Center is a Mealbux program. So this is not government assistance, this is through the university, also funded by student fees, I believe. But you can apply every year and actually every term, and you, um, there’s no proof of income. You just fill out this questionnaire about your, you know, financial situation and your food insecurity situation. And then, um, based on that information funds will either be, um, you’ll either be accepted into the program or not, and then if you are, funds will be put on your student ID card to be used at the different food locations around campus.

Emily (25:18): So this, unlike Snap, this is for you, right? It’s not, I mean, your daughter’s involved in the calculation, but it’s not really for her. Like the SNAP is for her, this is for you

Lauri (25:27): On campus. Yeah. And you know, some of the questions that they ask in this questionnaire is like, would this make it, um, you know, they ask, have you gone hungry? And things like that. But it’s also like, would this make it easier for you to study, um, in a group or, um, not feel, um, bad about going to grab a cup of coffee when you’re on campus or, you know, to, so that you’re, you have that sense of belonging and that you don’t, um, so when you’re studying with your friends or whatever, like you can participate and not feel bad about that. Um,

Emily (26:01): Yeah, excellent point.

Lauri (26:03): Yeah. Um, so, so really as you can see, I pull from everywhere <laugh> to get all the help I, I can. Um, I recently just moved my daughter to a school that’s closer to our home, and with that, she also, um, can participate in the free lunch program, which was not available at her other school. So that’s also another benefit to us. Again, a lot of these things right here are focused around food, but if that’s one place where I can get help because I can’t in other areas, then that’s what I, uh, take advantage of.

Emily (26:39): Exactly. And food is a major, I mean, it’s a top expense anyway for graduate students. And you, I think you already mentioned that you either don’t have a car or don’t spend much in that area of transportation.

Lauri (26:49): I, I have a car, um, but it, it’s very old <laugh>, so I don’t have a car payment. Um, but I do, I do try to use my bicycle and really my car could die any day, so yeah,

Emily (27:01): You’ve already, you’ve already minimized that category as much as it’s gonna get. But yeah, the food is one that’s, um, until you get into these assistance programs, it’s after you reach a certain point, it’s pretty hard to minimize it any further.

Lauri (27:12): Right. Um, the other couple other things that are more, less related to food, but just, um, some community resources that I think are probably available, um, in many different communities. Um, our local parks and recreation department has scholarships available, and so I’ve applied for that, um, both for me and my daughter. And so that has allowed us to get a membership to the community pool so we can go there and enjoy that. We can also have a little bit of funding to take classes so I can use that, um, for her to go to a dance class or painting class or whatever, you know, to just, you know, something a little extra that I wouldn’t be able to afford otherwise. So that, I think it’s really great that our, uh, community has that available. Um, and then also we’ve taken advantage of some of the Arts for all programs, which, um, I don’t know if this is specific to Oregon or not, but, um, it’s a way to get, uh, inexpensive tickets to go to the theater or go experience different, um, arts and cultural events that maybe, you know, we wouldn’t be able to afford otherwise, but, you know, I can afford a, a $5 ticket here and there to go do something like that.

Lauri (28:25): So I think my main point there is like, um, to be aware that there are resources out there like that, and again, to just not be afraid to, you know, apply for help and apply for scholarships, because sometimes that’s just what you need to do. And so I think it, it makes me feel good that I can still, you know, give my daughter some of these opportunities that, you know, I really can’t afford on my own, but my, um, community makes that available for me.

Emily (28:54): Yeah, that’s, um, that’s really fantastic. And I think maybe one of the differences between your situation, you know, I, you’re on this grad stipend, you kind of know it’s gonna be five years-ish, you know, maybe more. Um, it’s gonna be a pretty much a static level. There’s not a lot of, um, hope to increase that income in terms of, you know, from that primary job. Maybe that’s different from people who find themselves, um, you know, temporarily at a, at a lower income, like maybe ’cause of job loss or something they might not have really. Maybe they think their situation’s gonna change soon enough that they don’t start looking into these other kinds of programs, but, you know, hey, this is the situation like indefinitely pretty much. So yeah, it makes sense that you’ve, you’ve taken the time to investigate and I really appreciate you sharing all of that, you know, knowledge that you’ve gained, you know, with my audience because I think both, both parents and non-parents alike, you know, uh, can benefit from this in, in terms of looking the way that you have in their own communities and at their own universities for this kind of assistance.

Emily (29:53): Um, was there anything else in that sort of for frugality category there?

Lauri (29:58): Um, I think, I think that’s about it there that I can think of. But, you know, I’m always looking for <laugh>, whatever’s available, and I’m, you know, I’m not afraid to, uh, take advantage of that.

Why have you chosen to this frugal strategy instead of taking out student loans?

Emily (30:12): So why, um, you know, we’ve spoken about how you know, what your stipend level is, which, uh, again, from the living wage calculator, that’s pretty much right in line with what a single person would need to support just themselves. So you’re <laugh> supporting two people on that level of income. Um, why have you chosen to go this route of asking for, you know, food assistance, for example, rather than just taking out student loans? Because as a student you can do that. It is there available to you. So why have you endeavored to make your ends meet instead of going the debt route?

Lauri (30:50): So I think, um, first of all, I have some debt from being an undergraduate, and so that is all being deferred right now, so I don’t have to really worry about that, but that is looming over me. And so I don’t want to contribute any more to that <laugh> than I absolutely have to. And I did take out a little bit of student loans when we moved out here just to kind of help with that transition time. But I have this, you know, $30,000 weight on top of me and I, um, I, I just, I really would rather make sacrifices than, uh, contribute more to that. And I think another piece with that is that, you know, I, I used to have, um, I used to make a living wage <laugh> and be comfortable. And when I came back to graduate school, it wasn’t my goal to go to graduate school and get a degree and increase my wages substantially.

Lauri (31:55): So I, you know, in my field in plant pathology, it’s not, especially for what I do in applied work and extension, um, it’s not really known for high wages and especially if my first job out of graduate school is a postdoc position or something along those lines, um, it, I will be making similar wages to what I left in my current, at my job before graduate school that I had with just a bachelor’s degree. So for me, coming to graduate school was more about the education and the fulfillment and the opportunity, um, and not so much about an increase in salary. So when I leave here, I won’t necessarily be making a lot of money that would allow me to contribute greatly to, um, pay off the debt.

Emily (32:45): Yeah. I think, um, with that sort of, you know, you’re trying to be realistic right? About your salary prospects, um, there you are choosing to make a sacrifice now, but the thing is, like the other choice with the debt is to sacrifice later. Like, it’s still gonna be challenging even with a higher income to pay back the debt you already have plus whatever you, you could have accumulated if you hadn’t been sacrificing so much in the, in the, you know, for the time being. So it’s gonna be hard now. It’s gonna be hard later. It’s gonna be hard all this time. I, I mean, you’re not really, um, there’s not an easy path. Even taking on debt doesn’t create an easy path for you. Yeah, maybe it would be okay or justifiable if you had a huge increase in income after the PhD, but no one’s guaranteed that <laugh>, even if it’s, um, what you hope, hope will happen.

Emily (33:32): So especially with like postdocs, I mean, that’s a long time to keep your, uh, to keep accumulating debt before getting to that like payoff salary. So I think you’re being very prudent, even though it’s very challenging, um, for the time being. So I definitely, you know, commend you for making this goal and for doing everything you can to, to meet it, to meet it, um, through your time in graduate school.

Final Comments

Emily (33:52): So do you have any kind of final thoughts or final encouragement for, um, the parents or the single parents, uh, in academia, in the audience?

Lauri (34:02): I mean, I guess just like I’ve said, like don’t, don’t be afraid to take advantage of, um, your resources and to really search those out and, and talk to people and, and to get involved. Because once you start, I guess, um, sort of diving into what resources might be available to you, you’ll become more aware of other ones. And also, you know, it, I think it’s totally worth the sacrifices and I, um, am very happy doing graduate school and being in a graduate program, even though financially it is a challenge. And so I guess don’t give up on your dreams, even though there might be, um, some things to make that a little bit more difficult along the way.

Emily (34:47): Yeah. Some hurdles to overcome. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for, for this conversation and for your thoughts, Lauri.

Lauri (34:52): Thanks.

Outro

Emily (34:55): Lauri, thank you so much for being my guest on the podcast today. The show notes for this episode are at pfforphds.com/S2E1. If you wanna get in touch with me, you can email me at [email protected] or if I’m me on Twitter at pfforPhDs or Facebook personal finance for PhDs. If you’d like to receive updates on new podcast episodes and other content, go to pfforphds.com/subscribe. See you in the next episode. The music is Stages of Awakening by Poddington Bear from the free Music Archive and is shared under CC by NC Podcast. Editing and show notes creation by Jewel Lipps.

Grad Student Parents

April 8, 2015 by Emily

There are so many vital ways parents need to prepare for the arrival of a new child, yet money often rises to near the top of their concerns. Grad students have the additional wrinkle of not being considered full employees by their universities, and likely have never met with or even have access to a Human Resources department.

Take stock of your benefits

Some graduate students may have well-defined parental leave options, while others may have to negotiate their time away with their advisors or departments. You also need to match your insurance benefits with your desired care provider to anticipate your out-of-pocket expenses for the pregnancy, delivery, and initial medical care.

Save

Between your medical costs and buying supplies for your child, you are likely going to have significant out-of-pocket expenses. You can cash flow some expenses before the baby’s arrival, but you will also likely need to save up a fund to have flexibility close to the birth. Your new baby is certainly going to shift your priorities, which should be reflected in a new budget/spending plan to help you pile up money.

Further reading: What Do Newborn Babies Really Need?

Plan for childcare

If both parents are planning to resume working after the baby’s arrival, you will likely need to plan for childcare and the expense of childcare. There are many options for childcare, such as in-home care and daycare. You should investigate any local options that may be available to you for a subsidized rate, such as at or through your university.

One option for adjusting to the cost of daycare is to start living as if you were paying that expense as soon as you decide what price you will pay. This exercise will serve the dual function of helping your budget adjust to the new daycare expense and building up your savings.

parenting

Links mentioned in the Episode

Teaser

Introduction

Will You Please Introduce Yourself Further?

Ilana’s Book: The Entrepreneurial Scholar

Family Structure and Finances During Graduate School

Creative Financial Strategies During Graduate School

Time Management During Graduate School

Commercial

Family Roles and Responsibilities During Graduate School

Gender and Income Dynamics with a Working Partner

The Benefits of Having Children During Graduate School

Best Financial Advice for Another Early-Career PhD

Outtro

Links mentioned in episode

Teaser

Introduction

Please Introduce Yourself

What is your current annual income and expenses?

What benefits do you receive and how did you find these benefits?

What is your daily routine like? Is your advisor supportive?

Tell us about your service experience on advisory boards and committees.

Commercial

What strategies do you use to keep expenses down?

Why have you chosen to this frugal strategy instead of taking out student loans?

Final Comments

Outro

Take stock of your benefits

Save

Plan for childcare

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