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Budgeting for the First Year of Grad School Even with Financial Anxiety

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In this episode, Emily interviews Georga-Kay Whyte, a first-year graduate student in history at Brown. Georga-Kay is a first-generation college student from Jamaica who grew up with financial insecurity, which spurred her to set a high bar for the financial support she expected from her graduate program. Georga-Kay was just as forward-thinking as she evaluated her housing and transportation options for her first year at Brown to set them at a reasonable level for her stipend. However, once she started living the grad student life, she realized she was overspending, especially on groceries and Amazon. She shares how she worked through her financial anxiety to confront her spending and start to budget. Finally, Georga-Kay details her financial goals for her 20% savings rate going forward. This episode is a must-listen for anyone with an upcoming career transition or move, especially if it’s your first!

Links Mentioned in the Episode

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Teaser

00:00 Georga-Kay: There’s so much like financial literacy that we don’t have as graduate students because it isn’t prioritized. And so, the best way to sort of break that barrier is to talk to other people who are in similar situations. And that’s how it’s helped me to approach a lot of the things that I do now and how I think about creating a budget or how I think about my lifestyle. So, I highly recommend just reaching out to your community and starting those conversations. It helps a lot.

Introduction

00:31 Emily: 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. This is Season 14, Episode 8, and today my guest is Georga-Kay Whyte, a first-year graduate student in history at Brown. Georga-Kay is a first-generation college student from Jamaica who grew up with financial insecurity, which spurred her to set a high bar for the financial support she expected from her graduate program. Georga-Kay was just as forward-thinking as she evaluated her housing and transportation options for her first year at Brown to set them at a reasonable level for her stipend.

01:28 Emily: However, once she started living the grad student life, she realized she was overspending, especially on groceries and Amazon. She shares how she worked through her financial anxiety to confront her spending and start to budget. Finally, Georga-Kay details her financial goals for her 20% savings rate going forward. This episode is a must-listen for anyone with an upcoming career transition or move, especially if it’s your first! If you’re listening to this episode the day it’s released, you know that tomorrow is the filing and payment deadline for your 2022 tax return as well as the payment deadline for your quarter 1 2023 estimated tax. If you haven’t yet cracked the code for your grad student or postdoc taxes, there’s still time to receive my help! Go to PFforPhDs.com/tax/ and sign up straight away for the appropriate workshop for you. The workshops are asynchronous, so upon registration you’ll have immediate access to all the video modules with transcripts, worksheets and/or spreadsheets, and recordings of previous Q&A calls. Best of luck finishing up! You can find the show notes for this episode at PFforPhDs.com/s14e8/. Without further ado, here’s my interview with Georga-Kay Whyte.

Will You Please Introduce Yourself Further?

03:04 Emily: I’m so excited to have on the podcast with me today, Georga-Kay Whyte. She’s a first-year graduate student at Brown, and our subject today is budgeting and what she’s learned as a first-year graduate student about that topic. So Georga-Kay, would you please introduce yourself a little bit further for the audience?

03:20 Georga-Kay: Yes! First, thank you for having me. My name’s Georga-Kay, I’m a first-year history PhD student at Brown University. I study 20th century African American labor history and I’m actually first-gen Jamaican. My parents are immigrants. We all migrated to the U.S. And so, I sort of like had to figure out not only personal finances in terms of like living in a new country but also personal finances because like I didn’t grow up with a lot of personal finance talk in my family. So yeah, that’s just like my background.

03:51 Emily: Okay, so you get the multiple first-gen labels, right? Like you get first-generation American, I don’t know about first-generation college, necessarily.

03:58 Georga-Kay: I am first-gen in college as well. <Laugh>, first-gen graduate student, first-gen everything.

04:02 Emily: First-gen grad student, we got it all. Okay, that’s wonderful! And what age did you come to the U.S.?

04:08 Georga-Kay: I came to the U.S. actually right before I turned 18. So, I was pretty, yeah I was, I was much older.

04:13 Emily: Very new.

04:14 Georga-Kay: Very new to the U.S., yes.

04:16 Emily: Yes. And where did you go to college?

04:18 Georga-Kay: I went to college at Agnes Scott College in Decatur, Georgia. It’s a small women’s liberal arts school.

Money Mindset at the Start of Grad School

04:24 Emily: Yeah. Okay. So, wow. Okay, this first question that we have, what was the state of your finances and your financial background and money mindset coming into graduate school? So really we’re talking about what you grew up with in Jamaica, and then also just that short time you had in college. Yeah. So what was going on both in your finances and your like money mindset by the time you entered graduate school?

04:47 Georga-Kay: Yeah, so I grew up, I would say like relatively low income. In Jamaica, like I would be considered mostly like middle-class but in the larger scheme of things I grew up with a lot of financial insecurities. So, I had like an anxious sort of relationship with money from like childhood. And so, once I was coming into grad school I was super anxious about it because I had just started like looking online and seeing like the discourse around grad school and grad students being like they’re underpaid and they’re not like happy with their financial situation. And coming from someone who’s first-generation, I didn’t have a lot of financial safety nets. Like I just know that if anything, I’d have to figure it out on my own. And so yeah, definitely once I was like deciding to go to graduate school, this was before I found out about like what schools I’d be going to when I was thinking about like applying, I was like, “Oh my god, is this going to be the worst financial decision of my life to do this right at this time?” Because I came straight from undergrad, so I didn’t have a lot of time to like build up savings and stuff like that. But I really knew that I was passionate about the topic so I was like, I’m going to do this, hopefully it works out. Hopefully I can get a stipend that’s like livable. And that was my number one concern. I wanted a stipend that I wouldn’t be in a financially precarious situation just because I’ve already experienced so much like financial turbulence that I wanted some sort of safety net.

Role of Finances in School Selection

06:04 Emily: Absolutely. That makes so much sense. So, I want to talk a little bit more about maybe application and admissions process. You, I mean as anyone would be, were very nervous seeing the discourse currently going on, rightly so, about how difficult graduate school is financially. And all the unionization movements and so forth. So like, tell me about like the schools that you chose to apply to, were finances on your mind? Let’s talk about that. Like the selection process of where to apply.

06:31 Georga-Kay: Yeah, so I was super selective about the schools that I applied to, and I sort of feel like I was really naive in a way, but it worked out right <laugh>? I was like I’m going to apply to mostly private schools because they tend to have higher stipends, unfortunately. I started looking, I actually used, I forget what the platform is called, but they publish stipends for students. I think you might know what it’s called.

07:01 Emily: Is it PhDstipends.com?

07:03 Georga-Kay: Yes. Is that a website that you run?

07:05 Emily: That’s mine, yeah.

07:06 Georga-Kay: Yes. Okay, okay. Yes. So, thank you for that because I actually used that website a lot. So I looked at the PhD Stipends and I was really serious about, “Okay like is this a stipend that’s livable?” And then I would go ahead and like look at the livability calculator to see like, “Okay, is this going to work?” And I ruthlessly took schools off my list if they weren’t in that like situation of like they had a decent stipend for the area. So even if the stipend on its face was like, you know, almost $40K and the livability like it’s in New York, it’s like okay that’s still not going to work. So I was very serious about that, and I ended up applying to nine programs. And those nine programs I felt like had really strong stipends and they had other benefits like health insurance and stuff like that that I was looking at, too.

07:52 Emily: So, you’re the first I think interviewee I’ve had on the podcast who answered that question in that way. Because a lot of people I talk to, of course by the time they get into admission season they’re thinking about the financial offers and so forth. But to back that up into application season, I mean this is actually what I teach in my workshop for prospective graduate students: Set Yourself Up for Financial Success in Graduate School, is it starts way back the summer before you apply even earlier than that, understanding the funding models, just like, I mean you said you were naive, but that is a very advanced strategy that you’re applying. So that’s awesome. Yeah to really think through like why bother applying to a place that you are pretty confident already is not going to support you sufficiently? And so to just, if you have programs that you know, make your list, that’s great. You don’t need to bother with the other ones who aren’t. If this is a priority for you, which it was for you. It’s not necessarily going to be a priority for everybody, but for you it was. So, I love that process.

08:48 Georga-Kay: It was really just my financial situation, like coming in with so much student loans. Like I felt a lot of guilt over the amount of student loans I had, and I knew I didn’t want to get any more student loans in graduate school. And so I was like, I need to find a situation that’s going to work out. And the reason why I say naive, just because talking to people about like the admissions chances in graduate school. So I was like, okay, I’m going to be selective but these schools are going to have higher competition. Because they do like, they have high stipends and people know about them and stuff like that. So that’s why I was like, okay, well hopefully I get it <laugh>, you know?

Considering Other Factors

09:19 Emily: Yeah. But applying to nine schools, that’s a pretty good number. I think that’ll give you a lot of chance. Anyway, it has worked out. So let’s talk about admission season. I don’t know how much you want to share about how many offers you got, but like, you know, did your expectations bear out? And the offers that you did get, yes, they were decent stipends? And then maybe you could share how much more finances, if at all, played in the decision of where to go or if you’d already done that filter early on, maybe it didn’t really have to.

09:46 Georga-Kay: Yeah, so I got three admissions out of the nine that I applied to. I got admitted to Penn, Brown, and Maryland. University of Pennsylvania, Brown University, and University of Maryland. And those offers were pretty good offers honestly. Especially looking at like the averages for stipends. So, I got $38,000 from Penn and then I got $45 from Brown. And I think Maryland offered like $32. I don’t remember specifically, because I knew almost immediately that Maryland had the lowest stipend. So I was just mainly considering Penn and Brown. And yeah, those were like comparable in some sense. Obviously like there’s still a discrepancy there between the amount that I got from Penn and the amount I got from Brown. It was actually a hard decision for me because the programs were both equally great, but then also the cost of living was relative. And I knew that like if I wanted to, I could have probably negotiated with Penn, which I didn’t end up doing, but I definitely still considered finances when I was thinking about it. But it was like close enough where I felt like, “Okay, well what else do I want from graduate school?”

10:51 Emily: Based on how you’ve talked about your thought process so far, and I’m pretty sure I know the answer to this question, but were you only considering your first-year stipend and like the source of the funding? Or were you also looking forward to like, were you being funded for five years or were there guarantees or you know, was it a TAship versus a fellowship? Like did you factor all that stuff into?

11:12 Georga-Kay: I factored everything in. When I got my offers, I reached out to the like DGAs of each department and I was like, okay, explain to me how this works <laugh>? I was just like, I wanted all my bases covered. So I talked to both schools and I was like reading through the offers and sort of seeing, okay, like first year, they were very similar. So it was like first year would be fellowship and then you would TA for some years and then you’d go back on fellowship. And both schools offered like five to six years of funding. Brown guaranteed six years, Penn basically they’re like, you basically will get six years but we’re guaranteeing five. And so, I knew that like throughout the program I would be funded for the entirety of it.

11:53 Emily: I’m so glad that you shared that as well. This is another thing that I encourage in my workshop is following up with the directors of graduate studies or maybe the admin in the department to like explain to you anything that’s not really clear, or maybe they’re only talking about the first year but they’re not talking about subsequent years. Like they’re recruiting you, okay? They want to convince you to make good on that offer that they just made you and convince you to come there. And so they should have pretty solid answers to these questions. And they might say, like Penn did, “Okay, you know, we’re not officially going to guarantee that sixth year, but you know, in nine cases out of 10, like we do find funding for you know, that sixth year or whatever.” Like they should be able to give you those really well-thought-out answers to those questions. So I’m so glad that you went through that process as well of really investigating.

Financial Expectations in Grad School

12:35 Emily: And you chose Brown, and that’s where you are now. So, let’s kind of talk I guess about now that you knew the stipend, you knew that maybe had some degree of confidence that the precarity was not going to be as much of an issue for you. What were your expectations then about how your finances would look in graduate school once you had that offer in hand?

12:56 Georga-Kay: Yeah, once I had the offer, I sort of felt a lot more secure just because like I feel like $45,000 is like a relatively, it’s not like anything crazy, but it’s average enough where it’s like, okay, in Providence I could live on that. And I think I could save on that, which was like a big deal because I know that like a lot of times in graduate school people talk about not even being able to save. And I wanted to be able to save and like achieve other financial goals. So, once I got that offer in hand, I started to think about, okay, well now what do I want to do? Like I know I’m going to make this much money. How much do I want to spend on rent? Do I want to keep like my costs low? You know, how much am I willing to compromise for the next few years–because I’m in my early twenties–to sort of set myself up for a good financial foundation?

13:39 Georga-Kay: And so those were just sort of all the questions that I had in my head. And then also, I started to think about like the realities of graduate school and what in cost that would incur as well. So, I like when I was going through my stipend and sort of backtracking a little bit, going through my offer, I would see that, oh I had like research funds and these funds, but I didn’t know until I sat down with the DGS and asked about it. I was like, “Is this money that would be like deposited into my account?” And they’re like, “No, it’s reimbursements.” And I was like, “Oh okay.” So then I had to learn about this whole reimbursement thing. So I was like, I have to actually have to have a safety net, like some sort of savings because if I want to pay for something I have to pay for it first before I get the money back. And so I started to think about that and just, yeah, just a lot of wheels turning now that I know that okay this is how much I’m going to make, how can I make this work in order to like pay for my day-to-day living expenses?

Housing and Rent

14:29 Emily: And one other thing, again, I’m talking about this workshop so much because this is the process you just went through. One other thing I talk about in this workshop is about the big decisions you need to make in your budget that happen probably before you even arrive at graduate school, right? You mentioned housing, so like did you commit to a lease for example, in advance of moving? Or is that something you were able to arrange once you got there? It’s very different, you know, different housing markets.

14:50 Georga-Kay: Yeah, so housing for me was one of the biggest things that I thought about because it was going to be my first time paying rent because I came from undergrad where I was like paying tuition and that would like cover, you know, my expenses. So, I wasn’t paying anything monthly. So moving to Providence and then also having to pay for moving expenses. I knew that like housing was going to be a big deal and I knew that it would probably be my biggest expense. And I had to make a decision about whether I wanted to live with roommates or I wanted to live alone and what does that mean? So I decided to live alone. I’m currently in graduate housing and the housing is somewhat subsidized. I don’t know if they say it’s subsidized on their website, but it’s like a lower cost of living apartment than I typically would be able to find in Providence, essentially.

15:32 Georga-Kay: And that was great. I started that <laugh>, luckily I started the process early so I was able to sort of like compare housing situations. I looked at the average cost if I wanted to live with a roommate in a house or if I wanted to live in a studio. I currently live in a studio and my rent is like, I feel like it’s on the high end of what I would want to spend, but I knew that I would appreciate that more having that sense of like security and that sense of not having to worry about if I have a roommate that maybe I don’t mesh with or you know, like there’s things that you have to think about lifestyle stuff. So I was like, okay, I know that I’m willing to pay a little bit more to live alone and keep my other costs low.

16:10 Emily: What I love about this model, I mean you’ve listened to the podcast, you know, I’m always like roommates, roommates, good idea. But what you did was you worked with your numbers and you knew that it was feasible, especially making that you know, decision to go with the on-campus option and so forth. I’m curious now we’re recording this in March, 2023, if you’ve already made a decision for housing next year? Or like are you going to keep the same situation? Do you think you’re going to do something different?

16:34 Georga-Kay: Yeah so I’m definitely, unfortunately the housing at Brown, they only guarantee it for two years. So I’m going to keep those two years. So I’m going to keep going until next year because I really love the area that I live in. I love my apartment, and so I feel like I really lucked out with housing. So, I’ll keep it and I probably will have to move after my second year since it’s not guaranteed and that it’s a really high interest area. Like a lot of students want to live here. So, I feel like after the second year I’ll be more comfortable in the area I can find somewhere else.

17:02 Emily: Yeah, and you might have met someone you really like enough to live with <laugh>.

17:06 Georga-Kay: That is true.

17:07 Emily: So, a roommate might be more feasible.

17:08 Georga-Kay: I’ve also considered that. Yes, I’ve thought about that too.

Transportation and Other Expenses

17:10 Emily: Yeah. So, we’ve already talked about kind of what I call the biggest rock in your budget, which is housing. And I’d like to know about your transportation choice. Like do you own a car or do you think it’s necessary? What is your choice there?

17:24 Georga-Kay: So, I decided to actually sell my car <laugh>. I sold my car before. When I was living in Atlanta, I bought a car used and it was a great car. It carried me to my like last two years of undergrad. But then I was like, I’m moving to the northeast. The transportation here seems a little bit easier. There’s a lot of public transit and there’s also trains and stuff. So, I talked to graduate students and they said that it would be fine to live without a car. So I was like, I’m going to use that money to move. And now I currently don’t have one and I rely on public transit, walking, and Brown has a university shuttle that’s actually really, really good and I’m able to basically spend like less than $50 a month on transportation costs.

18:06 Emily: Love that. Whenever it’s possible to live car-free, especially if when you’re pairing that with the campus housing, it’s like, I’m sure it’s really convenient and everything, you can just, not eliminate entirely, but dramatically reduce the costs associated with transit by getting rid of your car. Ugh, I have a car but I’m such a like anti-car person. <Laugh>, I live in Southern California.

18:26 Georga-Kay: No, I love living in a walkable city and that’s something I considered too. I was like, I wanted to, I knew that like if I’m going to be paying a little bit higher rent then at least if I don’t pay transportation, it kind of evens out.

18:37 Emily: Yeah, absolutely. So, we’ve talked about these major, major components of your budget, the housing and the transportation. And so I’m curious like how you formulated the rest of your budget, maybe more with the other smaller fixed expenses and other variable expenses? And then kind of what you’ve learned through living with that budget for the last, you know, six, seven months?

18:55 Georga-Kay: Really the things that I thought about was rent and transportation and then the rest of it was just sort of like I was going to do trial and error. So I was like, I don’t know what’s a reasonable grocery bill? I don’t know how much I should expect to, you know, spend, I also have a pet. And so that’s also a part of my budget. So I was like, I don’t know how much I’m going to be spending for vet bills. And so, I really just was like, okay, like this is less than half of my, like my total living expenses is less than half of my stipend. And so I was like, whatever the rest is, I’ll play around with the numbers. So when I originally started, I realized I was overspending because I just sort of didn’t want to look at it to be honest.

19:32 Georga-Kay: I was like, I’m going to take care of the big stuff. And because of my financial anxiety, I sort of had a lot of avoidance about money, especially when I just moved because I was like, “Oh my god, like am I going to, you know, completely throw off my budget or something like that?” So I was like, okay, I have this wiggle room essentially and we’ll figure it out. And so I started just shopping without caring. And then once I started looking back at my budget, which is something that I’m really happy I did, I started actually looking at my money. I was like, oh, maybe I’m spending a little bit too much on groceries. Like, and talking to other graduate students as well. I’ll get to this later, but talking to other graduate students and realizing, oh this is like an average cost for, you know, a meal for a single person, like a grocery bill for a single person, or this is the average cost for electricity or something like that. So I at first was avoidant, but then I started slowly having those conversations, started slowly thinking about it and then I started actually setting price markers like, oh I want to spend $300 on groceries. Oh, I want to spend this much on electricity. And then actually going in and doing those numbers and keeping track of that.

20:38 Emily: I think this process that you’ve gone through is so relatable. Absolutely. You don’t know how much you’re going to be spending on all these little variable expenses that aren’t like a contract that you’re entering into.

20:48 Georga-Kay: Yes, <laugh>.

Financial Discussions with Other Grad Students

20:49 Emily: When you first get to a new city and you have a new lifestyle different than the one you had before. So it definitely makes sense to just kind of work it as you go. And really, I’m actually very impressed you’re talking about having financial anxiety around this just six months ago and six months later you’re coming on a financial podcast? Like that’s a lot of progress in a short period of time. So I’m very impressed. How did you start having these conversations with other graduate students? Like, did you just come out and say, what’d you spend on groceries last month? Or like, what was it?

21:15 Georga-Kay: No <laugh>, no it wasn’t like that. I feel like I just started getting closer to the people in my program, but also just to people that I’ve met through school. And I like to think I’m a pretty forthcoming person. So if like we’re talking and everyone’s like, how’s your week been? And it’s like, you know, if there’s something on my mind, especially now that I feel like I have a close relationship with some of the people in my program I’ll mention like, “Oh my god, like I feel like I’m overspending on groceries,” which is literally something I did. I was like, I feel like I’m overspending on groceries, but I don’t know. And then all of a sudden everyone starts chiming in, like, oh, I think I spend this much. And then we all start comparing. We’re like, oh. And so I sort of like, I guess instigated the conversation, but now I feel like there’s so much more financial transparency between us all, like within my history cohort and we’ll share things now where it’s like, okay, do you guys think this is a reasonable amount to spend for this or something? And yeah, so I just feel like luckily I’ve always been open to sharing and I feel like sharing invites other people to share.

22:09 Emily: Absolutely. What you did there was like, you were a little bit vulnerable, you said, oh I have a little weakness or like something I’m unsure about, can you help me?

22:19 Georga-Kay: Yes.

22:19 Emily: And you like invited that feedback. And that allows the other person to like be the expert for a second, because they’re the expert in their own budget, right?

22:25 Georga-Kay: Yeah.

22:25 Emily: So like then they can help you and everybody feels good about it and like, oh man, that’s a wonderful like sort of pattern that you have established. I think that’s going to help you so much throughout your time in graduate school. I remember for example, not necessarily about groceries, but like just asking other people how much they spend in rent. Like, oh I really like your place. Like do you mind me asking because this is what I spend and like how much do you have? And that was a way that I found like a really great deal on housing. My friend was like, you wouldn’t believe it. I only pay such and such for this great place. You know? And so just having that, those open conversations, I feel like it’s easier among people who are all paid the same <laugh>, which I suspect probably everyone in your cohort is more or less like being paid the same, at least at the moment, right?

23:05 Georga-Kay: Yeah, we’re all paid the same. I do have an additional fellowship just a little bit, but yeah, we’re relatively all on like similar pay scale. And I also with the rent thing, like that was also a thing that we talked about was like, okay, well this is how much I pay for rent. This is how much we all pay for rent. And having those conversations, like especially for someone I think because I’m first-gen and I’m also like the youngest in my program that I’m like the baby and I’m like, I want to ask because like you guys have had a few more years of like, people have been in master’s programs, so I know like I feel like accepting that like I’m still figuring it out and not having any sort of pride about it of being like, oh I’m not going to share because you know, maybe someone will judge me. Just being like, hey, like you know, I’m figuring out and you’ve had some experience like what is your take on this? As you said, like they’re the expert in their budget and so people like to help in that way.

Commercial

23:55 Emily: Emily here for a brief interlude! You’ve heard me mention several times during this interview how Georga-Kay perfectly lived out the principles and strategies I teach in my year-long asynchronous workshop, Set Yourself Up for Financial Success in Graduate School. If you would like to take a deep dive with me into financial tutorials designed for prospective and rising graduate students, please check out PFforPhDs.com/setyourselfup/. The workshop modules that relate to the topics in this interview are:

  • Stipends vs. Cost of Living
  • Decipher and Compare Offer Letters
  • Right-Size Your Necessary Expenses
  • Prepare for Your Start-Up Expenses

To learn more about these modules and the structure of the workshop, visit PFforPhDs.com/setyourselfup/. I hope to see you inside the workshop and to help you set yourself up for financial success in graduate school the way Georga-Kay has! Now back to the interview.

Tracking and Budgeting

24:53 Emily: Okay, so you’re on the ground, you’re figuring things out, you’re using your cohort to kind of bounce ideas off of. I love that. Tell me about your actual practice of budging. Because you said at first you didn’t want to look at the numbers, but does that mean that you were actually tracking? Like there were numbers there that you were avoiding looking at? Like practically, what was happening with those numbers?

25:14 Georga-Kay: Yeah, so once I moved, I sort of had a little nest egg to move because I knew that I would need that money. Luckily, we did get a transitional amount. We got $2,200 so I knew I was going to get that as well. So I had like a number in my head, okay, this is how much I’ll need to move. And once I paid for my moving costs, there’s a lot of things I didn’t think about. So like how much furniture costs, buying a trashcan, buying a trashcan is so expensive. Like all of these little things I’ve never paid for before. And I quickly went over budget and had to put some of those things on a card. And that was the first time I’ve ever done that, which is like put expenses that I couldn’t afford on a card, and that gave me a lot of financial anxiety as well.

25:52 Georga-Kay: And so once I did that I was like, I don’t want to look at this, I don’t want to know how much I have to spend because some of this stuff was like necessary expenses and I knew that once I started getting like regular stipends I could like then start thinking about it more critically. But in the first like month or two I was just like, I knew I was spending and I knew I wasn’t overspending, but I was definitely spending very close to like the borders of my budget I guess. My budget being the amount that I know that I make per month, that’s sort of like what I had in my head is like this is how much you make, this is how much you have to spend on your actual, like as you said, like the things I have to spend like contractually.

26:30 Georga-Kay: But everything else I was like okay, I’m going to spend and hope I don’t go over. And so I wasn’t looking at it. I wasn’t looking at it. I was just spending and not looking. And then after I would say about October, I downloaded Rocket Money, which is this app, I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of it, but it’s just like, it’s sort of like a Mint. If anyone’s familiar with Mint and they do like roundups, essentially. They tell you this is how much you spent on restaurants, this is how much you spent on Ubers this month and whatever. And so that was my first step into like, okay, what am I actually spending per category here? And then I saw the numbers, I was like, oh God, you know? And once I saw those numbers and I didn’t have to do a lot for it, I feel like that also is like something I would recommend if you’re scared about it and you don’t want to actually sit down, like go line by line, having some sort of like app that does it for you. It’s just like all I had to do was open, put my bank account in, open it and then just be like, okay, what is here? And so I looked at it and I was like, this is how much I’m spending per category. And then I started to think about changes that I might want to make in the future.

Frugal Measures

27:30 Emily: Yeah. Can you give some examples of what those changes were having realized that you were, your spending was a little bit too high? Like what were some, I would probably call it frugality, but what were some frugal like measures you started taking?

27:42 Georga-Kay: Yeah, so the spending that I saw was like mainly Amazon, which is <laugh>. I feel like people can relate to that. I was overspending on Amazon because I was constantly being like, oh I need to get this for my apartment because I had just moved and I realized, oh I don’t have like you know, I really want a toaster or something like that. Things that I didn’t need in the moment. And so I was like spending this much on Amazon, but I was doing it like in singular expenses, so I was never tracking how much I was actually spending and I wasn’t thinking about the cash flow of like, maybe I should wait a week or two until I get my next stipend to pay for this as opposed to like buying everything at once. And so I was just like not paying attention to it.

28:20 Georga-Kay: So once I saw it I was like, oh, I’m spending like $500 on Amazon, that’s like so much money. And then I was like, okay, I need to plan out what are the essential things that I need right now for my apartment since I just moved. Everything else will have to wait. And then also I looked at groceries, which I’ve mentioned a few times before and I was like, oh, I’m spending this much on groceries. I was spending like over $350 on groceries and I’m a single person and I wasn’t even eating that much. And I was like, that seems like a lot of money to me. And so I asked people and people were like, oh, like I actually spend like $300 or a little bit less than that on groceries. And then I realized it was because I was shopping at the more expensive grocery store. And I didn’t know, because I didn’t like shop around. I was like, this is the closest grocery store to me, so that’s what I’m going to go to. But literally if I just went in a like one that’s like a little bit further away, I found cheaper groceries and so I was able to get the same amount of groceries for a little bit less. And so yeah, those were the things that I realized once I looked at the numbers.

29:13 Emily: This is so relatable to me personally. And also I think the audience generally just, yeah, it’s a transitional time when you’re starting grad school and you don’t know the place to shop yet. And you do need, well need is a relative word. You want to have some things for your new place. And so it sounds like it was a combination of like finding some more frugal tactics to apply, and then also just really the proactive aspect of budgeting. You know, you were doing the reactive, the retrospective aspect, which is like looking at where your money had gone. And then you started adding in the, okay, well I only have, you know, available this amount of money for you know, discretionary Amazon purchases so I’ve got to keep it to that limit and anything else will have to wait for the next pay cycle and you know, we refill the coffers. Is there anything else that you’d like to add about that practice of budgeting?

30:02 Georga-Kay: I would say once I started doing like the automated where it was like the app was tracking it for me, then I actually sat down and like made an actual budget. Like I was like okay, this is how much, not like what the thing is telling me that I should spend based on my previous expenses, but based on my goals, like my savings goals, how much should I reasonably spend? And then that actually made me cut back a little bit more because I was like, oh, if I want to save up an emergency fund, then I can’t be spending this much on you know, eating out or something.

Resources for Budgeting

30:31 Emily: Yeah, I want to get back to those financial goals in just a minute, but before we do, so you said that you had some resources that you’d like to share about, you know, how you’ve learned about budgeting, how you’re practicing budgeting. You mentioned, I’m going to say Rocket Mortgage, that’s like the ads that I hear for them, but Rocket Money, is that the name of the budgeting app?

30:49 Georga-Kay: Yes, Rocket Money is the one that I started with. I’ve actually, in college I tried to use Mint because everyone was like, oh, Mint is a great app and I think it is a great app, but I quickly realized the interface just wasn’t like super user-friendly to me it was just, it was a little bit clunky. So I stopped using that and mainly also because I was just scared to budget at that point as well. It’s taken me a while to get into proactively looking at my money. And so Rocket Money has helped me to do that because it’s been like a really simple interface and once I put in my stuff it just sort of gave me all the numbers that I wanted to look at. And I would say also a lot of personal finance podcasts, which obviously this one I listened to, which I think is really, really helpful because there are just some things as an academic that like other podcasts will be like, oh you need to focus on, you know, negotiating for a raise or things like that.

31:37 Georga-Kay: And it’s like, okay, that’s not super practical to the life I’m going to be living for the next few years. But in terms of podcasts, I love The Financial Confessions. I feel like it talks a lot about like the social life of money, like money with friends and money and relationships, which I think helps a lot. I also like the Her First $100K podcast, which is like, I feel like that’s a pretty popular one, but it’s like Women in Money and thinking about how we perceive money, which is a lot of these podcasts are actually thinking about like how we think about money, how we use money on a daily basis. And then books. I love books I feel like as academics, like of course like my first sort of introduction to finance was through books. So I Will Teach You To Be Rich, which is a very popular one.

32:19 Georga-Kay: But also Jen Sincero’s, How to Be a Badass With Money [You Are a Badass at Making Money]. I think that’s the title of the book.

32:26 Emily: Yeah, I’ve read that as well.

32:27 Georga-Kay: That one really, yeah, that one is really good. I know people have mixed opinions on it, but the reason why I personally enjoyed it is because it’s sort of like allowed me to think about the ways that I talk about money to myself in ways that I didn’t really think about before. Because as I mentioned a lot that I’ve had anxieties around money and so I would just sort of be like, oh, like in college, like I’m so broke or I’m so this and like a lot of negative money talk and I’ve stopped doing that and I think having done that for a few years now and sort of reframed the way that I think about myself and my relationship with money has allowed me to make these like larger steps towards being like more financially competent.

33:02 Emily: Yeah, I noticed in those books that you listed, there are a lot of money psychology, like aspects there. It’s not, and that’s the hard part, right? Like the hard part is not necessarily the math <laugh>, like it’s not like the addition, subtraction, multiplication. It’s not the facts of like, okay, do I have access to an IRA or not? I mean I talk about that because it’s a little wonky, but like once you know, you know. The psychology part of it is the one that you need to work on over a time and it’s like you’re never really done with it <laugh>. You’re always evolving to like a new level with it. So, I like that you mentioned those like for that reason specifically. Yeah, any other resources that you’d like to add to your list?

33:41 Georga-Kay: I would say, I don’t know if this really counts as a resource, but what I mentioned previously, which is talk to graduate students. Like talk to graduate students, preferably graduate students are in a similar department to you or in a similar field to you because then you can get like ideas about, you know, the decisions that you can make that might help you in the future. Like just like daily living expenses. As you said, like maybe talking to them about apartments you might find a great deal or something. So I found that actually some of the best like resources have been like the other students in my department and students at Brown.

34:14 Emily: What I love about that suggestion is just that you’re going to get the most relevant information from the other people who are living that similar life to you. Like for me, like I work on a national level, so I do not get to be an expert in every single different state in every single different city. And so, sometimes when I go to speak at certain universities, I ask the people who are living it, like for their suggestions, like I can say some things that work generally, but like they’re going to know like the exact, like you mentioned earlier, the right grocery store to go to for like this specific thing. Like oh this farmer’s market is really wonderful for blah blah blah, whatever. Or like, oh, have you heard about this city-specific subsidized resource? Things like that. Like that is not what you’re going to get from from books and and national podcasts and so forth.

34:57 Emily: It’s really, you have to get it from the people who are living through it with you. So it’s an amazing resource. I’m so glad that you’ve been tapping into it. I hope people listening to this episode will follow that model as well.

Financial Goals

35:08 Emily: Okay, so I want to turn now to talking about the future. We’ve talked about how diligent and thorough you’ve been with like investigating your finances and becoming more comfortable with them in the past. But now I’m wondering like have you set some financial goals for the rest of your time in graduate school?

35:26 Georga-Kay: Yeah, so my biggest goal is to save three to six months of expenses so that I can have just like a little cushion if I need to so that I don’t end up incurring more debt in the future. I would love to be able to, you know, occasionally be able to go back home, go to Jamaica, go visit extended family or even having a pet. Like I am scared that if something happens and I need to cover like a really big vet bill, I don’t want to have to put that on a card. So my immediate immediate goal is to save three to six months of living expenses. And then my second goal is really a way to like manage my financial anxiety, which is just to automate a lot of the big picture stuff that I know that I want. So, automatically like saving 20% of my income.

36:09 Georga-Kay: And then also once I’ve done that, moving on to automating retirement and investment. So, that’s something I see as more like a building sort of building block sort of goal where I’ll be working on that for the next year or two of just slightly changing things within my account so that the money goes where I need it to go. My third goal is to increase my income, which is not something I hear a lot of graduate students talk about and I get why. But I really do feel like especially for me, I want to be able to help with family stuff and just feel more secure. And so I feel like the best way to do that is to increase my income. And the way that I sort of see myself doing that is through additional teaching responsibilities. So, I can teach in the summers and I can also do like proctorships that pay a little bit more and those will pay up to like $10,000 more per year. So, that’s just a small way that I can increase my income so that I can have a little bit more flexibility.

37:01 Emily: So, with your first two goals of building up that emergency fund and then you know, starting to invest and starting to save for like other types of goals as well, you mentioned a 20% figure. So, I’m wondering are you currently saving 20% and is that going towards your emergency fund? Or is 20% something you’re like working up to over time?

37:22 Georga-Kay: Yeah so I’m currently saving 20%. I have my account set up where once I get my stipend, it automatically takes off that 20%. I am not going to lie, I’ve had to dip into it a couple times. Mainly for my dog. She’s had some stomach issues and so I just had to pay a huge vet bill. But I will continue to save that as much as I can and do that 20% minimum. And in the future, I would actually like it to be more, but for now I feel like 20% is a good amount to save.

37:52 Emily: Definitely don’t feel any guilt about spending on emergencies. I mean that’s what it is when you have like a medical situation, whether it’s yourself, your family member, your pet, if it has to be done, it has to be done. That’s what, I mean you’re saving the emergency fund, that’s what the emergency fund is for, so you’re saving it and yeah, you spend down but you still have the 20% savings rate and it’ll, you know, not every month is going to have, you know, one where you have a big expense like that. So, that’s awesome. That’s an amazing savings rate for a graduate student. So, just congratulations to you and I’m really excited for, you know, when the emergency fund is filled and when the other, you know, cash savings goals are filled and you get to turn to investing, it’s going to be so exciting.

38:25 Emily: And I love this idea of, you know, of course increasing income as a graduate student but also that you’ve thought through what your options are. And sometimes like it seems like you identified in your case there are opportunities even at your university that you can sort of easily pivot to and just add on to the responsibilities that you know you’ll have in the moment that’ll allow for that additional income. And I like that because you know, side hustling is sometimes frowned upon, sometimes disallowed, but when it’s an opportunity that comes through your university, it’s like oh you’ve kind of already like been approved for this because it’s something they offer to you, you know? So it doesn’t have to be like hidden or you know, anything like that.

39:00 Georga-Kay: Yeah, and that’s something I thought about. I’m very much a work smarter not harder person. And so I was like I keep my, now we’ve gotten like emails about like, oh if you want to teach in the summer, I’m actually going to be teaching this summer. And that’s an additional $4,000. So I was like, actually this is great. Like if I teach every summer or if I try to, then I can make a couple thousand dollars and then if I take on like an extra TA assignment, I can make another couple thousand dollars and that’s like money that I can put towards savings because right now I feel like pretty good in my base living expenses that I don’t need to like, you know, upgrade apartments or anything like that. So, it’s like all that money can go towards my larger goals.

39:39 Emily: Yeah, and you’ve just identified another great strategy there, which is base your, you know, your typical budget, your contractual living expenses, your necessary expenses around the minimum amount of money you can expect to be taking in the course of the year so that you know, anything you’ve taken above that could be used for savings, or also other discretionary purchases. Like you mentioned, you know, going like back home to Jamaica, and so like that maybe you could do an extra trip, you know, and still have money to put like into savings as well. So, I love that balance and it’s a great strategy for pretty much any stage of life, not just graduate school.

Best Financial Advice for a Fellow Early-Career PhD

40:09 Emily: Well, Georga-Kay, this has been such an amazing interview. I’m definitely going to be pointing to it for all the prospective graduate students as a model for how to handle this. And even especially, you know, even like your self-awareness around the money anxiety and so forth and how you, you know, faced it and like trying to work through it and everything. Again, super relatable I think to so many people. So, I’d like to finish up here with the final question that I ask all of my guests, which is, what is your best piece of financial advice for a fellow early-career PhD? And that could be something that we’ve already touched on in the interview or it could be something completely new.

40:41 Georga-Kay: Okay, so I have two, but I’ll make it quick. I would say the first one is one that I’ve mentioned a few times, which is that you should talk to the people around you. Like I would say not even just graduate students but also if there are any postdocs in your department or even early-career faculty. I have just like had such great conversations, and it might be hard at first to sort of like bring things up, but I feel like you don’t even have to ask about specific numbers, but just how people make it work in graduate school because there’s so much like financial literacy that we don’t have as graduate students because it isn’t prioritized. And so the best way to sort of break that barrier is to talk to other people who are in similar situations. And that’s how it’s helped me to approach a lot of the things that I do now in how I think about creating a budget or how I think about my lifestyle.

41:28 Georga-Kay: So, highly recommend just reaching out to your community and starting those conversations. It helps a lot. I would also say the second thing is to look at your money <laugh>. I think that’s harder than it seems especially for people who maybe struggle with being scared about what they’ll see, but it really, really helps because you don’t even have to make any changes. Like I just start looking at it and like being cognizant of like, okay, this is how much I’m spending. And I feel like that automatically leads to you making some slightly different decisions.

41:59 Emily: I agree. Totally, totally agree. It could just be you don’t even have to do, like you sort of went very quickly from the looking at the numbers to the starting to budget stage. But even staying at that, like I’m just looking, I’m not intentionally making any changes, but as you said, it kind of works in the background of your mind and you’ll automatically most likely start to make at least a couple of changes and you don’t have to be too like forceful with yourself about it, just having that awareness. So that is great advice. Thank you so much for sharing and Georga-Kay it’s been an absolute pleasure. I’m so glad that you volunteered to come on the podcast and you know, I hope you’ll come back in a couple of years for an update.

42:31 Georga-Kay: Thank you! I’ll be back anytime you want me <laugh>.

42:35 Emily: Okay, lovely. Thank you so much!

42:37 Georga-Kay: Thank you for having me!

Outtro

42:43 Emily: Listeners, thank you for joining me for this episode! I have a gift for you! You know that final question I ask of all my guests regarding their best financial advice? 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! 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.

From Zero Funding to Graduating Student Loan Debt-Free

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In this episode, Emily interviews Dr. José Riera, who recently finished his PhD in education from Washington State University. José’s offer of admission to WSU did not include any funding, so he initially accepted some student loans and expected to accumulate a hundred thousand dollars of debt before graduation. However, through his incredible resourcefulness, José secured multiple types of funding throughout his three-year degree that paid his education and living expenses and allowed him to repay the student loans he initially took out. Jose teaches us the tactics that he used to land two assistantships, an adjunct teaching position, and 18 scholarships. Don’t miss José’s incredibly inspiring story of overcoming these and other obstacles!

Links Mentioned in This Episode

Image for S13E6: From Zero Funding to Graduating Student Loan Debt-Free

Teaser

00:00 José: I would also say that you also want to make sure that you craft a very good message so that when people meet you, they not only remember who you are, but they want to know what you’re passionate about and how you’re helping yourself and others in that. Because then they make the connection and say, “Oh, wait a second.” So, they immediately connect as opposed to saying, “Well, he’s just, or José’s just a student in need.” You want to make sure that they have some memorable talk points about what it is that you’re pursuing, your research, your career focus, and the communities that you want to help out.

Introduction

00:42 Emily: 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. This is Season 13, Episode 6, and today my guest is Dr. José Riera, who recently finished his PhD in education from Washington State University. José’s offer of admission to WSU did not include any funding, so he initially accepted some student loans and expected to accumulate a hundred thousand dollars of debt before graduation. However, through his incredible resourcefulness, José secured multiple types of funding throughout his three-year degree that paid his education and living expenses and allowed him to repay the student loans he initially took out. Jose teaches us the tactics that he used to land two assistantships, an adjunct teaching position, and 18 scholarships. Don’t miss José’s incredibly inspiring story of overcoming these and other obstacles! Without further ado, here’s my interview with Dr. José Riera.

Will You Please Introduce Yourself Further?

02:09 Emily: I have joining me on the podcast today, José Riera. He recently finished his PhD in education from Washington State University, so he has a different kind of funding path than what we normally hear on the podcast. And I’m really excited for him to share for anybody else who’s pursuing a similar degree or has similar funding challenges at the beginning of their PhD. So, José, I’m really delighted that you are joining us here. Will you please tell the listeners a little bit more about yourself?

02:33 José: Well, thank you for hosting me today, Emily. I’m very happy to be here and help you and your mission to support many worthy students obtain funding and guidance to survive what can be a very challenging process. And I consider myself blessed to have met you at the beginning of this journey. So, I was able to pave the way thanks to your support and complete really an incredible journey in a three-year time span, which is amazing. So, just a little bit about me besides the fact, like you mentioned, I just completed my PhD in education here at Washington State University. I’m in the eastern part of Washington, in the town of Pullman. Before that, my background was mostly in business administration. I did a lot of work in inner-city communities throughout the United States, serving mostly Latino and African American neighborhoods.

03:28 José: I have an undergraduate degree in finance from Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. And then I have a Master’s in Business Administration from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. So, my background prior to coming to WSU had been mostly a business administration perspective handling financial and retail aspects of different operations. And I did that throughout the United States. I think through some health challenges and just some personal reflections, I pivoted away into the area of education where I felt the focus was going to be mostly on helping others. And as I entered the second stage of my life working mostly towards was I a good steward of the resources that I was born with? And that led me, among other places, to Washington State University, where, like you mentioned, I just completed my PhD.

Funding the MBA

04:28 Emily: So fascinating. So, this was your second go-round with graduate school, actually. Tell me about how you funded the MBA.

04:37 José: Well, the MBA, it was in the University of Pennsylvania. My parents helped significantly with my MBA, and then I had also won a significant scholarship funding from the University of Pennsylvania, just based on my ethnic background that provided some support. So, I was able to cover that. That was only a two-year program. And I was in a little bit of better financial shape back then than I was coming into my PhD.

05:08 Emily: Okay. So, you didn’t take out student loans, for example, for that initial degree?

05:12 José: No, I did not.

Finances Right Before Starting Graduate School

05:13 Emily: So, tell me about your finances right before coming into graduate school. You just said you were in a different situation, so what was the situation?

05:19 José: Well, the biggest challenge for me was I had, you know, I spent several years in a hospital. And I was recovering from an accident, and that recovery process really wiped out any sort of financial support that I had. I had child support that I was accruing, unable to pay for because I had no income. And then I had just a sheer amount of health-related expenses I kept accumulating. So, that was my backdrop as I looked to complete my rehab and then get my life back in order and decide to pursue something back in education that would give me additional tools and a different perspective on my life is really the genesis of how I connected with you and how I connected with Washington State University, among other schools.

06:19 Emily: Okay. So, we have a big interruption that you just went through in your financial life. Some debts that you had accrued. So, I’m guessing that you did not want to accrue any further debt during your graduate degree. Can you tell me about how PhDs in education are typically funded?

Funding for PhDs in Education

06:41 José: Yes, very good. Well, at least at Washington State University, the program is very, very international. And a lot of the students, especially from Saudi Arabia, from China, they’re actually funded by their own host governments. So, I entered into what’s a fairly small program. My class was only about 13 students. I think I was the only citizen in the entire group. So, that just gives you a sense of the fact that a lot of them received independent funding, and the program itself wasn’t really geared towards providing financial support just because it’s seen somewhat of a, for lack of a better word, a cash cow for Washington State University. Again, you’re having a lot of students that are not only paying out-of-state tuition, but a lot of them are paying even a higher out-of-country tuition. So, it’s a big operation for them. I did not have any sort of support coming into the program.

07:46 Emily: Yeah. So, tell me about when you, like received your offer of admission to Washington State. It sounded like you didn’t receive funding along with that, Is that correct?

07:56 José: That is correct, yes. And they were very clear from the get-go saying we’d love to welcome you into our environment, but we don’t have the financial package or wherewithal to be able to provide any sort of support into your program. So, you’re going to have to find your own way of supporting your education.

Why Washington State University?

08:17 Emily: And was that your only offered admission? Were you looking at other offers of admission at the same time? And if so, how did those funding packages look?

08:26 José: Yeah, so that’s actually a very good question. I was actually based in California, and I had been looking, and in the process of applying for Berkeley as well as University of California Davis, these schools had in-state tuition that was more affordable, obviously. But the big decision for me, there were two main factors. The first one was the fact that these schools, since I didn’t come from a background in education, in both of these universities, and I won’t even tell you about Stanford, because Stanford would’ve been a nine-year program. But these universities would have required me to pursue some master-level educational courses before being allowed to enter fully into a doctoral-level curriculum. And Washington state was not that way.

09:25 José: Washington said, “Look, we realize that you’re not from an educational background, but you have a significantly interesting, eclectic, shall we say, background. You have very strong academic credentials from your undergraduate and graduate school. We will let you start taking in doctoral level courses.” Which helped me at least reduce my academic yearly path by at least two years compared to UC Davis and UC Berkeley. So, again, it was a trade-off in that regard. And then secondly, I had other considerations. My daughter was a student at WSU, and that was a big decision for me to actually come here to make up for the years that I was unable to be in her life due to health issues and my hospital recovery.

Plan for Funding the PhD

10:23 Emily: What a beautiful opportunity. I’m so glad that lined up for you so well. Okay, but, you’re coming in with no funding. So, what was your I guess, outlook at that time? Like, what was the plan before you actually arrived on campus? What was your plan for funding the PhD?

10:41 José: Well, listen, I’m very much of a self-starter. So, at the very least, I said, “This is an opportunity that I am giving to improve my lot where I was, where I was just essentially sinking in debt and not feeling that I had much traction.” Entering into this opportunity that Washington State afforded me allowed me to make a step in the right direction. And, you know, even if I had not had any other sort of funding, because of my financial condition, I was given a fairly generous FAFSA package. You know, so I could have really loaded up on student debt to the degree that I could, upwards of $40,000 each semester. And initially, the first year, as you might imagine, I was paying out-of-state tuition, which was two-and-a-half, sometimes three times as expensive as in-state.

11:40 José: So, I started that route, especially moving in. But I had knocked on a lot of doors. Especially, I had looked at a different program. At one point I wasn’t sure if they would take me in the School of Education, so I applied for a history program, made good connections there, and the head of that school said, “Look, I know you’re not a student at the College of Arts and Sciences where the program is located, but we have this opportunity here that we’re not sure yet, but it might be able to pay for your tuition.” So, again, just knocking on different doors, calling for informational meetings. That helped me. I had a conversation with Dr. Carmen Lugo, who was the director of the school. And then when the opportunity came up, I did the interviews.

12:30 José: They liked me because you know, it was managing the language labs. I speak different languages. So that helped, and I got that opportunity, and, you know, I was even willing to do it without the tuition reimbursement. And then she pulled through, and then I had tuition covered for that. So, I was making that relationship from afar, but since I got here, I think it also helped the fact that I moved to Washington like three months before school started. So, that also meant that I could be trained to run the laboratory. And then that gave me an edge over perhaps other students that were remote when I was already local and chomping at the bit.

Being Proactive About Financial Needs and Knocking on Doors

13:16 Emily: I think this is a great lesson here for any prospective or current graduate students they can pull out. Now, obviously, you were a non-traditional student, and you had all these advantages from your past career and your past education that, you know, might or might not exist in other people who are listening. But, what you did and what they could do is that you were really proactive about two things. One, letting people know about your financial needs or concerns. Hey, I really want to get tuition covered if I can, would love to receive a stipend. I don’t know if those exactly were the conversations you were having, but I need some funding. Is there any way that I can get that? And as you said, just really knocking on a lot of doors, talking to a lot of different people about what you can offer them, and what you would need from them. And that ended up working out, as you said, with this, is it fair to say it was an assistantship, or like what kind of position?

14:06 José: It was an assistantship. Definitely a graduate assistantship. And to your point, it wasn’t the sign to be offered to graduate students outside of that home school. But because of some, you know, the fact that I was persistent. I was there, they knew me already, just as, you know, just in person having shown up, shaken hands, and done a lot of personal bonding, I was top of mind. And, I think to your point also, the age, being non-traditional. I think there’s an assumption of a certain level of maybe gravitas or just seriousness about the purpose of saying, you know, he’s not going to be, you know, calling in sick much. In fact, never did. So, you know, I think that gave me an edge, but that wasn’t the only pump that I was priming.

15:00 José: I made it a point to be known specifically by the graduate school, precisely by, you know, saying, “Look, this is where I am. Where can I access opportunities? You know, where can I access support?” Whether it’s for clothing for an interview, food security, help with financial aid, help with navigating so many expenses, maybe getting some housing support, energy conservation. So, a lot of things I checked just to, you know, as they say, you know, stretch a buck and make it scream, right? And really, you know, getting people to know who I was, what I needed, and what I was pursuing, especially as far as what my interests were. I always made sure that, you know, I had somebody that I could call on afterwards or would call me.

New Opportunities During COVID

15:52 José: And that actually came into place once the COVID pandemic initially happened, because the whole campus was sent home. And now I was residing on campus, but then my job meant that I, you know, it was a student-facing position, and since there were no students, there was no income. Hence, that position was eliminated during COVID. And that also meant that I had to pivot quickly because it was a program that I thought would carry me throughout my years here. And then there was no funding after the first year. So, having seeded the grounds with other people, I was able to, through the graduate school, find out that there was an opportunity at the Emeritus Society, which is the professors at Washington State University who have retired there have a social group, a support group, and where they come together and they had a position that was vacant to handle their events.

17:01 José: And it was a lot of challenges because it was an older demographic. And this was my second year, so the entire 2021 of the pandemic. So, everything was done remotely, and getting some of these people working on Zoom for the first time in their lives was a work in progress. But they were just such a wonderful experience, and always, and to this day still follow up on what I’m doing. So, I felt very much that it was stressful in the sense that, you know, there was a moment there between March and April of 2020 that I just said, you know, what do I do now? And then, you know, I was able to get that opportunity. And again, because of the fact that I was known on campus and known inside of my department, I had one of my professors who gave me an internship for that summer. And then I transitioned into this assistantship for my second year.

18:05 Emily: Love it. So, now we’ve seen this strategy work for you two times for your first year, and then for your second and third year, it sounded like?

18:11 José: Well, it was for my second year. So, it’s an interesting, again, interesting turn of events because of the fact that I am proactive, like you mentioned, as far as getting myself known and finding out different resources. So, for my third year, I had already accumulated a fair amount of scholarships that I had applied for and won. So, you know, about 18 different support awards from institutions that support recovered individuals like myself that overcame health conditions, to just competitive scholarships, to then even Washington State Employees’ Credit Union, which is my credit union. They have a program that they support their own members. It’s a competitive one, but it’s also one that I applied and won for consecutive years. So, I had a little bit accumulated for there.

19:11 José: And then because of, again, having talked to different people, there was a faculty position that opened up at the College of Business. Mind you, my college is a college of education, okay? But at the College of Business, they had a need to teach finance and entrepreneurship. And one of the people that I had known, one of the professors called me up and said, you know, “Is it okay if I recommend you for this adjunct, you know, position that’s there? I I think you have a rich business administration background and you can make it happen.” And I didn’t need to think twice about it when they <laugh> when they interviewed me, because it’s very unusual that you would find a graduate student also operating at a faculty level, right? That you could be, I was a student working on my dissertation, but I was also teaching and developing something for my profile.

20:06 José: So, I ended up my last year, I could have stayed a second year with the Emeritus Association, but given the fact that I was given such a great opportunity, they even welcomed the fact that, “Hey, you should pursue that.” And then I ended up teaching for two semesters in the business school. That brought in funding, and then I had enough of the scholarship that would pay for my tuition. So, I was able to potentially coast the rest of the way financially. It wasn’t easy, but it was done.

Commercial

20:42 Emily: Emily here for a brief interlude. If you are a fan of this podcast, I invite you to check out the Personal Finance for PhDs Community at PFforPhDs.community. The Community is for PhDs and people pursuing PhDs who want to take charge of their personal finances by opening and funding an IRA, starting to budget, aggressively paying off debt, financially navigating a life or career transition, maximizing the income from a side hustle, preparing an accurate tax return, and much more. Inside the Community, you’ll have access to a library of financial education products, including my recent set of Wealthy PhD Workshops. There is also a discussion forum, monthly live calls with me, and progress journaling for financial goals. Basically, the Community exists to help you reach your financial goals, whatever they are. Go to pfforphds.community to find out more. I can’t wait to help propel you to financial success! Now back to the interview.

High Success Rate with Scholarships

21:48 Emily: I want to pull three elements out from what you just said because I do not want the listeners to miss this. So, one, we talked earlier about you being proactive and knocking on many doors and talking with many people and letting them know what you can do for them and what you need from them. But what you said in there, and what you know, came into play again when the pandemic started, is that you developed these connections before you needed them urgently, right? You said you moved to campus a few months ahead of the other students so that you were a known face and a known entity by the time, Oh, this position is opening up, like that seems like it would be a good fit. They already knew you before the pandemic started. All that work that you had done before, continued to do, when that pivot needed to happen, you had already laid the groundwork and you had the resources in place. So, it’s almost like analogous to having an emergency fund. Like doing this networking for your career before you urgently need it is similar to keeping a cash emergency fund in your finances before you encounter an emergency that you would draw on that for. So, that’s point number one. Point number two, you said you won 18 scholarships. How many did you apply for <laugh>, do you know, to get those 18?

22:58 José: Well, I have a pretty good success rate on those. And again, I mean, you know how time is of the essence when you are a graduate student. So, I had to screen a lot of them and then make sure that, at least on paper, I had an above-average chance, you know. Just based whether, I didn’t apply for everything that was out there. Some of those came as direct referrals from the graduates school here at the WSU. So, they were internal competitions that you applied for, especially the teaching awards. So, meaning that there were scholarships available for students who were looking to expand pedagogy and become better classroom teachers. So, a lot of those came in through the internal graduate school at Washington State University.

23:50 José: But the external ones, I would say that, I just don’t want to create the wrong expectation. I probably ended up applying to about 25. So, I got to most of them because I would do the pre-screening, and I didn’t want to be wasting a lot of time either writing big essays for small dollars. So, there was also, my sweet spot was maybe focusing on ones that were between $2,500 and $5,000, because that made it meaningful. A lot of those, the money can only be used for school-related expenses. So, it’s not like you can take it out and, you know, have a party. So, that’s why you can see that that served as my nest for my last year, where even though the faculty position didn’t pay for tuition, I had enough money accumulated that did that. And then I just had to worry about my day-to-day expenses, which I did just based on the income that I received, whether assistantship or teaching. And I also did a little bit of thrift shopping on the side just to kind of like buy cheap and try to sell. That’s where the spending money came from.

25:02 Emily: Well, I’m so happy to hear that you were so strategic about those scholarship selections and the applications, and I feel like we could do an entire other interview about that strategy. Because it obviously worked out so well for you and you were, you know, judicious about how you used your time. And I just love everything you mentioned. So, that was a value-packed, you know, response there that I didn’t want the listeners to miss. And then the third point that I wanted to pull out was that you, you know, you’ve had now from what you described, two assistantships or the faculty position, non-assistantship. One assistantship, another faculty position that were not within your own school of education. And I just don’t want the listeners to have like a limiting belief around who on campus might or might not be able and willing to hire them based on these bureaucratic boundaries that may exist. So, I love your example of how you were able to, you know, cross those boundaries again because of the work you did earlier, getting known by all these people. So, I just wanted listeners to have that as well.

Learning About Financial Resources Early On

25:58 Emily: Is there anything else that you want to add about, you know, how you managed financially during the PhD? We’ve already gotten a few different details, but anything more?

26:10 José: Well, I think one of the more important things, which actually, you know, I met you, or started following your advice even before I had gotten accepted to graduate school. So, I think the importance of obtaining information so that you know what’s realistic, what’s out there, you know, what services, you know, at least populating yourself with enough information with the resources that you provide. When I was having discussions with the graduate school, and I would encourage everybody to just, regardless of where they go, I think their first stop should be the graduate school, just because they have a direct connection with you. They know where different opportunities are. They can show you, as they did, “Look, you know, there’s this whole list of information that if you fill out just a standard application, we’re going to put you in the lot to win or be eligible for some of these awards.”

27:14 José: So, it’s something that you just need to show up and do it, you know? And it’s there. So, I can’t imagine that being the process in every single school, but they’re there. They’re there for you. So, the fact that they, you know, I was able to go there and I had enough information based on your podcast, based on your personal opinions, that I could go and say, “Look, you know, this is what I need and I’ve already done my, you know, four-year span. These are kind of like the expenses that I’m seeing, you know, can I get some support here? Can I get some support there?” And even if they say no, it’s still you’re learning through this process and you know where the other resources are. And I find people want to help you.

27:56 José: They want to help you if you’re willing to put in the effort. And, you know, so I would just encourage people to do that. Even with your research, when you’re at WSU, the fact that I was in the multidisciplinary research allowed me to qualify to other experiences including summer internships. I did a summer internship with a first-gen-focused institution in Nashville. And that wasn’t necessarily initially my focus, because my focus was mostly on using technology to help individuals with disabilities. But I pivoted into first-gens because of that experience. And that gave me not only contacts in that industry, but also an opportunity of being able to do field research that then became the basis of my doctoral dissertation here at Washington State.

28:47 Emily: So amazing. Thank you so much for sharing that message. It actually is a reflection of something I heard back in the interview I did specifically for international students. A very similar message to them, which was get to know your designated school official, like we were talking about earlier, before you run into a financial crisis that of course, international students have many more restrictions on how they can earn money and whether they can take out student loans and all these issues. But get to know the people who know the resources, have access to the resources in advance, so that when, you know, if you see a crisis approaching or like you, your income source dried up, then you know who you can go to. They already aware of you. Maybe they’ve been keeping an eye out for opportunities for you. So, incredible message.

Completing the PhD Without Taking on Student Debt

29:28 Emily: I understand that you ultimately were able to complete your PhD without taking on any student debt from all of the, you know, avenues of funding that we talked about. Can you tell me about what that means to you to have been able to accomplish that?

29:44 José: Well, it was you know, I’m still a little bit giggly about that because it wasn’t the case. I mean, when I first came here, and mind you, I landed in Pullman, Washington. I actually drove here in April of 2019. And I was perfectly, not perfectly I should say that, but at least I was resigned that this might put me in a hole for at least a hundred thousand dollars. Just in the way that I had nothing written down. I had nothing committed. You know, and it was, it was very humbling saying, “Okay, I’m going to start dipping into these FAFSA funds because I just don’t have any income. And I did that for the first six weeks, and then, you know, things started coming along and then I was able to contain that initial debt. I never really added to it, carried it and then, you know, then got some scholarship funding that allowed me not only to start paying down on it, but then eventually, you know, with my stipend, being able to wipe it clean.

30:53 José: And I know there’s some who say, “Oh, if you had left it there, you probably would’ve eliminated now with some of the Washington DC funding.” But it’s okay. I mean, I think now I don’t have it. I feel much stronger. My credit score is probably almost 70 basis points higher than when I began the program. Precise, because I was not only able to keep those expenses down, but also pay down on expenses or debt that I carried from my past. And again, I’m just very grateful to you and some of the people that you’ve introduced me through your program and your podcast, including your brother as far as support that I receive to make sure that I’m lining myself up for eventual homeownership opportunities, now that I’m facing a future where I have finally some steady income, a new career, and just life outside of campus.

31:53 Emily: I’m so happy to hear that. I’m so pleased. You’re giving me a lot of credit here. But I think it was a lot. I mean, we had one conversation, but it’s a lot of the podcasts and other things that I’ve put out there. So, I’m so pleased that you’ve been using that, and I wasn’t even necessarily aware of that the whole time. One note, this is not necessarily advice for you, but for anybody who is listening at this point. This is going to come out in fall 2022. If you paid down federal student loan debt during the pandemic, which it sounds like you did, José, you can actually request a refund from your loan servicer up to the 10 or $20,000 of forgiveness that we are expecting to come through this fall. And so, if you want to do that, you could actually get that refund and then get the debt wiped away. So whatever that amount is, maybe it’s $10,000, you could actually have that in your pocket if you wanted to go ahead and do that. Not necessarily saying you have to, because I know there’s a lot of pleasure you receive from, you know, having not only paid off that student loan debt that you took at the beginning, but it sounds like you also paid down some of your other debt, which is incredible. But I just want the listeners to know that opportunity is there if they did pay off debt during the pandemic.

32:59 José: Well, thank you. I’ll be paying close attention to that upcoming podcast for sure. That may be, it’ll be an early celebration of Christmas.

Next Steps in Career and in Finances

33:08 Emily: Yeah, that sounds great. Okay. Second to last question here. What is next for you in your career and in your finances?

33:15 José: Well, I think as I indicated earlier, a lot of my journey, especially in these past few years where I’ve had to rely upon, because of the fact that I was not financially independent, I had to rely upon other people for support and show them, right? That I was worthy of the trust, and in some cases, that I was worthy of the positions that they had given me. I have an obligation now to pass forward some of those benefits that I received. And I say that because then I was originally catering or focusing in on getting into classrooms. And my focus was to go into kind of like the greater Appalachian region of the United States, which there’s a lot of financial need, there’s a lot of mentoring need for, you know, just really wonderful individuals who just don’t have the support at home and guidance to be able to know what college is all about.

34:19 José: And then they’re at risk, even if they get accepted, of not fitting in and then dropping out. So, I can make an impact in their lives. So, I was heading in that direction. And then I got a call from a non-profit that I worked with in the past that wanted me to see if I could stay behind in Washington State to help the lower-income agricultural communities in Washington State. There’s a lot of mostly Hispanic and Native American communities in the greater Yakima Valley. That allows me an opportunity of combining both my educational focus as well as my business administration to help those communities in terms of obtaining funding for school, of obtaining funding to start off their own businesses, of navigating some of their citizenship limitations. And it also allows me to stay close to, I have two daughters, one actually who was Natalia, my oldest who graduated here, I was able to graduate simultaneously with her, so that that was an extra benefit of coming to Washington State.

35:27 José: And in fact, we both walked together in May. She’s now living in Seattle. I have my youngest that lives at home with her mom in Vancouver. So, me being able to stay here in Washington State a couple of years and working where there’s a need for not only role models, but hard skills in financial and agricultural businesses. I can make an impact in a lot of financial ways and also personally meaningful ways, and still maintain contact with the important people in my life.

36:02 Emily: I’m so pleased. That’s so wonderful. I’m so glad you got that opportunity to stay there in Washington and do that mission-driven work. So happy!

Best Financial Advice for Another Early-Career PhD

36:11 Emily: Okay, last question for you. What is your best financial advice for another early-career PhD? And that could be something that we have already touched on in this interview, or it could be something completely new.

36:22 José: Well, I think again, you and I both share the perspective of knowing what it’s like to be in the hole, shall we say. And I think that that might be more meaningful, you know, to focus in on that because it’s such a threatening time and humbling time you know. Because you can think everything you want about your accomplishments and what you’re doing, but you’re still faced with the reality of how do you make ends meet and how do you survive. So, I think still for those of you who are looking, contemplating this journey, or in the middle of this journey, I think some of the things that you talked about before. Don’t be putting any sort of unnecessary limitations of your ability of being able to prosper. And don’t look at it as like I don’t want to get known around as somebody who’s in need.

37:20 José: Or you know, I don’t want to necessarily show the fact that I’m, you know, in financial need. I don’t think people will judge you for that. I think if anything, they see you more as somebody that is very responsible, is not letting the worst-case scenario happen. You’re trying to be proactive about it, and people will support you. I’m telling you, I mean, in my setting here, it’s seen as like, ‘Wow, you’re hungry, and you want to tackle this on and not let that get out of hand for different reasons.” People will find a way of helping you, but you’ve got to show up and you’ve got to do the work. They’re not going to give you a handout, because that’s just not, well, that’s just not necessarily the type of image that you want to command.

38:06 José: So, I will go back to what you were alluding to. Just knock on different doors. Don’t be afraid when they say no, it’s not a rejection necessarily. It’s just more of an issue of prioritization and saying, well, maybe it’s not the door that you need to do, but at least you leave a good presence so that in the future if something were to come up, they do call you. And I’ve seen that happen in my case, right? So, I would also say that you also want to make sure that you craft a very good message so that when people meet you, they not only remember who you are, but they want to know what you’re passionate about and how you’re helping yourself and others in that. Because then they make the connection and say, “Oh, wait a second, Emily likes to promote advance in higher education and she’s got this network. We just got this grant. Let’s call her.” So you’re ready, they immediately connect as opposed to saying, “Well, he’s just, or José’s just a student in need.” You want to make sure that they have some memorable talk points about what it is that you’re pursuing, your research, your career focus, the communities that you want to help out with.

39:20 Emily: That’s such a perfect encapsulation of like the main messages that we’ve gotten through this interview. I’m so happy to hear that like last articulation. And to put it kind of with some of my own words there, you demonstrated and what you’re encouraging other people to demonstrate, is resourcefulness. And the university does have a lot of resources, <laugh>, and they may be, you know, in different little pockets and they may be unknown. And you have to go around and talk with people and network and, as you said, let them know what you can do for them and what you bring to the table. I noticed this pattern also when I’ve spoken about negotiation of graduate student stipends. And like, in a way, what you were doing was negotiation, except they didn’t even know that they were making you an offer yet, right?

40:00 Emily: Like you were just out there trying to get those offers. What I noticed when I talk with graduate students about negotiation is that they usually do open up very vulnerably about their finances. This is the need. Hey, this is the cost of living going on. I really don’t think that this offer was sufficient to meet this cost of living. And also in some cases, oh, look what I’m bringing to the table. Okay, I’m bringing in a fellowship, I’m bringing outside money. I’m bringing in your case, a whole career, you know, a first career’s worth of work experience, graduate degrees, insights. So yeah, as you said, just leave a good impression, like let them know what you’re about and what you need. And in the future, belaying those seeds and in the future they may be able to come back to you with some kind of offer. And your case, it’s worked out over and over and over again. And I’m so glad that we captured that story in this interview. José, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. It’s been a pleasure to have you.

40:48 José: Well, I’m very blessed to be here, Emily. And I thank you for four years of putting up with me and such wonderful advice. And I’m just glad that, you know, I’m able to demonstrate what you do when you put into effect the guidance that you’ve shared with us remotely and in my case remotely and in person.

41:10 Emily: Thank you!

Outtro

41:16 Emily: Listeners, thank you for joining me for this episode! I have a gift for you! You know that final question I ask of all my guests regarding their best financial advice? 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! 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 PhD Student-Nurse Is Confident in Her Self-Worth

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In this episode, Emily interviews Brenda Olmos, a nurse practitioner and rising third-year PhD student in nursing. A first-generation college student who grew up without financial stability, Brenda was debt-averse throughout college and her master’s degree and started building wealth in her 20s through investing and real estate, eventually aligning with the FIRE movement. When she decided to pursue a PhD in her late 20s, she held out for an online program with an excellent culture and funding package. Thanks to her lucrative outside work, Brenda has continued to invest consistently during her PhD, although more slowly than she did pre-PhD. Brenda’s strong financial position and career optionality have set her up well for a fulfilling post-PhD career.

Links Mentioned in this Episode

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Teaser

00:00 Brenda: It’s so cool to like see yourself grow in ways that you never thought you could. And financially like, okay, maybe I’m taking like a 50 or $60,000 per year cut. But in the course of my life, like is three years really going to matter that much, you know? And how much more will my life be enriched by having this degree? Like what doors will it open for me? Whether they’re monetary or not is not really the point for me anymore. And that’s something that I was able to achieve in my twenties.

Introduction

00:37 Emily: 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. This is Season 13, Episode 2, and today my guest is Brenda Olmos, a nurse practitioner and rising third-year PhD student in nursing. A first-generation college student who grew up without financial stability, Brenda was debt-averse throughout college and her master’s degree and started building wealth in her 20s through investing and real estate, eventually aligning with the FIRE movement. When she decided to pursue a PhD in her late 20s, she held out for an online program with an excellent culture and funding package. Thanks to her lucrative outside work, Brenda has continued to invest consistently during her PhD, although more slowly than she did pre-PhD. Brenda’s strong financial position and career optionality have set her up well for a fulfilling post-PhD career.

01:56 Emily: Would you please help me out with something? I want to record six podcast interviews this fall to be published over approximately the next six months. Will you consider being a guest? As a listener, I’m sure you have something to say about money as a PhD or PhD-to-be! Simply fill out the Google Form at PFforPhDs.com/podcastvolunteer/ to get the ball rolling. Alternatively, if you have someone in mind who you’d like to hear me interview, please connect me with that person over email or Twitter! I really appreciate it! Let’s keep the podcast going strong! You can find the show notes for this episode at PFforPhDs.com/s13e2/. Without further ado, here’s my interview with Brenda Olmos.

Will You Please Introduce Yourself Further?

02:52 Emily: I am delighted to have joining me on the podcast today someone I know from Fintwit, Brenda Olmos. She is a rising third-year PhD student at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center. She’s actually doing a PhD in nursing, so a very different kind of PhD student than we’ve had on here before. Not only that, her program is online, so she lives in Austin, Texas. So, Brenda, I’m so happy to have you on the podcast and get to have a deep-dive conversation with you. Will you please tell the listeners a little bit more about yourself?

03:20 Brenda: Sure! Hello everyone. My name’s Brenda Olmos. And, like Emily said, I live in Austin, Texas, and I’ve grown up in this area of central Texas and really enjoy living here. So, when I was searching for PhD programs, I was definitely searching for distance programs. And that’s the case about me being in an online PhD program. I grew up, like I said, here in central Texas, and I went to UT Austin for my undergraduate in nursing degree. Six years later, I graduated with my Master’s in Nursing as a family nurse practitioner. So, I had about six years of experience as a registered nurse at the bedside, which means I basically worked in inpatient hospital settings, taking care of people who were acutely ill. And then I chose to leave that setting when I became a nurse practitioner and I worked in an outpatient primary care setting for older people.

04:11 Brenda: So, I’m a geriatric nurse. And I found a scholarship in 2019 for geriatric nursing research. And I was kind of at a point in my life where I was satisfied with my career, and I found it rewarding. I found my work very gratifying, but I felt that my potential wasn’t really maximized in that role, that I made a difference one-on-one with patients, but that I wanted to make a difference at a larger scale. And in nursing, there are two paths for a doctorate degree. There’s a Doctorate in Nursing Practice, which is a DNP, and a lot of nurses do that because they want to make immediate change, like in administration or policy. And then there’s the PhD, which is the Doctor of Philosophy. And that’s more of a research-based doctorate, like most other PhDs in which you focus on generating new knowledge and you learn the research process.

05:07 Brenda: And I actually had really great mentors, which caused me to lean towards the PhD. And I chose the PhD in nursing because I felt that I wanted to have the doctorate that was universally recognized as a terminal degree and as a doctorate, whereas a DNP is very specific to nursing. I wanted to have something that, you know, the three letters that mean something to everybody <laugh> in the world, right? So, that’s kind of been my trajectory. I worked as a nurse practitioner for three years, full-time from 2017 to 2020. And then in 2020, I had been accepted to the PhD program. I was still kind of on the fence about it because I was making six figures as a nurse practitioner. And even though I didn’t know at the time that I had won this scholarship, I was like, I don’t know, this is a big leap to take. And then the pandemic hit and that took away so much of the joy of my work. And so much of the compensation that I realized I’m ready to go do something different. So, I’ve been in my PhD program since August of 2020. And like you said, I’m going into my third year now.

06:13 Emily: Wow. I love when I get someone on the podcast who has really, really thought deeply about their career and the trajectory of it and chosen, after all of that, to go into a PhD program. I don’t want be, you know, too critical of people who went like directly from undergrad down that path. I went almost directly from undergrad, but I just think it takes on a different tone. You have more focus in your research usually with all that like background work experience, and especially for you having a very, you know, very solid, super lucrative like career leading into that and you just really thought about, well, what do I want in my life? How do I want to be spending my time? That’s actually a lot of what we’ll be talking about today.

06:51 Emily: And I just want to kind of frame this for the listener a little bit that you know, Brenda’s had, as we just said of really different career trajectory than probably most people who are listening, probably the vast majority of people who are listening. And so once we get to start, you know, talking about Brenda’s finances, you’re going to see a pretty rosy picture. And it is of course, largely due to having that career in her twenties. But I don’t want you to like dismiss this episode as like, you’re never going to learn anything from it because you’re not in the same kind of position that Brenda was, because I still think there’s going to be something here, some strategy, some mindset, especially, that you can learn from. So, keep with us even though it may be a little bit of a different kind of story.

07:29 Brenda: And I do want to add to that that not every nurse is in my position, right? Like I had a really great scholarship for undergrad. Probably about 75% of my undergrad degree was paid for through scholarships and grants. I paid for my master’s degree, partially through hospital tuition reimbursement, and partially by working full-time. But I had classmates who took out a hundred thousand dollars for two years of their master’s program, and they’re paying that off now, right? So, I just want to be transparent about the fact that like, don’t go up to every nurse and be like, oh my God, you have no debt and you make a ton of money. Like, no, I was very strategic about the way that I got my education and I was always debt-averse. And so, I think that’s also important to point out.

Financial Independence, Retire Early (FIRE)

08:14 Emily: Yeah. Because I next want to kind of talk about you discovering the FIRE movement, which you did prior to starting the PhD program, but you had already, as you just said, taken some, you know, FIRE-like steps leading up to that, by being debt-averse, by working a lot while you’re in school, by choosing an employer who’s going to give you tuition reimbursement and so forth. So like, you were already setting yourself up well financially, even if you hadn’t, you know, discovered that particular movement. But let’s go to that like moment when you discovered the FIRE movement and what appealed to you about it? Like, why did you decide to start going that route?

08:45 Brenda: Yeah, I think a lot of it was rooted in, like for many of us, the way that we grew up around money, right? Like the beliefs that were planted in our minds as young kids. And for me, and I’ve talked about this in BiggerPockets and in some other podcasts, is that I had so much financial instability growing up and I knew so much about my parents’ finances and I knew the lows and I knew the highs. And I had kind of, maybe not consciously, but unconsciously decided that I was going to be stable, that my adult life was not going to be a roller coaster of emotions, secondary to my financial situation. And so, I think that’s why FIRE appealed to me because it was like, oh, I don’t just have to be stable. Like, I can be free. <Laugh>, you know, it’s like, there’s one extreme where you’re tied to the ball and chain, there’s the middle ground where you’re stable and you’re working, you’re saving, maybe you’re investing. And then there’s financially independent where no matter what you do, whether you work or you don’t work, you’re okay, right? So, I found out about it through some podcasts, StackingBenjamins, Afford Anything, Earn and Invest. And I just started listening and I was like, wow, there’s a lot I can do with some money I have saved up. Or like, maybe I should buy a property, you know? And that’s kind of how it all took off.

10:13 Emily: I think we’re going to get here, like later in the interview, but this like really interesting overlap in your story between pursuing FIRE and pursuing the PhD, and like the time freedom that FIRE can give you to then apply it to your academic interest. Even if those interests don’t pay as well as other career paths, perhaps, that were available to you. So, I really hope, yeah, we pull that out later in the interview. So, give me a couple, like, you know, mechanical things that you did in those early years of FIRE. You mentioned, oh, maybe I should consider buying a property. Like, what were some things that you did that were deviations from the path that you were on before, once you learned about FIRE?

10:49 Brenda: Right. So, I started investing in a brokerage account, which I had never done before. Like the thought of investing in the stock market was really foreign to me. I knew that my parents had 401(k)s, but I didn’t know that that was investing in the stock market. And so, I started doing research on that. And I talk about this on the podcast I have with my friend, Minority Millennial Money, about how my first experience into investing was like going to Wells Fargo and having an advisor there telling me that I needed at least $25,000 to like open a portfolio <laugh> and, you know, I look back on that and I did it. But I look back on that and I’m like, oh, I was so naive, you know? And now I know so much more and eventually, I transferred it out of Wells Fargo, but so the first thing was investing, and the second thing was buying a home.

House Hacking

11:40 Brenda: First, it was a small condo in 2017. Prior to that, I had kept my living expenses low because I just lived with a friend who owned a home and I rented a room from her for $600 a month, right? So, for Austin, even seven years ago, that was really cheap. So, and I didn’t, I don’t mind living with people, but it was nice to have my own place when I bought a condo in 2017. And then in 2019, I bought a single-family home and I rented out the condo. And so, now I have both.

12:11 Emily: So, let’s see, in 2019 you bought the single-family home, in 2020, you started the PhD program. So, are you still living in that single-family home? Or did you move again?

12:19 Brenda: Yeah, and I house hack it. So, I mean, house hacking is really just having roommates, right? So, basically, I started having travel nurses stay with me so that I didn’t have a permanent person. I just kind of had a nurse house. And so, I really enjoyed that. And there was a little bit of a lull there when COVID hit because many of their contracts got canceled. And so, I was at a critical point where I was like, I’m quitting my job. I have this house to take care of and the income may not be there, but it ended up working out. And hosting travel nurses is really awesome.

12:59 Emily: Yeah. This strategy of house hacking is one that I have given some air time to in the past and I’m really excited about for PhD students, because for that stage of life, it’s already really normalized to live with roommates. And so, if you have the financial wherewithal to be able to purchase, be the owner and be the landlord, it can like really radically transform your finances. So, so glad to hear that you were taking advantage of that strategy even before starting the PhD.

Choosing a Supportive PhD Program

13:22 Emily: So, we kind of already talked about like, why you wanted to start the PhD, you know, why you thought it was the best move for your career. Did you want to add any more details about, I don’t know, that particular program or anything else about your, you know, deciding to go down that career?

13:35 Brenda: Yeah. And, you know, we have met over Financial Twitter and there’s also Academic Twitter. And on Academic Twitter, I see so many horror stories of like really difficult programs, really toxic environments. And I was like, A) I don’t have to do this. So, I am not going to go to a program like that. And B) What if I found a really great program, you know? And so, I just created a spreadsheet with all the schools I was looking at. And this particular program, the director called me, she wanted to talk, she was warm, she was encouraging. And she was genuinely interested in me, you know? And I was like, wow, that’s really special. Whereas other schools like just sent me computer-generated emails, you know? And I was like, okay. So, like my email just went into like a black hole. So, that was important to me, especially because I know that people don’t know this, you know, people outside of nursing don’t know this, but nursing academia has a really negative reputation for being very toxic, very discouraging, not supportive, hazing, in a sense.

14:44 Brenda: And it’s especially prominent at the graduate, you know, and doctoral level. So, I was like, I don’t need that in my life. So, I’m going to look for a program where I feel like it would be a good experience. And I found that, and I was like, okay, I could do this here. So, that was important to me. And also, it was important to me that, if I was going to take this big financial hit, that it was going to be for something worth it. And like you said, for me, the PhD is really something I’m doing for personal enrichment, right? There’s no guarantee that I’m going to make more money when I’m done. You know, I made almost $200,000 in 2019 just working a little bit extra. If I get a job that makes me that much post-PhD, I’ll be really excited. But for me, it was also really important to see people that look like me because I’m a Latina nurse practitioner. And I just could count on one hand how many people who were nurses who had PhDs, who were Hispanic, that I knew, you know? And so, in a field that’s predominantly or 95% white women, I thought it was important to increase the representation.

16:00 Emily: Yeah. I love all those overlapping motivations. And I love, it sounds like you were patient, right? Like you were willing to be really selective about the program that you went to. And I love that little note about like, oh, this person actually called me, like, I talked to this person over the phone instead of just email correspondence and just form letter stuff. And I love that like, you looked at this field, like you said, it has this bad reputation, and you said to yourself, I don’t need to do this. And I’m only going to do it if I can find the program that is going to be really supportive of me. It’s the right fit for me. And even if you know, Academic Twitter and everything else is telling you, no, no, everything’s terrible. It never, it doesn’t exist anywhere. You were like, no, I’m going to hold out and find that perfect program for me. And you did. So like, I just say that to point out that, like, that’s a limiting belief that you could have had. Like, you could have told yourself, oh, I’m never going to find a home. It doesn’t matter. People like me never, you know, get into this level of nursing or succeed or whatever, whatever. And you chose to not have that limiting belief, right? So, I want other people to hear that message as well.

17:02 Brenda: Yeah. And I’ve spoken with my classmates about this, and I think I’m just fortunate in the sense that I have a very positive disposition <laugh> and so I didn’t, it never occurred to me that I wouldn’t find one. I just thought, I just need to find one <laugh>.

Net Worth in Grad School

17:17 Emily: Okay. So, let’s hear more details about your life, like coming into the program. We’ve heard a couple of things. You already owned two properties. You had been making like over six figures. In fact, your income was nearly $200K in that year immediately prior to starting graduate school. Would you like to share anything about like your net worth or just any other aspects of your financial picture at the time that you started graduate school?

17:38 Brenda: Yeah. So, at the time I started graduate school, that was 2020. So, my net worth now is about $550,000. And at that time it was probably, I think I remember tweeting about it and I think it was like $330K at that time. And that big leap has really just been real estate prices just skyrocketing. And so, I do count like potential, you know, appreciation in my net worth. And then I probably have, right now, I have about $160K or $170K invested. And at that time I probably had like $120K. And so, I’ve been contributing, let’s see, with Roth contribution maximum, which is 6,000, plus about a thousand dollars a month. So, that’s like $18,000 a year in the last two years. So yeah, that makes sense. $120K plus another $35K to $40K. So, I’m at $160K. And I anticipate, you know, this is just kind of a lull in my investing trajectory. And once I go back to full-time work and I’m earning a full-time income again of hopefully at least a hundred thousand, if not more, because I’ll be able to add my clinical practice contract work to it, then I’ll be able to go back to investing closer to $25,000 a year.

19:00 Emily: I mean, investing $18,000 a year while you’re in a PhD program is well, definitely the highest number that I’ve heard <laugh> of anybody on the podcast. So, you’re not exactly a slouch in this area. But so, prior to the PhD, though, it sounds like you were using a taxable brokerage account and maybe some employer-provided stuff 401(k) or 403(b).

19:18 Brenda: Yes, a 401(k).

19:18 Emily: Yeah. Okay. And so, that benefit went away, I assume. Like at the moment you’re only doing your Roth IRA and then the taxable brokerage account.

19:27 Brenda: Yeah. And actually, so before the episode, we talked about my stipend. So, my stipend is, just to protect my time, I don’t owe any kind of labor for that stipend, but I am limited to working 20 hours per week. The great thing about that stipulation is that I’m not limited to how much money I can make. I’m just limited to hours I can work. So, I have been a graduate research assistant at the university since spring of 2021 with one of my professors. And we’ve actually published two papers together, which is awesome. But one of the benefits of that is that as a GRA, you become staff of the university and you get access to their 403(b) and 457. So, I have been contributing at least half of my GRA income, which pays $25 an hour. And what’s funny about this is that the original pay for that position was $15 an hour at the university.

GRA Salary Negotiation

20:27 Brenda: And I told my professor, I was like, I’m sorry, like, I am passionate about your work, but like, I just cannot do it for $15 an hour. Like I have too many things going on and I have too many other much more lucrative offers. And so she went to financial, I don’t know, the financial services building and they agreed to bump it up to $25 for everyone in the nursing program, because we’re all registered nurses, at least, you know, some of us are nurse practitioners. So, it was like almost insulting <laugh>, you know? I mean, I don’t want to be a snob about it, but it’s like, who would take $15 when I can go work the same hour for $65 or $75? So anyway, so yeah, I’ve been doing the Roth, the taxable brokerage, which really comes third on my list. Like if I’m short on money one month, that’s the last one I fund. And then I contribute 50% of that $25 per hour income, which is 10 hours a week, a thousand dollars a month. So, half of that goes to the 457. And I chose the 457 on purpose because you can access it anytime without penalty.

21:38 Emily: Love all those details. Actually, it’s interesting because most people who I speak with who are like on the level of 10-hour per week employees are not offered those benefits. So like, I would say that’s a great, like, exception that your university or health sciences center offers that. So, that’s awesome that you’re doing that. And I love that you, you know, shared that negotiation story and that it not only benefited you, but benefited everybody. Like this is a message I’m trying to get across with like, you can negotiate for yourself as an individual. Yes. But it can also help other people when you do that, because it sends a message.

22:12 Brenda: I wouldn’t have expected them to just give it to me. I mean, it would’ve been fine, but then it’s like, I think it was a fairness issue, right? Because they were like, oh, well, all these other students are also doing it. No, it was great. And I think it was definitely something that the graduate college had to take into consideration because you’re looking at, you know, graduate students, but we’re also working professionals, right? So, that is kind of a unique situation that nurses in graduate school are in.

22:43 Emily: Absolutely.

Commercial

22:47 Emily: Emily here for a brief interlude! These action items are for you if you recently switched or will soon switch onto non-W-2 fellowship income as a grad student, postdoc, or postbac and are not having income tax withheld from your stipend or salary. Action item #1: Fill out the Estimated Tax Worksheet on page 8 of IRS Form 1040-ES. This worksheet will estimate how much income tax you will owe in 2022 and tell you whether you are required to make manual tax payments on a quarterly basis. The next quarterly estimated tax due date is September 15, 2022. Action item #2: Whether you are required to make estimated tax payments or pay a lump sum at tax time, open a separate, named savings account for your future tax payments. Calculate the fraction of each paycheck that will ultimately go toward tax, and set up an automated recurring transfer from your checking account to your tax savings account to prepare for that bill. This is what I call a system of self-withholding, and I suggest putting it in place starting with your very first fellowship paycheck so that you don’t get into a financial bind when the payment deadline arrives.

24:06 Emily: If you need some help with the Estimated Tax Worksheet or want to ask me a question, please consider joining my workshop, Quarterly Estimated Tax for Fellowship Recipients. It explains every line of the worksheet and answers the common questions that PhD trainees have about estimated tax. The workshop includes 1.75 hours of video content, a spreadsheet, and invitations to at least one live Q&A call each quarter this tax year. If you want to purchase this workshop as an individual, go to PF for PhDs dot com slash Q E tax. Now back to our interview.

Sources of Income in Grad School

24:50 Emily: So, let’s like back up a tiny bit and talk about sort of all of your income sources during graduate school. Because you know, you’ve mentioned a couple times you have this really fantastic scholarship, so let’s start there. Like, what does the scholarship give you?

25:02 Brenda: Right. So, the scholarship is specific to my university, and it’s a special foundation that was money given through a philanthropic organization. And they basically allotted $150,000 scholarships separated into three years, $50,000 per year. That comes out to $30,000 per year or $2,500 per month as a stipend, and $3,000 for summer tuition, $6,000 for spring and fall tuition, and $4,000 leftover are for travel to conferences and that kind of thing. And I will say that I have used some of your courses and the taxes because that $2,500 counts as 1099 income for me. So, I do have to pay taxes on that. And most of my contract work is not on a W-2. So, I do have to pay taxes on that as well.

26:01 Emily: Okay. So, it sounds like the scholarship is fully paying your tuition and fees, giving you a stipend of $2,500 a month, and you have this additional professional development fund per year. Wow. Okay. That sounds great, but we’re not done yet. The way that we talked about this earlier, and I think the best way to phrase it for the listener is that that stipend of $2,500 per month essentially protects 20 hours per week of your time for you to devote to your dissertation research, or your classes, whatever it is you have to be doing for your PhD. And so, with the next 20 hours of your work week, you can be doing other paid work in that time. So, you can earn above your stipend. It’s just, you’re limited in the number of hours you can spend working. And so for you, you’ve already mentioned like the assistantship that you have at 10 hours per week. Do you have any other work that you do in the other remaining 10 hours per week?

Clinic Contract Work

26:52 Brenda: Yeah, so my former employer kept me on as a contractor. So now, I technically work for the agency that staffs their clinics, but they have urgent care clinics every weekend from nine to four. So, I’ll pick up weekend shifts. And occasionally, because my former boss knows me and knows that I know like the day-to-day clinic work, then he’ll ask me if I can work some days during the week. And so, I’ll do that. And that’s at $75 an hour. And then I have a couple of other jobs where I fill in for other nurse practitioners, like when they’re on vacation or they’re out sick or something. And the great thing about some of those is that they’re kind of slow clinics. And so, I can just take my schoolwork and do it there <laugh>.

27:43 Emily: Yeah. Sounds like a sweet deal. So, with all these active income sources together, the stipend plus the other work that you’re permitted to do, what does that add up to in terms of like your yearly income on average?

27:56 Brenda: So, last year my taxes were a little bit complicated, so I have the 1099 income, and then I have the real estate income. And I don’t take any of that as income from the real estate. So, the condo has its own account, and it has a little emergency fund for itself. And anything that it makes, it stays in there for emergencies, and same with the house. It has its own account. I pay rent into the homes account for myself, and then my tenants pay for pay into that account as well. But I rarely take any money from those accounts. So, I don’t count that. So, out of $112,000 last year, about $30K of that was from the rentals. And so, I really made about $70K, probably. So, $30K of that was from the stipend and then I made another $40K in part-time work.

28:53 Emily: Okay. So interesting. So, you have income sort of on your tax return, you have income that you don’t actually consider, like you’re not actually taking it into your personal accounts. You’re just leaving that as emergency funds and so forth for the real estate stuff. Yeah, that makes sense. Well, earning $40K on top of the $30K, again, really great for a PhD student. So good for you. The message that I want the listener to be hearing from this part of the interview is Brenda’s time is valued in a certain way because of her existing credentials and work experience and so forth. But earning something like $75 an hour is not out of the question for a PhD student in other disciplines. Depending, of course, on your work experience and what your field is and how, you know, in-demand it is, et cetera.

Valuing and Monetizing Your Skills

29:38 Emily: So, like you made the comment earlier. It’s a good thing they’re only limiting me on time and not the amount of money that I can make, because, you know, in some of your income sources, you can command quite a high hourly rate. I would love for other graduate students and postdocs to hear that message and think about, wow, if I’m making $75 an hour, a hundred dollars an hour, I only need to work two hours a week to make a really huge difference in my budget. You know, like when you can get to those high hourly rates, you don’t have to spend a ton of your time, you know, to get your finances in the shape that you want them to be in.

30:10 Brenda: For sure. And I think that, you know, like you said, I have a very particular skill, but there are skills that I don’t have that I would gladly pay someone $65 an hour to do. Like currently I’m dealing with some big data and I’m like, oh my gosh, I’m like going on websites of like, you know, people you can pay on an hourly basis to like walk you through something. And I’m sure that there are people in PhD programs who know this like the back of their hand, and they’re just not making themselves available for someone like me. Because I can earn that money, you know, relatively easily, and I’m happy to pay someone for their expertise as well. So, that’s very true. And I think that maybe sometimes, you know, I am very aware of my skill because I have a license and a certification for it, but you may have skills that other people need that don’t necessarily have, you know, very formal credentials, but that people would be happy to pay for.

31:12 Emily: And I think it’s so easy to get caught in this trap of undervaluing yourself inside academia. Like what you were talking about earlier with like the $15 versus $25 per hour negotiation that you did. It’s so common inside academia to undervalue ourselves. We see everybody else doing it, then we do it as well. But if you can take a little bit of a pivot and maybe, you know, market your skills to somebody outside of academia where these are not, you know, a dime a dozen kind of skills that everybody has, then you can, you know, potentially get those higher hourly rates. So, definitely food for thought, I hope, for some people.

Negotiating In-State Tuition

31:42 Emily: So, I think that you are probably the first interview we’ve had on the podcast who is doing like a hundred percent remote program. Not just like remote for COVID or whatever has been going on temporarily. So, you live not in the same state as where your university is. So, how does that work out with your scholarship and with the tuition and everything?

32:02 Brenda: Yeah, so that’s true. I specifically was looking for long-distance programs because I like where I live. I live close to my family, and I knew that a PhD was an experience that I would need support for <laugh>. And so, I didn’t want to leave my support system behind to do that. And so, whenever I got accepted to the University of Oklahoma and I was still living in Texas, and I had no plan to leave Texas, there was the issue of out-of-state tuition costs. And so, I got accepted in about March 2020. I found out I got the scholarship in April of 2020, and I had kind of set that as the bar, like if I get accepted and I get the scholarship, I’ll go, right? But then I thought, well, out-of-state tuition is almost double, right? It’s the difference between $10,000 and $6,000 a semester.

32:58 Brenda: And I just told the director, like I really want to go to this program, and I’m really grateful for the scholarship, but I realized financially that the out-of-state tuition is going to eat up about 50% of my stipend per semester. So, is there any way I could get in-state tuition? And she actually took it up to the graduate college and they agreed to give me a waiver for three years. So, I pay in-state tuition, and actually the great part about being a graduate research assistant is that, when you take on that position, it’s actually the grant that is funding you, that pays the waiver. And so, the waiver that I had originally been promised can be given to someone else while I’m a GRA.

33:44 Emily: Wow. Okay. Another great example of negotiation, and also another kind of general negotiation point that I like to make to prospective graduate students is like, you don’t necessarily know all the different levers that these people behind the scenes can pull to like enhance your package. So, you made the suggestion, maybe I could pay the in-state tuition rate instead of the higher rate, and they made that happen. And if that hadn’t exactly been possible, maybe they could have found a different way to augment your package to make up that, you know, $4,000 per year difference. So, yeah, so encouraging for prospective graduate students.

34:15 Brenda: I do want to mention that one of the points I brought up was that, and maybe this is just using a rivalry to my advantage, but you know, UT Austin and the University of Oklahoma are rivals in football. And UT Austin has a policy that, if you’re an out-of-state student and you come in to Texas with a scholarship from Texas, like if you won a scholarship in Texas, then the University waives your out-of-state tuition. And so, I presented that to the director and I said, you know, UT Austin does this, do you guys do anything like this? And I think that was what helped, you know, is that I had kind of done my research and I was like, you know, this is something another university is doing. Can you guys do it? And they said yes.

34:58 Emily: That’s a great example as well of like sharing of best practices. Hey, these other people have found this solution over here. Sometimes it helps to open their mind. Oh, well, maybe we could find this similar solution. Absolutely.

Money Mindset

35:09 Emily: So, you mentioned, you know, you’ve taken a pretty substantial income cut to pursue the PhD. Are there any other ways that taking this step in your career has impacted your path towards financial independence?

35:23 Brenda: Yeah, like I said, it’s probably a little bit of a setback numbers-wise and on the spreadsheet, but I feel that it’s so valuable to me personally and professionally and in my development as a person, as a researcher, as a scientist, as a nurse. You know, I’m just being challenged to think in ways that I never did before. And my practice in primary care became kind of monotonous and, you know, unfortunately, there wasn’t very much motivating me forward. And I feel totally different now. You know, even though sometimes I’m overwhelmed to learn new things, it’s so cool to like see yourself grow in ways that you never thought you could. And financially like, okay, maybe I’m taking like a $50 or $60,000 per year cut. But in the course of my life, like is three years really going to <laugh> matter that much, you know? And how much more will my life be enriched by having this degree? Like what doors will it open for me, whether they’re monetary or not is not really the point for me anymore. And that’s something that I was able to achieve in my twenties, right? Like that I set myself up to where, whether I make $50,000 or $150,000, what matters most to me now is that I’m happy, that I’m fulfilled, that I’m challenged, that I enjoy the people I work with, that I genuinely feel that I’m making a difference.

36:54 Emily: And it’s just so like gratifying to hear that, you know, the work you did on your finances in your twenties, both before and after discovering the FIRE movement, set you up to have this excellent financial experience during the PhD. Now, part of that is your field, and this is normal and so forth, this fantastic scholarship, you got all of that. But part of that is just, you know, when I was listening to some of your other podcast interviews, I was thinking that you just sound so like, calm about your finances. Like you just sound so like relaxed about them, which is a very different energy than what I give off sometimes, and like other people who I listen to, or interview on the podcast. But that is on the back of all the work that you did in your twenties to lead up to this point.

37:37 Emily: And so, you get to be relaxed because you have this net worth, you have your properties, you have your house hack, and you have this fantastic income. And this is just something that I so wish that more PhD students could experience. Even a fraction of the experience that you’re having, right? Like maybe it’s having the reasonable income for a person in their twenties or thirties. Or maybe it’s, you know, having worked for a few years, building up a bit of a nest egg before taking that income cut the way you have. I just, I love hearing just your whole like, sort of disposition towards this.

38:09 Brenda: Yeah. And I think a lot of it is reorienting your mind to not have a scarcity mindset, right? To kind of have an abundance mindset, like I’m going to thrive and I’m going to find a great job after this. And like I said, I’m just gifted with a naturally positive disposition, but like, I don’t have any worries about what will happen after, because everything’s worked out so far. <Laugh> maybe that’s just because I’ve been so strategic, right? Maybe in some ways I could have relaxed a little bit, but I am very forward-looking, right? I’m always kind of thinking about the next thing. And I have to remind myself to live in the moment, too, but yeah. I think that most PhD students, like you said, undervalue themselves. And I think about my classmates alone. You know, I’m like, they’re so talented, they’re so smart. Some of them are doing this with kids, with a family, taking care of their parents, with a job. And I’m just like, those are skills, right? Like those are highly marketable skills. Like just getting through the program with life the way it is is a crazy good skill. So, I really appreciate that you encourage people to, you know, maybe do some inward thinking about how can I monetize these things that just come naturally to me now in this stage of my life?

What is Coast FI?

39:40 Emily: You said a couple of minutes ago that, well, it doesn’t really matter if I make $50,000 or $150,000 a year. It’s going to be okay. It’s going to work out. That reminded me of the term Coast FI, a particular version of FIRE. Do you think about Coast FI? Would you describe yourself as Coast FI? Let’s define that for the listener.

39:59 Brenda: Yeah. I think traditionally, Coast FI means that your retirement is set, even if you don’t invest another dollar. I wouldn’t say that I don’t need to keep investing. I think I do. But I don’t really see myself retiring early in the traditional like FIRE sense because I have, A) A very useful skill that’s highly needed in this country. B) I speak Spanish, which is really useful in my part of the country. C) I’m just such a busybody. Like I could never stop working, you know, <laugh> like, I just, when people talk about staying home, like with children, I’m like, I could never do that. I could have children, but I’m not staying home with them 100% of the time. So, yeah, Coast FI for me just means that I have the financial flexibility to choose something that means something to me, as opposed to just a means to an end, to like pay my bills. And a part of that has also been keeping my expenses low. But the other part is, like you said, everything I did to set myself up in my twenties. And, you know, a few years ago, I probably would’ve told you that I would quit working at 45. And now that I’ve been in the PhD program, I’m like, no, there’s so much to do. There’s no way I could cut off 15 or 20 years off my career, you know?

41:26 Emily: That’s so interesting that you described earlier kind of finding, getting into like a lull in your career. Like you weren’t so stimulated. And I think that some people, like you did, would see FIRE, the potential to retire early, as the solution to that. And you did, but you also found another solution, which is, you know, taking your career in a slightly different direction, going down the academic path. And you found that reinvigoration there. And now you have kind of choices on both fronts. You have many career options, you have many financial options, to work, to not work, to work in a capacity that other people would not be able to, perhaps, because they hadn’t maybe had all these, you know, made all these decisions in their twenties and so forth. So, kind of the world is your oyster really <laugh> once you finish this program.

42:09 Brenda: Yeah. And things have come up during the PhD program. I don’t know if it’s because of the PhD program, but for example, I was a volunteer vaccinator for a local community center that was giving out COVID-19 vaccines every three weeks. And I was just consistently going, because I just wanted to help my community. And then they reached out to me about being the clinical consultant for their community center, because it was part of their grant. It would help their grant application if they had someone, you know, whose name they could put down, and they offered to pay me for that as well. That was an income source I forgot to tell you about. So, they pay me $500 a month, and I basically like attend some meetings and answer questions about COVID, about the vaccine, about what to do if this or that. And that was something I never would’ve thought I would do. You know? And it’s just like kind of a result of just saying yes, like I was like, well, I don’t see clinical consultant on my resume yet. <Laugh> but I guess I’ll do it. You just tell me what to do and I’ll show up, you know?

43:17 Emily: That comes from having that financial margin in your life and the time margin, right? To be able to say yes to, at first unpaid, but then later look what it turned into, you know, opportunities, which is something I could certainly <laugh> learn from.

Post-PhD Plans

43:29 Emily: Okay. So let’s talk a slight bit more about post-PhD plans. You mentioned earlier, you know, you have a few different career paths that you might choose among. What are you thinking?

43:40 Brenda: So, the idea of working in industry, or like the pharmaceutical area appeals to me because every pharmaceutical company has a medical affairs division in which they have doctoral-level prepared clinicians or pharmacists, which kind of serve as the bridge between the scientists creating the drug or the device and the prescribers out in the world. And so, that’s actually a really lucrative option. Like I know a couple people who do it and they make about $170,000 plus bonuses. So, they’re making like $200,000 a year. So, if I wanted money, that’s what I would do. <Laugh> which I’m not above saying that I want money. Okay. <laugh> so if that job came up, I would definitely consider it. Then there’s obviously the traditional route of pursuing some kind of tenure-track research career in academia. I’m kind of iffy on that. I don’t know that it’s the best use of my strengths. I’m definitely a people person. I’m an extrovert. I can do writing and I can write grants, and I could potentially, you know, try to prove myself to the NIH for the rest of my life <Laugh> to try to get research money, but I’m not sure that I want that.

45:03 Brenda: And then, I could do a blend of clinical practice and teaching where I just teach as an adjunct and I maintain my clinical practice. That’s kind of what I was doing before the PhD. So, I’m not sure that I would really be maximizing what I learned in the PhD if I went back to that. And then there’s a postdoc if I do want pursue research and I just want to get into someone else’s work and see what they’re doing, and maybe that’ll make me more excited about a tenure-track career. And then I was also looking at the National Clinician Scholars Program, which is kind of like a subset of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. And that’s a program at six campuses all over the country in which you basically get more education on health policy and organizational change. And most of the graduates go on to work at like the Department of Health or Health and Human Services or the CDC or some kind of federal agency where policy is happening. So, that’s probably one of my top ones. Pharma’s one of my top ones, and teaching in a, non-research, like very little research, that’s probably my third one.

46:11 Emily: Yeah. Well, hopefully, you have all of those things on the table once you get towards your graduation. And like you said, money could play a role in your decision, or maybe you’ll be following, you know, what seems most interesting to you. And again, the position that you’re in affords you those options. So, it’s wonderful to hear. And I think you said earlier, you know, you’re probably not going to be idle, right? Even once you achieve financial independence, however you want to define that. It sounds like you expect to have a long career, which is, once you’ve invested in something like a PhD program, it’s very, I think, worthwhile to keep your skills out there and keep, you know, working for your communities you’ve said so far. Yeah. Anything else you want to add about what you envision your life to change or not change? Like after you achieve financial independence?

46:57 Brenda: I think as a woman and as someone in their early thirties, you know, one of the big factors in deciding what I do is like, if I want to start a family, and what career option would be most conducive to that. And like you said, I have options, but like women have to think about that more. And especially in academia or in science, like you don’t want to be put on the mommy track, right? So, that’s also something I consider like if I were to have children, would it be right away after the PhD? Would I settle into another job? Like give it a year or two? I’m going to be 33 in September. Like what about my, you know, what about my fertility? Like, there are so many things to think about. And I think that’s very real for a lot of women in academia, right? It’s like juggling your human babies and the baby of your career, which is your research or whatever you’re working on post-PhD.

48:00 Emily: Absolutely. And another thing that having a strong financial position just puts you in a strong position to decide about. If you want to take an extra long maternity leave that’s unpaid, but you have a job to go back to, well, maybe that’s going to be, you know, the best situation for you, or maybe not. Maybe it’ll be a different decision, but whatever you do, I mean, having money gives you options. I say that over and over again, it just gives you options. And that’s really what you have now, which is so delightful to hear.

Where Can People Find You?

48:24 Emily: So, if people want to hear more from you, where can they find you?

48:29 Brenda: I’m on Twitter @almostbrenda, like the word almost, and then my name, almost Brenda. And that’s also my Instagram handle and my email address at Gmail, [email protected]. I’m on LinkedIn. That’s linkedin.com/in/bolmosfnp for family nurse practitioner. And I’d love to connect with people. Even if, you know, even if you just want to talk about how to improve your finances, I know Emily, you’re a great resource for that. And I’ve been in the Community forums there too. But if you’re interested in coming on our podcast, I cohost Minority Millennial Money which is on Apple and Spotify and all of the platforms. We love to have people come on and we talk through their finances with them and see what they could do better. So yeah, I’m easily reachable. I’m all over the internet. <Laugh>

Best Financial Advice for Another Early-Career PhD

49:26 Emily: Wonderful. I hope you’ll have a few people follow up with you from this. Okay. I’m going to conclude with the question that I always ask my guests at the end of interviews, which is what is your best financial advice for another early-career PhD? And it could be something that we touched on in the interview, or it could be something completely new.

49:44 Brenda: I would say it would be to disassociate your self-worth from your net worth, right? Because although I’m in a particularly advantageous position, I know how difficult it must be for people who are not in this position and are looking forward to those days when they get to earn a higher living. And you know, you’re already undervaluing your skills. You’re already in places that may be toxic and not supportive. Like, the very least you could do is like not value yourself based on what’s in your bank account. <Laugh>. And also, if you have the ability to keep investing, like to not lose time, because time is money in the market, right? So, anything you can throw at it is super helpful.

50:32 Emily: Great messages to end on. Brenda, thank you so much for this delightful interview!

50:36 Brenda: Yeah. Thank you!

Outtro

50:42 Emily: Listeners, thank you for joining me for this episode! I have a gift for you! You know that final question I ask of all my guests regarding their best financial advice? 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! 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 Advocates for Higher Stipends Using Cost of Living Data

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In this episode, Emily interviews Alex Parry, a sixth-year graduate student at Johns Hopkins in the history of medicine. Alex is a strong advocate for increasing stipends both in his department and at Hopkins broadly and is deeply involved with the grad student unionization movement. Alex and some colleagues recently released the results of a study of stipends vs. the living wage for about a dozen peer institutions to Hopkins, and he explains in detail the methodology of the study and the patterns that they found, making a case for the urgency to increase stipends at virtually all US universities. Emily and Alex discuss the benefits of this approach vs. how PhDStipends.com collects data. Alex shares a powerful concluding message on the need for collective action among graduate students.

Links Mentioned in this Episode

S12E7 Image: This Grad Student Advocates for Higher Stipends Using Cost of Living Data

Teaser

00:00 Alex: But ultimately, our ability to get what we need as adults and as employees of these universities done is contingent on what kind of pressure we are able to bring to bear. And what data we’re able to bring to bear. And the data are only a starting point, right? They provide the talking points you need, they provide the evidence you need. They provide the ability to do the negotiations, right? But ultimately, we will succeed or fail collectively. And we will succeed or fail on the base of our ability to sort of band together to demand what we rightfully deserve.

Introduction

00:37 Emily: 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 the 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. This is Season 12, Episode 7, and today my guest is Alex Parry, a sixth-year graduate student at Johns Hopkins in the history of medicine. Alex is a strong advocate for increasing stipends, both in his department and at Hopkins broadly, and is deeply involved with the grad student unionization movement. Alex and some colleagues recently released the results of a study of stipends vs. the living wage for about a dozen peer institutions to Hopkins, and he explains in detail the methodology of the study and the patterns that they found, making a case for the urgency to increase stipends at virtually all U.S. universities. Alex and I discuss the benefits of this approach vs. how PhDStipends.com collects data. Alex shares a powerful concluding message on the need for collective action among graduate students.

02:01 Emily: If you are a fan of this podcast, I invite you to check out the Personal Finance for PhDs Community at PFforPhDs.community. The community is for PhDs and people pursuing PhDs who want to take charge of their personal finances by opening and funding an IRA, starting to budget, aggressively paying off debt, financially navigating a life or career transition, maximizing the income from a side hustle, preparing an accurate tax return, and much more. Inside the community, you’ll have access to a library of financial education products, including my set of Wealthy PhD Workshops. There is also a discussion forum, monthly live calls with me, and progress journaling for financial goals. Our next live discussion and Q&A call is on Wednesday, August 17th, 2022. Basically, the Community exists to help you reach your financial goals, whatever they are. Go to pfforphds.community to find out more. I can’t wait to help propel you to financial success! You can find the show notes for this episode at PFforPhDs.com/s12e7/. Without further ado, here’s my interview with Alex Parry.

Would You Please Introduce Yourself Further?

03:23 Emily: I am delighted to have joining me on the podcast today, Alex Parry. He is a rising sixth-year graduate student at Johns Hopkins in the history of medicine. And we have a really valuable conversation coming up for you because we are talking about stipends and how to increase them, and the advocacy work that Alex is doing. We are recording this by the way in May, 2022. I know it’s going to be out a few months later. So, just for context, that’s where we are. Alex, would you please introduce yourself further to the listeners?

03:53 Alex: Sure. So, as it was already stated, I’m a rising sixth-year in the History of Medicine Department at John Hopkins. I work specifically on the history of consumer product safety and home accidents in the United States from about 1920 to 1980. And I’m also one of the organizers with Teachers and Researchers United (TRU) which is the currently unrecognized graduate student union at Johns Hopkins. So, one of many people who’s trying to push here and at other universities for increases to our stipends to accommodate a quickly accelerating rise in the cost of living.

Teachers and Researchers United (TRU) History

04:26 Emily: Yes. So, let’s hear more about that unionization movement right now. So, it’s currently unrecognized. Can you give us a little bit of the recent history, and where you’re hoping to go in the near future?

04:35 Alex: Yeah, absolutely. So, TRU has been around since roughly 2014. It started initially at the arts and sciences campus at Hopkins and was focused primarily on parental leave for graduate students as well as to try and increase healthcare benefits, particularly making sure that all graduate students had access to dental care and to vision care. Since then, the union has sort of grown and sort of formalized. And right now, we’re currently in the midst of an ongoing recognition campaign trying to basically work through the National Labor Relations Board or NLRB to try and seek an official union election at Hopkins. So, we’re hoping to basically have a unit that will encompass all PhD students at the university. So, sort of regardless of what division or campus people are located at, which is about 3,000 PhD students altogether. And we’re currently in the midst of trying to build up our core of organizers, have a lot of conversations with other graduate students at the university about things that are working for them and things that aren’t, in the hope of then sort of staging to basically a card petition with the NLRB sometime over the next couple of years.

How to Become an Officially-Recognized Union at a University

05:44 Emily: Okay. And walk me through this because my university was not unionized at the time. There was not even a movement when I was there. So, you basically gain enough support from the people who would be part of the union on campus through this card campaign. What happens next? The NLRB is involved, but then how does the university ultimately recognize the union?

06:04 Alex: Sure. So, there are sort of two main pathways to get to an officially-recognized union at a university, especially for a private university. Either the university can voluntarily recognize you, say that enough graduate students support this, that we’re just basically going to acknowledge your presence and then sort of work towards a contract from there. Most universities don’t take that path because they’re sort of concerned about having to bargain with graduate students. So, what ends up typically happening is, and this was recently reaffirmed by the NLRB over the last year or so, but if one is trying to seek an election through the NLRB, what one does is you can submit a petition to the NLRB to basically arbitrate an election at your campus when you have signatures from approximately 30% or more of the bargaining unit. Most unions will aim for a higher number than that because you don’t want to sort of rely on a third of the people at the university to 1) be a reliable indicator of how much people want a union, or 2) basically, one typically expects to have a more difficult time in the actual in-person election, which is what we’ll follow if the NLRB accepts your petition.

07:14 Alex: Because typically when you’re just signing the initial petition, you can basically do that remotely. So, people can just sign a digital card. During the actual election, typically those are done in person, which means that it’s harder to turn people out. And there, you’re looking for basically a bare majority of the voters. So, ordinarily, people will aim for more like 50% of the entire bargaining unit when they submit a petition to NLRB, and then after that, an election follows. If the election is successful, then you would then sit down with the university administration and basically negotiate directly over a contract.

Winning an NLRB Election

07:48 Emily: Okay. So, if it’s gone through the NLRB for this like official card campaign, then the university has to recognize the union at that point. Is that right?

07:56 Alex: Yeah, that’s correct. If NLRB hosts an election and the sort of proposed union wins, then the university is obligated to negotiate in good faith. So, there are various mechanisms that then both the university and then the proposed union will use to sort of conduct negotiations. Typically, they’ll have like labor lawyers and/or sort of like corporate lawyers involved. And you’ll sort of haggle over the details. A really good example of what this looks like as ongoing right now is at MIT. They’ve just won their election earlier this year. They’re currently in the midst of negotiations which started sometime late April to the beginning of this month. Those are likely to extend for another several months after this.

08:39 Alex: So probably, they won’t have a contract ratified or least put up to a vote because after you’ve had their bargaining committee come up with a contract, you then send it back to the base to all of the membership, to see if people actually approve of the contract that’s been written. So, sometime, probably this fall, maybe this winter, MIT will finish negotiating a contract, will send it back to everyone to basically vote on, and then if a bare majority approves of the contract, then that will sort of be the first contract for MIT’s graduate workers.

Shift to Stipends Advocacy

09:10 Emily: Okay. Thank you so much for explaining that process to me. One other follow-up question. You said when the union at Hopkins was originally introduced as an idea, back in 2014, they had concerns about leave and about vision and dental insurance. But you mentioned that you’re now more focused on stipends. So, were those initial concerns like fulfilled in some way over the intervening years? And why are stipends the focus now?

09:36 Alex: Yeah, both great questions. Sort of to answer the first one, most of the things that TRU has been advocating for, eventually we were able to win. So, at this point, at least at the school of arts and sciences, vision and dental, they’re not perfect coverage. I don’t want to give the impression that it’s phenomenal, but they do have paid for health insurance, dental, and vision now, as well as parental leave at the Homewood campus. So, overall TRU has been relatively effective in terms of getting sort of these smaller asks dealt with, things that are relatively lower cost, and also things where Hopkins had sort of fallen behind many of its peers. One of the reasons this campaign on healthcare had been so successful is that, one, Hopkins is a world-renowned health provider and the hospital is literally attached to the university.

10:24 Alex: So, it was kind of a bad look that people weren’t getting the kind of healthcare coverage that they needed. But the other sort of major factor there is that other universities that Hopkins considers its peers had provided much better coverage than Hopkins was. That same sort of rationale is part of the reason why stipends have now come to the fore. If you look at Hopkins vis a vis some of its peers, one, of private universities, like private R1 universities, it has one of the lowest raw PhD stipends of almost any school. If you adjust for the local cost of living, it ranks basically in the bottom third regardless of division. So if you look at, you know, engineering, stipends versus medical students stipends versus like biomedical, I should say, biomedical PhD stipends, or social sciences, humanities stipends, more or less across the board, Hopkins ranks the bottom third.

11:16 Alex: The other sort of major reason why we’ve shifted to stipends, in addition to, again, this sort of increasing gap between Hopkins and its self-described peers, is that a lot of us have been hit very, very hard by the inflation post-pandemic. And many people were also affected financially by the time that they were trying to deal with the pandemic, whether that’s in terms of childcare, inability to use research funds that people had earmarked to go on research travel that couldn’t be deferred or delayed. In addition to basically just as soon as the pandemic was starting to change to the current moment we’re in, obviously the pandemic is not over, but we seem to have entered a new way of dealing with it from public health terms and in terms of the community. Since then, rents have skyrocketed, grocery prices skyrocketed. And because of that people, who used to feel a little more comfortable with their stipend here are really starting to feel pretty significant financial pressure.

12:16 Alex: So, the other reason that we really started to push for this at the school-wide level and university-wide level is because we’ve been hearing from many of our members that people are both feeling less able to pay their bills month to month, and are also becoming more and more financially precarious. Where if someone has an unexpected expense, like a major medical bill, or like last summer my car battery died and I had to replace all of my tires all at once. That thousand dollars was, was a pretty substantial hit for me. So, these are the kind of things that we’ve been concerned about, and this is why we’ve brought this to the administration. It’s something that really needs to be addressed sooner rather than later.

Departmental Advocacy

12:54 Emily: And you’ve been speaking about you know, school-wide and university-wide initiatives, but I understand that you’ve also been working just within your department on advocacy. And I really was happy to hear the example earlier of some, I guess, some success with advancing the benefits that are offered at Hopkins. Not even necessarily through unionization, but just through bringing awareness to it. And Hopkins realizing, as you said, it’s falling behind its peer institutions. So, you know, advocacy can be successful even before unionization is totally in effect or even without that being in effect. So, not that that’s not also worthwhile, but that’s a long process and there can still be wins along the way. So, I want to hear also from you about what you’ve been doing, like in your department, specifically.

13:39 Alex: Yeah. And I hundred percent agree. Like, you know, obviously I am a card-carrying union member. I, you know, really want us to have an election to have a contract, but one thing that’s important for people to know is that sort of just the gradual growth of pressure that accompanies unionization, where you’re sort of talking with your peers, gathering together, working as a group, is often enough to get small wins. Those wins aren’t necessarily protected because you have a contract, right? And those wins are not necessarily of the degree or magnitude that one would hope for in a contract. But there is something to be said for just doing the work initially will get you somewhere and you can just get further than with unionization. So, I think it’s definitely sort of a both-and situation, not an either-or kind of situation.

14:26 Alex: In terms of what we’ve done specifically in our department. One thing that initially brought stipends to our attention even before inflation started spiraling even more out of control, is I’m part of an interdivisional working group that brings together representatives from the student government associations, the recognized ones at the university, as well as the union, to sort of talk together to share information and to make sure that everyone’s on the same page about what advocacy issues are pressing to the community. And also sort of how then to mobilize both institutional channels, talking directly to the administration and sort of like more grassroots advocacy-style channels, more militant-style organizing. So, we were having one of these conversations and realized that apparently the School of Medicine as a whole has a minimum stipend that at that point was approximately $34,900 a year. At that time, folks in my department were making $30,500.

15:23 Alex: So, we were a little bit confused and concerned about the fact that we seemed to be making $4,000 roughly less than our peers while working in the same school and, you know, being under the same umbrella. And everything we saw online was indicating at least that this should have been an across the board minimum. So, we went to our department and asked basically why this discrepancy had appeared, or why this was the case, and didn’t get phenomenally helpful answers. And so we went then to speak with the Dean of the school, Peter Espenshade, who works on basically like graduate student affairs and graduate student research at the School of Medicine. And eventually what sort of came out is that our stipends in particular were tied to the stipend of the school of arts and sciences for a series of sort of complicated and frankly not super compelling <laugh> historical reasons.

16:18 Alex: So, this kind of got us to think more about the fact that, one, not only are all graduate students at Hopkins being underpaid relative to the local cost of living, but also there are significant and often sort of inexplicable disparities between programs and departments at the university. There really is no good reason why social science and humanities students are paid less than hard science students at the school of arts and sciences, and why those students are then paid less than the biomedical science students and the engineers at this university. And then at the very sort of bottom of the economic food chain here, people at the School of Education and people at the School of Public Health have even lower stipends. And at the School of Public Health, some students aren’t even guaranteed stipends at all. In which case they have to basically perform hourly work.

17:06 Alex: So, part of what this advocacy looked like was, you know, going through institutional channels, sort of talking to both sympathetic faculty and our department chair and our DGS. Then sort of like going to Dean Espenshade, being then redirected to the School of Arts and Sciences, where we were able to basically lobby successfully both folks from my department, as well as other members of TRU and other folks at the School of Arts and Sciences to get all of our stipends increased to $33,000. So, it’s a substantial raise, $2,500, at least for my department. But it’s also still not close to enough. The estimated cost of living for Baltimore as of this previous December is over $38,000, which means that even after this raise, we’re looking at a $5,000 shortfall.

TRU Study Comparing Stipends Across Institutions

17:51 Emily: Yeah. So, you can pump your arms and say, “Okay, great! Like good job, partial win here, but like, let’s keep on going. Like, people are listening to us.” And yeah, that’s great. Okay, well, let’s talk more about this study that you did. So, I found you because of something that you shared on Twitter that got a ton of traction. So, I wanted to talk to you more about it.

18:12 Alex: Yeah. So, essentially what I and some other folks from the TRU data and resource committee have spent some time doing was, one, trying to find basically stipend figures for particularly biomedical science and social science and humanities programs at a few sort of select institutions. And then comparing those stipends with the cost of living estimated by the MIT Living Wage Calculator for a given county. And then what we did is basically to calculate the raw difference between those things, and then to calculate basically the percentage of the living wage that a stipend would cover in those areas. Some first major results, then we could talk more about method and why we did this this way and not some other set of ways. One, we found that only two schools actually did meet or exceed the local cost of living out of the set that we used. Out of our sample, only Brown and Princeton actually exceeded the cost of living. Every other institution, including big names like UPenn, Yale, MIT, and Cornell as well as Harvard, Columbia, and others, were falling anywhere from about, you know, 98-99%, so close to local cost of living, all the way down to closer to like three-fourths, like 75% of the local cost of living.

19:34 Alex: And basically, our goal here was to demonstrate that stipends, while they have risen and have been rising, one, are not keeping up with inflation. So, even though a lot of these schools have been getting somewhat regular raises, the raises have not been enough, especially in recent years to cover that inflation. And that sort of given that the MIT Living Wage Calculator is really only supposed to cover bare essentials, not sort of the comfortable lifestyle, not, you know, it explicitly says in a technical documentation that it doesn’t account any eating out, basically no savings, you know, no travel. And some of those things, at least travel, often graduate students are expected to pay for out of pocket if they need to do it for their own work. Unless they’re able to get an external grant or have access to enough research money to cover things in full, which is pretty rare.

20:27 Alex: Given all of that, it was also important for us to note that the MIT Living Wage Calculator data is supposed to be sort of a minimum standard of living that is not the poverty line. As we all know, the poverty line in the U.S. has fallen well below what is even reasonably livable in basically any part of the country. And so, this is an alternative measure, and graduate students are consistently getting paid less than that sort of bare minimum standard of living.

20:53 Emily: Yes. I also point people to the Living Wage Calculator, which is an incredible resource. It covers every county and every major metro area in the country. So, you can look up, basically depending on your family size, how much this sort of, again, just to pay for basic expenses, I’m not talking about poverty level, but just basic expenses, basic housing, basic food, basic transportation, healthcare, these kinds of things, what it would cost for a single adult. That’s what I usually reference for graduate students. But there’s also like if you have a number of children or if you have a partner, et cetera. I love referencing this, especially for prospective graduate students who haven’t yet moved to the city that they’re going to be attending and haven’t yet experienced what the costs are. This is one way to give them kind of a touch point.

21:36 Emily: But as you said, what I also very much try to emphasize to them, and I don’t want the listener to miss this, is this is only talking about necessary expenses. There’s no saving included in this calculation. There are no discretionary expenses included. It’s just to run a baseline lifestyle. And as you said, not even those numbers are being met at the institutions that you studied. I do want to sort of reiterate, because I think this was maybe missed on Twitter, but like you were only looking at, it sounded like maybe a dozen different institutions. Private institutions, R1 institutions, maybe all in the Northeast to Mid-Atlantic. Is that right?

22:11 Alex: Not just Northeast and Mid-Atlantic, but only a handful of schools for other regions.

22:16 Emily: Yeah, so like, and I just sort of know from experience that the situation is worse at other places outside of private universities, outside of R1 universities. So, even this bleak picture is sort of like the best picture of the data that probably you could have selected.

Commercial

22:34 Emily: Emily here for a brief interlude! These action items are for you if you recently switched or will soon switch onto non-W-2 fellowship income as a grad student, postdoc, or postbac and are not having income tax withheld from your stipend or salary. Action item #1: Fill out the Estimated Tax Worksheet on page 8 of IRS Form 1040-ES. This worksheet will estimate how much income tax you will owe in 2022 and tell you whether you are required to make manual tax payments on a quarterly basis. The next quarterly estimated tax due date is September 15, 2022. Action item #2: Whether you are required to make estimated tax payments or pay a lump sum at tax time, open a separate, named savings account for your future tax payments. Calculate the fraction of each paycheck that will ultimately go toward tax and set up an automated recurring transfer from your checking account to your tax savings account to prepare for that bill. This is what I call a system of self-withholding, and I suggest putting it in place starting with your very first fellowship paycheck so that you don’t get into a financial bind when the payment deadline arrives.

23:54 Emily: If you need some help with the Estimated Tax Worksheet or want to ask me a question, please consider joining my workshop, Quarterly Estimated Tax for Fellowship Recipients. It explains every line of the worksheet and answers the common questions that PhD trainees have about estimated tax. The workshop includes 1.75 hours of video content, a spreadsheet, and invitations to at least one live Q&A call each quarter this tax year. If you want to purchase this workshop as an individual, go to PF for PhDs dot com slash Q E tax. Even better, recommend that your grad school, grad student association, postdoc office, etc. sponsor the workshop on behalf of yourself and your peers. I offer a discount on these bulk purchases. Please point the potential sponsor to PF for PhDs dot com slash sponsor Q E tax. Now back to our interview.

Resources for Comparing University Stipends

25:00 Emily: What I would love to talk more about right now is how you found the stipends. So, the Living Wage is very easy to work with, a calculator from MIT, but how did you find the stipends to compare it to at these different institutions?

25:13 Alex: Yeah, so it was not super easy. A lot of universities do not make their stipend data particularly public, which is one reason why we’ve also used data from your basically database of self-reported data, PhD Stipends, which is, you know, a great sort of way to get self-reported information about what people are making in different departments at different places. We found that when we were working with the administration to try and lobby for increased wages that self-reported data weren’t as compelling to them as having something where we could point to an official university communication. So, all the data that we’ve collected have been sourced directly from offer letters, from university websites, or from internal university correspondence. So, you know, announcements of raises, for example, that went out to a graduate student listserv.

26:04 Alex: This has its cost and benefits. On the bright side, what this means is that it’s very, very difficult or impossible for administrators or other folks who are sort of less willing to provide increased stipends to sort of just basically wave the results away as badly reported self-reported data, or as sort of potentially not being an accurate reflection of all the quote unquote benefits that accrue to a graduate student. On the flip side, it means that we were then very limited in the amount of data we were able to collect. We’re a small team, it’s about four or five of us who work on this. And all of us are obviously also full-time graduate students. So, this is kind of a spare hours what little free time we have kind of project.

26:51 Alex: And so, that’s part of the reason why, as you’d mentioned that we really limited ourselves to the schools that Hopkins like self-describes as its peer institutions, which means R1, private, mostly Northeast, right? Which also as you pointed out means that this data is looking at the schools that should in theory provide the best of the best in terms of stipends. And the data looks substantially worse if you start looking at schools that, and there are many of them, that pay closer to like $16,000 a year, in some cases, in large metro areas. So, things could be better <laugh>.

27:29 Emily: Yeah, I’m really glad you brought up, like, so my website, my database PhDStipends.com. I say mine, but I just put it up. People can use it how they want, they can enter what they want into it, because it’s, as you said, it’s all crowdsourced and self-reported. We have thought about different ways to sort of verify like what people are reporting, the way that you’ve done for your study. But as you said, it’s very labor-intensive, and you’re asking people to give up very personal information. In my case, to an anonymous website, which is like out there and what protections do they have, you know? So, I think it really does, these are like complimentary approaches, I think. Because PhD Stipends can give you kind of a starting point. And that’s all it’s really meant to be, is like the more people use it, the more people enter, the clearer the picture gets. Yeah, you’re going to have some people write in typos or like people who are clearly making things up, but it’s a starting point. And you’ve, you know, jumped off from that point and done much more in-depth verification, which is wonderful.

28:23 Emily: But as you said, the data set only get so big when you go that route because it takes so much willingness on the part of the participants to let you have access to this information and then for the volunteers to verify it. So, I love that approach you took, and I know there are some other people working, you know, with similar approaches at different universities and different fields around the country. It’s all great work. And I love it. And that’s why I wanted to have you on to talk about this, but yes, I totally can understand. Some people do use PhD Stipends for advocacy work, but I think it’s, as I was just saying, a starting point rather than like the end all be all of what the data can be.

Stipend vs. Living Wage Patterns

29:00 Emily: Are there any other patterns that you want to share with us when you were doing the study regarding the stipends versus living wage?

29:08 Alex: Sure. So, one other thing that we’ve tried to do, and this is still sort of in the early stages, we’ve only gotten a few schools’ data collected so far for this, but we’re also trying to compile some longitudinal data. So, the table at the beginning of the Twitter thread and things that I think, you know, PhD Stipends sort of attempts to do is basically primarily to give like a one year snapshot. Like this is kind of like where things were in this single year without sort of then trying to do the detailed work of trying to figure out exactly what that means when you start accounting for inflation or especially inflation and cost of living in the local area. But one thing that we’ve been trying to do with the data set is now to compile using sort of both either sort of synchronic pictures at different moments of what the MIT data look like, or using right now, we’ve just basically been using data from the consumer price index to look at inflation over time and then tracking the stipends backwards for about five to six years.

30:03 Alex: What we have been noticing is that for almost all these schools, if you look at the, at the four, five-year trend, the overall real wage is declined. So, not only is the situation now that stipends are below the local cost of living, but in fact, we were making more in real terms five years ago than we are now. So, a lot of schools have been sort of touting the fact that they have increased stipends or are trying to increase stipends either, you know, a couple years back, or even now in response to inflation, but we still haven’t even recouped the amount that we’ve lost over the last few years, let alone actually gotten to the point where graduate students are making a livable wage. So, that’s another major trend. This long-term decline is something that we want to do more research on and sort of see how consistent it is, and also try and assess this magnitude in a more systematic way.

Effect of Unionization on History of Stipends

30:53 Emily: Yes. Wow. I guess also another question that I have, and I don’t know if you’ve looked into this at all, is to see what effect unionization and unionization movements have had on that history of stipends, because I would guess that, at the point when a union contract is first ratified, there’s probably going to be a substantial jump in at least some of the stipends at these universities. Maybe they’ve been falling behind in recent years and that jump helps catch them up a little bit, but it may be these sort of not gradual changes, but very abrupt changes when certain outside circumstances like that occur.

31:29 Alex: Yeah. I mean, I think what I’ve noticed from schools that have recently gotten contracts or have been, you know, in the process of getting contracts for a few years is, typically, if you look at the year when the contract is ratified, even if it doesn’t bring them up into sort of like the absolute upper echelon of schools in terms of the pay given to graduate workers, in many cases, because there’s been a many-year delay that added to the pressure that led to the unionization campaign to begin with. A lot of those schools have a very substantial percentage raise. So, if you look at the stipend table that was on the Twitter thread, you’ll notice that Columbia is near the very bottom in terms of relation to local cost of living.

32:08 Alex: Columbia would be even further behind, like closer to, at the moment, humanities and social science programs there are paid about 75% of the cost of living for New York. Without the most recent raise, which was substantial, I think like a 10% raise or something along those lines, you’d be looking at closer to like 68%. So, it’s important to note, when sort of interpreting the effect of unionization, yeah, there are some schools like Brown. Brown is the best-paid program relative to cost of living in the country. And a big part of that is the fact that they have a very strong militant union that has done a lot of great work. But even for schools that you might turn around and say like, well, how is it then that Harvard and Columbia, which have unions, don’t rank higher? There, it’s just a factor of 1) that the cost of living in Boston and New York is so high, and 2) that they actually are getting raises that are outpacing the annual raise of other places, but because they were so far behind to begin with, those additional raises or that super added raise is only just bringing them sort of further out of the gutter, so to speak, not necessarily actually again, launching them into an above cost of living style wage.

33:18 Alex: So, those are the things I would sort of initially note. I guess the last thing I would say about this is that one other effect that we’ve seen that’s happened a lot in unionized schools that is really important is that wages tend to get standardized across the school. And what that actually means in practice is that the folks at the lowest end of the income scale get pulled up to the highest. I’ve heard concerns or rumors that graduate students are afraid that if a union contract passes that wages will “meet in the middle.” That has literally never happened in a graduate student unionization campaign. In all cases, what’s basically happened is, if schools of public health or humanities and social science students at the bottom end of the income scale, they get boosted either all the way up to where the hard science students are, or get boosted up to some arbitrarily set lower level. And we can talk more about the fact that hard science students are consistently paid more than humanities and social science students, and more than public health students. But regardless, the effect is raises for everybody, but really big raises for folks who are at the bottom.

Consideration of Non-Employee Stipends

34:23 Emily: Yeah. So good to hear. Very, very reassuring for anyone who has that concern, or like heard that rumor or anything. Something that has always interested me about these let’s say the stipends that universities claim that they pay their students, or like announcing, okay, everyone in this school is now going to be paid this baseline stipend, is that I believe it’s focused on people who have assistantships, usually. Because they are the employees of the university and that’s where the best and most consistent data comes from. But as you well know, there are many, many, many graduate students who are funded, not because of assistantships or employee positions, but through fellowships or training grants or other non-employee sources of funding. My understanding is that technically, if a union does come into place those people would not officially be part of the union when they have those types of positions, because they’re not employees, and unions are just for employees. But I think at some universities, they found a way to sort of include people who are non-employee graduate students in some of the benefits that may come about with a contract, like, you know, better health insurance, for example. Did you consider these non-employee stipends in your study at all? Or do you have any comments about how they might or might not be included in like these advocacy pushes?

35:43 Alex: Absolutely. So, it is a complicated question, sort of how external fellowships are factored into a bargaining unit effectively. Or how they would be folded or not folded into a filing union. One thing to keep in mind is that basically, if any of your revenue or any of your income is being given by the university, it doesn’t matter if you have an external fellowship, really. That seems to be the consensus that we’ve seen from previous cases. So, for a lot of training grants, especially at places like Hopkins, almost all graduate students are paid above the NRSA rate, which is basically the NIH training grant stipend level, which I think for this coming year is somewhere on the ballpark of $26,000, roughly.

36:27 Alex: At Hopkins, because most people on those grants are then paid a super added stipend on top of that to basically get them up to the School of Medicine level, we have a bunch of people who are on external money who actually would be a part of a final bargaining unit. And at least in our case, when we’re looking at School of Medicine stipends, they’re sort of equivalent across the board. There are places and there are some grants where that’s not the case, right? One of them is the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship program. Depending on what institution you’re at and how much money that’s valued at, in many cases that will come out to above whatever the university’s pay is. So, in those cases, many times during NLRB elections, those folks have been excluded, and actually they were recently excluded in the MIT election.

37:18 Alex: One thing that’s important to keep in mind, as you already indicated though, is that if we’re able to push for higher stipends for everybody, right? Then ideally <laugh> we’ll be able to push things above the GRFP rate, and/or make sure to apply external pressure to the GRFP so that it pays better as well. And obviously, our benefits are not often given through the external fellowships. Things like the healthcare access to library resources, additional research funds that are not controlled by a granting agency but are coming from your department from your institution, are still things that we can lobby for. Another thing that we’ve been pushing for at the School of Medicine that’s sort of along the same lines is to provide relocation funds for folks who are moving from other states or overseas to Baltimore.

38:05 Alex: So, those types of benefits, even if we can’t necessarily include someone explicitly in a contract, those benefits that apply to all graduate students enrolled in the program would sort of directly accrue even to those who are not sort of an official part of the bargaining unit and therefore sort of attached directly to stipend benefits. So, these are other things to consider when we’re talking about a unionization contract, we’re talking about benefits as we’ve already sort of been indicating. Stipends are one indicator and are, I think, the most important indicator, but things like healthcare coverage, access to research money, relocation money, things like childcare support. These are all also really important aspects of thinking about what a graduate student needs to survive and also sort of what is and is not made available by their institutions.

Look-Back Formula for Voting

38:58 Emily: Would someone who is, at the moment, not considered an employee of the university be able to sign a union card or vote on a contract? I ask this because at other points in their career as a graduate student, they may be an employee, and it may, you know, very well affect them at that point. But maybe at the moment those things are happening they’re not an employee. How does that work out?

39:20 Alex: Yeah, that’s another complicated question. The NLRB clearly does not think first and foremost of graduate students when they’re coming up with their policies, but they do actually have a workaround for this. The NLRB has something called a look-back formula. So, if you’re a graduate student who goes on and off of external fellowships, for example. So, just as a personal note, right? This spring I’ve been off of department funding. I’ve been using money from the Center for Injury Research and Policy at the School of Public Health. It’s internal to Hopkins, but it’s an external grant funded by the CDC. But for that period, I am not a W2 employee with Hopkins, right? When I’m teaching, I am. But when I’ve been on this fellowship and when I’ve been on, Hopkins provides to graduates in my department basically two years of what’s called fellowship funding, which essentially is just, you know, you’re paid without any TA or assistantship work requirements.

40:23 Alex: Obviously, we’re still working, right? We’re applying for grants, we’re still publishing papers, we’re going to conferences. We’re doing everything except for the teaching or assistantship stuff. So, I always find it a little funny that it’s called a fellowship as if it’s not work. We are actually still doing work, just different work, right? But the point being that, for folks who move on and off of different kinds of funding what the NLRB will say is like over the last, you know, two years or something, were you at any point being paid directly by the university? Especially if it was a W2 employee. And if the answer is yes during any of that period, you are eligible at that point to vote in the election. So, the other thing to, I guess, keep in mind along those lines is that, even if you’re technically receiving fellowship income from the university, so not from NSF or NIH or somewhere else, we’re pretty confident at this point, and again, the legal aspects of this are a little murky, but we’re pretty confident that for all those graduate students, they also count even if they’re not receiving a W2 and even if they’re not TAs or RAs in the same way that other people are. So, basically, if your paycheck is coming from the university, you can be pretty sure, or part of your paychecks coming from the university, you can be pretty sure you’d be included in the final bargaining unit.

41:40 Emily: It’s very interesting. I had not heard that update yet. So, I’m really glad that the NLRB has been examining the special case of graduate students to kind of figure out how to handle those. Because it is so common to switch on and off of external or internal or whatever, you know, employee, non-employee kind of statuses.

Best Practices for Advocacy

41:56 Emily: So, as like kind of takeaway messages for the listener, are there particular best practices that you have identified or put in place with respect to advocacy that you’d like to share with other graduate students, et cetera, who are trying to do the same on their campuses?

42:12 Alex: Yeah, I think one thing is, as we were talking about earlier, to be a little bit agnostic about sort of what approaches work. You know, you should try to talk to faculty, you should try to talk to the administration. Institutional channels sometimes will get the job done, right? However, that’s not always going to be the case. And especially when it’s something as dicey as stipends, where universities, many of them, I won’t say Hopkins is one, right? But many universities are relatively cash-strapped right now and are sort of deeply concerned about sort of their futures and how much money they have. And in situations like that, often, even if there is money out there to basically increase graduate student stipends or priorities need to be reshuffled at the level of the university budget, really the only way to do it is going to be talk to your colleagues. If you can, try to unionize and sort of work together.

43:00 Alex: I think the main thing that’s essential to both kinds of advocacy, whether you’re doing it within the institutional channels or outside of them, or some combination, is that graduate students really have to work together. You know, obviously faculty can be supportive, undergraduates can be supportive, administrators can be supportive, right? But ultimately, like our ability to get what we need as adults and as employees of these universities done is contingent on what kind of pressure we are able to bring to bear. And what data we’re able to bring to bear. And the data are only a starting point, right? They provide the talking points you need, they provide the evidence you need, they provide the ability to do the negotiations, right? But ultimately, we will succeed or fail collectively. And we will succeed or fail on the base of our ability to sort of band together to demand what we rightfully deserve.

43:48 Emily: Very strong message. Thank you.

Best Financial Advice for Another Early-Career PhD

43:50 Emily: Alex, thank you so much for this incredible interview! It’s been wonderful to have you on. Glad to hear about all the wonderful work that you and your colleagues are doing. I’d like to finish up by asking you the question that I ask of all my guests, which is what is your best financial advice for another early-career PhD? And it could be something that we’ve already touched on in the interview, or it could be something completely new.

44:12 Alex: I guess I would say to prospective students to, you know, choose wisely. Even a funded PhD does not mean that you’ll be really making the kind of money you’d be making without doing the PhD. So, you know, I think just having your eyes open about both what it means in terms of your financial future to get a PhD is important. And also, you know, also being aware that in some fields, a PhD will significantly improve your earnings potential and in others, it might not. And in some cases, it can even sort of be, frankly, a pathway to downward economic mobility. So, just think very carefully before doing a PhD.

44:53 Alex: For those who have already committed to it. And, you know, I don’t regret my PhD at all. I’ve found this a very intellectually rewarding experience and have really appreciated the chance I’ve had to both do my own research and to work with others, both on, you know history of medicine topics, but also on things like unionization. I’d say the big thing is join your union if there is one, and make sure again, to work with your colleagues. Figure out what people need to get through this degree. It’s a long slog, and it’s a very, very difficult job. But I’d say, you know, get together with your colleagues, make sure that you know, what you need and what they need, and do whatever you can to work together to achieve it.

45:33 Emily: Thank you so much, Alex, for joining me!

45:35 Alex: Thank you. That was really a pleasure!

Outtro

45:42 Emily: Listeners, thank you for joining me for this episode! I have a gift for you! You know that final question I ask of all my guests regarding their best financial advice? I have collected short summaries of all the answers ever given on the podcast into a document that is updated with each new episode release. You can gain access to it by registering for my mailing list at PFforPhDs.com/advice/. Would you like to access transcripts or videos of each episode? I link the show notes for each episode from PFforPhDs.com/podcast/. 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 Advocates Individually and Collectively for Higher Stipends

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In this episode, Emily interviews Alyssa Hayes, a rising 4th-year graduate student in nuclear engineering at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. Alyssa is a first-generation college student who experienced food insecurity and other forms of financial precarity as an undergraduate. Now that she earns a stipend of approximately $45,000 per year and lives in a low cost of living city, she feels financially secure—and wants the same for all graduate students. To that end, Alyssa shares two advocacy approaches: 1) Ask for what you need. As a prospective graduate student, she negotiated for a top-up fellowship to be added to her assistantship stipend. 2) Share pay information with your peers across universities and use that data to collectively bargain for higher stipends in individual programs. Alyssa and her peers in nuclear engineering are currently gathering this data, including stipends, benefits, cost of living, and university and departmental ranking.

Links Mentioned in this Episode

Image for S12E5: This Grad Student Advocates Individually and Collectively for Higher Stipends

Teaser

00:00 Alyssa: I think that like all grad students should feel as comfortable as I feel in terms of my financial situation. I think that I make a fair wage, and maybe I’m biased because of my previous financial situation, but I personally have no complaints about the amount of money that I’m making right now. I feel supported by my advisor and by my department. I feel that I am valued for my labor. And I think that shows through how much they pay me. And I think that everybody should be able to feel that way about their department and about their advisor.

Introduction

00:44 Emily: 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. This is Season 12, Episode 5, and today my guest is Alyssa Hayes, a rising 4th-year graduate student in nuclear engineering at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. Alyssa is a first-generation college student who experienced food insecurity and other forms of financial precarity as an undergraduate. Now that she earns a stipend of approximately $45,000 per year and lives in a low-cost-of-living city, she feels financially secure—and wants the same for all graduate students. To that end, Alyssa shares two advocacy approaches: 1) Ask for what you need. As a prospective graduate student, she negotiated for a top-up fellowship to be added to her assistantship stipend. 2) Share pay information with your peers across universities and use that data to collectively bargain for higher stipends in individual programs. Alyssa and her peers in nuclear engineering are currently gathering this data, including stipends, benefits, cost-of-living, and university and departmental ranking. You won’t want to miss Alyssa’s powerful messages peppered throughout the episode!

02:30 Emily: Longtime listeners of the podcast will remember the interviews I’ve published with Sam Hogan, a mortgage originator specializing in graduate students and PhDs, an advertiser with Personal Finance for PhDs, and my brother. Several years ago, I told Sam how I’d heard over and over again about graduate students and PhDs being denied mortgage loans because of their unusual income sources and income history and asked him to look into the issue. Following that request, Sam actually developed quite an expertise in this area and is now the go-to mortgage originator for people with non-employee fellowship income. He even found a way around what we thought was an insurmountable barrier in the 3-year continuance requirement. If you’re considering buying a home, especially if you have non-W-2 income, I encourage you to reach out to Sam for a quote. He has a new website, which you can visit at PhDHomeLoans.com, or you can reach him on his cell phone, 540-478-5803. You can find the show notes for this episode at PFforPhDs.com/s12e5/. Without further ado, here’s my interview with Alyssa Hayes.

Will You Please Introduce Yourself Further?

03:56 Emily: I am delighted to have joining me on the podcast today Alyssa Hayes. She is a rising fourth-year graduate student in nuclear engineering at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. And we have a lot to talk about in terms of like her pay and her money mindset. And I’m really excited for this conversation. So Alyssa, thank you so much for volunteering. And would you please introduce yourself a little bit further for the audience?

04:16 Alyssa: Thank you for having me! Yeah. So, I’m currently at the University of Tennessee. I did my bachelor’s degree in the same field at the University of Illinois. My current work involves like, you know, fusion engineering, specifically. I do a lot of computational plasma boundary stuff. But yeah, I guess we’re not really talking about any of my technical work today. <Laugh>

Money Mindset Up Until Starting Grad School

04:38 Emily: No, but very related to your experience as a graduate student. So, let’s take it back a little bit and tell me about sort of what your childhood’s like, and specifically how it relates to money and how that sort of developed your money mindset through your childhood and through undergrad, up until you started graduate school.

04:58 Alyssa: Yeah. So, I come from a biracial family, and my father comes from a long line of Americans in the military where, you know, his family was very like blue-collar labor. Like there wasn’t as big of a push to go to college, especially during the time when my dad was growing up in the seventies. And my mom is an immigrant from the Philippines. And her family was not extremely wealthy in the Philippines. And they came here when she was younger to pursue a better life. And she currently works at Walmart and has been for like almost 20 years and has supported my three siblings and me through retail and fast food. So, I was the first person in my family to pursue college. And we lived in an area where we had a lot of, like, there was a lot of really good funding for the school system, even though we weren’t in the nicest part of town. There were other folks who were pretty well-to-do, so I took advantage of everything that I could at that high school. And I got a full ride at the University of Illinois to pursue nuclear engineering. I didn’t have a lot of financial security while I was there, but I didn’t have to worry too much about student debt or tuition or paying fees or anything like that.

Food Insecurity in Undergrad

06:18 Emily: That’s amazing. The full ride to college, and obviously you went after it, <laugh> starting in your earlier years. But tell me a little bit about like the discretion that you had over money. Like, were you budgeting or like, how did you manage it? How did you manage what money you had above that, you know, what’s paying for tuition and room and board and so forth?

06:39 Alyssa: Yeah. So, I was first of all, extremely food insecure and didn’t realize it until I entered grad school. Once a month, I went out to lunch with like a professor who like, he knew I was food insecure, even if I didn’t know I was food insecure, and he would like pay for my food and we would like go somewhere nice that I couldn’t afford to eat at. For the most part, like there were times when like either because I, you know, couldn’t afford to go out to eat as often, but didn’t have the time because I was so stressed out to like make food from home. I like skipped meals often when I was in undergrad. I was very cheap and frugal all the time. I was constantly like thinking about like, I am hungry all the time and like bringing, like, trying to bring snacks with me. Apples were my thing.

07:22 Alyssa: I brought apples everywhere because they were so easy to just grab and then eat on the go. And then it was mostly about trying to make money to pay the bills and to pay rent. My rent, like in undergrad was only like $450 a month. But I worked a minimum wage job in the like plasma lab on campus. And then I worked as a TA as well. So that added stress onto my undergrad. I wish that I didn’t have to have worked so hard in order to like pay to live while trying to be a student. But that’s what it was like. Luckily, I don’t have any student debt now, but I couldn’t really you know, spend the money that was granted for my tuition on, you know, myself or the ability to make ends meet.

08:14 Emily: Yeah. So, I sort of misspoke or misunderstood earlier. You had a full ride in terms of the education cost, but not your living expenses. So, you were working to pay all of your living expenses.

08:25 Alyssa: Yes.

08:25 Emily: Yes. Okay. So that is a little bit like graduate school in a sense, except you didn’t have like a job that you were given. You had to cobble together like multiple sources of income, it sounds like. And there’s more management. You were probably paid, you know, less than maybe the average graduate student is. So, that sounds really stressful.

08:43 Alyssa: I had a little bit of spillover for my scholarships that I had received. So like it paid for like tuition and fees plus a little bit of extra and then like that would go towards rent, but it wasn’t like enough.

Student Loans for Dorm Payment

08:55 Emily: Why didn’t you take out student loans during that time?

08:59 Alyssa: So, I did have to take out student loans during my freshman year to pay for the dorms. Because dorms are a scam. If anyone who’s like not currently in grad school is listening to this, dorms are a scam. Do not live in them longer than you have to. The university says it’s so that way you can you know, help get acclimated to the college experience, but that’s a lie. They’re trying to take your money. I had to take out student loans to pay for those. Other than that, I didn’t take out any other student loans because I was afraid of the debt like piling up. I knew that like one of the types of loans didn’t charge interest until you were done, but the other type of loan did. And I, you know, didn’t want that to accrue while I was in college.

09:38 Alyssa: And I knew that I like had done all my budgeting and I knew that I was able to work to pay for all my stuff. So, I just kind of like, you know, I didn’t think anything was like wrong with the way that I was living. I didn’t see any like problems with like being so frugal or so cheap or skipping meals or missing sleep and stuff. But like, I guess grateful now to past me that I didn’t do that because now I don’t have any student debt. I paid off what little loans I had in like six months. But I did have to like work a lot to get there. But I was also happy doing the work that I did. I enjoyed being a TA and I enjoyed working in a research lab. And honestly, I’m glad that I didn’t end up like working somewhere that didn’t have anything to do with nuclear engineering. So that way I was able to apply all of that to my career trajectory later on in grad school, by having that research experience.

Funding and Finances in Grad School

10:36 Emily: Yeah. This kind of goes to show you like how we aren’t even aware of our own beliefs around money and our own mindsets around money until we sort of consciously try to take a step outside and examine them. And I understand that you can say now, “Oh, past me, I didn’t even know at the time.” You can say things like that because you’ve now reached a new phase in your financial life, which is the graduate student phase. So, tell us about how you’re funded now and how your finances are going.

11:00 Alyssa: Yeah. So, when I was applying to grad schools, I applied to the University of Illinois where I originally wanted to stay because I really loved working for my advisor there. And I also applied to the University of Tennessee because I had, through conferences and networking, I met my current advisor here. And I told both schools that I would stay at Illinois for less. And Illinois didn’t have the power to offer, or like the nuclear engineering program at the University of Illinois, didn’t have the power to offer me more than like the base research assistantship that they offer to like all of the graduate students there. But the University of Tennessee has these like top-off fellowships that they will add to a base stipend in order to get a student to commit to the university who’s maybe deciding between two programs.

12:01 Alyssa: And with just the base stipend, Illinois, I think pays, I might be mistaken on the exact number, but I think they were offering like $26,000 a year. And the University of Tennessee’s base pay at the time was $30,000 per year. We’ve since gotten a raise and now it’s $33K. But the top-off fellowship that was offered to me was $10,000 a year. So then it became a no-brainer. And I was like, I would stay at Illinois for less, but not this much less. And so, now I am making about $45K with bonuses and like a couple of like, you know, service-based scholarships that I get on a somewhat regular basis. So, it kind of evens out to about $45,000 a year with the raise and the top-off fellowship. And so now, I feel like more of a regular adult that has a livable amount of money and I’m not as worried anymore about like, “Oh God, I saw a movie this weekend and now I can’t do anything else fun for the rest of the week.” And so like, I don’t have any of those like worries anymore, but I do still think about them. Like that mindset is always in the back of my mind of like, “Oh, like, is this like a waste of money? I don’t need to be doing this,” or, “This is so expensive,” you know?

$45K Stipend in Knoxville

13:24 Emily: Okay. There was so much in there. So much good stuff that I want to follow-up on. Let’s take it kind of in turns. I want to put a pin in the negotiation part of it. We’ll come back to that in a moment. But let’s focus now on like again, still your money mindset. You just mentioned some of it. You don’t have to be as worried about small joys and extravagances that you allow yourself. So, you’re making about $45,000 a year. Very good stipend for a graduate student, especially in a, you know, lower cost of living area. How, like give us some context about how much that pays for. Because obviously in other areas of the country, $45K is like, “Oh, I’m barely scraping by.”

14:00 Alyssa: Yeah.

14:00 Emily: How does that feel for you right now?

14:03 Alyssa: Knoxville is very affordable to live in. When you’re going to school, like in not really a big city, but more of like a rural part of the country, that definitely helps. Although there’s definitely, you have to balance that with being a person of color, too. So there aren’t other Filipinos, like in this whole city, it seems. I haven’t met any of them or seen anybody else like that’s the same race as me. There’s also a lot of segregation here. And so like, there are parts of town that you can’t go to. So you kind of have to balance that when you’re like, “Oh, if I live somewhere rural, then that’s more affordable to live in,” but there are parts of those areas that also may not be safe for you if you’re in a similar situation.

14:48 Emily: Yeah. I’m glad that you pointed that out because it’s something that I often don’t acknowledge or that can go unacknowledged that people of color in some cases do not have all of the options available to them that White people do, or, you know, other like races. Because as you just said, there are some areas where you can’t live, you have to pay the premium to live in a different area because it’s simply not an option to feel safe, you know, paying the least amount of rent that you could or whatever. So, a very important consideration when people are choosing graduate schools to kind of, to feel out if you are going to feel safe there, and what is the university going to do to support you?

15:21 Alyssa: And while we’re kind of on this, it might also be worth mentioning the current abortion scenario in the United States. If that’s something that matters to you and you have the ability to become pregnant, like a lot of the 26 states that are passing laws that restrict your access to it may also be something to consider because a lot of those contain the rural areas where it is more affordable to attend a university there.

15:46 Emily: Another wrinkle. Yeah. We’re recording this in May, 2022. I don’t know exactly when we’re going to release this. There may be more developments between now and then. But yes, an issue that I think many of us were not expecting to have to consider when we’re choosing graduate school. So, another good point.

Prioritizing Happiness

16:04 Emily: Let’s talk more about the money though. So like, you’re able to pay, you’re able to live a more comfortable lifestyle. Your mindset is still, how is your mindset doing? Like, are you able to splurge on yourself a little bit, or do you still have some of the mindset lingering from when you grew up or your undergraduate experience?

16:22 Alyssa: A lot of it is more, I guess, in the back of my mind, but I have put like a conscious effort into prioritizing my own happiness. Not just in the way of like work-life balance, but financially to ensure that like, you know, spending money on things that make you happy is not wasted money in the same way that spending time on things that make you happy is not wasted time. And so, like I saw two movies this weekend <laugh> instead of one with my partner, because I wanted to and that helped distract me from some heavy things that were going on in my life. And that was money well-spent. Yeah, it wasn’t on a bill, but it’s something that I like, you know, put effort into not feeling bad about that. So, I’ve been dealing with grief this weekend, and I’ve been spending a lot of money, like additional money than I would in any other week on eating out a lot. Just so that way I wouldn’t have to like do household chores, like dishes or worry about cooking while I’m dealing with grief.

17:29 Alyssa: And so like, those are like, you know, that was part of like, I guess, a change in mindset that I noticed where it was easier for me to do that in my current financial scenario, like situation versus when I was in undergrad. Like I had those thoughts in the back my mind of like, “Wow, I’m spending a lot of money. <Laugh> this week alone between, you know, funeral costs and like the additional money I was spending on food.” I’ve easily spent like a thousand dollars in the last four days on not bills, but that was easier for me to accept now and probably even easier now versus like my first year in grad school, when that would’ve been a harder, like mental hurdle to get over.

18:16 Emily: Yeah. And I’m assuming that this simply would not have been an option for you in undergrad to spend in this way. It is not an option for many graduate students, either, who are being paid less. And in our prep for this conversation, you said to me something along the lines of, you know, you’re living well right now given what you’re paid and given the low cost-of-living, and you think that all graduate students should feel this way. Can you elaborate on that a bit?

18:42 Alyssa: Yes. So, currently, like I said, I make $45,000 about per year. And whenever I tell other graduate students that like, sometimes, like I try not to let it like come off as like a brag because of the low cost-of-living in Knoxville, too. But it’s more of that I obviously agree that like everybody should, you know, talk about their wages, especially to your coworkers. Because I think that like all grad students should feel as comfortable as I feel in terms of my financial situation. I think that I make a fair wage, and maybe I’m biased because of my previous financial situation, but I personally have no complaints about the amount of money that I’m making right now. I feel supported by my advisor and by my department. I feel that I am valued for my labor. And I think that shows through how much they pay me. And I think that everybody should be able to feel that way about their department and about their advisor.

Commercial

19:52 Emily: Emily here for a brief interlude. I have set a big goal for my business and our U.S. PhD community broadly. My goal is for every graduate student, postdoc, or postbac in the U.S. who is not having income tax withheld from their stipend or salary to be offered training on how to 1) estimate their future income tax liability, 2) determine if they are required to pay quarterly estimated tax, and 3) prepare to pay their tax bill or bills through setting up a system of self-withholding. I provide just such a training, which is my asynchronous workshop titled Quarterly Estimated Tax for Fellowship Recipients. Now, some universities, institutes, or funding agencies already offer such a training, and they have no need to work with me. But others won’t allow their employees to touch the topic of taxes with a 10-foot pole, and that’s where working with me can really benefit everyone. Would you please send me an email and tell me which camp your university falls into—or if it’s somewhere in between? You can reach me at [email protected]. Furthermore, let me know if you want to take Quarterly Estimated Tax for Fellowship Recipients for free or think that the cohort coming in this fall should, and I’ll reply with how you can help make that happen. I look forward to hearing from you! Now back to our interview.

Learning to Negotiate

21:33 Emily: I wanted to come back now to the negotiation piece. So, I think you mentioned something like, you know, you told both universities that you would accept a slightly lower stipend from University of Illinois. Tell me like, you even brought up money in these conversations. Like why were you even having conversations with the programs? What gave you the idea that you could talk about this and that maybe there would be more for you there?

21:56 Alyssa: So, part of it was because while I was at the University of Illinois, I got comfortable asking for money. One by being a leader in a lot of the different like student programs and then having to correspond regularly with the staff and the department head there. So, I knew a lot of those people well, and at one point I wanted to go to the Nuclear Innovation Bootcamp in the year 2017. And there was like obviously paying for travel flight costs. I didn’t have to pay for lodging as part of that Bootcamp, but there was also a hefty registration fee and I couldn’t afford any of that. And so, like there was no route to like ask for it to be paid for. There was no like standardized path or form that you could fill out for things to be waived.

22:46 Alyssa: So, I wrote like a little one-page request to my department saying like, this is this program. I really want to go. This is what I’m going to get out of it. Will you pay for it? And then at the very bottom, it said more information about why I may qualify for financial need available upon request. But I didn’t really like talk about my financial situation. I just explained what the program was, and why I wanted to go. And I gave that to them, and with no further questions they paid for everything. I think they even, I want to say they reimbursed my flights, but if I hadn’t bought them, they may have paid for them in advance. I don’t quite remember. But I had realized that like they wanted to support me, and that they were okay with students kind of going the outside-of-the-box route in terms of asking for money.

23:38 Alyssa: And that was when I was a sophomore in college. So, that gave me the confidence, then, when I was in grad school to ask for a higher rate or wage when I was applying to grad school. And they, unfortunately, weren’t able to do it or I don’t, you know, necessarily know all the behind-the-scenes that went on there. And sure, they said no, but I wasn’t at all reprimanded for asking in the first place. Like nothing, you know, bad happened to me. The best that I could have done was ask, even if they said no. So, I’m glad that I did. And it turned out well for me because at the University of Tennessee, I didn’t even know that there were top-off fellowships. But I got one because I was upfront with the University of Tennessee about how I would have, you know, taken the lower offer elsewhere and about how I was considering other schools and kind of in the same way that you’re like, I learned how to like negotiate a car price down from my dad.

24:36 Alyssa: So that was, I guess, a little bit of a privilege that I had because I had to buy a car to like move to Tennessee, because they have terrible public transit here. It’s kind of the whole tell the other you know, person that you’re negotiating with about this other thing that you’re also considering. Make that look nice and shiny. So that way they’ll try to give you a little bit of a better offer. I ended up also getting this laptop and all of the accessories that go with it out of the same deal with my current advisor. Like I asked them to buy me, you know, personal equipment that I could use to like, you know, be a person outside of grad school, too. Like I didn’t have a functioning laptop at the time. And so all of that got thrown in as well.

25:23 Emily: I think that’s such a powerful message, like, and I’m glad that you learned it as a sophomore in college and that you were able to then apply it in your process for applying to graduate school. Like just ask, like, just let people know of your need and let them figure out how they can best, you know, work behind-the-scenes to make that happen for you. So, you got this amazing like top-up fellowship. I mean, $10,000 is a very significant, you know, add-on to an already, you know okay base stipend. So, that sounds amazing. Just, I think this is a wonderful message for any prospective graduate students, or anybody at any stage, really just ask for what you need. Let people know, and especially like you said that you have options and this would help your decision. I think you said earlier, like it was a no-brainer to go with the University of Tennessee once they made that, you know, augmentation to their offer. So, so glad to hear that.

Normalizing Talking About Grad Student Stipends

26:12 Emily: Let’s talk more about stipends for other graduate students as well. So, I understand you’ve recently kind of entered into some conversations with peers about how we can, union is not the right word, but sort of collectively bargain or like share information about stipends. So, tell me more about that endeavor.

26:33 Alyssa: Yeah. So, normalizing talking about our wages is like step one in changing the culture around laborers. So that way we can all benefit collectively. But we kind of wanted to take this a little bit of a step further among nuclear engineering grad students specifically because by going to conferences and networking, not just with employers or other universities, et cetera, but we also spend that time networking with each other. And so, because it’s so common for grad students to kind of see the same people all the time in the nuclear engineering programs, because we’re so small, a lot of us just know each other from like all across the country. And I know that this isn’t something that a lot of other fields have the benefit of because it’s not realistic for like every electrical engineering graduate student to all know each other.

27:31 Alyssa: But at least to know somebody who knows somebody at pretty much any nuclear engineering graduate program is realistic for us. So, we got together at the most recent student conference. And we are currently building a spreadsheet that has everybody’s like gross pay, all of the things that you have to pay for that are related to your health insurance or your academic costs, your fees, and then what your take-home pay is, and then comparing all of that to the cost-of-living based on where your university is, your university’s ranking, and your department’s ranking. So, that way you can kind of compare and contrast. So that way, if there is a department that is ranked highly compared to its university’s ranking, which implies that that department has more power to maybe change the pay that their graduate students are receiving, but those graduate students maybe aren’t being paid well, then they can use the collective sheet to say like, this is where we’re falling right now, compared to how much these other similar programs are paying their graduate students. And we think that you should, you know, value our labor a little bit more and that we deserve to have higher wages. And so, use like that collective information for other institutions to bargain. So that way maybe they can get the same level of financial comfort that I am afforded right now.

29:07 Emily: This is an amazing effort. I totally commend you and your peers for like this idea, and starting work on this. It sounds like you’re in the data collection stage.

29:17 Alyssa: Yes.

29:17 Emily: Is that right? Like you’re building the spreadsheet, putting in all these different factors. I love that you mentioned like ranking of university, because I have some work in this area as well, and I just think about cost-of-living. I don’t think about like how, you know, the university is regarded or their program is regarded. So, I think that’s a really interesting like additional element. I’m not sure when this episode will come out in relation to these other ones, but I have some other podcast episodes slated for 2022 on this same issue of like sort of information-sharing about stipends and bargaining in some manner to increase stipends. So, this is wonderful and it aligns very well with that.

Health Insurance (Non-)Coverage

29:53 Alyssa: The thing that like, the one piece of information that like made it, like click in my brain where I was like, “We need to like, do something more about this and just talk about our pay,” was that one of the grad students that I didn’t even know well, like while I was at U of I, that I was just kind of like chatting with at a social at this conference told me that his health insurance was not covered. And like, mine is, like, I don’t, it’s not taken out of my pay. Like, yes, it’s like technically like, “Oh, like you could have just, you know, they could have just given me the money that they’re using to pay for my health insurance,” but like the University of Illinois’ grad student health insurance is like taken out of their pay. So, that’s like a part of like the gross pay that they advertise. And I was like, that’s not cool. <Laugh> what do you mean your health insurance isn’t covered? So then I asked to have a meeting with the department head there because I like knew him well from when I was a student there. And he actually was the one who gave me the idea. He was like, why don’t you get more of this information from other schools? And then, so we’ll go from there.

30:59 Emily: That’s excellent. And I totally agree, like in PhD Stipends as well, I have a way to enter like what your stipend is, but then like, what are you paying out of that stipend in terms of fees and tuition and whatever. And like for health insurance and other types of fees as well, like that can add up to thousands of dollars a year. So, that’s not some insignificant like, oh, it’s a $20 fee, whatever. This is a really big percentage of like that overall stipend that they’re receiving.

31:23 Alyssa: Yeah.

31:24 Emily: The other thing I’m really excited about for your project too, is like this fellowship that you received is probably one that’s offered sometimes to other students as well. So, it’s good to have both sets of information, right? Like what’s the base stipend and then, “Oh, sometimes this additional funding is available.” Wouldn’t it be great if we could pull everybody up to that level or, you know, that kind of thing? So, I just, if you aren’t already, I would definitely encourage you to include that kind of information as well in the spreadsheet. What different students are being paid, even within the same department.

31:52 Alyssa: Yeah, we did get a raise this year, which took effect about two months ago. So, because of the change in the economy throughout the pandemic, all graduate students in the nuclear engineering department at the University of Tennessee received a 10% stipend raise. So, full research assistants are now making 33 instead of $30,000 per year as the base-level stipend. Additionally, this was through the effort of our nuclear engineering graduate student assembly, which is kind of like also not a union, but a collection of just the nuclear engineering grad students. We managed to through a couple of years actually of pressure convince our department to begin covering our academic fees. So, which also kind of feels like a raise in terms of take-home pay. So, now we no longer have to pay as much and many students don’t have to pay any fees anymore for things like, you know, your basic like academic, you know, transportation fee, student health center fee, recreational fee. So, all of that is pretty much covered now.

33:02 Emily: For sure. And it makes it so much easier to compare apples to apples, right? When those kinds of fees are covered. But I’m sure in your spreadsheet you’ll be accounting for everything. So, I love this idea. I’m so excited for y’all to like move forward with this and hope it comes together in the near future.

Best Financial Advice for Another Early-Career PhD

33:16 Emily: Well, Alyssa, it’s been such a pleasure to talk with you and I’m so glad that you volunteered to be on here, and you’ve had so many really vital messages that have come through in this interview. And I’m really grateful for that. I wrap up all my interviews by asking my guests one final question, which is what is your best financial advice for another early-career PhD? And it could be something that we’ve already touched on in the interview, or it could be something completely new.

33:39 Alyssa: I had a similar question asked of me in my most recent D&D session with my friends. Just like we were talking after. And, specifically, their question was, how much of my success is rooted in like just being confident? And that applies to so much in that, like I had the confidence to ask to go to all these different programs, the Bootcamp, to different conferences. And when I’m at conferences, then while I’m there, I’m networking with all these different potential employers and powerful people, like some of my future reference letter writers are people that I’ve only ever interacted with at conferences and have no other like relationship with them. And so, by networking with those people that, you know, that’s how I met my current advisor, and that’s how he learned about my work.

34:42 Alyssa: And that gave me the confidence to then talk to him about my financial situation. And you know, even asking to go to conferences in the first place built my confidence in asking for funding and asking for a raise. And it really taught me that, I mean, the best thing you can do is to at least ask and see if, you know, people will just give you money. Because sometimes they will. So, I don’t necessarily like the mindset of, you know, just apply to everything because it also can take resources and time. But apply to the things that you can, or that you have the spoons to. And it’s a way to try to tackle imposter syndrome is to know that other people have it too, but you deserve to have the confidence, regardless of any imposter syndrome you might have, to put yourself out there.

35:41 Emily: Thank you so much, Alyssa, for those concluding thoughts. Again, it’s been great to have you. Thank you so much!

35:46 Alyssa: Yeah. Thank you! Thank you for having me!

Outtro

35:53 Emily: Listeners, thank you for joining me for this episode! I have a gift for you! You know that final question I ask of all my guests regarding their best financial advice? I have collected short summaries of all the answers ever given on the podcast into a document that is updated with each new episode release. You can gain access to it by registering for my mailing list at PFforPhDs.com/advice/. Would you like to access transcripts or videos of each episode? I link the show notes for each episode from PFforPhDs.com/podcast/. 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.

Financial Advice for Prospective PhD Students

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In this episode, Emily shared the financial advice for prospective and rising graduate students that she collected from current graduate students and PhDs. This financial advice can be applied all the way from when you are reading a grad school offer letter to when you’re matriculating into your PhD program. The topics covered include evaluating cost of living, side hustling prior to or during grad school, saving up cash, purchasing a home, and investing.

Links Mentioned in this Episode

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Teaser

00:00 Courtney: I really highly recommend using Emily’s savings bucket strategy throughout grad school to cover irregular expenses. About halfway through grad school, I started using the savings bucket strategy, which helped me feel a lot less stressed about money and my finances because when large expenses came up, I had a plan in place.

Introduction

00:25 Emily: Welcome to the Personal Finance for PhDs Podcast: A Higher Education in Personal Finance. I’m your host, Dr. Emily Roberts. This is Season 11, Episode 5, and today I’m sharing with you the financial advice for prospective and rising graduate students that I have collected from current graduate students and PhDs. This financial advice can be applied all the way from when you are reading a grad school offer letter to when you’re matriculating into your PhD program. The topics covered include evaluating cost of living, side hustling prior to or during grad school, saving up cash, purchasing a home, and investing. This episode is kind of a sequel to Season 5 Episode 2, Healthy, Wealthy, and Wise: Choose a PhD Program That Will Support Your Personal and Professional Development. That episode was also designed for prospective graduate students and included advice from invited contributors on finances, grad student unions, professional development, mental health, and work-life balance.

01:28 Emily: If you’re already in or beyond grad school, would you please share this episode and/or the previous one so that it can reach its target audience? I’m sure once you listen through it, you will agree with me that the advice is invaluable. If you planning to start a PhD program in 2022 and would like to learn even more about the financial side of this process, I invite you to attend a couple of upcoming free webinars, part of my series Set Yourself Up for Financial Success in Graduate School. The March webinar is for prospective graduate students, and you can find more information at PFforPhDs.com/prospective/. The April webinar is for rising graduate students, and you can find more information at PFforPhDs.com/rising/. If you’re not sure what I mean by prospective vs. rising, listen through the remainder of this episode. I hope that you will join me for these webinars. I will show you how to start graduate school on the right financial foot.

Do You Even Need to Go to Grad School?

02:33 Emily: The advice in this section is for prospective PhD students, by which I mean people who have already applied to programs and perhaps received some acceptances and/or started interviewing, but who have not yet committed to a program. We’ll start with the advice collected from your fellow graduate students and PhDs.

02:53 Emily: Our first topic is do you even need to go to grad school? And this is the advice from Elyse K: “Figure out if a PhD is absolutely necessary to do what you want to do, and only go if it is absolutely necessary. It is worth delaying school to be absolutely sure–don’t get a PhD to figure out what you want to do! This is financial advice because there is a substantial opportunity cost to going to school full time for 4-6 years–even if you have a full stipend and tuition waiver you would probably make more working full time. If a PhD it isn’t going to serve you after you graduate, you’ll be financially better off without it.”

03:37 Emily: This advice from Elyse K is spot on, and it is something that you must listen to as a prospective PhD student, even if it’s unpleasant, because you’ve already committed a lot to this process of getting into a PhD program, I’m sure. Not just the application cycle, but the years leading up to that. But don’t be trapped by the sunk cost fallacy. It’s only going to get worse and worse if you enroll in graduate school and it’s not the right path for you. So as Elyse says, and I agree, be absolutely sure that the PhD is the right thing for your career, the right thing for your personal life and that this is the right time for it. Much better to bail now than halfway through a program or even all the way through your program if you realize that it wasn’t the right choice for you. If you want to hear more discussion of the financial opportunity cost of getting a PhD, please listen to my interview with Dr. Jen Polk from season seven, episode 14.

Reading Your Offer Letter

04:37 Emily: Our next topic is on reading your offer letter, your funding offer letter, from a graduate program, and Elyse K again says: “Don’t go into debt for a PhD. Find a program that will pay you or save up and cash flow school.” Again, I totally agree with Elyse. I am very hard pressed to think of a field in which you would get a PhD, but not be paid to it. Very difficult to come up with that. So of course, almost certainly you’re going to be receiving offers of funding along with your offers of admission. But to put a little bit more nuance on Elyse’s point, just because someone is offering you full funding, doesn’t mean you wouldn’t incur debt by going into that PhD program, because the offer of funding might not be high enough or consistent enough to keep you out of student loan debt, or alternatively having to side hustle. So I want you to really keep your eyes wide open when it comes to evaluating whether this program will actually keep you out of debt. Next up, we have a clip submitted from Shana.

05:42 Shana: Hello, Personal Finance for PhDs community. My name is Shana Slebioda, and I’m a staff member at a research university who works with graduate students. My advice for rising PhD students is to ask about summer financial support. Summer support packages may be different from during the academic year, especially if your support comes mainly from being a teaching assistant, also known as a TA. If your funding letter does not contain specifics about the summer months, be sure to ask. Talk to a faculty or staff member in your prospective program to get additional information. You can also talk to current students in the program to find out how they spend their summers. Do this early. Your first summer session will be there before you know it. And good luck.

06:36 Emily: This is absolutely vital advice from Shana. And again, I completely agree. Your offer letter, ideally, should tell you how you’ll be funded for the entire first 12 months of your program. So, if it doesn’t include details about your summer, as Shana said, you need to inquire about it. Both from, you know, the DGS [Director of Graduate Studies] or whoever’s offering you the funding package, and also with current graduate students to find out how funding typically works in the summer, or if it’s funded at all. But I want to extend this advice to say that it’s also very important to get an idea of your entire funding path through the PhD. Not just through the first summer, but your second year, your third year, fourth year, and all of the summers as well. Your program might or may not be able to give you super specifics about your situation. Maybe they can, maybe they can’t, but that’s where current graduate students come in very handy because they will tell you what from their experience and what they’ve observed among their peers about how people are funded or not throughout their time in the PhD program.

Evaluating Cost of Living

07:37 Emily: Our next topic is on evaluating cost of living for, I would say all of the programs that you are seriously considering attending. Julia’s advice is: “Ask current students about living expenses and estimate your budget. In some cities, to rent an apartment you might need to pay three to four months worth of rent upfront (first and last month of rent, broker fees, security deposit). You might need to consider having a roommate.” Again, the advice to talk to current graduate students is the best. They are going to be the people best positioned to give you the picture of how finances are working on the ground in this PhD program.

08:14 Emily: And I love the specificity of how much you might be asked to put up to rent an apartment. This is very, very city-dependent. I’m guessing Julia may live in Boston or New York. Certainly there may be other cities that operate the same way, but yes, it can be very expensive to get into your first apartment. In some cases, up to four months of expenses, in some cases less, it’s just going to be really city dependent. So it’s something you need to investigate possibly before you commit to a program, but definitely at the point that you do commit to a program.

08:44 Emily: We also have some advice from Ben: “You can pretty much have a successful research career anywhere you end up. So don’t let thoughts about potential research advisors overshadow comparisons of cost of living and stipend when considering programs.” I wish that I had heard this advice from Ben when I was in this phase of being a prospective PhD student, because I absolutely number one was picking my program based off of the potential research that I could do there. The advisor that I would have, the resources that the program had at its disposal, these kinds of things. So I was really not giving any thought to finances or other personal considerations that I now know are very, very important to have you know, in the mix in your decision-making.

09:29 Emily: And so I now definitely agree with Ben that yes, the research considerations are very important, but so is understanding what your lifestyle is going to be financially during your time in graduate school. And so are a lot of other things you might call personal factors. So they all should have a place. And don’t forget that your finances and these other personal factors will affect how successful you are in your program. So these are not, you know, disconnected from one another. If you are super stressed about money, or if you have to go into debt or side hustle, it’s going to affect how well you perform in your research career and potentially how long it takes you to graduate. So, as I said, all the factors should go into the mix.

Working Before or During Grad School

10:13 Emily: Our next topic is on working, either in this period of time between now and when you matriculate or after you matriculate. Our first piece of advice is from Gillian Hayes: “Work as much as you can in paid positions before returning to graduate school to save money to bridge the difficult times during the PhD. You may also make connections that will allow you to do side hustles or internships during your program.” Coming into graduate school with cash savings sets you up as best as possible to have a strong financial position. When I think about people who start graduate school without cash savings, or maybe even with, you know, incurring some credit card debt because of those moving expenses, you’re sort of thrown onto your back foot financially, like you’re off balance.

11:03 Emily: It’s not a strong position to start in. And of course it’s necessary in many cases, but I like Gillian’s advice. I agree with it. If at all possible, work before getting into that PhD program to generate cash savings so that you have money for moving, so that you have money for start up expenses. And so that you don’t have financial stress at the same time you’re trying to get started in your program. I also totally agree with her that working certain kinds of jobs will help you in your career that you’re trying to pursue during your PhD, and things like internships and side hustles can be part of that. If you’d like to hear more from Gillian, and I know you would, you can listen to her full interview in season six, episode six.

11:45 Emily: And here’s some advice from Nell: “Consider having another job. When I went to grad school, I went part-time with my previous full-time job. I’ve done it during school for 4 years now. I’ve noticed among my friends and colleagues that it’s the grad students who have second jobs who seem happier and mentally healthier, and have less trouble meeting their deadlines and keeping grad school anxiety in perspective. Obviously, you should keep monitoring yourself to see if it’s sustainable or the right choice for you. I have moments where I feel overwhelmed. But I have a lot less anxiety about grad school since it’s not my entire professional identity and I’m not taking a huge pay cut to be here. I see people who have never held another job applying for academic jobs and facing the possibility that they will not get anything permanent or well-compensated, even though they are excellent at what they do. They don’t know how to pivot and are doubting all their choices. It’s not their fault; it’s the market. But I see having a second job as a hedge against the kind of personal and financial crisis that comes in those circumstances.”

12:46 Emily: I think it’s really going to depend on your program and your field, whether holding a concurrent second part-time job is feasible, and also of course your personal responsibilities as well. So it seems to be working for Nell. And of course, she has great advice by saying keep monitoring yourself to see if it’s sustainable. So I don’t know if like a full like part-time job, like 20 hours a week or something is going to be right for everyone. But I do agree with her that it does lessen anxiety related to graduate school when it’s not, as she said, her whole professional identity or even identity generally. And so I do think it’s really healthy to have a side hustle or some kinds of side pursuits during your time in graduate school, because it does give you a break from all of your focus on your PhD.

13:33 Emily: It may give you another source of income, which can help with financial stability. So there are lots of positives to it. The drawbacks being of course, the time management aspects, the energy management aspects. So, you have to know yourself in this respect, but I do think it’s well worth considering. So if you have currently a full-time job that it’s possible to keep working for that employer part-time, either on still an employee basis or maybe a contractor basis, I think that’s worth having a conversation, it’s worth a tryout, of course, given that it would be allowed by your graduate program. Now, some graduate programs do bar outside work or outside work of a certain type or above a certain hourly commitment. So you have to be careful about that, but I do like the suggestion. And alternatively, if you’re not in a full-time job that you would, you know, consider taking with you in some capacity into graduate school, the next suggestion is to develop some kind of side hustle during these months between now and when you matriculate that you’ll be able to take with you into graduate school.

Emily’s Best Advice for Prospective PhD Students

14:28 Emily: My best advice for prospective PhD students is to 1) interrogate your offer letter, and 2) compare your actual salary to the local cost of living. What I mean by interrogate is that there’s a set of about a half-dozen financial questions that you need to have answers to regarding your funding package to fully understand what your finances will look like during your PhD program. One example is how much of what is listed as your stipend in your offer letter will you pay in tuition, fees, and/or your health insurance premium. You need to subtract those mandatory fees from your stipend to see what you’ll actually be paid before taxes. If your offer letter doesn’t provide all the answers, you’ll need to ask the questions of the program’s administrative staff.

15:12 Emily: However, the absolute stipend numbers are not the whole picture. Obviously, $30,000 is going to go a lot further in West Lafayette, Indiana than Seattle, Washington. You need a way to normalize the stipend to the local cost of living. The first-pass way that I suggest you do this is to use the numbers in the Living Wage Database from MIT at livingwage.mit.edu. You can divide each stipend by the local living wage to get an idea of how much purchasing power the stipend will actually provide.

15:48 Emily: I suggest making a spreadsheet to keep track of all these factors, and in fact I will provide such a spreadsheet in my upcoming Set Yourself Up for Financial Success in Graduate School webinar for prospective graduate students. In this webinar, I’ll expand on what I stated above and cover additional timely topics, including one that is almost taboo in academia. The webinar is free and you can find more information and how to sign up at PFforPhDs.com/prospective/.

Commercial

16:19 Emily: Emily here for a brief interlude! Taxes are weirdly, unexpectedly difficult for funded grad students and fellowship recipients at any level of PhD training. Your university might send you strange tax forms or no tax forms at all. They might not withhold income tax from your paychecks, even though you owe it. It’s a mess. I’ve created a ton of free resources to assist you with understanding and preparing your 2021 tax return, which are available at PFforPhDs.com/tax/. I hope you will check them out to ease much of the stress of tax season. If you want to go deeper with the material or have a question for me, please join one of my tax workshops, which are linked from PFforPhDs.com/tax/. I offer one workshop on preparing your annual tax return for graduate students and one workshop on calculating your quarterly estimated tax for fellowship and training grant recipients. It would be my pleasure to help you save you time and potentially money this tax season, so don’t hesitate to reach out. Now back to our interview.

Cash Savings for Rising PhD Students

17:35 Emily: The advice in this section is for rising PhD students, by which I mean, people who have committed to attending a particular PhD program, but have not yet matriculated. We’ll start with the advice collected from your fellow graduate students and PhDs. Our first topic is the necessity of cash savings. Our first piece of advice is from Elyse K: “Adjust your budget now to your stipend income and save up to make sure you have a substantial emergency fund (more on the 6 months of expenses side than 3 months). Many universities only offer students crappy or expensive healthcare plans. Hopefully, you are healthy over the next four-to-six years, but knowing you can cover a high insurance out-of-pocket maximum without additional debt is comforting.” This is definitely great advice, especially if you’re currently working and living on a salary that’s higher after adjusting for cost of living than the stipend that you will be on in just a few months. So, it’s great advice. Live on that future stipend and save everything you can in between now and then. I also love that she points out the importance of having an emergency fund and yeah, knowing your insurance benefits. So knowing what your deductible is, what your co-insurance responsibilities are. You can find out this information now to start preparing. Next, we have a clip from Courtney.

18:57 Courtney: Hi, my name is Courtney, and last year I graduated with my PhD in microbiology. My biggest piece of financial advice for grad school is to set up an automatic transfer after you get your stipend payment to a separate savings account for paying taxes if you do not get income taxes withheld from your paycheck, which I know many graduate fellowships do not. This way, the money is already allocated when it comes time to pay quarterly estimated taxes, or when you file taxes in the spring. And jumping off of that, I really highly recommend using Emily’s savings bucket strategy throughout grad school to cover irregular expenses, such as large purchases, maybe medical deductible payments, or friends’ weddings. Also, it’s important to save for an emergency fund, maybe a pet fund if you have a pet, and planning for fun thing as well, such as vacations. About halfway through grad school, I started using this savings bucket strategy, which helped me feel a lot less stressed about money and my finances because when large expenses came up, I had a plan in place. I used this strategy to save for a month’s worth of living expenses to cover a month gap in between when I finished my PhD and when I started my new position, and I also was able to save up for a vacation to celebrate my graduation and really treat myself after completing my PhD.”

20:34 Emily: I love that Courtney gave us these specific examples of how targeted savings buckets can be used. For her, it was paying her taxes and also saving up to cover an income lapse and saving up for a vacation. I love that she said it made her less stressed. If you’d like to learn more about this savings bucket strategy, I devoted a whole podcast episode to it. It’s season seven, episode 15: How to Solve the Problem of Irregular Expenses. It goes beyond just having an emergency fund to preparing through saving for other large irregular expenses like taxes, like having to buy flights, like having to replace your computer or buy furniture or any other large purchases you might have to make. Specifically on the topic of taxes, it’s very important for you to know sometime before you matriculate that it’s pretty likely that at some during graduate school, you are going to be funded through a source of what I call awarded income. It might be called a fellowship or a training grant or a scholarship or some other kind of award that pays your stipend.

21:38 Emily: And if that is the case, most universities will not withhold income tax on your behalf the way they do for employees. You may be an employee at other points in your graduate career, like having an assistantship. But if you’re ever not an employee, then that income tax withholding may not be offered to you. And if that is the case, you will be responsible for making your own tax payments manually, whether that’s up to four times per year through the estimated tax system, or in one lump sum when you file your tax return each spring. So as Courtney said, it’s really important to save up for those tax bills. I like to call it, setting up a system of self-withholding. So you’re sort of simulating the withholding that would be done by an employer if you had one by doing, as she said, these auto-transfers. Every time you receive a paycheck, set up an automatic transfer to go into your designated tax savings account for an appropriate amount of money. If you’d like more detail about how to do these calculations around taxes or the system of self-withholding, I have a whole workshop devoted to it, which you can find at PFforPhDs.com/QETax, that’s for quarterly estimated tax. And this is something that I wish every matriculating graduate student was told during orientation that estimated tax is your responsibility, potentially, if you are on one of these non-W-2, non-employee sources of income.

23:03 Emily: And our final piece of advice regarding cash savings is from Julia: “Try to save even a little bit and put the money away for savings and/or retirement investments. Learning about investing can be overwhelming, but you can start with passive investing in a couple of general ETFs (e.g., tracking S&P 500 and international stocks for diversification) and learn more as you go. To avoid overwhelm, allocate fixed time slots to learn about finance, e.g., 1 hour per week. Eventually, you’ll become more comfortable.” I mean, of course, I totally agree with this advice from Julia. It’s kind of everything I do in my business teaching about personal finance, and I especially love talking about investing with graduate students and postdocs. It’s very easy to get started with passive investing. It’s very easy to manage investments passively. So it’s something that can be completely compatible with your journey as a graduate student, as long as your finances are ready for it. I would say it’s more important to build up some of the emergency and buckets we’ve been talking about and pay off high priority debt, like credit cards, before getting involved with investing. But once your finances are ready for it, it does not have to be a big time suck for you. So that’s great advice from Julia.

Homeownership

24:17 Emily: Our next topic is homeownership. This is one of my favorite new topics to be talking about with graduate students and early-career PhDs. Here’s the advice from Nell: “Seriously consider home ownership EARLY in your program. Emily and her brother have covered this on the podcast, but you ideally need 3 years of funding remaining. I bought a place at the beginning of my second year. The second job and the 5 years of continuance made it easier to get a mortgage. Meanwhile, I have a friend in his 5th year, now in the process of buying a place, and he found out about the 3-year continuance rule very late, causing an extremely stressful family situation and problems with his department, who he had to beg for a letter promising him more funding. While there have certainly been stresses with my place (roof, plumbing) which I am privileged to be able to deal with, the fact that I can go away for research and rent it out rather than have to pay two rents or put all my stuff in storage means that I am able to be much more mobile and flexible as I design how I will spend my time researching and writing the dissertation. Again, this is about peace of mind and mental health as much as financial security.”

25:23 Emily: This advice from Nell is so valuable. Now, I have to say, first off, many graduate students are not in a position to buy. The vast majority of graduate students are not in a position to buy a home, because several factors have to come together kind of perfectly. You have to live in a housing market where the home prices are not very, very high. You have to have a stipend that is high enough to manage to, you know, qualify for a mortgage in that market. And you have to have some savings place for the down payment and the closing costs, moving costs, these kinds of things. And you have to have good credit. So these things all have to come together. But for some graduate students, it is possible.

25:58 Emily: And if you think you may be in that situation, you should definitely investigate it early on. I have done several podcast episodes with my brother, Sam Hogan. He is a mortgage originator with Prime Lending (Note: Sam now works at Movement Mortgage) who specializes in graduate students and PhDs. And he knows all the ins and outs of qualifying for a mortgage, even when you have non-employee income fellowship income, which for some lenders is unfamiliar. The podcast interviews that I’ve done with Sam in the past are season five, episode 17, How to Qualify for a Mortgage as a Graduate Student or PhD, Even with Non-W-2 Fellowship Income, and season eight, episode four, Turn Your Largest Liability into Your Largest Asset with House Hacking. Those are really exciting episodes to listen to, but I do want to tell you there have been some updates, especially to the content that Nell just talked about. So, we used to think there was this necessity to have three years of guaranteed funding when you had a non-W2 type position as a graduate student or postdoc, but Sam has actually found a way kind of around that in some cases.

27:00 Emily: So, I would say it’s very helpful to have three years of continuance, but not strictly necessary for everyone. So the best thing to do is to talk to a mortgage lender like Sam, or like someone else who’s familiar with PhDs and graduate students, and get their perspective on your income type and your whole like picture to see whether or not you would be able to qualify for a mortgage. Check out the Personal Finance for PhDs’ YouTube channel for some of those like short updates. I’ve been publishing clips from the live Q&A calls that I’ve been hosting with Sam for first-time home buyers. If you’d like to learn more about that, go to PFforPhds.com/mortgage to find out when the next live Q&A call will be. By the way, if you want to reach out to Sam directly, the best way is probably to text or call his phone number, which is (540) 478-5803. Or you can email him at [email protected].

27:59 Emily: I really love Nell’s perspective in this advice of having it be an ease on her mind and her finances to own a home versus renting when she has to be away for research purposes. Like I never thought about that before. So I’m really glad to get Nell’s perspective on this. I’m really glad that it’s worked out for her. Elyse K also added this advice: “If you’ve been working full time and it is the right time for you, consider buying a home you can afford on your stipend before your full-time income is gone because it will be easier to get financing.” Again, you can hear a lot of concern about qualifying for a mortgage as a graduate student. It is an area of concern, but Sam can help you with this specifically if you want him to. But Elyce’s advice is really good. If you are going from a full-time job into graduate school, and especially if you’re not moving cities, getting that mortgage and the home purchase done before starting graduate school is a good idea. But as she said, make sure you can afford it on your stipend, not just your current salary.

Working During Your PhD

28:54 Emily: Our next topic is working while you’re pursuing your PhD. So, Gillian has this advice: “Intern. No matter what your field, there are internship opportunities. This will provide insight into non-academic career paths as well as extra money during your studies.” I could not agree with Gillian anymore about this. Internships are becoming much more widely available and acceptable to do during a PhD, which is wonderful. And they often pay more than the, you know, stipend that would be getting during that time anyway. Again, listen to that previous episode that I did with Gillian and also check out season seven, episode seven, where I interviewed a current PhD student who did a very well-paid summer internship with a tech company, and that worked out very nicely for her finances.

29:42 Emily: But really, Gillian’s point about gaining insight into non-academic career paths is the invaluable part of this. Like, yes, the money is nice, but while in graduate school, you are setting yourself up for your future career, and doing internships and other kinds of work opportunities do serve that goal just as much as your PhD studies do. And this advice is from Elyse K: “Consider finding or starting a side hustle within your university’s boundaries (many allow <20-hour per week part-time positions). Part-time income can make or break PhD students; I’ve seen some have to drop out because they need money.” Again, really solid advice. It should not be the case that graduate students need side hustles or need student loan debt to financially get them through graduate school. Yet this is the reality for a lot of people, or if not strictly necessary, sometimes side hustles can just enhance your lifestyle and make things a little bit better for you during graduate school. Whatever the reason, I think side hustling is a great idea, but of course you have to make sure that it’s not interfering with your progress towards your degree. That is primarily what you are in graduate school to do.

Financial Assistance as a Grad Student Parent

30:54 Emily: Next, I have some great comments from an anonymous contributor who is a graduate student parent. “Even if you think you do not qualify, consider applying for income assistance programs such as SNAP, Medicaid, and other DHS programs for needy families. Generally, students enrolled over half-time do not qualify for SNAP, but if you have any of these exemptions, there’s a chance you’ll qualify. Some exemptions include: Are under age 18 or are age 50 or older. Have a physical or mental disability. Work at least 20 hours a week in a paid, on-the-job training program. Work at least 20 hours a week in paid employment. Participate in a state or federally-financed work study program. Participate in an on-the-job training program. Care for a child under the age of 6. Care for a child age 6 to 11 and lack the necessary child care enabling you to attend school and work 20 hours a week or participate in work study. Are a single parent enrolled full-time in college and taking care of a child under 12.”

31:50 Emily: “With children you may also qualify for state funded childcare, children’s health insurance, and possibly even income supplementation. These are often wrapped into the same application at your state’s Department of Health and Human Services website, making it much simpler to apply for all at once. You never know until you apply, and you just might be surprised. Every dollar helps! Every so often you will need to reapply or get re-certified so you’ll be asked to update your information periodically, so always look for these very important mailings once you’re involved in any assistance programs or you could risk losing coverage for not responding in time.”

32:22 Emily: Super appreciative to anonymous for submitting these comments. This is not something I had personal experience with during graduate school, so I really appreciate, you know, the community member stepping up to speak to this situation. In season two, episode one, I published an episode with Lauri Reinhold [Lutes] who was a single parent during graduate school. And what came through in that interview was how intentional Lauri was in choosing her graduate program, choosing one that would be supportive of her needs as a graduate student parent, and then also applying for every single benefit she possibly could on behalf of herself and her daughter once in graduate school. So that’s another great interview to follow up with to learn more about this topic if you are a parent or are planning on becoming a parent.

Final Pieces of Advice

33:05 Emily: And for our last topic, we have a really quick piece of advice from Ben, which is: “Read The Simple Path to Wealth by J.L. Collins!” So this advice is on investing again and how relatively accessible it is. I read The Simple Path to Wealth myself about a year ago, really enjoyed it. J. L. Collins is a really easy person to read and understand all about index fund investing, passive investing. So, highly, highly recommend that book as well. And thank you, Ben, for that advice.

33:34 Emily: My best advice for prospective PhD students echoes some of what you just heard, and it’s to work between now and when you matriculate to save up cash for your move, startup expenses, emergency fund, et cetera. If you’re already working a well-paid full-time job or have existing cash savings, that’s awesome, and you’re on a great track. If you are currently a college student or have a not-so-well-paid job, like I did before grad school, it’s time to think about how you can increase your income over the coming months so you can save. Can you do a paid internship? Can you get a full-time temporary position with a good pay rate? Can you start a side hustle, ideally one that you can take with you to graduate school? I love flexible self-employment side hustles for graduate students, such as consulting, freelancing or teaching, but it can take time to build up a client base, so start laying that groundwork now, or at least over the summer.

34:31 Emily: We’ll expand on this topic in my next Set Yourself Up for Financial Success in Graduate School webinar for rising graduate students. We’ll also go deep on the financial decisions you’ll have to make this spring and summer that can literally make or break your finances during grad school. And I’ll give you some guidance on those. The webinar is free and you can find more information and how to sign up at PFforPhDs.com/rising. Thank you for listening through this episode, and a special thanks to those who contributed their best financial advice. Before you go, don’t forget to share this episode with a prospective PhD student, and if you want to join me for the upcoming webinars in my Set Yourself Up for Financial Success in Graduate School series, you can find more information at PFforPhDs.com/prospective/ and PFforPhDs.com/rising.

Outtro

35:28 Emily: Listeners, thank you for joining me for this episode! I have a gift for you! You know that final question I ask of all my guests regarding their best financial advice? I have collected short summaries of all the answers ever given on the podcast into a document that is updated with each new episode release. You can gain access to it by registering for my mailing list at PFforPhDs.com/advice/. Would you like to access transcripts or videos of each episode? I link the show notes for each episode from PFforPhDs.com/podcast/. If you’ve been enjoying the podcast, here are 3 ways you can help it grow: 1. Subscribe to the podcast and rate and review it on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or whatever platform you use. 2. Share an episode you found particularly valuable on social media, with an email list-serv, or as a link from your website. 3. Recommend me as a speaker to your university or association. My seminars cover the personal finance topics PhDs are most interested in, like investing, debt repayment, and increasing cash flow. I also license pre-recorded workshops on taxes. See you in the next episode, and remember: You don’t have to have a PhD to succeed with personal finance… but it helps! The music is “Stages of Awakening” by Podington Bear from the Free Music Archive and is shared under CC by NC. Podcast editing by Lourdes Bobbio and show notes creation by Meryem Ok.