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Teaching Personal Finance Illuminates the Opportunity Cost of a PhD

March 23, 2026 by Jill Hoffman Leave a Comment

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

Links mentioned in the Episode

Teaching Personal Finance Illuminates the Opportunity Cost of a PhD

Teaser

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

Introduction

Emily (00:38): Welcome to the Personal Finance for PhDs Podcast: A Higher Education in Personal Finance. This podcast is for PhDs and PhDs-to-be who want to explore the hidden curriculum of finances to learn the best practices for money management, career advancement, and advocacy for yourself and others. I’m your host, Dr. Emily Roberts, a financial educator specializing in early-career PhDs and founder of Personal Finance for PhDs.

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

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

Will You Please Introduce Yourself Further?

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

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

Teaching Personal Finance Seminars Using the Psychology of Money

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Final Project: Creating a Long-Term Financial Plan

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Opportunity Cost of Grad School

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Commercial

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

Financial Changes After Grad School

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

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

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

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

Four Common Financial Wealth Killers

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dr. Hedberg’s Experience with Sports Betting on FanDuel

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

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

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

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

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

Dr. Hedberg’s Future Financial Plans

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

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

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

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

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

Best Financial Advice for Another Early-Career PhD

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

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

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

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

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

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

Outro

Emily (48:02): Listeners, thank you for joining me for this episode! I have a gift for you! You know that final question I ask of all my guests regarding their best financial advice? My team has collected short summaries of all the answers ever given on the podcast into a document that is updated with each new episode release. You can gain access to it by registering for my mailing list at PFforPhDs.com/advice/. Would you like to access transcripts or videos of each episode? I link the show notes for each episode from PFforPhDs.com/podcast/. See you in the next episode, and remember: You don’t have to have a PhD to succeed with personal finance… but it helps! Nothing you hear on this podcast should be taken as financial, tax, or legal advice for any individual. The music is “Stages of Awakening” by Podington Bear from the Free Music Archive and is shared under CC by NC. Podcast editing by me and show notes creation by Dr. Jill Hoffman.

Tax-Advantaged Retirement Account Options in Higher Ed and K-12

February 23, 2026 by Jill Hoffman 1 Comment

In this episode, Emily interviews Dr. Daren Card, a computational biochemist working in industry. Daren and his wife moved to Arlington, TX for his PhD and then Boston, MA for his postdoc, and she held K-12 teaching positions in both cities. He shares their financial journey, from managing their student loan debt through opening and funding IRAs. Daren and Emily discuss the tax-advantaged retirement account options available, such as 403(b)s, 457s, and 401(k)s, and how to spot red flags in your employer-sponsored plans.

Links mentioned in the Episode

Tax-Advantaged Retirement Account Options in Higher Ed and K-12

Teaser

Daren (00:00): This was one of these fellowship programs that’s actually channeled through me. So I sort of administered my own award, which is a bit unique, uh, in this way. And, and there’s some upsides to that. But some of the downsides are you don’t get sort of the, the, the financial benefits of, of being attached to a large university.

Introduction

Emily (00:26): Welcome to the Personal Finance for PhDs Podcast: A Higher Education in Personal Finance. This podcast is for PhDs and PhDs-to-be who want to explore the hidden curriculum of finances to learn the best practices for money management, career advancement, and advocacy for yourself and others. I’m your host, Dr. Emily Roberts, a financial educator specializing in early-career PhDs and founder of Personal Finance for PhDs.

Emily (00:54): This is Season 23, Episode 4, and today my guest is Dr. Daren Card, a computational biochemist working in industry. Daren and his wife moved to Arlington, TX for his PhD and then Boston, MA for his postdoc, and she held K-12 teaching positions in both cities. He shares their financial journey, from managing their student loan debt through opening and funding IRAs. Daren and I discuss the tax-advantaged retirement account options available, such as 403(b)s, 457s, and 401(k)s, and how to spot red flags in your employer-sponsored plans.

Emily (01:30):The tax year 2025 version of my tax return preparation workshop, How to Complete Your PhD Trainee Tax Return (and Understand It, Too!), is now available! This pre-recorded educational workshop explains how to identify, calculate, and report your higher education-related income and expenses on your federal tax return. Whether you are a graduate student, postdoc, or postbac, domestic or international, there is a version of this workshop designed just for you. While I do sell these workshops to individuals, I prefer to license them to universities so that the graduate students, postdocs, and postbacs can access them for free. Would you please reach out to your graduate school, graduate student government, postdoc office, international house, fellowship coordinator, etc. to request that they sponsor this workshop for you and your peers? You can find more information about licensing these workshops at P F f o r P h D s dot com slash tax dash workshops. Please pass that page on to the potential sponsor. Thank you so, so much for doing so! You can find the show notes for this episode at PFforPhDs.com/s23e4/. Without further ado, here’s my interview with Dr. Daren Card.

Will You Please Introduce Yourself Further?

Emily (03:06): I am delighted to have joining me on the podcast today, Dr. Daren Card, who currently works in industry at Colossal Biosciences as a computational biologist. But we are gonna be taking it back to his grad school days and his postdoc days to talk about his financial journey. And Daren, because this story involves both you and your wife and your kind of joint projects and finances, please introduce yourself and your wife and we’ll get started.

Daren (03:30): Yeah, so, so my name’s Daren as, as you’ve heard, uh, my, my wife’s name is Rachel. Yeah, we’ve, uh, we’re both originally from sort of rural western New York, uh, south of the Buffalo, New York area. And we actually met in high school at the very end of high school. We both shared a, a high school job at Burger King, ironically, a fast food job. And, um, yeah, got to know each other there. Started dating at the very end of high school, and we’ve been together ever since as, as partners in life. So we’re approaching now, uh, 10 years of marriage, uh, next year and 20 years of being together. So it’s been quite a ride. Um, we both sort of navigated through the community college system and the SUNY system in the, in the state University of New York. Um, both were interested in biology, generally speaking. My wife wanted to pursue more veterinary science. I became interested in conservation. Ultimately, uh, I got more interested in the research bug, like a lot of folks do. Um, and that brought us both down to Arlington, Texas, where I did a PhD at that point in time, uh, focused on evolutionary genomics, uh, sort of trying to link the, uh, the, the genes that we have in our, our cells to the actual physical traits that we see, uh, in organisms in, in nature. Um, Rachel worked for a few years in a veterinary field. Um, we ended up getting married in, in 2016, about 10 years ago now, and a week later, actually, Rachel got a new job as a, as a high school teacher, and she’s been doing that since, and she really enjoys that work. So I finished my PhD in 2018 and was fortunate enough to get a, a fellowship from the National Science Foundation, so shout out to NSF and the US government for funding folks like me and the work that we do. Um, and that brought me up to Boston area where I did a five year postdoc at Harvard University. And, uh, that ended about two years ago. And since then, I, I worked a couple years at the Broad Institute as a computational biologist, mostly focused on cancer genomics. And recently, just this summer I moved over, uh, to a computational biologist position at Colossal Biosciences, which is a bit more in my traditional area. So.

Emily (05:20): Wonderful. Thank you. Such, that was a very succinct overview. Let’s rewind a little bit through that process, because I wanna know what your finances, um, and I don’t know at what point you considered those are finances, yours, mine, whatever your situation was. Um, with your now wife, going back to the start of graduate school, what were your finances like? Like did you have assets? Did you have debts at that point? Maybe student loan debt. Um, did you know anything about money <laugh>? Um, and then what was the stipend like when you started grad school?

Daren (05:46): For, for me, you know, both my wife and I came out of, I guess sort of lower to middle class, uh, sort of backgrounds. We were in more of a rural area, so, you know, just didn’t quite have some of the access that you get in sort of urban areas to a lot of, of the, the benefits of, of sort of population density, I guess you could say. So, um, so because of that, you know, we, we both came out of bachelor’s degrees, uh, in that time period with, with basically zero assets, right? And we had to fund our way through, uh, through our undergraduate degrees using debt, unfortunately from, from, uh, student loan debt in the form of government debt, or in some cases private debt as well. So, so yeah, the, the, uh, the, the numerator of the equation here, I guess is zero in the form of assets.

Daren (06:24): Uh, the, the debt that we had, I had in the order of about 60 or so from memory, uh, k worth of debt from my undergrad, uh, education at a state, uh, university. Um, my wife had a bit more, she was about 75K or so, I think. Um, and yeah, as far as sort of knowledge and and mindset at that point in time, you know, minimal knowledge, I guess, you know, we’re both entering adulthood. We, we did share our, our, our finances largely by that point when we moved on to Texas together. Um, which, uh, had a lot of benefits, I would say. Um, and, uh, and yeah, but I’ve just always been sort of a nerd about various things I like to learn. And, and, and for whatever reason, I got the personal finance bug, uh, a couple years into graduate school, you know, um, and, uh, and yeah, just spent a lot of time perusing the internet, basically teaching myself about all this stuff.

Daren (07:10): You know, it’s all out there in some form, right? It’s tax code, um, uh, it’s not the most easiest thing to read, but usually people distill it down for you. And, and I took advantage of that in that time. So, uh, as a grad student, my stipend over my, uh, six years at UT Arlington was on the order of 30K A year, I would say. I was, uh, I was funded at, on a, a teaching assistant line, so I, I taught the whole time, including on the summers. Um, and my spouse, uh, was fortunate to have a bit more income. She sort of hovered around 50 to 60K through that time period. Um, and overall, and I, I do want to point this out, you know, I should have said it before, but I, I, I do think it’s really important to emphasize this. This is a partnership with my wife. Um, she takes as much credit for these successes as I do. I might be the one standing here talking with a PhD. Uh, she’s not an academic. She’s, she, uh, doesn’t have a PhD, but, uh, but I’ve been very fortunate in that this way, and I think it’s important to point that out. And not take too much credit here because my wife had a big role in this. And, and I think it’s also an important caveat too, um, because, uh, some things are just, you know, simply easier when you have two forms of income and you can split costs. And, and not all PhD students are gonna be able to have that advantage like I had over that time period. So, uh, that was a bit unique to me, I guess.

Turning Personal Finance Knowledge into Action

Emily (08:23): Yeah, very important context for us to have. Thank you for like, explaining that and caveating that. And, uh, yes. Wonderful. So you’ve mentioned that you, you know, kind of <laugh> developed this interest in personal finance, decided to kind of nerd out, learn about it in, you know, that time period when you were in graduate school. And so did you actually start applying that knowledge, um, like what were you doing with your finances during that period of time in graduate school and then also with your postdoc?

Daren (08:49): Yeah, yeah. So we, we, yeah, we did I think, start applying that pretty quickly. My wife has, has always been a, a saver <laugh>, you know, I, I guess I am too by, by nature for whatever reason. Uh, you know, I think we’ve had relatives that sort of knocked into our head early on, you know, given their limited means in many cases that, you know, you gotta think long term and, and, and not wait. Um, so we started pretty early, you know, by our mid, mid twenties I guess I would say. We were starting to contribute to, uh, IRAs. Um, I, um, is, is, is a great way of starting, uh, in this world. Um, you know, it’s flexible. Uh, it doesn’t have the highest contribution limits, but for our income at the time, it was perfectly sufficient, right? So, uh, you’re able to just to open that account yourself, right online, uh, at a, at a many different options out there to, to use that.

Daren (09:33): Um, I think at the time I used, uh, Betterment, uh, just for a, a, a bit of a reference. And my, my wife had started up a Vanguard account, uh, at that time. So, so that’s what we did the first few years during, uh, my, my PhD, um, when my wife switched over to a teaching job, she was able to access a, the state pension system, um, being a K 12 teacher. So she was, uh, starting to contribute in that way as well, on top of the IRAs. Um, and, and that’s basically the status quo up through, uh, 2018 or so when I left my PhD and, and, and wrapped that up. Um, when we moved to Massachusetts, you know, my wife obviously continued with the pension system, being a K 12 teacher. Uh, she’s also able to take advantage of what is called a 457 plan, which we can talk a bit more about here if you’d like, um, at one of her former school districts, uh, that she taught at before.

Daren (10:19): And, uh, and then, um, basically, uh, in my peer in my position as a postdoc, I was, I was funded by and an NSF Fellowship, so I think we made some contributions still to IRAs, but I didn’t really have access to like a 401k or a 403B. This was one of these fellowship programs that’s actually channeled through me. So I sort of administered my own award, which is a bit unique, uh, in this way. And, and there’s some upsides to that, but some of the downsides are, you don’t get sort of the, the, the financial benefits of, of being attached to a large university. Um, so, so yeah, I had to sort of sacrifice that for a few years, which was a, a little tough, I guess, but it wasn’t the end of the world. And, uh, and my last year I actually moved on to a more of a proper internal position and was able to contribute to a 401k for the last year, my postdoc. And then since, uh, in my positions, I’ve been contributing to a 401k, uh, as well. So, so yeah, that’s basically the journey through grad school to- till about now really.

Tax-Advantaged Retirement Account Options

Emily (11:13): Let’s dive into the tax advantage retirement accounts. ’cause I know you and I both really excited to talk about those. So, um, you’ve kind of mentioned already some of the different accounts you and your wife have had access to over the years. Um, just tell us more about what you learned about those accounts over time, what you think is important for the audience to understand.

Daren (11:31): Yeah, yeah. You know, I think the, the one big tip is, you know, don’t overthink it. Just, just pick one and, and go with it. <laugh>. That would be my sort of big tip here. Um, but yeah, we can spend a second sort of talking about some of the, the differences between these different accounts. So, so there’s a, uh, an IRA, so an individual retirement account, I believe is the acronym, right? Um, uh, so this is sort of the, the, the, I guess the beginner, uh, account, I think for most people. So it’s, anyone is eligible for it. Um, generally speaking, um, it’s flexible. You can open it up yourself. It doesn’t have to come through an employer. Um, the contribution limits are lower, that’s one of the downsides. I think they’re on the order of 7,000 now or so,

Emily (12:07): 7,000 in 2025. It’s gonna go up in 2026. Yeah, 7500, I think.

Daren (12:12): Yep. So, so that’s, uh, the, the, the option that we took advantage of in the beginning, you know, that was perfectly sufficient for our, our, our, uh, our situation. And honestly, it’d probably be perfectly sufficient for most grad students. I would, I suspect out there, uh, in, in the US at least. So, um, you know, when we moved beyond grad school, we started to think more and more about other things, and mostly that was because we actually became eligible for other sorts of retirement accounts. I didn’t have access to that sort of a thing as a graduate student, given my appointment at the university, uh, my wife, uh, became eligible for a, a pension system, but, um, but not really a, a 401k, right? Um, um, but yeah, when we sort of moved into graduate school and moved up here to Massachusetts, then we started to think about things like, uh, the, the very famous 401k, right, which comes typically from, uh, normal employment out in at businesses and things like that.

Daren (12:58): And then you have a very similar plan called a 403B, which is usually reserved for nonprofit sectors. Um, so universities typically have this type of, of plan. So these are sort of your quintessential retirement plans. They come through the employer. Occasionally you’ll get an employee, employee match, uh, not, not usually at a, at a a a college. I’m, I suspect, or at least for grad students and, and postdocs, maybe for faculty. Um, uh, but out in the sort of private industry and things like that, you can get nice employer matches that, uh, will sort of help to top up your contributions a bit. Um, so we’ve been taking advantage of that a lot since, uh, coming into sort of the postdoc and beyond phase of, of our, uh, of our lives. Um, and, uh, those contribution limits, I think on the order of about 24,000 right now, so much more substantial.

Daren (13:39): And then with the, with the additional contributions from an employer, you know, that’s sort of a hundred percent return right away, which can be pretty nice on at least a subset of your contributions. Um, so definitely take advantage of that for sure. And then, uh, a last account, I’ll, I’ll talk about, I mentioned it earlier, is a, uh, is a 457, uh, plan. Uh, this is another, these are all IRS tax codes. Uh, basically is, is people probably know. And, uh, honestly, I think this is maybe the best of the, the group in my opinion. There’s, uh, it’s basically the same as a 401k or 4013B as far as contribution limits and the way it’s administered and things like that. Uh, but one nice thing about it is, uh, and again, I should say it’s, it’s really reserved much more for I think, state level or local level, um, uh, government sorts of positions and, and things like that. So it’s a bit more restricted. You’re not gonna see this at a, at a company or something like that. Um,

Emily (14:28): Nonprofits can also have them sometimes. Um, but I do see it more often with like state university systems or something like that,

Daren (14:36): Right. Or local municipalities and things like that. Yeah. So, uh, but yeah, the, the real nice advantage of this is when you leave employment, there’s some, you know, I don’t remember the exact details now, it’s been a while since I’ve looked at it, but there’s some nice, um, there’s some sort of nice liquidation options. You know, usually with these accounts, you’re sort of locked out of them for, for good reason, don’t touch ’em. That’s the idea, right? Um, and, uh, so yeah, when you do have to touch them, like if you have an emergency or something, you take, you take a penalty, um, and you, you do typically with a 457 as well. But one of the sort of, uh, caveats of the way that they wrote the tax code here is that when you leave the service that provides that 457, uh, it is eligible, you know, all these things are eligible to get rolled over, but the 457 is a bit unique in that you can actually liquidate that money, you know, you have to follow certain procedures and, uh, and sort of tap into it in a way that you can’t with these other traditional, um, retirement plans.

Daren (15:28): So, uh, so that’s a nice one. We’ve took, taken advantage of that on top of my wife’s pension here in Massachusetts. Her previous district had, uh, access to a a 457 plan through the state of Massachusetts that’s administered at the state level to keep the cost low. It’s called a smart plan here. Um, and, uh, yeah, we’ve been able to take advantage of that a little bit as well.

Emily (15:47): So I’ve heard about the 457, I mean, in my work, it’s like, okay, you know, 457, 403B kind of similar sort of arrangements, but in the FIRE community, the financial independence retire early community, it’s kind of held up as this, like, hey, you can, if you separate from service, as you said, you can access this money earlier in ways that you don’t have to pull the tricks that you need to do with your IRAs and the 401k and all those other types of accounts. So it’s kind of held out in that community in particular as a really great plan to use, if that is your goal of stopping work before age 59 and a half, and, you know, trying to access some money earlier. So, um, I did a previous interview interview with Dr. Corwin Olson that people might wanna reference, um, talking about early retirement in the FIRE community, uh, for PhDs and people who work, again, in, in sectors where these kind of, um, accounts are permitted and offered. So that might be something for listeners to check out, um, as well. But it sounds like you, if you’ve tapped that 457 have not done so for funding your lifestyle in retirement, but maybe for other investment opportunities. Is that right?

Daren (16:51): Yeah, you know, and I, I sort of, you know, definitely in grad school and, and stuff, you know, who knows where life will take me, right? But, but I wouldn’t mind retiring early <laugh>, you know, I sort of look at, uh, personal freedom and the ability to sort of control your time is, is one of the ultimate forms of freedom that you can have in, in, in this world, and subscribe to the idea that that that is something to strive for. And, and, and that has been part of our, our, my, my collective goal with my wife is to, to somehow facilitate, you know, early retirement and it’ll be an open question, you know, how early it can be for us, uh, or if we’re even successful. But, um, but yeah, the 457 at least allows the opportunity to be able to draw down that money before you hit the age.

Daren (17:29): The age is where you’re typically eligible to do so under more traditional plans without a penalty. So, so yeah, if you do wanna retire early, that’s where the 457 can really shine. Otherwise, you know, if you’re gonna start, if you’re gonna retire at a traditional sort of 62 or, or 59 and a half, I guess technically is the earliest you can do, um, you know, it, it really doesn’t make much of a difference which of these you sort of go with. Um, so, so yeah, we’re in the weeds here a little bit, but, but these are I think, some useful, uh, tidbits of information that might be helpful to folks.

Emily (17:57): Yeah, I think I wanna go back to how you started this section, which is like, the main thing is just pick one plan <laugh>, and then like stick with it. So like, it always depends on what’s offered to you. So if nothing’s offered to you because you’re a graduate student, then you’re gonna go with an ira, probably a Roth IRA given your income at the time. Um, if you work in the private sector, okay, it’s probably gonna be a 401k if you work in, you know, universities or other types of nonprofits, government, yeah. Maybe then we’re talking about the 403B, maybe with the 457 as well, and then you have a bit of a choice, which one do I wanna prioritize? Or if you’re really mad about personal finance, you might do both.

Daren (18:29): That is a good advantage of the two. You can do both, uh, the 403B and the 457.

Emily (18:33): Yes. That, that is like, yeah. And most people who have these types of jobs don’t earn enough money to be able to do both. But if you’re a PhD and you’re well compensated and you have to be, happen to be in an industry that does offer both of these things, maybe you’re that unicorn where you actually could, you know, contribute to both. But the point is like, what is being offered to you, it’s probably not gonna be this whole suite of options unless like you two, you have a married couple who works in different industries with different types of opportunities and also maybe shifts over time. Um, what’s available to you? I’ll throw in as well self-employed person. I have a solo 401k, so like throw those options and advantages in there as well. If you have any kind of self-employment side hustle, you can open a solo 401k. So anyway, just to complicate things further, basically yeah, there’s even more. It’s out there. Yeah, it’s like an IRA like you said, is almost always available. There are technically some eligibility things about your income, but most graduate students and postdocs will qualify. Yeah, so there’s the IRA and then it kind of depends on your work after that,

Daren (19:30): Basically. Yeah, that’s a good take home. I think there, and, and yeah, there’s even more out there as, as you’re sort of alluding to, and, and there’s even more, you know, the, I think the other side of this, uh, the coin here that this sort of comes into this conversation that I think is maybe worth, uh, talking about as well is, you know, this is just a sort of the, the tax code, the vehicle in which you’re sort of investing, but, um, but there’s also what you’re investing your money in. And that can be just as important as the, the tax advantages and things like that is, well, you know, am I investing in something that’s gonna see a good return? Uh, am I ensuring that that return isn’t being eaten up by needless fees and, and things of that nature? And, uh, and honestly, I, I would say the, the 401k, 403B, that, that’s a bit easier to understand. It’s, it’s the, that aspect of things, the, you know, what you wanna put your money into, what things you might want to avoid. You know, when the salesman sort of comes calling and says, we have the best plan for you. Um, I think that’s where people get into more trouble, um, and where it takes a lot more effort to, to sort of understand what’s in front of you and, and what might be best for your, your personal situation.

Commercial

Emily (20:32): Emily here for a brief interlude! Tax season is in full swing, and the best place to go for information tailored to you as a grad student, postdoc, or postbac, is PFforPhDs.com/tax/. From that page I have linked to all of my free tax resources, many of which I have updated for this tax year. On that page you will find podcast episodes, videos, and articles on all kinds of tax topics relevant to PhDs and PhDs-to-be. There are also opportunities to join the Personal Finance for PhDs mailing list to receive PDF summaries and spreadsheets that you can work with. Again, you can find all of these free resources linked from PFforPhDs.com/tax/. Now back to the interview.

Fees Associated With 403(b) and 457 Accounts

Emily (21:23): Well, going off of that, uh, comment about a salesperson, um, I wanna say that listeners might be aware, and you’re prob- most likely aware, um, that 403Bs and 457s have a bad reputation of being fee laden, uh, very expensive types of, um, vehicles in which to put your investments. And also the investments that you might be steered toward by people helping you with this might not be actually optimal for the decades of investing that are ahead of you. I think this reputation more comes from K through 12, those kinds of educators versus the higher ed, um, group that I’m normally talking to. But since your wife is in that former category, let’s talk about this a little bit more. And also, there’s sexism in this because women are, you know, dominating the K through 12 educational space, whereas men are dominating the higher education space. This is one of the ways that sexism ends up influencing our investments and our finances overall. But that’s me getting on a soapbox. Let’s let you get on your soapbox <laugh>.

Daren (22:21): Sure, yeah, yeah, please. This is, this is great. Um, yeah, you know, as you say this, this pertains more to the K 12 level. You know, some of this maybe propagates up to, to post-secondary levels and, and it’s something to be aware of, certainly. Um, but, but yeah, at the K 12 level, you know, again, we have 403Bs, 457, so on and so forth. Uh, but as I said before, beyond that, you’ve gotta pick, you know, what you wanna invest your money in, and there’s lots of things out there that you can invest your money in. Um, what I tend to personally invest my money in is, is, is what they call, uh, uh, low cost index funds. So these are, uh, basically funds that are indexed to the, the overall stock market, so like the s and p 500, right? So they basically try to, uh, select a mixture of investments that are out there that match the performance of what the overall market is doing with the idea that it’s diversified.

Daren (23:07): And it’s, and, and it might not give you the best return every year, but it’s at least gonna give you, uh, a reasonable return and, and be somewhat protected against, uh, big downsides or big down swings, uh, that you can have, uh, in, in certain situations. So, so yeah, that, that’s, that’s what I tend to invest my money in is, is sort of a low cost index fund. Um, and, uh, the big reason for that is, is the, the low cost. You know, so there’s the money coming in from the stock market, right? So you can go out and you can look at what that is. You know, the people keep track of that all the time, right? Uh, the downside is, you know, the, in some cases that folks aren’t maybe as clear as they can be about, um, the, the cost associated with these sorts of things.

Daren (23:46): Um, so with a low cost index fund, you know, this is something offered by like a company like Vanguard. They sort of pioneered this kind of thing. The idea is, you know, we keep the, the fees as low as possible, you know, it, it’s sort of a bit automatic. It’s, it’s sort of easy to manage because it is an index fund and therefore we can offer it with very low fees. Um, and therefore your most of your money is going into your pocket, and it’s not coming into the pocket of, of, say, Vanguard or whoever is administering these funds. Obviously, there’s some cost, right? These things aren’t free, but it’s, it is actually very, very low cost. Uh, typically speaking, uh, on the other side of the coin, unfortunately, are, are what I would say are sort of predatory practices, especially at the K 12 level, given the, the sort of abundance of K 12 educators that are out there, uh, uh, the, you know, across diverse communities and so on and so forth.

Daren (24:33): Unfortunately, you know, there’s, there’s folks that, that, that sort of, I would say, sort of prey upon this <laugh> in some way. You know, they, they’ll, uh, you know, they’ll, they’ll maybe put out something sort of similar to an index fund as far as its performance, but they’ll, uh, they’ll sort of riddle it with, with high fees. Um, and you may not think much about, you know, a 1% fee, no big deal, right? Um, but, but in the long run, it really adds up. Um, you gotta think about compound interest in, in it can help you, but it can also hurt you when it’s working against you, right? So, uh, you know, you can go out and do, look at some calculators online that will sort of show you over a 20, 30, 40 year time period, even a 1% fee. You know, if you were to knock that down to a, you know, by to a 10th of that, you know, a 0.1% fee, which is more akin to what you would pay, uh, at a low con-, low cost index fund, um, you know that the extra money that you would accrue over that time period is, is substantial. It’s, it, it almost knocks you over when you look at it.

Emily (25:26): It’s hundreds of thousands of dollars, typically.

Daren (25:29): So, so yeah, you know, it really is unfortunate. You know, my, my wife, uh, is in a district now. They actually, the district in which we, we reside, um, where they do have a pension system, and that’s what most teachers contribute to. And, and, uh, and then it, it just doesn’t feel like folks have really thought much more about everything else. Um, but, but there are certainly gonna be people that want to contribute to additional savings accounts. And at least at my, my, my wife’s school district, uh, uh, you know, all the plans that we’ve seen are either quite opaque. You have to sort of call people and, and get them on the phone and, and try to get the details. You know, there’s not like a nice sort of prospectus laid out of, of what you can invest in and, and what the costs are and all this sort of stuff, which alone is sort of annoying when, when folks are busy and have lives to live, right?

Daren (26:09): Um, but then on top of that, you know, when you sort of do dig in, you find that a lot of them are, uh, uh, these varieties that do have high costs associated with ’em that really can detract from the, from the, uh, the, the, the whole opportunity, I would say. So, uh, so yeah, it’s, it’s just unfortunate, at least in the case of my wife’s district that the, that the folks haven’t put more thought into that, I would say. Um, and the other sort of downside here is, is across Massachusetts, most folks have access to the state level 457 plan called the smart Plan locally. Uh, but for whatever reason, my wife’s district currently, uh, hasn’t adopted that plan. Um, which is a, a major downside, I would say as, as well. Um, and I, and I get this at some ex- to some extent, you know, most teachers will contribute only to a pension plan, never think about anything else, but not all teachers.

Daren (26:53): Um, you know, and, uh, and it really is a, it’s a missed opportunity, I would say, and it points out some, some, I I would say big problems in how sort of K 12 administrators and school districts in general, which are usually tied to local municipalities. Um, you know, even in cases with very strong sort of local union support, which is definitely the case up here in Massachusetts. Um, you know, uh, you know, still allow these things to happen. Um, you know, and, and especially in this day and age where we’re sort of facing these major teaching shortages, um, really this could be such a simple way, in a cheap way for a local school district to, to improve compensation for teachers in a way that that makes a difference, um, and, and, and not really add to their bottom line in a major way.

Daren (27:34): Um, so I would consider it really a very big missed opportunity in, in, and quite a shame. Um, and hopefully, you know, by, by pointing these things out, uh, and advocating for ourselves collectively, uh, we can improve these situations. But, but there’s definitely an uphill climb, um, in this way. And again, this mostly pertains to K 12. Some of this might trickle up to, to the post-secondary level. But, you know, I think the take home at the end of the day is, is, um, you, you really can’t rely on anyone else. Uh, you know, not to say you can’t trust people ’cause you can, but you really gotta do your homework. Um, uh, you know, you gotta make sure that the advice you’re getting is correct. You gotta make sure that it’s actually in your best interest and it’s not just a generic form of advice.

Researching Retirement Account Options Before Investing

Daren (28:13): And, uh, and that’s where sort of being a researcher I think can really be an advantage, right? So, you know, this is tailored towards PhDs and PhDs are professional researchers, so, uh, I guarantee you, if, if you can get a PhD, you can, you can learn the, the basics of this stuff and, and, and, and really help yourself out, I think in, in the long run. So, and it’s becoming better and better. I, I think, uh, there are advocacy, advocacy efforts sort of starting up in this way. A couple I can sort of point to is one’s called 403Bwise.org. Again, this is mostly k12, but they’ve sort of taken up this cause and have a, a podcast as well as a lot of information online and as well as school district, uh, report cards, uh, a lot of which are Fs and and Ds nationwide, unfortunately, uh, because of the, the, the, the, uh, the plans that are offered at most school districts.

Daren (28:59): Um, and another place that, uh, that is probably more useful, I think beyond the K 12 system is the state of California has a nice database of a lot of the, the, the, the, basically the retirement options that are available to K 12 educators in that state. And, uh, a lot of these generalize across other sectors and, and other non-profit, at least situations too. So if you’re looking for a, a, I would say maybe the best place to compare these sorts of plans, uh, in a, in a relatively unbiased manner, it’s not perfect. Um, I would say it’s the, the state of California, I can’t recall the name of the database right now, but, uh, but maybe go look that up. Um, and, uh, maybe you could put it in show notes or something like that. Um, that would maybe be the place I would suggest where folks, uh, can get more of a one-to-one comparison between these funds and really maybe get at the true details that sometimes can be hidden from you when you actually, uh, uh, go and talk to, uh, the folks at the banks and the financial institutes that offer these sorts of things.

Emily (29:52): Yeah, thank you for mentioning those resources. And kind of like you were saying in that like it’s really, um, important to investigate what’s available to you, get into the details, and then talk with your peers, right? Because whether it’s part of union or whether it’s just just talking to your colleagues, um, it’s very helpful to just get that information out there and things do and can change over time. If enough people ask, why is it that we’re not offering a 457 like every other district in the state or whatever, whatever the case is, then maybe that will eventually change. I wanna give you a small example and a big example of similar, uh, themes that I’ve run across. Um, the small example is I was actually, I had a, a series of speaking engagements recently for a university client. And so I was looking into their retirement account options for their postdocs, and I noticed that they, uh, you know, they had a 403B and a 457, uh, great.

Emily (30:39): And they had three providers, two you’ve heard of and one you maybe haven’t before. And they had a really nice table. Like you said, sometimes this information is hard to come across, but they had a really nice table laying out all of your investment options. There weren’t that many, there were maybe 10 or 12 across these three different providers and what the expense ratios are. And so I’m looking at this table going, good, good, good. We got some Vanguard funds, we got some Fidelity funds, everything’s low cost. Awesome, awesome, awesome. Oh, they’re really clearly delineating. What are the passive funds and what are the active funds? This is a very easy chart, at least for me to read since I have some familiarity. But then I looked right up at the top and saw there was a record keeping fee for each one of these different providers, which is just another add-on to the expense ratio.

Emily (31:19): And that the two you’ve heard of had very, very low record keeping fees and the one you hadn’t heard of, even though it offered the same investments as the other two, had a much higher, probably three to four times higher, uh, record keeping fee. And so I was looking at that like, oh, that one little number on this chart changed everything in terms of what I would choose if I were an employee at that institution. And I can’t give anybody financial advice, but when I ended up talking with the postdocs, I said, look at these numbers. Bigger numbers are not to your advantage, <laugh>, what should you conclude if you see these three numbers, two of which are much lower than the other. So again, just a call for like looking into the documents and having an awareness of how important fees are and really that they don’t buy you an advantage.

Emily (31:59): That’s kind of how we think that that money works. You’re gonna buy something that’s more expensive and it’s gonna be better, not the case. So it turns out in investing, um, statistically speaking, okay, so that’s a small example. The bigger example is, um, from my husband’s um, uh, biotech company that he’s worked for since he finished his postdoc, um, which has a startup. And so it’s gone through some growth over the years. Um, and they used to offer a 401k plan, um, through I’ll name and shame Edward Jones with American Funds. That was very high expense ratios. And we looked at that and we’re like, okay, we’re gonna use every other vehicle we have before we get around to this 401k, because there was not a match offered. So there’s really no advantage of using it unless we needed the contribution room, which eventually we did.

Emily (32:45): So eventually we started making some small contributions that as we were maxing out everything else available to us. Um, but over the years, again, the company grew and eventually their benefits changed, and now they have a fantastic 401k provider who has low costs and low fee options. And it’s just such a relief now that we’re using it more, we’re like, oh, this is great. Like, it’s actually not <laugh>, it’s actually to our advantage to use this 401k instead of trying to have to avoid it. Um, so things do change over time, but that, but my point is it happens in the private sector as well. You still have to be careful about, um, those expense ratios about who the providers are, about the investments that you choose. Do they offer those low cost, um, index funds or is it all actively managed stuff? So it’s not hard, you know, spend a couple of hours reading about this, read The Simple Path to Wealth, you will get it, you’re a PhD, you’re can be very capable in this area. And really, as we were saying earlier, this is worth hundreds of thousands of dollars to you over your investing lifetime. So it is worth a little bit of time upfront.

Daren (33:41): Yep. Yeah, don’t be afraid to ask questions.

Achieving a Positive Net Worth

Emily (33:43): Is there anything else that you would like to share about your financial journey, the investment component of your journey, maybe at, you know, coming outta your postdoc or any other stage you’d like to share with us?

Daren (33:54): Yeah, maybe I’ll, I’ll conclude with, um, with a bit of an update on sort of where I am now. You know, like I said before, I’m a couple years out of a, of, out of a postdoc and, and yeah, we, we definitely have picked up momentum, uh, over the course of the postdoc and especially these last couple years moving into sort of my, my big boy job, so, so to speak, right. Um, and, uh, and, and yeah, so I, I’m happy to report and it, it’s a big source of pride, I think for me and my wife that we, we did do a little bit of math recently, you know, looking at, you know, our, our, our, our student loans, which haven’t really moved much, but, but that’ll change soon. Um, and, uh, as well as, you know, the, the money that we have accrued across these various sort of investment vehicles as well as sort of personal savings and, and, and, and other things that we haven’t even gotten into today.

Daren (34:35): And, uh, and I can say that we, we have a positive net worth, which I think is an a major accomplishment. We have, you know, in, in the, you know, having collectively over a hundred thousand dollars worth of student loan debt. So, um, so yeah, you know, you know, I’m now sort of approaching 40 <laugh> to age myself. Um, so I’m not super old, but, uh, I’m not as young anymore. But, you know, like we started, I guess around 25, so we’re, we’re, I’m going on 13, 14 years now. Um, so, so it’s, it’s time. It’s not no time, but it’s not a lot of time either. Um, you know, and, and like I said, we, we came in with basically no savings in the beginning.

Best Financial Advice for Another Early-Career PhD

Daren (35:10): So, you know, I, I think, uh, the, the biggest advice I can give to people is, is just, just start now. Start start as early as you can. Um, the, the big thing there is just the compound interest. It’s, it’s your your best friend here. Um, you know, look for those low fee things so that, uh, there, there aren’t fees compounding on top of your compounding interest <laugh>. Um, and, uh, and yeah, the other big thing like we’ve been saying right along is, is is do your research, you know, tap into your professional skills as a PhD and, uh, and, uh, you know, I think in doing so, you can set yourself up for a, a more comfortable retirement and perhaps a bit less stress along the way. And, uh, and I think, you know, due to Emily and other folks that are out there, there, there are an increasing number of, uh, sort of resources and information that’s available. You know, when I started sort of nerding out on this 12 years ago, it was fewer and further between, but, but you know, there is a bit more of a cottage industry now of folks trying to advise folks on the best way in which to think about these things, or at least provide all the options so that people can make more informed decisions.

Daren (36:08): So on top of this, I think, uh, another good source I’ve seen that I haven’t shouted out already is, uh, I think there’s like white coat investing or something. There’s a, a [white coat investor], MDs basically, which is a pretty good proxy for PhDs in many respects and have a lot of the same, uh, you know, career stages and, and, and affiliations and things like that. So if I could fi, if I could point you to anything that’s sort of most relevant besides Emily’s things tailored to PhDs, it might be sort of the white coat investment, uh, side of things. Um, they do a pretty good job, outlining a lot of this stuff.

Emily (36:36): Yeah, I agree. They’re a great resource, especially the more your profile looks like that of their typical audience member, which is like you having student loan debt, having significant student loan debt, and then also having a good salary, which I’m sure you do now on the other side of the educational journey. Um, the more you look like that profile, the more that community is gonna benefit you. And of course, if you get really into investing, then they’re gonna benefit you as well. ’cause they talk a lot about that. Um, amazing. I love that advice. Um, thank you so much for, um, sharing that with us and for sharing your story and your insights. And I just echo like everything you said about yeah, doing your research and starting early, of course, it’s difficult during your PhD to get compound interest working on your side, but we are in PhD training for a long time. I mean, you had six years in your PhD, five years in a postdoc had you not gotten started, you know, with the investing side of things. Like not a late start exactly, but it would’ve been later <laugh>, right? And that time is really on your side. So thank you so much for sharing this with us today.

Daren (37:34): Well, well thank you Yeah. For providing a forum to, to sort of share my story. Uh, it’s, it’s been a, a wild ride in some respects, but it’s been enjoyable. I’ve, I’ve learned a lot and it’s great to sort of be able to impart that onto other folks, um, you know, to help them avoid maybe some pitfalls that are certainly out there and, and to, to hopefully, you know, to, to, to help them to maximize their personal finances. Uh, both now and, and well into the future.

Outro

Emily (38:08): Listeners, thank you for joining me for this episode! I have a gift for you! You know that final question I ask of all my guests regarding their best financial advice? My team has collected short summaries of all the answers ever given on the podcast into a document that is updated with each new episode release. You can gain access to it by registering for my mailing list at PFforPhDs.com/advice/. Would you like to access transcripts or videos of each episode? I link the show notes for each episode from PFforPhDs.com/podcast/. See you in the next episode, and remember: You don’t have to have a PhD to succeed with personal finance… but it helps! Nothing you hear on this podcast should be taken as financial, tax, or legal advice for any individual. The music is “Stages of Awakening” by Podington Bear from the Free Music Archive and is shared under CC by NC. Podcast editing by me and show notes creation by Dr. Jill Hoffman.

Campus Resources to Improve Your Finances

July 28, 2025 by Jill Hoffman Leave a Comment

In this episode, Emily shares the microinterviews she recorded at three conferences this year. The conference attendees, all of whom either work at universities or have PhDs themselves, responded to this prompt: “What resource on your campus could graduate students and postdocs access to benefit their finances?” You’ll hear the responses in order from the attendees of the National Postdoctoral Association Annual Conference, the Graduate Career Consortium Annual Meeting, and the Higher Education Financial Wellness Summit. You should be able to detect the transitions among the conferences as there are strong themes within each set. As a bonus, listen for a two-time contributor! While these are all real examples from individual universities, you can search for, inquire about, or request similar resources on your campus.

Links mentioned in the Episode

Campus Resources to Improve Your Finances

Teaser

Tharangi F (00:00): Our Gamecock Community Shop, which is our basic needs school supply closet. It does food meals, it does clothing, um, basic needs of any type, like hygiene, and I think that really does help our graduate student population and they’re actively using it.

Introduction

Emily (00:24): Welcome to the Personal Finance for PhDs Podcast: A Higher Education in Personal Finance. This podcast is for PhDs and PhDs-to-be who want to explore the hidden curriculum of finances to learn the best practices for money management, career advancement, and advocacy for yourself and others. I’m your host, Dr. Emily Roberts, a financial educator specializing in early-career PhDs and founder of Personal Finance for PhDs.

Emily (00:53): This is Season 21, Episode 5, and today I’m sharing the microinterviews I recorded at three conferences this year. The conference attendees, all of whom either work at universities or have PhDs themselves, responded to this prompt: “What resource on your campus could graduate students and postdocs access to benefit their finances?” You’ll hear the responses in order from the attendees of the National Postdoctoral Association Annual Conference, the Graduate Career Consortium Annual Meeting, and the Higher Education Financial Wellness Summit. I think you’ll be able to detect the transitions among the conferences as there are strong themes within each set. As a bonus, listen for a two-time contributor! While these are all real examples from individual universities, you can search for, inquire about, or request similar resources on your campus.

Emily (01:52): At the start of every academic year, fellowship recipients need to know that if they are not having income tax withheld from their paychecks, they should start self-withholding and possibly make a payment by September 15th. Otherwise, they are in for a nasty surprise when they file their tax returns next spring. If your university is not providing adequate messaging and resources regarding estimated tax, would you please recommend me as a workshop facilitator? I offer both live and asynchronous versions of a workshop that guides US citizens and residents in filling out the Estimated Tax Worksheet in IRS Form 1040-ES and managing their money to seamlessly meet their tax obligations. These workshops are typically considered professional development or personal wellness. I would very much appreciate you cc’ing me when you recommend me so I can follow up with additional information for the potential host. Thank you very much! You can find the show notes for this episode at PFforPhDs.com/s21e5/. Without further ado, here’s my compilation episode on financially beneficial resources for graduate students and postdocs.

Harvard Medical School: Credit Union, Financial Advising, & EAP

Jim G (03:22): I am Jim Gould, director for Postdoc Affairs at Harvard Medical School, and a resource our postdocs could use to help with their finances are, are a couple that we have a, a credit union at Harvard that they could use for banking and, and credit cards and savings, as well as, uh, a retirement benefits like TIAA CREF offers financial advising. We also have an employee assistance program that our postdocs and many of our, um, employees could actually use for finances and many other things.

Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation: EAP

Joel S (03:48): My name is Joel Solís. I’m with the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation with our HR team as an HR associate. And I think one of the resources that is highly beneficial to everyone at our foundation is our employee assistance program. Where basically the employee has the ability to contact, um, uh, free, uh, assistance when it comes to health, uh, uh, mental health or even financial, um, awareness or legal assistance. Um, it’s basically six free counseling sessions that occur every year, and it’s not only open to them, but also to their families. Um, and like I said, it’s something that renews every year.

George Washington University: 401K/403B Retirement Match & TIAA CREF/Fidelity Partnerships

Ruchi G (04:26): My name is Ruchi Gupta and I work with George Washington University, and I think we have the benefit of having the 401k and 40- 403B, um, with my university and the university matches 1.5 times of that. So that’s a good benefit. Uh, and the university invests have the partnership with the fidelity and the TIAA, and you can either choose or they choose on your behalf. They help you with that. Uh, and not many people are aware of that, and they kind of lose on that benefit. So I think it’s a good idea to be aware and take advantage of the resources available to you.

Penn State: TIAA CREF Consultant

Jennifer N (05:03): Jennifer Nicholas, director of Postdoctoral Affairs at Penn State, and my answer is the TIAA CREF consultant because postdocs could benefit from more mindful planning of how they would save for retirement at this stage of life, and they can often use those services for free, um, because those services are available to those who work at Penn State.

University of Michigan: TIAA CREF/Fidelity Wealth Managers

Mark M (05:27): Hi, I’m Mark Moldwin, the director of the Office of Postdoc Affairs at University of Michigan. And the resource I would recommend is that they would contact, uh, either TIAA, CREF or Fidelity, the two financial service providers for their 403B. Uh, so they would have a, uh, wealth manager help set up, uh, their goals for investing in retirement and get them thinking about, um, how valuable it is to start early.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology: Communication Lab & Teaching + Learning Lab

Alex Y (06:01): My name is Alex Yen. My pronouns are she, her, hers. I am the program director for postdoc Career Advising and Professional Development at MIT, so Massachusetts Institute of Technology. So in terms of resources on my campus that I always encourage my postdocs to know more about and use are services outside of my own office that really emphasize written and verbal communication, which are skills that they can take with them even after they leave MIT. For us, that’s the communication lab. That’s their writing and communication center. That’s the Teaching + Learning Lab. And I encourage postdocs to go and see where can I learn how to improve that grant application I’m putting in? How do I refine the data and the graphs that I’m putting on slides? Is there some type of teaching certificate that postdocs can, um, can get? So that’s what I encourage. Go find those other resources beyond just your career resource center and also your office of Postdoc Services.

University of Michigan Medical School: Therapists

Michele S (07:05): Hi, Michele Swanson, director of Postdoc Office at University of Michigan Medical School. I’m very proud that our Office of Graduate Postdoctoral Studies now has two licensed therapists, counselors, um, who are available to meet with our pred docs and our postdocs for up to six sessions at no cost confidential to describe any kind of personal or work related challenge. And then they can introduce them to resources in the community if they, if longer term, uh, relationship is important.

University of Michigan: Centralized Shared Services

Kaylee S (07:35): My name is Kaylee Steen. I work at the University of Michigan. I’m the Associate Director of Professional Development and Trainee Support, and I would say one of our resources on campus is our centralized shared services. So if you have expenses and you need reimbursement, it’s all a one stop shop to submit a ticket to make sure you get all your money back.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology: Welcome Session

Bettina (07:54): I’m Bettina, I’m a postdoc at MIT, at the Brain and Cognitive Sciences Department, and, um, I happen to be a current president of the PDA and, um, resources on campus. I think looking back into three years of being in a postdoc at MIT I think the resources are there. It’s just that the point in time when you have the bandwidth to access them is way too late because we have the community at MIT is incredibly international, and when you change countries, con- continents, social spheres in starting a postdoc, it’s just too much to adjust to to spend. Any thoughts on your 401k and now looking back? I wish I had the bandwidth back then because I, I’m aware now at I lost money, but also I’m aware now that I’m out in a year, so it’s not even worth putting in the effort anymore, which is unfortunate. What I’m recommending everyone I meet now being a new postdoc is take the welcome session when you, when you arrive, and then take them again six months in because the info out there, it’s just a matter of how much you can digest at a time.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology: 401K and Reimbursement Resources

Expery O (09:04): My name is Expery Omollo. I’m a postdoc fellow at MIT. There are a few things that, uh, a few resources on campus that can benefit postdocs at MIT. One of them is the benefits, uh, and to be specific, the 401k, I feel like it’s very useful for postdocs to be educated on the power of compounding interest. Um, I feel like most people tend to wait until they get a real job before they start investing, and in that time, they’re wasting five years is enough to, let’s say, make a few thousand dollars that they didn’t know about. Um, so that’ll be one thing. Another thing is, um, there are other aspects of saving money when it comes to transit. For example, MIT has a free, uh, transit across Boston to use the public transit system. Uh, if you use your bike to go to campus every day, you can get reimbursed. Um, if you, the MIT health, if you go to the gym, you can apply to get reimbursement from the health provider as well. And most people don’t know this, but this is a free 150 to $300. Um, and another thing is they do have a pension. But it’s very hidden and there’s a lot of, uh, it’s so hard to find that information. But MIT offers it. I think there’s a, you have to be at MIT for limited for some time before you can apply for it. But it’s somewhere there. I saw it recently. And, um, maybe as Bettina was saying, having all of this information during orientation may be the solution and maybe reiterating it over time through email or, you know, in other postdoc meetings, just mentioning it so that people can know about all of it.

Medical University of South Carolina: Library Rental System

Lyndsay Y (11:04): Hi, I’m Lyndsay Young. I’m a postdoctoral fellow at the Medical University of South Carolina. And I think a resource that, um, our postdocs need to know about is actually our library rental system. So you can rent laptops, speakers, uh, projectors, screens, anything technology-wise from our library that for a certain amount of time it’s for free and you can utilize that for your own personal benefit, for your events, for anything really that is that you wanna do. So I think it’s a really underutilized resource that our people should be more knowledgeable about.

Argonne National Lab: HR Resources

Evelyna W (11:38): Hi, uh, my name is Evelyna Wang . I’m a postdoc at Argonne National Lab, and our HR department actually provides a lot of good resources about personal financing and benefits that are available to postdocs. However, I think postdocs need to access and attend some of these seminars and really gain the information that’s being shared with them.

Salk Institute for Biological Studies: Financial Advisors

B. Bea R (12:01): Morning, my name is B. Bea Rajsombath from the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, and I think our postdocs need to take advantage of the onsite financial advisors to schedule one-on-one appointments, so they have access to, to that in understanding how to invest their portfolio.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology: 401K App

Alex Y (12:19): Hello everyone. My name is Alex Yen pronouns, she, her and I am the Career Advising and Professional Development Program Director at MIT Massachusetts Institute of Technology. So the resource that I really like, and I do think this is a resource many, many postdocs I work with postdocs have, is if you have a, if you have a 401k with your university, you should download whatever app that is associated with. So for MIT, that’s fidelity, and there you can actually plan out and do projections of what would it look like, say if you put aside the certain amount of money and they can project, what will that look like to get to your retirement goal? So look at that. It’s nice graphs, it’s nice numbers and data, and I really, really like this resource for helping you understand why it might be helpful for you to put money into a 401k

Fidelity Student Programs

Emily (13:19): Emily here. Adding on Fidelity actually has amazing financial education resources around investing. They have a special program for college students, but it’s rolled out at certain campuses, and I’m guessing it’s also available to graduate students. Not sure about the postdoc side of things, but please check that out if you have access to it.

Villanova: Lifelong Career Resources and Services

Casey H (13:37): Hi, my name’s Casey Hilferty. I’m Associate Director for Career Management at Villanova University. Um, one thing that we would love to remind our grad students of is that we offer lifelong career resources and services, um, including lifelong career appointments. So they don’t need to contract a career coach. If they ever need one, they can always return back to Villanova.

University of Texas at Arlington: Fellowships, Grants, and I-Engage Mentoring Program

Leah C (14:01): My name’s Leah Collum. I’m the program manager for graduate student Academic and professional development at the University of Texas at Arlington. And on our campus, we have several resources that graduate students should be aware of. We have, uh, dissertation fellowships, we have travel grants, we have writing group grants. We have the I-Engage mentoring program, which offers a stipend and all kinds of other internal funding opportunities, um, that graduate students should be aware of, and they can find them all on our website, which is uta.edu/gradschool.

UNC Chapel Hill: Impact Internship Program

Patrick B (14:36): My name’s Patrick Brandt, and I’m the director of Career Development and Science Outreach at UNC Chapel Hill. So one of the programs that I run is called the Impact Internship Program, and it’s a short term internship, uh, local to the RTP or to the triangle area of North Carolina. And it gives the UNC grad students a chance to be able to do an internship and gain some, um, some hands-on skill, uh, development so that they can be more competitive as a candidate, uh, for whatever career they’re interested in.

Georgia Tech: Campus Closet

Megan E (15:09): My name’s Megan Elrath and I’m a online Career Services manager at Georgia Tech. And a resource on our campus that grad students or postdocs should know about that would help their finances is our campus closet, where students can access professional attire for interviewing, um, presentations, maybe even to defend their dissertations or proposals so that they can have that professional look and feel confident when they go into those high pressure settings.

Commercial

Emily (15:35): Emily here for a brief interlude. Would you like to learn directly from me on a personal finance topic, such as taxes, goal-setting, investing, frugality, increasing income, or student loans, each tailored specifically for graduate students and postdocs? I offer seminars and workshops on these topics and more in a variety of formats, and I’m now booking for the 2025-2026 academic year. If you would like to bring my content to your institution, would you please recommend me as a speaker or facilitator to your university, graduate school, graduate student association, medical school, postdoc office, or postdoc association? My workshops are usually slated as professional development or personal wellness. Orientations, postdoc appreciation week, or close to the start of the academic year would be a perfect time for tax education or general personal finance content. Ask the potential host to go to PFforPhDs.com/financial-education/ or simply email me at [email protected] to start the process. I really appreciate these recommendations, which are the best way for me to start a conversation with a potential host. The paid work I do with universities and institutions enables me to keep producing this podcast and all my other free resources. Thank you in advance if you decide to issue a recommendation! Now back to our interview.

George Washington University: Alumni Network

Autumn A (17:12): My name is Autumn Anthony and I serve as the Assistant Director of Graduate Postdoc Affairs at George Washington University. And one way that we’ve been investing in financial success and career development for our students is within the presidential fellowship, um, which I have the privilege of directing, and it’s a small group, so hopefully in the future we can expand this out to more students. But we’ve been tapping into our alumni network and finding those individuals who have established careers, um, in managing your financial portfolio. And we’ve been able to set up some really great, um, mini seminars and workshops where these folks will come and, and present on how to make the most of your finances and set yourself up for success. And it’s been low cost so far. So that’s something that, um, I would recommend people tapping into their alumni network.

UT Southwestern: Internships

Leah B (18:06): My name is Leah Banks and I’m the director of Graduate career, uh, development at UT Southwestern in Dallas, Texas. Uh, and a resource that I feel would be really helpful for grad students and post-docs, um, is, um, having the opportunity to do internships. And so we recently were able to change the policy in which would allow for them to do research internships. Um, before that they were only able to do consulting venture capital type internships, but this allows for them to really build out their toolkit to tap into those resources outside of UT Southwestern to, um, be more exposed to, um, technical type internships that could really help them to be more, um, marketable when they, you know, leave grad school and their postdocs.

University of Michigan: Career Services and Clothes Closet

Maggie G (18:59): My name is Maggie Gardner. I’m the Senior program manager for STEM Professional Development in the Rackham Graduate School at the University of Michigan. Generally speaking, resources that I believe grad students and postdocs should take advantage of while they’re at Michigan that would help them financially are broadly our career services, but more specifically taking advantage of cv, resume, cover letter review, interview preparation, negotiation workshops. All of these are available to them free of charge while they’re at the University of Michigan. And these are services that they’ll have to pay for, um, if they choose to, to seek them out outside of the university. Um, so these are long-term very beneficial to their financial wellbeing. Um, we also have a clothes closet at the University Career Center that graduate students can take advantage of. Uh, they’re allowed to pick out, I think, two items per semester for interviews or networking events, whatever it is that need, they need professional attire for. Uh, we also have a, um, a food pantry that students are eligible or able to take advantage of. Um, they can stop by every day, every week, whatever it is they need, you know, when they need just a little bit of extra help to, to get by and to, to sustain themselves.

University of Buffalo: Internship Equity Fund

Gina B (20:25): Hi, this is Gina Bellavia, graduate career design consultant at the University of Buffalo. And one thing that would help graduate students improve their finances that we offer is our internship equity fund. So if you were to get an internship that was unpaid, uh, and with either a government agency or a nonprofit organization, you could apply to be paid through through this fund. And usually we have it available each semester and then in the summer as well.

Vanderbilt: Beyond the Lab Podcast

Aubrie S (20:53): Hi, my name is Aubrie Stricker. I am a part of the Vanderbilt Biomedical Career Development Office. And the resource that I think our campus provides for our students is the Beyond the Lab podcast, where it provides informational interviews to give our trainees insights as to how the, uh, alumni got to the positions that they’re in and along the way, they share their career advice, including the financial advice they may have to help the trainees get to where they want to be.

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign: Campus Web Store

Derek A (21:19): I’m Derek Attig, Assistant Dean for Career and Professional Development in the graduate college at the University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign. And a resource on our campus that I, I think grad students and postdocs could take advantage of that could improve their finances is the campus web store, which has a wide variety of free or, uh, reduce costs software, uh, to, you know, support your work, help you develop new skills, right? And often people don’t know it’s there.

Boston University: PF for PhDs Podcast and Campus Workshops

Béné (21:50): Hi everyone. My name is Béné. I am the Director of Professional Development at Boston University in the Graduate School of Medical Sciences. And I think a resource that has been very inspiring for me is your podcast, Emily, because you’ve been able to actually meet with postdocs who having the same financial constraints as what I had as a postdoc were still able to really think their finances through, we’re able to decide, okay, this is how much I want to invest, this is how much I want to learn about investing. Um, and they’ve stuck with our goals and they were able to actually achieve things that they wouldn’t have without having done so. So I’m looking forward to having you on my campus to talk with our students and helping them really take a step back and make set important financial and budgeting goals.

University of Minnesota: Student Legal Services

Amelia C (22:34): Hi, my name’s Amelia Casas. I’m a one-stop counselor at the University of Minnesota. And one resource to look for on your campus is student Legal Services for help with any sort of renters disputes, immigration, things like that. It’s like having a personal lawyer on retainer for the cost of your tuition and fees.

UC Berkeley: Center for Financial Wellness

Anne X (22:59): Hi, my name is Anne Xiong. I manage the Center for Financial Wellness at UC Berkeley. Um, so the resources I want to introduce to our grad students are actually the Center for Financial Wellness. I encourage all grad students at uc, Berkeley to advantage of this free service. Go to our website, we have online resources, and then we have our peer coaching and workshops.

UNC Chapel Hill: Carolina Cupboard and Bus Passes

Sara L (23:23): My name is Sara Lorenzen. I’m the Assistant Director of Financial Wellbeing at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Um, and a resource on our campus, um, that I think a lot of students don’t know about is we have a food pantry network, um, called the Carolina Cupboard, um, which is four food pantries on campus that are available, but also, um, UNC students get and employees get a free bus pass through our bus system. And the Chapel Hill Bus system is free to everyone in Chapel Hill. So I think people don’t utilize that nearly enough to save money.

University of South Carolina: Gamecock Community Shop

Tharangi F (23:59): Hi, my name is Tharangi Fernando. I’m the peer consultant manager for the Student Success Center at the University of South Carolina. Our Gamecock community shop, which is our basic needs, um, like school supply closet, it does food meals, it does clothing, um, basic needs of any type like hygiene, and I think that really does help our graduate student population and they’re actively using it.

University of Chicago: Webinars

Emmy (24:21): I’m Emmy, I’m the Communications Manager at the Office of Bursar at the University of Chicago. Our main resource that would definitely be a benefit to our grad students and postdocs would be our webinars. Um, we offer a webinar series for new students, including grad students, and over the course of the year, we offer a ton of webinars that educate on financial wellness in general, but also just the services that our office provides.

University of Utah: International Student and Scholar Services

Katie D (24:46): Hi, my name is Katie DeSau. I am the case manager for the International Student and Scholar Services on the University of Utah campus. Um, my job is to connect students to campus services and the resources that we have for grad students and postdocs, especially international students, would be the International Student and Scholar Services or the IS office. And you can come talk to me about any problem that you have, uh, financial or otherwise, and I can help coordinate contact with, uh, campus resources, especially Financial Wellness Center, where they have options for credit counseling, one-on-one counseling, budgeting, and also finding other financial resources for you. Um, you can also come to me to get connected to the basic needs, uh, collective. Um, they’re all about basic needs. We also have a Feed you pantry. Um, so there are resources that you’re already paying for in your student fees, so please come see us and get help.

New York University: Stern Graduate Financial Aid Office Website

Tina B (25:45): Tina Bird, I’m the Assistant Director of the Stern Graduate Financial Aid Office at NYU. Um, and, uh, some of the great resources that we have is our website. Um, we have a lot of information on our website about, uh, external scholarship sources, um, teaching our graduate fellowships, um, and, you know, veteran assistance. Uh, so yeah, our, our website is specifically designed to help out our students.

University of Missouri: VITA Program

Alex E (26:11): My name is Alex Embree and I’m the interim manager at the Office for Financial Success at the University of Missouri in many communities and on many campuses, uh, there will be a VITA IRS tax resource where students can receive free tax preparation in addition to some tax education, so they can learn about how their, uh, assistantships or how their other funding sources are taxed and can make more, um, knowledgeable decisions about how they’re preparing for their tax burden, um, or how they’re saving for that, how they’re, um, establishing their financial security around their funding sources. And I’ll just add these VITA clinics are for both citizens, residents, and non-residents, depending on the certifications of the people involved. So don’t think it’s not for you if you’re an international student.

UNC Charlotte: Niner Finances

Nicole B (26:57): Hi, I am Nicole Benford. I’m the director of Niner Finances at UNC Charlotte. And to answer the question, what resource on your campus could grad students or postdocs access to improve their finances? I would say that’s my office. Uh, we offer workshops, presentations, and one-on-one coaching, and we also have self-study material on our website at NinerFinances.charlotte.edu. Um, but we are happy to help.

Oregon State University: Student Legal Services

Rebekah H (27:23): Hi, uh, I’m Rebekah Hahn and I’m a graduate assistant at the Oregon State University Basic Needs Center. We have a student legal services team, um, and they’re able to provide free legal services on a variety of issues. Um, I actually completed my divorce, transferred a house, and, uh, made new advanced directives with them all at no cost. And legal services are extremely expensive, so I think that all schools should have something like this.

University of Tennessee Knoxville: Financial Wellness Coaches

Philippa S (27:53): Hi, I’m Philippa Satterwhite. I am the coordinator, uh, for the Center of Financial Wellness at the University of Tennessee. Knoxville. And my answer to be, to make an appointment with, uh, our financial wellness coaches, a one-on-one appointment. Every student can make one. It’s free where we can sit down and help you think of through like your cost, but balancing of budget, thinking about life after grad school, thinking about, uh, you know, the job search. So all those things that we do at a one-on-one counseling, you can make as many appointments as you want. As many if few or as many, um, you’re there to help.

Washington University in St. Louis: Emergency Assistance Fund, Grad School Prep Funds, and iGrad

Andrea S-D (28:24): Hi there, I’m Andrea Stewart-Douglas, director of Financial Wellbeing at Washington University in St. Louis. The resources on my campus to help graduate students, um, we actually have a fund that provides emergency assistance to graduate students. Um, we also have funding available to undergraduate students who are looking to go on to graduate school. So we support their studies for things like the mcat, the lsat, the GRE. We will provide funding to help them purchase their study materials, to cover their test exams, to even cover their fees, um, as they’re applying. We’re also supporting them by providing them with funding. If they do a visit, if they are interviewing at the school and need to travel to that college or university will provide the funding to purchase their plane ticket, cover their hotel fees. We also, um, have a online platform called iGrad, and that’s available to not only graduate undergraduate students, but our graduate students as well. And so we’re encouraging all graduate students to check that platform out. It has tons of great information, uh, for budgeting, uh, planning for retirement, if they’re interested in buying a home. Um, there’s great information on that. So it’s a really, really, uh, robust resource, uh, articles, um, courses, videos, um, pretty much every way of uh, or mode of, um, learning is available on that platform. So, um, we’re also available in our office to provide one-on-one support if students want to come in and just talk about their situation, maybe sit down with us to do a little goal setting. And we’re gonna do our best to provide whatever support we can. And if we can’t do this internally, we have places people that we can connect them to outside of the university as well.

UNC Chapel Hill: Carolina Financial Wellbeing Center

Gilbert R (30:23): My name is Gilbert Rogers. I’m the Director of Financial Wellbeing at UNC Chapel Hill. One resource that I’ll highlight is the Carolina Financial Wellbeing Center. We are a fairly new resource to campus where graduate and professional students, uh, can come and ask questions about personal finance. We can get them connected to outside of the community resources that can help them increase their overall financial knowledge or, uh, get help with, uh, specific situations that graduate students need support with.

University of Oregon: Financial Literacy Workshops

Tennille W (30:52): So my name’s Tennille Wait. I’m the assistant director at the Financial Wellness Center at the University of Oregon. Um, the resources that we have for grad students, uh, recently what we’ve had happen is one of our grad students reached out, uh, to find financial literacy information. So they got hooked up with me. Um, from that we have put together a whole series, or I should say a three part series of workshops for specifically for grad students, um, kind of based around financial literacy, budgeting, um, learning how to make, what their financial aid they’re receiving work for what they’re doing. Um, there’s gonna be a tax component on making sure that they understand any tax implications with the funding that they’re receiving. Um, and then we are also working with, um, you know, other, other campus partners to just make sure that, uh, if they have travel expenses and things like that, how to make sure that all of those things, um, how they impact their financial aid, but then also how to budget for those and make sure that it’s fitting into their financial plan.

Outro

Emily (32:09): Listeners, thank you for joining me for this episode! I have a gift for you! You know that final question I ask of all my guests regarding their best financial advice? My team has collected short summaries of all the answers ever given on the podcast into a document that is updated with each new episode release. You can gain access to it by registering for my mailing list at PFforPhDs.com/advice/. Would you like to access transcripts or videos of each episode? I link the show notes for each episode from PFforPhDs.com/podcast/. See you in the next episode, and remember: You don’t have to have a PhD to succeed with personal finance… but it helps! Nothing you hear on this podcast should be taken as financial, tax, or legal advice for any individual. The music is “Stages of Awakening” by Podington Bear from the Free Music Archive and is shared under CC by NC. Podcast editing by me and show notes creation by Dr. Jill Hoffman.

Catching Up with Prior Guests: 2024 Edition

December 16, 2024 by Jill Hoffman Leave a Comment

Emily published the first episode of this podcast in July 2018. This is the 223rd episode, and over the last six and a half years, the podcast has featured over 300 unique voices in addition to my own. For our last episode in 2024, we are catching up with the guests from Seasons 12 through 14, and a few from earlier seasons as well. The guests were invited to submit short audio clips to update us on how their lives and careers have evolved since the time of their interview, as well as to provide their best financial advice if that has changed since that initial interview.

Links mentioned in the Episode

PF for PhDs Podcast Hub
PF for PhDs Subscribe to Mailing List
PF for PhDs Excel Spending Tracker
PF for PhD Website
Emily’s E-mail Address
Sam Hogan (from PhD Home Loans): Season 2, Episode 5; Season 5, Episode 17; Season 8, Episode 4; Season 13, Episode 1
Dr. Tina Del Carpio: Season 6, Episode 10
Dr. Gertrude Nonterah (from The Bold PhD): Season 8, Episode 6
Dr. Alana Rister (from Science Grad School Coach): Season 10, Episode 4
Dr. Jay Zigmont (from Child Free Wealth): Season 12, Episode 1
Dr. Inga Timmerman (from Attainable Wealth Financial Planning): Season 12, Episode 3
Dr. Haley Sanderson: Season 12, Episode 4
Brittany Trinh (from Beyond Your Science Podcast): Season 14, Episode 4
Host a PF for PhDs Tax Seminar at Your Institution

Catching Up with Prior Guests: 2024 Edition

Teaser

Jay Z (00:00): What do I do if the path I’ve bet on, the money disappears? It’s just one of those things you gotta think about in which probably nobody wants to think about and that’s a reality check.

Introduction

Emily (00:16): Welcome to the Personal Finance for PhDs Podcast: A Higher Education in Personal Finance. This podcast is for PhDs and PhDs-to-be who want to explore the hidden curriculum of finances to learn the best practices for money management, career advancement, and advocacy for yourself and others. I’m your host, Dr. Emily Roberts, a financial educator specializing in early-career PhDs and founder of Personal Finance for PhDs.

Emily (00:47): This is Season 19, Episode 9, and today I am featuring many guest voices! I published the first episode of this podcast in July 2018. This is the 223rd episode, and over the last six and a half years, the podcast has featured over 300 unique voices in addition to my own. For our last episode in 2024, we are catching up with the guests from Seasons 12 through 14, and a few from earlier seasons as well. I invited them to submit short audio clips to update us on how their lives and careers have evolved since the time of our interview, as well as to provide their best financial advice if that has changed since our initial interview. You are going to hear a common theme throughout many of today’s audio segments. The audio clips in this episode are ordered by when the original episode was published. If you’d like to circle back and listen to any of the previous interviews, you can do so in your podcatcher app or at my website, PFforPhDs.com/podcast. To keep up with future episodes, please hit subscribe on that podcatcher and/or join my mailing list at PFforPhDs.com/advice. You’ll hear an update from me first, followed by the rest of the guests. You can find the show notes for this episode at PFforPhDs.com/s19e9/. Happy listening, happy holidays, and happy new year! See you in 2025!

Dr. Emily Roberts

Emily (02:23): Hi! This is Emily Roberts from Personal Finance for PhDs. I am of course the host of this podcast and you hear from me in every episode! My update last year at this time was a bit of a downer, and I’m pleased to report we’ve had a much better year overall in 2024. Some personal highlights from this year included: living and working from my parents’ house for a month over the summer and meeting my new nephew, vacationing in Hawaii for the first time, attending Family Camp in Sequoia National Park for the third time, camping with my daughter’s Girl Scout troop several times, including a Roar & Snore at the San Diego Zoo, seeing Hamilton in Los Angeles, and becoming a regular at Orange Theory Fitness. My husband and I also purchased our very first new car, an electric vehicle, and are enjoying having two cars at our family’s disposal. My daughters are doing really well in school and having fun in their extracurriculars. We’ve continued our family traditions of reading together—I’ve read 61 books so far this year—and playing strategy board games like Dominion and Ticket to Ride. Despite some personal health challenges, it’s been a great year.

Emily (03:40): As for Personal Finance for PhDs the business, I’m really pleased with how the year evolved. Over the summer, I revamped all of my live seminars to be true workshops, and my clients and audiences have responded quite positively. I believe this teaching style is more effective than my previous one, and the template spreadsheets and worksheets that I provide have been appreciated. My clients are also getting back to hosting me in person more so than in previous years, which is my preference by far. In 2024, I delivered workshops in person at Yale University, the University of California at Los Angeles, The Scripps Research Institute, the University of California at San Diego, Michigan State University, and Boston University, and all the engagements were delightful. I also attended two conferences, the Graduate Career Consortium in Philadelphia and the Higher Education Financial Wellness Summit in Pittsburgh. The business revenue and my income are up over 2023’s numbers, though I’m still gunning to get back to where they were in 2022. In 2024, my family has made great use of the manual expense tracker that I mentioned in last year’s update, which incorporates some of the principles I teach in my workshops. If you’d like to download the tracker, please register for the Personal Finance for PhDs mailing list through PFforPhDs.com/tracker/. Thanks for listening to my update! If you want to get in touch, you can visit my website at PFforPhDs.com or email me at [email protected].

Sam Hogan

Sam H (05:18): Hello, this is Sam Hogan. I’m the mortgage originator who specialize in graduate students and PhDs and Emily’s brother. I’ve given interviews on the podcast about various aspects of mortgage and home ownership for graduate students and PhDs in multiple seasons. Season two, episode five, season five, episode 17, season eight, episode four, and season 13, episode one. In 2024, I switched employers and I’m now with truist Bank. This has been exciting because truist offers a non repayable grant for down payment or closing cost assistance to low income borrowers in certain states that graduate students are perfect for. I’m currently exploring with them the possibility of extending doctor mortgages to PhDs as well as MDs. You can find more information about this in my mailing list or on Emily’s YouTube channel. In 2024. I also attended the National Post-Doctoral Association annual conference, which was great fun, and I plan to go back in 2025. If you happen to be there, please stop by my booth and say hi. On a personal note, 2024 has been incredible because my fiance and I had our first child, a healthy little boy named Grant. If you’d like to learn more about mortgages that I offer or have a question about the lending process, you can call or text me at (540) 478-5803 or email me at [email protected]. If you’d like to download a free PhD friendly mortgage guide that I wrote, you can find it on my website, PhDhomeloans.com. Rates are expected to keep coming down through 2026, so this is a great time to get in touch.

Dr. Tina Del Carpio

Tina DC (06:57): Hi, my name is Tina Del Carpio. I was a guest on season six, episode 10 talking about figuring out my life after a broken engagement in Los Angeles. I’m happy to report that last December in 2023, I finished my PhD and I started a job as a data analyst for the state, and I’m really happy with my job and with where I’m at. Um, the pay is not as good as it could be an industry, but I work fully remotely and that’s such a huge benefit to me. Um, the more important life update is that this past November I got married to my partner Tess and I still live in Los Angeles, but now with Tess and our three cats, Tuka, Gem, and Goose. So all is well here.

Dr. Gertrude Nonterah

Gertrude N (08:00): Hello Emily and the personal finance for PhD’s podcast team. And thank you for giving me this opportunity. My name is Gertrude Nonterah and I run theboldphd.com. I was interviewed, um, on this podcast in February of 2021. It was episode six, season eight, I believe, season eight, episode six, and we talked about personal branding and how to use that to land a job and also build a business as a PhD or academic. And since then I have continued to talk about personal branding and have the opportunity to speak at over 20 universities in different countries on the topics of personal branding, career change, and also my own career within medical communications and the biotech space. My best financial advice for early career PhDs is to really begin to think about investments early on, right? I am in my early forties. I turned 41 this year and a part of me wishes I knew what I knew now about investing when I was in graduate school because it’s only recently in the past, let’s say five years, that it has occurred to me that in graduate school I could have been putting away $20 here and $10 there and I could have actually started building investments at that time. Instead, I started in my thirties, which was later than I hoped, but it’s still better to start than never to start, right? And so if you are starting out your career, use your career as a launchpad to start funding investments. Learn about the different investments that are out there and how you can get started with them. You know, do your due diligence and start building wealth because it’s going to compound over time and every year you don’t invest, you are losing money, but every year you do invest, you are compounding it and, and that’s what’s exciting about investing. So that would be my best piece of advice for early career PhDs. If you wanna find me, you can go to my website, it’s theboldphd.com. You can also find me on LinkedIn, Gertrude Nonterah PhD.

Dr. Alana Rister

Alana R (10:19): Hi, I’m Alana Rister and I was on personal finance for PhDs Season 10, episode four. I am the founder of science grad school coach and when I was on the podcast, I talked about how I had worked through grad school in order to pay off about $13,000 of student loan debt from my undergraduate loans. Since then, I have become a full-time data scientist in a Fortune 500 company and I have been able to actually pay off an additional $40,000 of my undergraduate student loan debt. At this point, with my current plan, I’m about one year from actually having all of my student loan debt paid off, and when I graduated, I graduated with about $70,000 of student loan debt. My best financial advice moving forward, especially from the experiences that I’ve had since um, graduating grad school, is while you’re in grad school, start thinking about retirement, especially if you’re in the US and think about the different accounts that you might want to work with. Then when you’re in grad school, you typically have a lower income. So if you have any bandwidth within your income to set aside for retirement, you’re going to have, um, certain tax advantaged accounts in the US that you might not be able to fully use whenever you are fully fledged into a job, um, your income might be too high. So I really wish I would’ve taken more advantage of retirement and wouldn’t have that stress on my income now. Um, looking forward to trying to retire within the US at least. If you’re interested to find me, you can look at my YouTube channel @scigradcoach. Thanks again for having me and letting me share my update.

Dr. Jay Zigmont

Jay Z (12:22): Hi, I am Jay Zigmont. I am the founder and CEO of Child Free Wealth, a financial planning firm dedicated to serving child free childless folks. My PhD is in adult learning from the University of Connecticut and I joined the podcast on, let’s see, season 12, episode one. It talked about the garden and the rose and how do dual career couples, figure out the balance between the trailing spouse in the other job and the balance between those two. In the time since then, uh, as any good PhD, I spent the time doing a lot of research and writing. Uh, really excited. At the end of this year, I have a new book coming out, the Child Free Guide to Life and Money. It’s been interesting working with publishers and working through the process and it’s gotten super interesting because of politics. Let’s be real this year, been a lot of discussion about the childless cat ladies and the good, bad and ugly goes there. Uh, it it’s, it’s one of those things when you’re writing about a topic and you’re like, Hey, I can help a lot of people, but you’re not always ready for the politics, the judgments, the social media. I dunno, I’m learning all that. I think my big advice because of the season we’re in right now for PhDs is you need to think about a backup plan if you’re funding goes away. And that sounds a, I mean that’s always been the case. What happens to grant money? But right now when we’re talking about federal funding or departments possibly not existing and the changes, it’s tough. You know, my wife and I have had to have this discussion ’cause her work is in food insecurity and, uh, all of it’s federally funded or most of it is, and it’s one of those things like, oh, what do I do if the path I’ve bet on the money disappears. Luckily for us as a couple, we’re at a good financial place. We don’t have any debt, you know, we’ve got a emergency savings, we can do different things, but it’s just one of those things you gotta think about in which probably nobody wants to think about, but it’s a reality check. You can find me online, childfreewealth.com. You can buy the book anywhere you like. Uh, always love go to independent bookstores and on all the socials at @ChildFreeWealth.

Dr. Inga Timmerman

Inga T (14:46): Hello professors and new PhDs. My name is Inga Timmerman and I was in season 12, episode three. I’m a financial planner who works exclusively with other academics and I’m also an academic. And the best advice I have for new PhDs and this advice has changed since the last time I talked to Emily is that instead of focusing on long-term financials, focus on the intermediate term. Plan your life in the two to five year increments rather than what’s going to happen 20 years down the um, road. What I’ve noticed more and more in the last few years is that professors no longer stay in the same academic job for for the entire career. They move a lot more, they quit academia a lot more. So focusing on the best financial decision for the next two to five years ends up being better long term than trying to guess where you’re going to be in 20 years. The newest thing I have is, um, a brand new podcast for academics is going to come in January, 2025, it’s going to be called Academics and Their Money. And I hope to have all of you as my listeners. If you need any more financial advice, please visit my website at attainablewealthfp.com.

Dr. Haley Sanderson

Haley S (16:01): Hi, I am Dr. Haley Sanderson from episode four, season 12. I’ve been pretty busy since my episode was taped. I finished my two year postdoc at the Vaccine Infectious Disease Organization at the University of Saskatchewan. At that point, I reached the five year limit for postdocs, but before my contract ended, I landed a permanent job as a bioinformatics programmer at agriculture in AgriFood Canada. So I finished my postdoc and then two weeks later I started a job with the federal government. Um, and that job pretty much doubled my salary. I also had my own BioMAT bioinformatics freelance business for about a year. Uh, my mental health has also improved steadily over the years and I haven’t had a major psychotic episode in years and I’m just a lot happier now. Um, right now I’m working on training for promotion at work, um, enjoying the stability that the job I have now provides and saving to buy a condo close to my family. My best financial advice for early career PhDs is to avoid staying in academia for too long and maybe even avoiding postdocs altogether unless you’re learning a new skill that’s transferable to other sectors. Um, try to avoid getting stuck in the academic job market because you can be successful in a lot of different places and always look for how your skills can be used and how they can be more valuable elsewhere. Uh, thanks. Bye.

Brittany Trinh

Brittany T (17:51): Hi everyone, my name is Brittany Trinh and I am the host of the Beyond Your Science podcast. I was previously on PF for PhDs, um, in season 14, episode four where I talked about deferring my graduate school acceptance to work on my finances. Since the last episode, I have now started my own podcast called The Beyond Your Science Podcast, where I talk about science, creativity, and entrepreneurship and what that looks like for people in stem. I also used to work with clients one-on-one and provided workshops on website design, but since then I have shifted away from that model and started working, um, more on the backend side of things where I am collaborating with Jennifer van Alstyne of the academic designer in team VIP days. And in a team VIP day, um, we work together to design a website in one day. In my episode, I shared some advice about using your skills to create extra income and I still stand by that. Um, so an a new piece of advice that I’d like to share is to make sure that, um, when you transfer your 401k from a previous employer, um, is number one, to not avoid it, uh, just call the company and they will help you transfer it into a Vanguard account. And number two is once it does hit your Vanguard account, um, make sure that it is sitting in an actual mutual fund or ETF and being invested and not just sitting in a money market fund. And I’m sharing this advice because this is something that happened to me recently. I was pretty avoidant about calling the, um, 401k company, but it was only like a 30 minute call. And then, um, when I finally did get it transferred over, I assumed it would just be transferred into a mutual fund. And I didn’t really know how the Vanguard website worked until recently and I have now learned that my funds were not being invested anywhere. Um, but you know what we learned from the experience and now I’m sharing that with you all. Um, so that hopefully you don’t make the same mistake. If you would like to connect with me, you can find me on LinkedIn at Brittany Trinh, that’s T-R-I-N-H or on my website brittanytrinh.com for more info about my podcast Beyond your Science and other website Design Tips.

Outtro

Emily (20:35): Listeners, thank you for joining me for this episode! I have a gift for you! You know that final question I ask of all my guests regarding their best financial advice? My team has collected short summaries of all the answers ever given on the podcast into a document that is updated with each new episode release. You can gain access to it by registering for my mailing list at PFforPhDs.com/advice/. Would you like to access transcripts or videos of each episode? I link the show notes for each episode from PFforPhDs.com/podcast/. See you in the next episode, and remember: You don’t have to have a PhD to succeed with personal finance… but it helps! Nothing you hear on this podcast should be taken as financial, tax, or legal advice for any individual. The music is “Stages of Awakening” by Podington Bear from the Free Music Archive and is shared under CC by NC. Podcast editing by Dr. Lourdes Bobbio and show notes creation by Dr. Jill Hoffman.

Investing 101 for Your Post-PhD Job

August 26, 2024 by Jill Hoffman 2 Comments

In this episode, Emily interviews Dr. Scott Grissom, a full professor of computer science at Grand Valley State University and Certified Financial Planner with Socrates Financial Planning. Scott and Emily talk through the health insurance and retirement benefits options that may be available to PhDs in their first post-PhD jobs. Scott explains the tax benefits of investing via an HSA and/or a 401(k) or 403(b) and the factors that affect the choice of a Roth or traditional option. He also helps the listener overcome potential analysis paralysis by detailing the benefits of a target date retirement account.

Links mentioned in the Episode

Teaser

Scott (00:00): From day one. Let’s get that match and figure everything else around that. ‘Cause otherwise, as we know, we’re gonna be, have some inertia put in place and we say, I’ll do it later. I’ll do it next year. You probably won’t. So day one, do whatever you can to get that match would be what I recommend.

Introduction

Emily (00:27): Welcome to the Personal Finance for PhDs Podcast: A Higher Education in Personal Finance. This podcast is for PhDs and PhDs-to-be who want to explore the hidden curriculum of finances to learn the best practices for money management, career advancement, and advocacy for yourself and others. I’m your host, Dr. Emily Roberts, a financial educator specializing in early-career PhDs and founder of Personal Finance for PhDs.

Emily (00:57): This is Season 19, Episode 1, and today my guest is Dr. Scott Grissom, a full professor of computer science at Grand Valley State University and Certified Financial Planner with Socrates Financial Planning. Scott and I talk through the health insurance and retirement benefits options that may be available to PhDs in their first post-PhD jobs. Scott explains the tax benefits of investing via an HSA and/or a 401(k) or 403(b) and the factors that affect the choice of a Roth or traditional option. He will also help you overcome potential analysis paralysis by detailing the benefits of a target date retirement account.

Emily (01:37): My colleague, Dr. Toyin Alli, recently launched a new community called GRADBOSS. Toyin is an expert teacher of grad school productivity and time management through The Academic Society in addition to being a lecturer at an R1 university, so she knows of which she speaks! I’m honored that Toyin has invited me to facilitate a workshop within the community this month! Join the GRADBOSS community to attend my workshop Your Financial Orientation to Graduate School on Tuesday, August 27, 2024 at 4 PM PT as well as access all the other incredible resources! Go to theacademicsociety.com/gradboss/ to learn more and join the community. I hope to see you tomorrow at the workshop! You can find the show notes for this episode at PFforPhDs.com/s19e1/. Without further ado, here’s my interview with Dr. Scott Grissom of Socrates Financial Planning.

Will You Please Introduce Yourself Further?

Emily (02:48): I am delighted have joining me on the podcast today, Dr. Scott Grissom, who is at a really interesting point in his career where he has two jobs right now. He’s a full professor at Grand Valley State University and also a CFP with Socrates Financial Planning, his financial planning firm. So we’re gonna talk all things investing today, which is really exciting. So Scott, thank you so much for volunteering to come on the podcast, and would you please introduce yourself a little bit further?

Scott (03:11): Sure. Excited to be here. Um, so Scott Grissom, a little academic background for the PhD folks, if that’s okay. So, for my whole life, I wanted to be an architect. So I went to college at Texas a and m University, all set to be an architect and be the next Frank Lloyd Wright. And by the junior year or so, I had, uh, discovered two things. One is that I didn’t like architecture as much as I thought I did, and two is I discovered these new things at the time called computers. So I got enamored with computers and one of the professors that I admired a lot, I had taken several courses from him. I still remember where I was standing at the time. He says, Scott, have you ever considered graduate school? I’ve seen the way that you work with your fellow students and you tutor them and you help them, I think you’d be really good as a professor. Well, I had not considered that at all until that moment, but the light switch went off, changed my career path, went to graduate school for computer science with the sole purpose of getting a job as a professor. And 32 years later, I am still a professor. So it, it’s been a great choice. Highly recommend being a professor for the rest of your life, if, if that’s an option for you.

Emily (04:25): And yet you’ve decided to embark on an, an encore career. And so can you tell us how personal finance, how money became a passion for you alongside of your career as a, as a professor in computer science?

Scott (04:41): Yeah, so as long as I can remember, I’ve been interested in my own personal finances, whether it be investing and reading books. When I was in college myself, uh, I used to get this thing called a magazine in the mail each month on this physical piece of Paper magazine, uh, called Kiplinger’s. And I would read the, I would be so excited every month waiting to see what information they would have about saving and investing and all sorts of stuff. And one, one week there was this article about this designation called the Certified Financial Planner Planner, CFP. Ooh, that would be fun, at least for my own self education. I would like to take those two years of courses and see where that leads. So that was around 2005. And after taking classes for two years and then passing a pretty exhaustive exam, uh, I earned the CFP designation mainly as a hobby. Didn’t really, really know where that would go, but then I started helping friends and family with their financial questions and then started to work occasionally with some small financial planning firms. But, and that passion sort of peaked and valleyed through my, my 25 year career as a professor. And now I’m to the point where I’m ready to move on. I’ve enjoyed being a professor, but for the next x years of my life, I’m ready to transition to probably just part-time, uh, helping, educating others much like you do in terms of, of their finances and especially as they get close to retirement, uh, what changes do they need to make? What adjustments, what questions do they have? So I’ve got another year as a professor, and then I’ll be transitioning to this firm that I just created about, uh, six months ago called Socrates Financial Planning, Socrates building on the way that I like to teach in the classroom using the Socratic method. So I thought that was a fun, playful, uh, name for me.

Finance Related Employee Benefits

Emily (06:31): Yes, very eye-catching as well. I love it. Um, so we have a real, um, treat today, which is to employ your teaching skills in the subject of investing. And even though you just said that, you know, your typical financial planning client would be closer to retirement, you know, when we were prepping for this episode, we talked about how, um, the typical listener for this podcast is gonna be very early on in their career, maybe currently in graduate school, currently a postdoc, uh, maybe in in their first job post PhD. And so we were thinking it would be really great for them to have some insight into how to set up those initial investments with their new employer when they finally get that 401k or the 4 0 3 B or similar type of retirement account, um, access. So let’s go into it. So very good for that newly hired employee. Looking at the benefits package for the first time, it can be overwhelming. What are they probably looking at in terms of potential benefits related to their finances?

Scott (07:26): Yeah, so probably the, the biggest benefit most people have to struggle with initially is the health insurance. Now that applies to us because if they have an option for what’s called a high deductible plan, which mostly they do nowadays, uh, that will have an important financial option available for you called a health savings account. So maybe we’ll come back to that a moment. And then the second one is what kind of retirement account do you have? And in the private workplace, that’s generally called a 401k, uh, in the public space, whether it’s hospitals or my case a, a university, they’re called 4 0 3 Bs, pretty interchangeable. Uh, and then just personally you might have a thing called an IRA. So all three of these retirement accounts are virtually the same. They’re a place for you to invest for the future, and there are generally some tax advantages to each of those, depending on what choices you’re trying to make.

High Deductible Health Insurance Plans

Emily (08:19): Okay, let’s dive into that a little bit more. Let’s start with the health insurance component of it. Who is a good candidate for choosing a high deductible health plan versus like a PPO is probably gonna be their other option, I would imagine. Um, and, and for also using that HSA if it can come with that H-H-D-H-P

Scott (08:38): <laugh>. Yeah. So hard to de- describe o- over, over this broadcast on, on what makes the best choice. Uh, just recognize with a high deductible plan, depending on whether you’re single or a part of a family, you’re agreeing to pay the first $2,000 of your medical care, maybe the first 4,000 thousand that’s called the deductible. So you need to have, uh, an emergency fund I guess, or enough, uh, fees also depends on your, um, your health. So if you’re somebody that’s pretty healthy and don’t anticipate seeing the doctor much, therefore you don’t need to worry about paying that deductible, that might be a good rationale, justification for getting the high deductible plan. Uh, and then it also just depends on locally and you, if you’re moving to a new city, you may not know, but picking what, uh, doctor option doctor networks that you have sometimes make a difference. So there, I would say talk with your, uh, human resources department or a colleague that you’re about to work with or a supervisor to see what choices they’ve made and why.

Emily (09:38): Yeah. So the trade off there for those who don’t know is gonna be a, a premium difference. So the monthly premium that you pay for like a PPO plan, for example, is gonna be higher or at least let’s say the overall portion. We don’t know, uh, how much the employer is paying versus the employee in, in, you know, general. But that overall premium is gonna be higher for like a PPO. It’s gonna be lower for that high deductible health plan. But like you said, you have to be prepared to pay out of pocket for a higher deductible, $2,000, $4,000 versus maybe the PPO is 500 or a thousand, something lower than that. Um, and so you have to have some savings available to, uh, to do that in your own finances, should you need to access medical care. And that’s kind of where the idea of the HSA comes in. It, it sort of, um, nudges you in the direction of, oh, you have that high deductible health plan, well you better be saving in this HSA. But tell us more about how the HSA works.

Scott (10:26): Yeah, so it’s, it’s one of, it’s a very unique, um, savings plan in terms of what the federal government allows for you. So it allows you to save money going into the account, uh, tax free going in, but it’s also tax free coming out, which is highly unusual. So that doesn’t apply to the 4 0 1 Ks and the IRAs or even the Roths. So I really like the HSAs, the potential advantage, advantage that you have to save on your taxes from day one in your career. And so what that means is for every dollar that you put into this account, and it’s earmarked to be used for medical, so for healthcare to be spent this year or next year or 10 years from now, but all of that money is tax deductible off of your current income. And as we know, every dollar that you can shave off of your current income is gonna reduce your taxes. So that’s great for now, which is the way a lot of the retirement accounts work. But then later on, when you start to pull money out to pay for those qualified medical expenses, it’s not taxed there either. And that’s what’s different about the HSA. So HSA saves you now, it saves you later. It’s just a, a win win win when it comes to taxes at least. And as you said, there is this sort of incentive to put that money into this account because you know you’re going to have to spend it at some point this year, next year, five years from now on those deductible expenses. And so that’s why the federal government requires you to tie together. You first have to have this high deductible plan and then that allows you, it’s optional, but I would strongly encourage it to create this health savings account.

Emily (12:02): I’ve not had the, uh, reasonable option of signing up for a high deductible health plan with an HSA ever. So I’m, I’m sort of excited about this in a theoretical way. But, uh, my understanding is that if this comes through your employer, um, you actually save, not only on income tax going in, but also your, your FICA taxes, your payroll taxes, which is like, there’s like almost no other way you can reduce your payroll taxes. So that’s like really exciting as well. Um, in terms of more money in your pocket, more money in that account.

Scott (12:29): Yep. Once again. And you’re saving now and never taxed again on it, assuming you pull it out for medical expenses and it rolls over each year. So there, there’s another kind of a medical account called a flexible savings or flexible spending account that you might have options for. They’re probably a little antiquated now, but the potential concern with them used to be you had to spend it or lose it at the end of the year. So back in, in December then people started getting dental care and eye care and so forth to try to, to spend that money. But the HSA, you can literally, it let it run for 30 years. And so that’s why some financial advisors think of this as sort of a third retirement plan. ’cause we’re always going to have healthcare expenses. And so the longer you can invest it and let that build tax free, the more money in your pocket.

Emily (13:20): Yeah, I wanna kind of underline that point that you just made about the potential for the money inside the health savings account being invested for the long term, because that’s not something that I think people really did maybe 10 years ago with those flexible spending accounts that wasn’t an option. This is unique to the HSA, um, and so elaborate on that a little bit more, the power of of that option.

Scott (13:40): Yeah, and it’s something that I suspect a lot of people don’t take advantage of. So generally by default, you’re gonna put this into an HSA and it’s gonna be treated like a savings account or a checking account and probably not pay you much at all if, if even 1% and for money that you’re gonna spend three months from now, that makes perfect sense. You wouldn’t want to invest it because with investing, and let’s just generally talk about investing in stocks, there’s the concern that that money’s gonna go down in the short term. So, but if you are investing for the longer term, 4, 5, 8 years down the road, you’re convinced that you don’t really need that money out of the HSA that you can pay for these, these medical expenses out of pocket, then the longer horizon that you have, the more options it gives you. And then you can now invest in stocks and mutual funds in your HSA, just like you would in these other accounts such as the 4 0 3 B and 401k.

Emily (14:40): Yeah, it’s really like, I think you mentioned this earlier, like a supercharged form of an IRA, like an even better form of an IRA. But you have to be prepared to pay for those medical expenses and save it to the HSA on top of that. So it’s really a personal finance and budgeting kind of challenge, but a very, very powerful tool if you can harness it,

Scott (15:00): Right? So at the very least you would want to contribute enough for your deductible each year. So even if you don’t wanna invest in the future and your little leery of building a large account of 15, 20, $30,000 in this HSA, if nothing else, remember that very first dollar that you save is saving you permanently on taxes. So if you’ve got a, a deductible of $2,000 and you’re pretty predictable that you’re probably gonna spend about $2,000 this year on healthcare, then at least put that much into your HSA and if it hovers above and around close to zero because you’re putting money in it and taking money out, you’re still getting a great tax advantage from that.

Traditional Retirement Savings Vehicles: 401Ks and 403Bs

Emily (15:41): Yeah, I love it. Well let’s talk about those more traditional retirement savings vehicles, the 401k, the 4 0 3 B. Can you tell us generally like what’s the advantage of investing for your retirement through your employer? And then we’ll talk a little more about traditional versus Roth.

Scott (15:57): Okay. Uh, so as I said, 4 0 1 Ks are just the names generally for private companies and 4 0 3 Bs for public companies slash universities and healthcare. Uh, historically they’ve been what we call pre-tax. So I put money in and I get to remove that from my salary this year, which is gonna save on taxes this particular year. So let’s suppose I’m in the 20% tax bracket and I put in a thousand dollars. Well that’s gonna save me $200 this year on taxes, but eventually I’m gonna take that money out presumably during retirement and then it will be taxed then. So that’s one of the, the advantages is the tax advantage is that we’re going to have a tax advantage this year. It’s gonna build tax deferred and then eventually we pay our taxes. But one of the new features that these companies now are allowed to provide somewhat new is a Roth component to this 401k. And now we have the option of do we pay taxes now and put that into what’s called a Roth account or a 401k Roth, but it’s never taxed again, much like the HSA, so you can let that ride for the next 30 years and hopefully make lots and lots of money off of your investments and then they come out tax free. So that’s one of the choices you’re just gonna have to make is if I have a Roth option for my 401k, do I put my money in there now or do I use the more traditional approach? The second key I think, um, question is, is your employer providing a match or not? And they often do, uh, and it’s often tied to how much you put in. So they might say, we’re gonna match the first 2%. If you put in 2%, we’ll put in 2% or we’ll put in 50% of how much ever you put in of the first 6,000. So either way, whether you’re gonna put 2000 in on your behalf or 3000 or 8,000, you really wanna take advantage of that ’cause that’s in the business we call that free money. And then you’re going to invest that going forward. You’re not paying taxes on it now. Um, the employer’s putting the money in so it’s not coming outta your paycheck. So if your employer does provide a match, be aware of, put as much money as you can in that affects that match.

Emily (18:17): I have also noticed sometimes with these employer provided plans that have a match or maybe not even a match, but a baseline amount that they’ll put in for you. Sometimes universities do that sort of thing. Um, they’ll have like a vesting schedule. Can you explain how people should understand the vesting schedule?

Scott (18:33): Yeah, so normally what that means and, and it’s case of as you said, it’s the employer putting money in on your behalf less so of the money that you put in. And they’re going to as a way to try to keep you employed there as long as possible. Say we’re gonna put $10,000 in each year for you, but you can’t pull all that money out if you were to leave employment. So over the next four or five, six years, uh, on a sort of degrading uh, feature, we’re gonna decide how much of that money do you get. So you’ll have employers say, this year I’m vested. Well that means that this year if I were to leave or get fired or whatnot, then I would at least get all the money that’s in my account. Up until that point it might look like I’ve got $50,000, but 20,000 of that might not leave with me if I choose to leave. And general, as you said, it’s generally the what, the money that the employer puts in any money that you put in is generally what we would say 100% vested immediately.

Should You Ever Pass Up On The Employer Match?

Emily (19:34): Okay. And so I’m thinking about a person who is just starting out and they’re looking at this benefits package and they see that they have a match available to them, so exciting. Um, but maybe their personal finances are not totally in great shape yet. When should they pass up that free money and work on other areas of their finances? Is there ever a situation where that, where you would advise that?

Scott (19:57): I wouldn’t think so. I mean, so let’s suppose you’ve gotta put in 4% of your brand new paycheck that you’re excited to get and that’s going to entitle you to matching and you’re leery to say, but could I use that 4% for something else paying off student loans or paying off credit card debt? Well that might be an appropriate use of it, but I would be more inclined from the psychological perspective is let’s just commit to that 4% and then learn how to carve out additional savings from our new paycheck to pay for that other debt. I mean, debt would be the only reason. I could see why you wouldn’t want to get that initial match. And even then I would really encourage you to, from day one, let’s get that match and figure everything else around that. ’cause otherwise, as we know we’re gonna be have some inertia put in place and we say, I’ll do it later, I’ll do it next year, you probably won’t. So day one, do whatever you can to get that match would be what I recommend.

Emily (20:52): Yeah, I really like that advice. A great point about the inertia, like when are you really going to make that change if you don’t make it right from day one? Um, and if you are really excited about getting that match and you’re really hating, let’s say the credit card debt that you’re in, maybe because of your move to your new job or whatever the case is, um, just use all those, uh, well, they’re probably negative feelings, but use them to energize you <laugh> to get that debt paid off while you’re still contributing to that retirement account and getting the match. And hey, then once the debt is paid off, you can increase that retirement contribution rate above the match level, let’s say

Scott (21:26): After celebrating and going out to dinner or, or something that you paid off your debt. So

Roth Vs. Traditional Retirement Accounts

Emily (21:31): Yeah, that’s awesome. Okay, still thinking about that new post PhD employee, um, let’s say they have a Roth option and a traditional option within their retirement accounts, what are the factors that go into making that decision? Which way to go?

Scott (21:46): So it generally comes down to taxes. And so as we said that traditional, um, contributions to 401k are tax, um, deducted this year. So you save on taxes this year, let’s suppose 20%, whereas the Roth contribution, you don’t save on taxes this year, but it goes in and you never pay taxes again. So the question becomes do I wanna save on taxes this year, maybe saving 20% depending on where my income is or at the, when I start to retire and I pull money out, do I want to pay taxes then do I have any insight 30 years from now that I’m gonna be paying less or more tax rates than I am now? And we don’t have a crystal ball, so we don’t know that for sure. But the general understanding is that the lower your tax rate is now probably a pretty good chances 30 years from now when you start pulling money out, your tax rate’s gonna be higher. So that puts you in favor of using a Roth. Now, uh, it’s less like, it’s less helpful to you to save 15% on taxes now, which is the Roth scenario, rather than to wait 30 years from now and pay 2020 5% coming out, which is the 401k option or the traditional 401k option. So I would say, what’s the general recommendation when you’re starting off, that’s generally the best time to do a Roth because you’re generally making less income than you will in the future. And it also give you a much longer runway the next 30, 40 years to invest that money and have it accrue, uh, tax free, which is a, a really great option.

Commercial

Emily (23:24): Emily here for a brief interlude. Would you like to learn directly from me on a personal finance topic, such as taxes, budgeting, investing, and goal-setting, each tailored specifically for graduate students and postdocs? I offer workshops on these topics and more in a variety of formats, and I’m now booking for the 2024-2025 academic year. If you would like to bring my content to your institution, would you please recommend me as a speaker or facilitator to your university, graduate school, graduate student association, or postdoc office? My seminars are usually slated as professional development or personal wellness. Ask the potential host to go to PFforPhDs.com/financial-education/ or simply email me at [email protected] to start the process. I really appreciate these recommendations, which are the best way for me to start a conversation with a potential host. The paid work I do with universities and institutes enables me to keep producing this podcast and all my other free resources. Thank you in advance if you decide to issue a recommendation! Now back to our interview.

Roth Vs. Traditional Retirement Accounts

Emily (24:42): Let’s project forward a few years, maybe 10 years. So this person is no longer a fresh new PhD graduate in their first job, but they have increased their income somewhat over time. Is there a tipping point that you would say or is it just for every individual? Where do you see your income potential going?

Scott (24:58): Yeah, that’s a much trickier. Um, but let, let’s play that, that scenario. So some, some of my colleagues will say, um, if collectively, because we’re talking about, I’ve been saying federal tax rates, but it also applies to state income tax, if that’s indeed, um, it, it, uh, applies to your state. So in my state of Michigan I pay about 4% and if I’m in the 24% tax right rate for a federal plus the four is 28% combined. That’s where I’m wondering am I gonna pay more or less than that when I retire 20 years now or 30 years from now? And so I hear people talk about this magic, not magic number, but just sort of rule of thumb about 30%, anything less than 30% taxes. Now it’s probably a pretty good bet that when you’re pulling money out later, you’re gonna end up paying more than that. So somewhere in that range, 25 to 30% is, is sort of this borderline category. Anything more than 30%. So if you’re very high income earner right now, you probably want to take advantage of saving taxes now because you might be in the, the 34% tax bracket or even higher and you’ll likely be taxed less than that 30 years from now. But we don’t know for sure. So all these choices, it just sort of depends. You make the best decision you can at the time and then don’t look back, don’t worry, you made your decision, it’s over and what happens, happens.

Emily (26:22): Yeah, definitely don’t use the uncertainty around where will my tax rate be in retirement as a reason to not get started, right? Like just jump in with whatever option you think is best at the moment. That’s okay, keep going at that. And my philosophy around it is kind of to want to get to retirement with a mix of Roth and traditional so that I can do some tax optimization on the backend. So as long as I have big pools of money in both of those types of accounts, by that point I’ll be pretty happy. I’ll add in one other anecdote, um, sort of about how I made this decision earlier on in my career when I could see, um, where my tax rates were going. So I post PhD was living in the state of Washington, which has no state income tax, but I knew that I aspired to move to California, which has could be a high state income tax rate. And so I used that view into my own personal aspirations in my future to say, okay, when I’m living in Washington, that’s a great time to use the Roth. And when I move to California, that’s a great time to switch to traditional assuming no other changes in my, you know, overall income.

Scott (27:22): Very good, good idea. Now let’s talk about those, that bucket that you mentioned. So when people retire, it’s nice to have options and so there’s considered, there’s sometimes considered three buckets of Roth, which has already been taxed, 4 0 1 Ks which have not yet been taxed. And then there’s a third category that we haven’t talked about. We call that a taxable account. And that’s just where you’re doing extra savings. So out aside from these retirement accounts, and if you have sizable amounts in all three of these buckets, they’re probably not gonna be equal and nor should you necessarily aspire to that. But if, if you’ve got some money in each of those, as you start to pull money out during retirement, as you said, that gives you some flexibility, uh, to control your tax rates so you can start pulling some money out of a Roth because it’s not gonna be taxed at all, some money out of your 401k ’cause it is gonna be taxed and then have some money in your taxable. So how do you manage that? How do you end up with three buckets? Well, we’ve talked about early on maybe you start with a Roth for retirement and then throughout your career maybe you start to transition it, there’s gonna be perhaps some tipping point, maybe not, maybe you just wanna do Roth all in and that’s perfectly fine as well. But in that mid category, that 15 years that we were talking about, you could get to the point where you put half in Roth and half in a 401k, so there is no right or wrong or it’s not a binary decision. And that would allow you to con uh, to continue to build in all three of those buckets.

What Exactly Should I Invest In?

Emily (28:49): Perfect. Let’s talk about another decision that has to be made when you’re contributing to that 401k or 4 0 3 B, which is what should I actually be invested in <laugh>? Because the 401k or the 4 0 3 B is not synonymous with the investments that could be inside of it, there’s gonna be some choice about what exactly you wanna be invested in. So help that you know, fresh PhD with that first job, help them think through that choice of what exactly should they be invested in.

Scott (29:17): Uh, well still first and foremost when we come to talk about investing, uh, the golden rule is called, um, diversification. So we don’t wanna put all of our eggs in one basket. So although it’d be really tempting to, to buy as much apple stock as you possibly could or as much Nvidia stock as you possibly could, uh, because that’s currently what’s hot, you want the risk of losing a lot as well. So how do we do diversification is we mainly, or most of us buy things called mutual funds, which are collections hundreds if not thousands of individual stocks for different companies. So that provides you that diversification and that’s what you will generally be given as an option. So for your 401k, normally you’re given a limited collection of choices for yourself. Those are often gonna be what we call mutual funds. And so you still have to make choices. So maybe it’s a choice outta 10 or it’s a choice out of 50, that can be pretty overwhelming. Uh, so my approach is to pick mutual funds that buy a little bit of everything. So these are called index funds and I know Emily, you’re, you’re a fan of passive investing as well. And so look for, uh, titles of these mutual funds that perhaps include index in the name, probably don’t call it passive, but they might say index. Uh, one of the keys when you’re picking out mutual funds is the expenses that they cost. So most people don’t realize, but you invest money in a mutual fund and each and every year the uh, management company takes a little bit out of that. Maybe it’s 1%, which would be super high or maybe it’s 0.1%, which would be pretty low. Sounds like pretty sounds like the same thing to most of us. 0.1% and 1%. What’s the difference? Well, it turns out 30 years from now, those build on themselves a lot. So when we’re given a choice of mutual funds, back to the original question is I wanna look for something that is an index slash called passive investing. And those generally have lower fees, which might be 0.1% or even less, uh, which is more money in your pocket, less money in their pocket, more money in your pocket. And that’s the win-win. So first choice, pick mutual funds that are indexes and then you might have to choose between, uh, do you want to buy stocks or do you wanna buy fixed income, which is, which is often called bonds. That’s probably a whole nother podcast. But, but the quick answer is most of us now have an option called a target date fund. And a target fund. Target date fund is perfect for somebody just getting started ’cause they don’t need to worry about the ins and outs of picking what percentage of stocks and what percentage of bonds someone else is doing that for you generally at a low cost. So if you have an option for a target date fund, they’re gonna have names associated with the year that you plan to retire. Now there’s nothing magical about it and nothing significant about it, but if you’re just getting into your career now and you’ve got at least another 30 years to work, 35 years to work, so adding that to 2025. So 2060 would be the name of a target fund that you might look for. Vanguard has these fidelity, uh, Schwab has all of these and all that tells you is somebody has decided what percentage of stocks and bonds. So I just looked up Vanguard’s 2060 target date fund and 90% is in stocks and 10% is in bonds. The longer that you have to invest the, uh, more volatility or the more ups and downs you might be able to stomach mentally stomach. So if you recognize, yeah, the stock market went down this year, it’s gonna go down. I can guarantee you that. I don’t know if it’s this year, I don’t know if it’s next year, but at some point the stock market’s gonna go down again. And if you’re okay with that, if you’re mentally prepared to say, I knew that was gonna happen, I’m gonna keep letting it ride, then because you have the luxury of going for the next 30 years, then it’s okay to have 90% in stocks. But as you get closer, uh, and this is what those target date funds do for you, is they start to reduce the stocks and increase the fixed income so that as you get closer to closer it might be a 60 40 split. So long-winded answer, sorry my professor is coming out on me, but what are your choices as a new employee? If you’ve got a target date fund, generally pick that.

“Safe” Investing Options

Emily (33:40): So sometimes I get questions when I teach about investing where the questionnaire says I want to start investing and I wanna use something safe. If one of your clients said that to you, I I’m nervous about the stock market, I wanna pick something safe, how, how would you coach them?

Scott (34:01): So safe generally means, um, lower return. So whether you’re buying bonds or treasury bonds, so safe means less likely to lose money, which is something that none of us want to do, but also less likely that you’re going to make much money. So over the next 10, 15, 30 years. Question is, can you afford to be conservative? Maybe you can, but I think there’s a bigger risk, a long term risk that if you’re too conservative, you put all your money. I mean the extreme would be you put all your money in a savings account making 0.1% and that’s gonna make you feel very safe. But 20 years from now, you’re gonna regret that because your money has not even kept up with inflation. So if inflation’s rising, if 3% every year, so it’s really a mental game, I understand that the concern about potentially losing money, but hopefully you overcome that and recognize that over the next 15, 20, 30 years you’re likely not going to lose money and you’re going to stay ahead of the game by investing in more what we would call more aggressive, not completely aggressive, but more aggressive investments as as, um, you pointed out.

Different Fee Structures of Financial Advisors

Emily (35:14): So something that I learned in our prep for this interview, um, is in your financial planning practice, how your fee structure works, which I really appreciated, but I want you to explain it, um, and explain why you think it’s advantageous both for you and for your clients.

Scott (35:30): Okay, well let’s back up and recognize that there are hundreds of thousands of people that call themselves financial advisors in the us. Uh, that’s not a regulated term. And so almost anybody can call themselves a financial advisor and they generally make money from three ways. Now we all need to make money so there’s no harm in that. Uh, one of them is that they make commissions. So they sell you products whether they be what are called annuities or insurance or stock plans and they make a commission off of that, whether that be 2% or 3% or 10%, perfectly fine, assuming that they disclose that to you and they’re recognizing, you know, I’m gonna make 10% off of you buying this $100,000 investment, but I think it’s best for you and that very well may be best for you. Then there’s a category called called fee only advisors. So they wanna avoid commissions with the potential of there being a conflict or at least the perception that there might be a conflict. And they’re generally gonna charge you for ongoing what we call asset management. And so the going rate is generally 1%. Now these are people that already have established accounts, maybe a million dollars. And so they’re going to pay their, um, fee only advisor 1% of that each and every year to manage their money and give them good advice and, and keep them on the straight and narrow. And then there’s a relatively new category that we call flat fee planning where we’re not interested in managing the money for that client, but we want to just give them some objective solid education advice and then the person can go back on their own for the next 2, 3, 5 years and then maybe come back for a refresher and say, how am I doing? What advice do you have me now? So I’m in that category, it’s called flat fee. So for a particular fee I offer a financial plan to clients that says if they’re starting out and or getting close to retirement and says, let’s take a look at all your finances, not just your investments, but let’s take a look at your insurance and your estate planning documents and a variety of other aspects. Let’s take a look at your goals and just do an assessment and objective assessment to see if you’re on track or not. So, so flat fee advising or flat fee expenses is the way I model my business useful for people especially just getting into investing because they don’t have a lot of money yet. And so the fee only advisors that charge 1% probably aren’t going to see you anyways. So that would be an advantage.

Emily (38:06): Hmm, yeah, especially if, um, you may have zero in assets under management to offer if you only have your 401k plan, for example, if you don’t even have an IRA that, that an advisor could even work with. So I really appreciate that flat fee, um, model. It’s actually when I sought out financial advising a few years ago, that’s the model that I went with for the advisor that I chose. So, um, I’m a believer in it now. It’s a little harder to stomach maybe upfront because you have to come up with hundreds or a couple thousand dollars maybe, depending on the advisor and the type of, um, package that you’re getting versus going to someone who makes money off commissions. Well, it seems like it’s free, but it’s really not free. And so just to recognize as you said that everybody in this industry is getting paid in some way or another, as long as you’re upfront about it, fine, then the client can choose how they want to pay for the service that they’re getting and their advantages and disadvantages to each of those models. But I really appreciate the model that you’ve chosen, so it’s great.

Socrates Financial Planning

Emily (39:01): And if someone listening, um, really likes your style, likes how you’ve taught us through this episode, wants to work with you or maybe wants to recommend you to someone else, how would they get in contact with you?

Scott (39:12): Yeah, so the name of the company is Socrates Financial Planning. So Socrates, because that’s the way I always taught in the classroom using the Socratic method. So Socrates financial planning, socratesfp.com is the website address and from there you can get an email or schedule a call with me or, or find more information about me, but socratesfp.com is the place to go.

Best Financial Advice for Another Early-Career PhD

Emily (39:36): Well thank you so much Scott, and I wanna conclude by asking you the question that I ask of all of my guests, which is, what is your best financial advice for an early career PhD? And that could be something that we’ve touched on already in the interview or it could be something completely new.

Scott (39:50): Yeah, I would come back to that notion of day one, start contributing to whatever plan you have, whether it’s the Roth or or the, the traditional plan certainly to, um, achieve that employer match that we talked about. 10% might sound like a lot to start saving right away, but I would recommend you, you strive for that if not higher, set that up from day one so that you just learn to get by on 90% of your salary. And that’s gonna do such wonders for you. 30 years from now, you will be so glad looking back that that was the best decision you ever made.

Emily (40:26): Well, Thank you so much Scott for volunteering to come on the podcast. It’s been a pleasure speaking with you.

Scott (40:31): Very good. Thank you very much.

Outtro

Emily (40:41): Listeners, thank you for joining me for this episode! I have a gift for you! You know that final question I ask of all my guests regarding their best financial advice? My team has collected short summaries of all the answers ever given on the podcast into a document that is updated with each new episode release. You can gain access to it by registering for my mailing list at PFforPhDs.com/advice/. Would you like to access transcripts or videos of each episode? I link the show notes for each episode from PFforPhDs.com/podcast/. See you in the next episode, and remember: You don’t have to have a PhD to succeed with personal finance… but it helps! Nothing you hear on this podcast should be taken as financial, tax, or legal advice for any individual. The music is “Stages of Awakening” by Podington Bear from the Free Music Archive and is shared under CC by NC. Podcast editing by Dr. Lourdes Bobbio and show notes creation by Dr. Jill Hoffman.

What You Should Know about Money Early in Your PhD Career

July 29, 2024 by Jill Hoffman

In this episode, Emily shares the microinterviews she recorded at two higher education conferences this summer. The conference attendees, virtually all of whom work at universities and most of whom have PhDs themselves, responded to this prompt: “What do you wish you had known about money earlier in your career?” Listen through the episode for insights into the financial steps for which, should you take them now, your future self will thank you.

Links mentioned in the Episode

What You Should Know about Money Early in Your PhD Career

Teaser

Lyndsi B (00:00): You don’t have to make one decision and have it be the right decision for the rest of your life. Like you can make changes at any point along the way and you are allowed to fail and like you can recover from failure.

Introduction

Emily (00:20): Welcome to the Personal Finance for PhDs Podcast: A Higher Education in Personal Finance. This podcast is for PhDs and PhDs-to-be who want to explore the hidden curriculum of finances to learn the best practices for money management, career advancement, and advocacy for yourself and others. I’m your host, Dr. Emily Roberts, a financial educator specializing in early-career PhDs and founder of Personal Finance for PhDs.

Emily (00:50): This is Season 18, Episode 5, and today I’m sharing the microinterviews I recorded at two higher education conferences this summer. The conference attendees, virtually all of whom work at universities and most of whom have PhDs themselves, responded to this prompt: “What do you wish you had known about money earlier in your career?” Listen through the episode for insights into the financial steps for which, should you take them now, your future self will thank you.

Emily (01:20): The two conferences I attended were the Graduate Career Consortium Annual Meeting or GCC and the Higher Education Financial Wellness Alliance Summit or HEFWA. GCC is primarily attended by university staff members working with PhD students and postdocs in career and professional development. HEFWA is attended by university staff members working in financial wellness across undergraduate and graduate populations. These two conferences were excellent networking opportunities for me on top of the built-in professional development. However, there are plenty of universities who were not represented at these conferences. Would you please consider recommending my financial education seminars and workshops at your university? My most popularly requested events for the upcoming academic year are Your Financial Orientation to Graduate School, How to Prevent a Large, Unexpected Tax Bill on Your Fellowship Income, Expert-Level Budgeting for Graduate Students and Postdocs, and Demystifying Taxes for Graduate Students. Please direct an appropriate potential host within your graduate school, postdoc office, grad student association, etc. to PFforPhDs.com/financial-education/ where they can learn more. Thank you in advance! You can find the show notes for this episode at PFforPhDs.com/s18e5/. Without further ado, here are the microinterviews recorded at GCC and HEFWA.

What Do You Wish You Had Known About Money Earlier In Your Career?

Amy (03:03): Hi, I am Amy from Princeton and when I was in graduate school I wish I had learned more about investing and saving for retirement and sort of how all that works early in your career to benefit you later.

Sharon F (03:18): Hi, my name is Sharon Fleshman. I’m a senior associate director at Career Services at University of Pennsylvania. I think coming out of undergrad I basically took the salary, I was pitched <laugh> and that was it. So I wish I knew the implications of a starting salary across the years.

Evan W (03:34): My name is Evan Walsh. I’m a career advisor at Harvard Medical School. I really wish I knew that it only takes a little bit each week to put towards something. So every week I put money away into a travel fund. Each week I put money away towards retirement. Each money I put a little bit away towards just miscellaneous fees that I may incur and it’s all within my master budget that I now wish I would’ve known earlier that I like to do and that’s really helped me sort of save for trips and things for my future, things that I wanna prioritize, how I utilize my money. So I wish I knew earlier that your money is yours to spend the way that you want to.

Laura S (04:11): Hi, my name is Laura Stark and I work for Harvard University. I got my PhD many, many years ago and I wish that I had known that I should start saving for retirement even as a graduate student.

Briana M (04:26): I’m Briana Mohan, I am a program manager at MD Anderson Cancer Center. A lot of times we feel, I have felt that money is tied to worth and my value as a professional and there actually is no correlation at all so far as I can see. So I think that decoupling those two things so that then it’s a little bit more feasible to work with money and money questions and speak about them and grapple with them and not have it so tied to how much I’m valued or how much I am worth, I wish I would’ve known that earlier.

Alla M (05:03): So my name is Alla Mirzoyan and I’m from Florida International University and I wish I had known about credit in the United States and not to sign up for credit cards without really understanding the implications. I was an international student so I knew very little about how credit works, but I know better now.

Gina B (05:25): I’m Gina Bellavia from the University at Buffalo and what I wish I’d known about money earlier in my career is, well, particularly because I got a PhD but then I went a non-traditional route. I didn’t go into academia, so I guess it would’ve been good for me to know going that route that I might have to kind of go down in pay to, to then start a new trajectory and then work my way up again, which I guess it makes sense if you think about it, but I didn’t really think about it that way. So it’s taken a little longer to to build up I think by taking that less traditional route, but, but I’ve also had greater career satisfaction.

Manali G (06:03): I’m Manali Ghosh. I’m a senior academic recruiter at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and I wish I had known sooner to invest in stocks like s and p 500 earlier in my career.

Ivonne V P (06:16): My name is Ivonne Vidal Pizarro. I’m at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. I’m the research consultant in the graduate school supporting postdocs and I wish that I’d known that if I could save more money when I was younger, I’d have more in my 401k now.

David C-B (06:30): Hi, David Cota-Buckhout. I am the assistant director of Alumni Engagement and Career Support at the University of Rochester’s Graduate Education Postdoctoral affairs office. I wish I knew that I should have paid off my private student loans earlier so that way the compounded interest wouldn’t have backed me with so much debt. And just recently I was able to get rid of those student loans and then free up over $13,000 of interest that I can now put towards other things.

Katie H (07:07): I’m Katie Homar from University of Pittsburgh and what I wish I knew about money earlier in my career was the importance of researching salaries and negotiation.

Alex Y (07:18): Hi, this is Alex Yen, a second year postdoc at Boston University’s professional development and postdoctoral affairs office. The thing I wish I had known about money earlier in my career, and I think especially in graduate school, is that open a high yield savings account as soon as you can and put just a little bit of money, even if it’s 20 bucks, 30 bucks a month. Just having that and knowing that it can, it’s a long term sort of savings space that will continue to accrue interest, will make you feel less anxious and look forward to a time when you can save more

Dan O-B (07:56): Dan Olson-Bang, Syracuse University. If I had known this, I would’ve been grateful. Uh, don’t take out loans during your PhD.

Ryan U (08:05): My name is Ryan Udan. I’m director of the office for postdocs at UTM, the Anderson Cancer Center. As a long time trainee that did not make a lot of money, who navigated into a career path that I was ultimately happy in, it did take too long of a time to get to that career path that for me, I wish I knew about other career options that I would’ve been happy with earlier that paid better and earlier. So now I have a better understanding of all the other diverse career options that are available to people, not just for people with their PhDs, but for other types of professional degree programs that would’ve gotten me to a space where I was happy with my job and that I was making a lot of money more quickly. For example, I didn’t know about optometry field, I didn’t know about radiological careers and you know, the flexibility you have for, uh, uh, obtaining jobs more easily and, and many different places from small towns to big cities. And again, immediately after you get sometimes an associate’s degree, that stuff for me was a black box when I was training.

Giovanna G-M (09:14): Hi, my name is Giovanna Guerrero-Medina and I’m director of Diversity programs at the Yale School of Medicine and the Wu Tsai Institute. One thing I would’ve liked to know about money earlier in my career has to do with how much life costs and how there are gonna be times in your life when you will need to have extra cash because of health emergencies. Because you have to take care of family members who are sick. You have an emergency trip that you have to plan and so it’s important to have a, a fund or a a some money that is liquid that you can use in an emergency at some point in, in my life after my graduate school, my family had some emergencies and I also had some healthcare costs and it was really important for me to have that extra cash that I had saved and separated.

Bill M (10:15): Bill Mahoney. I’m the Associate Dean of graduate student postdoc affairs at the University of Washington. I’m also faculty in the School of medicine and I wish I understood a little bit better that making career decisions based on the next paycheck, the most money, it’s only part of the decision. You have to make it on what you love doing, the people you’re gonna support. And if you choose to stay in higher ed, you’re probably gonna not make as much money, but you’re gonna have a bigger impact on training the next generation of scientists and students to go on and do bigger and better things in uh, and improve the world.

Meredith O (10:44): Meredith Okenquist, Director of Career Management Villanova University. What I wish I knew more about was retirement planning at the very onset of my career and investing the full maximum percentage for my 401k.

Kirsten R (10:59): My name is Kirsten Ronald. I am the program manager of advanced degree career management at UT Austin. I wish I had known that you don’t need to go back to school to make a massive career change and I also wish someone had talked with me about the ROI of going back to school before I did it.

Colleen G (11:13): My name is Colleen Gleeson and I work at the University of Texas at Austin as an associate director for advanced degree employer integration. One thing I wish I had known about money earlier in my career is thinking about careers and jobs and salary packages and benefits in a way that like evaluates in the total compensation package and how invaluable it is to have employer paid health insurance and to have things like pay time off and something that forces you to invest in a retirement account or a pension to make you think about the future.

Marlene B (11:51): So my name is, uh, Marlene Brito, Dr. Marlene Brito and I’m the associate director of DEI at NYU Career Development Center. And what I wish I had known before I started a PhD was that you self-fund a lot of your activities as a doctorate student, especially if you’re a professional who’s going to school part-time, but sometimes even as a full-time student. So like save money for conferences, save money for research expenses because all of that cost thousands of dollars.

Melissa K (12:21): Melissa King, University of Mississippi, the best advice I ever received about money was when my husband and I married 13 years ago and my mother-in-law told us it doesn’t matter how much money you make if you spend all of it right? So knowing how to spend and how to save is by far the best piece of advice. It doesn’t matter if you make six figures if you’re, you’re spending all of it, right? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>.

Lee T (12:46): Hi, my name is Lee Tacliad. I’m a manager of alumni and employer engagement at Scripps Research and what I wish I knew about money earlier was the magical effect of compound interest.

MaKenna C (13:00): Hi, I’m MaKenna Cealie. I am a graduate student at the University of Rochester. What do I wish I had known about money earlier in my career. So I had some great advice about learning to save and invest, but I think sometimes I took that too far. So I think it would also be important to kinda spend your money too as sometimes and enjoy your life. I read this great book Die With Zero and I think that was very helpful for me.

Dan E (13:26): Hi there. My name’s Dan Emmans. I am senior coordinator for student development and engagement at Harvard Medical School. Early on, get into the habit of putting 20% away and you’ll never go wrong.

Tamar G-C (13:36): Hi, I am Tamar Gaffin-Cahn. I’m the assistant director for graduate students at the Career Development Center at Emerson College. And one thing I wish I had known about money earlier in my career is put money away. Invest really early on, even if it’s just 20 bucks a month, invest early ’cause it will grow. I would also say to diversify where you’re investing and there are lots of opportunities of how to invest in uh, that’s connected to your values as well. So there are opportunities to invest in green energy, invest in programs that are good for the environment and good technology and things like that so it your money isn’t going to corporations that do harm to this world.

Bryan M (14:12): Hi, my name is Bryan McGrath. I do employer engagement over at Harvard Medical School. What do I wish? I had known about money earlier in my career that credit cards accrue interests and you should be paying more than the minimum each time.

Linda L (14:24): My name is Linda Louie. I work at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab and I wish that earlier in my career I had known that retirement was a thing you needed to plan for <laugh>.

Jessica R (14:35): My name’s Jessica Roman, I’m the Assistant director of Graduate career Services at Stony Brook University and something I wish I would’ve known about money earlier in my career is how private loans and their interest works because I thought it was like public loans where you have the same principal and then I graduated and I got the bill and it was very shocking and I’m still paying that off, so I wish I would’ve known how that works so I would’ve made payments while in college.

Breanna G (15:06): My name’s Breanna Gallagher and I am a career coordinator at Oklahoma State University and what I wish I would’ve known about money earlier in my career is literally just the lingo of all of the money talk, being able to understand my benefits, being able to understand 401ks and medical insurance and being able to just understand what I was reading and signing, especially in a really tight window when you’re required to do your benefits in like 24 hours.

Aimzhan I (15:39): My name is, Aimzhan Iztayeva. I work as a program associate at the graduate School of the University of Minnesota. What I wish I had known about money earlier in my career is how investment works and also how taxes work with regard to money that you gain through investment.

Natalie C (15:56): My name is Natalie Chernets, I’m director of postdoctoral affairs and professional development at Drexel University. What I wish I knew about money early on is that higher education doesn’t necessarily mean more money in your salary, especially if you are an immigrant coming from another country. There are other barriers you have to think through to earn that salary.

Rowena W (16:14): Hi, I’m Dr. Rowena Winkler. I work for the University of Maryland, Baltimore County or UMBC in their career center as the assistant director for graduate student career development. So what I wish I had known about money earlier in my career is, especially as a graduate student, I, I’m an immigrant child, so my parents came here from the Philippines and I didn’t really know good personal finance and money management practices. I wish I had taken out loans or looked for more scholarships because as a graduate student in particular, I went into a lot of credit card debt just trying to finance my way through school. And so I wish I had known more about personal finance resources or funding options as a graduate student.

Mearah Q-B (16:56): My name is Mearah Quinn-Brauner. I work at Northwestern University. I wish I had known that sometimes it’s a good idea to spend money in order to have more money later in your life. When I was in graduate school, my mom tried to convince me to buy a house and I thought that that was insane. It was a crazy idea given how much money I had at the time, but it would’ve been worth figuring out so that I would have a house in Philadelphia now.

Diane S (17:24): Hi, my name is Diane Safer. I’m the director of career and Professional Development at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine where I work with PhDs and postdocs. I wish I would’ve taken the advice that I give to my students and postdocs right now and really negotiated for higher salaries and higher starting salaries right when I got the job because you can never really make it up once you’ve started a job and you’ve lost all your negotiating power once you’re in.

Mallory F-L (17:49): Hi, my name’s Mallory Fix-Lopez. I’m with Language ConnectED. I wish I would’ve known to charge for my work earlier in my career. I’ve done a lot of work for free <laugh>.

Emily S (17:59): So my name is Emily Sferra. I am the coordinator for career and Professional Development at the University of Michigan Medical School. If given the option to contribute to a retirement account you should contribute to a retirement account.

David B (18:19): Hi, I’m David Blancha. I’m a program manager at the OCPD at University of San Francisco. The thing that I wish I had known about money earlier, especially when I was a graduate student, is that when I was doing all of the math on my finances and what I might like need to live while I was in graduate school, all of those numbers would be wrong. Eight years later when I graduated I had no, I, no sense of adjusting for inflation or markets changing or anything like that. So I assumed the math I had done to live in a one bedroom apartment <laugh> in New York in 2015 is what I was going to need in 2022 and that’s absolutely not, not right. <laugh>.

Commercial

Emily (19:09): Emily here for a brief interlude. Would you like to learn directly from me on a personal finance topic, such as taxes, goal-setting, investing, frugality, increasing income, or student loans, each tailored specifically for graduate students and postdocs? I offer seminars and workshops on these topics and more in a variety of formats, and I’m now booking for the 2024-2025 academic year. If you would like to bring my content to your institution, would you please recommend me as a speaker or facilitator to your university, graduate school, graduate student association, or postdoc office? My seminars are usually slated as professional development or personal wellness. Orientations or very close to the start of the academic year would be a perfect time for tax education or general personal finance content. Ask the potential host to go to PFforPhDs.com/financial-education/ or simply email me at [email protected] to start the process. I really appreciate these recommendations, which are the best way for me to start a conversation with a potential host. The paid work I do with universities and institutions enables me to keep producing this podcast and all my other free resources. Thank you in advance if you decide to issue a recommendation! Now back to our interview.

What Do You Wish You Had Known About Money Earlier In Your Career?

Alexis B (20:37): My name’s Alexis Boyer. I’m assistant director of Graduate student career services at MIT. And I wish I had known the difference between a 1099 and a W2 and I wish that I had known that the skills that I was developing were worthy of being paid.

RC S (20:54): RC Stabile, uh, Vanderbilt University, director of trainee engagement and wellbeing. I wish I knew about investing, putting money in target date index funds and I wish I knew about high yield savings accounts earlier.

John M (21:10): Hi, my name’s John Miles. I’m the Chief Executive officer of Inkpath, uh, the professional development platform. I wish earlier that I had known that by spending my time working on Shakespeare and taking a very academic direction that I wasn’t counting myself out of decent salaries later on that I should be confident that time will reward you and, uh, you can indulge those academic perspectives, uh, without feeling like you are narrowing down your options for the future.

Zarna P (21:42): Hi, I’m Zarna Pala. I am the assistant director of the Biological Sciences graduate program at the University of Maryland. And I wish I knew, uh, more about investment and investing money in the right direction or any sort of like small investments which I, which I could have started early on, uh, as a graduate student, as a postdoc fellow, that would’ve been really helpful.

Anne-Charlotte M (22:08): Hi, I’m Anne-Charlotte Mecklenburg. I am the postdoctoral associate for academic support at the University of Maryland College Park. And I think something that I wish that I knew about money earlier in my career was just all of the different ways of like saving money and organizing money that I would need later in my career as a graduate student it was kind of like, okay, I have a stipend and it covers all my living expenses and I can’t really do anything else with it, so I just spend it until I don’t have it anymore. And now that I’m sort of moving into more of a mid-career moment, it’s like, oh, I have a retirement account through my university and I don’t really know how that works. All that kind of stuff that I feel like in other careers people kind of learn that kind of stuff closer to right af out of college. It’s something that now feels like a little bit delayed for me and now I feel like I’m a little bit behind. So something I wish I was thinking about before I needed it so that I’d be ready when I did need it.

Amy A (23:00): I’m Amy Aines and I’m with Championing Science. What I would’ve loved to have known more about is how to invest. I think I was conservative and I was okay with a 401k with someone else thinking about it, but it would’ve been nice to know for myself what that was about and how I could take advantage of the opportunity.

Gina D (23:18): Gina Delgado, director of doctoral and post-doctoral life design and what I wish I’d known earlier about money in general is not just knowing about money but not being afraid of being broke because I’m not afraid of being broke.

Beka L (23:32): This is Beka Layton. I am the director of professional development at UNC Chapel Hill and thinking back to when I was a graduate student, I think benefits life insurance 401ks and kind of how to balance life expenses with long-term goals and budgeting. I think that whole like black box of like, I don’t know any of those things was mystifying to me. So things I learned by accident along the way and wish I knew then.

Aurora W (24:02): I’m Aurora Washington. I am currently a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. And something that I wish I knew about finance when I was a graduate student is how to budget a little bit better and to manage my expectations because I’m a postdoc, postdoc don’t get paid well and so I wish I knew a little bit more about benefits in negotiating in Texas.

Sam R (24:29): Hi, um, this is Sam Ramosevac, I’m director, um, at the office of Postdoctoral and Mentor trainee program at Emory University. Uh, I wish I actually negotiated my salary and I think it’s really important at least to attempt to negotiate and get more money for the level of experience you have and you know, just at least to try.

Ian K (24:57): I’m Ian Krout. I am a postdoctoral fellow at Emory University. For me, being a postdoc, I went on a training grant and realized that I was losing some benefits that I had gotten as being an employee at the university. And so I actually began to ask questions to both my PI and the postdoctoral office about if this needed to be the case and if there was any way to get benefits and advocating for myself was enough to get those benefits brought back through a workaround at the university, which was really positive for my experience and helped me to still be able to save for retirement and not pay into my health insurance myself.

Jessica T (25:35): My name is Jessica Taylor. I’m a research fellow at ACLS and I wish I had known when I was a graduate student that you’re supposed to tip in hotels.

Natalia (25:44): My name is Natalia, I work for the University of Pittsburgh as a career advisor. Yeah, and I wish I, I had known that money would be able to buy me freedom of choice.

Autumn A (25:55): Well, my name is Autumn Anthony. I manage the office for graduate student assistantships and fellowships at GW. I think it would’ve been really important for me to realize earlier that if you are looking to make more money, then you have to go to the organizations that actually have more money <laugh> and that when you are committed to the work that you’re doing and working hard and looking for opportunities to succeed in your work, just because of your commitment and just because of your hard work doesn’t mean you’re going to make more money. So you have to go where the money is.

Jessica V (26:33): My name is Jessica Vélez. I am the membership engagement and early career programs manager for the Genetic Society of America. And I definitely wish I had known that I do actually make more money than I think I do. And by creating a budget, that’s how I learned that I made more money than I thought I did and I signed up for a budgeting app at some point in my graduate career. Because of that, when I finished my PhD, I wasn’t able to immediately get a job, but I had enough money saved up from the budgeting I had done on a graduate school stipend to survive for two or three months without having to worry about unemployment because you can’t apply for unemployment as a graduate student <laugh>. So that was extremely beneficial and I’m glad that I finally learned that, but I wish I had learned that earlier for sure.

Melissa B (27:20): This is Melissa Bostrom. I’m assistant Dean for Graduate Student Professional Development at Duke University and I wish I would’ve known that investing for retirement didn’t have to be perfect. It didn’t have to be the best. I just had to get started with a small amount on a regular basis.

Chris S (27:35): Okay, my name is Chris Smith. I manage the Office of Postdoc Affairs at Virginia Tech. The importance of investing in special retirement vehicles, whether that be a Roth IRA or traditional IRA that have different benefits in terms of tax purposes, whether you pay them now or later. And it might be real benefit when you’re in your lower paying years to be in investing in or Roth where you’re paying the taxes now and then when you eventually retire, you don’t know taxes on that and all the compounding that happens over those 30 plus years of your career.

Jason H (28:06): I’m Jason Heustis, assistant Dean for Student Development Evaluation at Harvard Medical School. I’d say one of the things that would’ve been helpful to know in graduate school, similar decisions you’d make when you start getting a real paycheck, things like allocations for insurances, the different types of saving options, that type of thing would’ve been helpful for me to know earlier, right? Or to be prepared for those decisions so that I can do as much research at the time. That would’ve been helpful.

Anne X (28:30): Hi, my name is Anne Xiong. I’m from UC Berkeley Center for Financial Wellness. I wish I know that no matter how much money you have, you can start investing early.

Kelli W (28:41): I’m Kelli Wright from Wayne State University. I’m the financial wellness advisor there. I’ve been there since March of 2023. I’m an accounting background, so I’m really excited about this space and what I wish I would’ve known is the importance of saving, creating that healthy habit, of saving even $10 a month just where I would be at financially if I would’ve known that.

Charah C (29:07): Yes, my name is Charah Coleman. I work for University of California Merced, and I am the Financial Wellness Center program manager on that campus. I would say the time value of money. I don’t have any regrets with how I spent my money in my undergrad or even early grad school, but I wish I really would’ve invested earlier and given myself a leg up a lot earlier. Now I definitely have to invest a lot more aggressively and I have to cut a lot more expenses now than when I was starting off in my career. I, I definitely think having that awareness of the time value of money being aggressive at the front end, I think would’ve behoove me a lot better.

Beth H (29:49): Beth Hunsaker, MS. Uh, associate Director, financial Wellness Center, university of Utah. After my graduate work, I did take some time off to have kids and although that was a wonderful chapter of my life, I really wish I would’ve taken time to keep my network strong, to keep working on my skills because when it was time to come back for my career, which has to do with money, it was a little harder for that on ramping. And I think that there is a way to balance and do both, and I wish I would’ve focused a little more on that.

Roland K (30:27): Roland Keller Jr associate director of financial aid at Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana. One thing that I wish I would’ve known about a little sooner is the importance of credit. Credit is very important. It literally is life or death. So I would’ve wished I would’ve been more educated about credit

Darrel S (30:45): Darrel Stufflebeam, uh, a doctor in education from KU and I’m the new assistant director for Jayhawk Finances at ku. Uh, I wish I’d have known about the importance of starting early and compound interest and I did not have a financial background and my parents didn’t really have advice. So if I would’ve started a little earlier then I’d be much happier now, but I’m just spreading the word as part of my current job.

Khalilah L (31:12): My name is Dr. Khalilah Lauderdale. I am the Associate Athletic Director for student services at the University of Southern California. And earlier in my career, I wish I had known, um, concerning money more about how to buy a home. I was very green in our process and very reliant on my realtor resources, so that would’ve been helpful.

Nafisah G-B (31:35): My name is Nafisah Graham-Brown. I am a program administrator of a financial coaching program at SUNY WCC, that’s Westchester Community College. What I wish I had known about money earlier in my career was the value of retirement savings. Uh, unfortunately I was in a job where we were discouraged from taking part in the pension and retirement program mainly because the people that were talking to us also didn’t have much information or knowledge. So I guess the value of it wasn’t seen by most of us. And I guess the lesson is make sure you’re getting your information from someone who knows.

Aly B (32:13): My name is Aly Blakeney. I am an instructor of economics at Phillips Academy Andover. What I wish I had known about money earlier was honestly how important it is to talk with any significant other. If you have like a very serious prospect with them to talk with them and be like, Hey, where are we at in terms of money and debt? I think that will cause stress quicker than anything. And setting yourself up for future means also taking care of your financial wellness via your emotional intimacy wellness as well.

Tony F (32:45): My name is Tony Froelich. I am the financial literacy coordinator at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. What I wish I’d known earlier in my career about money is the power of investing in yourself. I always thought of saving as taking what was left after the month and that was my savings. So whether that was $10 or negative $50, pulling outta my savings account, but learning the lesson of taking that savings out of my paycheck first and putting that away and then spending the rest has been life changing.

Zach T (33:19): Yes, Zach Taylor, assistant professor at the University of Southern Mississippi, and what I wish I had known about money earlier in my career is saving it earlier in my career would facilitate a lot more time and that as I’ve gotten older, time is money and I’m now realizing how much more time money can buy you. And that has become so important as my parents have aged and as I have continued in my career where I feel like I have enough money now, but I don’t have the time, but if I had more money, I know I would have more time. So I think the relationship between time and money is what I wish I had known earlier in my career.

Lyndsi B (34:04): I am Lyndsi Burcham. I am the financial Wellness Program manager at the University of Pennsylvania. I think what I wish I had known about money earlier in my career isn’t even necessarily about money. It’s the fact that like you don’t have to make one decision and have it be the right decision for the rest of your life. Like you can make changes at any point along the way. And I think a lot of times when we’re having conversations about money with students, they’re so caught up in the fact that they have to do the right thing first. And oftentimes there is no right thing. And even if there is a right thing, it’s gonna change depending on your life circumstances. There’s a lot I could say about tactical information about like what is a credit score versus a credit report and, and knowing those kinds of things, but like the psychological component of it, which is you are allowed to fail and like you can recover from failure. I, I don’t think we talk about that enough and instead we instill fear in students that they have to do things the best way.

Peter B (34:59): Hi, I am Peter Bye. I am a doctor of music student at Indiana University and what I wish I had known about money earlier in my career is that sometimes it works out well and sometimes it doesn’t work out well and you kind of gotta roll with the punches and make adjustments constantly. It’s never something you figure out. You can’t solve it unless you’re like super rich, but you can make changes and slowly affect your, your situation hopefully in a positive way. Uh, so you kind of just have to roll with the punches until you hopefully get to the place you wanna get to.

Outtro

Emily (35:41): Listeners, thank you for joining me for this episode! I have a gift for you! You know that final question I ask of all my guests regarding their best financial advice? My team has collected short summaries of all the answers ever given on the podcast into a document that is updated with each new episode release. You can gain access to it by registering for my mailing list at PFforPhDs.com/advice/. Would you like to access transcripts or videos of each episode? I link the show notes for each episode from PFforPhDs.com/podcast/. See you in the next episode, and remember: You don’t have to have a PhD to succeed with personal finance… but it helps! Nothing you hear on this podcast should be taken as financial, tax, or legal advice for any individual. The music is “Stages of Awakening” by Podington Bear from the Free Music Archive and is shared under CC by NC. Podcast editing by Dr. Lourdes Bobbio and show notes creation by Dr. Jill Hoffman.