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seminar descriptions

Seminar Descriptions

June 23, 2017 by Emily

The intended audience for these seminars is funded graduate students and postdocs. The content is specifically tailored to cover what trainees need to know to take control of and improve their finances in the present.

Each seminar can be presented in either a virtual or in-person setting.

The titles of each seminar available in the 2022-2023 academic year are below:

The Graduate Student’s and Postdoc’s Guide to Personal Finance

  • Most popular selection for first-time clients
  • Covers multiple personal finance topics
  • Live lecture and Q&A format
  • 2 hours

Optimized Financial Goal Setting for Graduate Students and Postdocs

  • Details my 8-step financial goals framework: how to choose which financial goal to pursue
  • Live lecture and Q&A format (1 hour)
  • Live workshop format (2 hours)—includes lecture content plus worksheets, spreadsheet templates, and/or discussion prompts
  • Flipped classroom workshop format—includes recorded lecture content, worksheets and/or spreadsheet templates, and a live call (up to 1 hour) for discussion and Q&A

Why and How to Passively Invest as a Grad Student or Postdoc

  • The subject PhD trainees are most intensely interested in (after taxes)!
  • Explains why passive investing is the most effective, least expensive, and most cost-efficient manner of investing
  • Teaches about IRAs and workplace-based retirement accounts
  • Discusses how to choose which brokerage firm to use
  • Lecture and Q&A format (1 hour)
  • Workshop format (2 hours)—includes lecture content plus worksheets, spreadsheet templates, and/or discussion prompts
  • Flipped classroom workshop format—includes recorded lecture content, worksheets and/or spreadsheet templates, and a live call (up to 1 hour) for discussion and Q&A

Whether and How to Pay Off Debt During Graduate School or Your Postdoc

  • Details methods of debt repayment
  • Explains how to choose which debt to prioritize
  • Gives an overview of student loan repayment options
  • Lecture and Q&A format (1 hour)
  • Workshop format (2 hours)—includes lecture content plus worksheets, spreadsheet templates, and/or discussion prompts
  • Flipped classroom workshop format—includes recorded lecture content, worksheets and/or spreadsheet templates, and a live call (up to 1 hour) for discussion and Q&A

Up-Level Your Cash Flow as a Graduate Student and Postdoc

  • Teaches how to budget for large, irregular expenses
  • Explains how to stay “on time” with budgeting and credit card usage
  • Gives a framework and ideas for increasing income
  • Includes my frugality quadrant: where to focus your frugal efforts for maximum effect
  • Lecture and Q&A format (1 hour)
  • Workshop format (2 hours)—includes lecture content plus worksheets, spreadsheet templates, and/or discussion prompts
  • Flipped classroom workshop format—includes recorded lecture content, worksheets and/or spreadsheet templates, and a live call (up to 1 hour) for discussion and Q&A

Hack Your Budget

  • Collects spending data on necessities from attendees in advance through a survey
  • Presents the group’s spending data
  • Leads a discussion on how to manage spending in each expense category
  • Live workshop format—1 hour

I also create custom seminars upon request.

Looking for tax content?

My tax education seminars are now available as pre-recorded videos with live Q&A calls and support materials. Email emily at PFforPhDs dot com to discuss a bulk purchase for your group.

  • Quarterly Estimated Tax for Fellowship Recipients [available year-round]
  • How to Complete Your Grad Student Tax Return (and Understand It, Too) [available during tax season]—for tax year 2022, I plan to offer four versions:
    • Citizen/resident graduate students
    • Non-resident graduate students
    • Citizen/resident postdocs
    • Non-resident postdocs

Back to Speaking home page.

Upgrade Your Budget with Financial Goals and Targeted Savings Accounts

June 24, 2016 by Emily

Title: Upgrade Your Budget with Financial Goals and Targeted Savings Accounts

Format: Live In-Person Workshop

Intended Audience: graduate students receiving stipends

Length: 60 minutes

Timing: Year-Round

Live Seminar Outline: Upgrade Your Budget with Financial Goals and Targeted Savings Accounts from Emily Roberts on Vimeo.

Summary: Graduate students face common challenges in their money management. While they may budget and/or track their expenses, their budgets are not maximally effective in helping them reach their goals and weather irregular expenses. This workshop challenges the status quo of each student’s budget by teaching him how to set and reach goals effectively and prepare for irregular expenses. Each attendee is asked to watch a video in advance of attending, bring her budgetary data with her to the workshop, and work through several collaborative exercises during the session.

Outline:

Background Video

  • Define and identify values
  • Identify current financial stage
  • Calculate net worth
  • The power of compound interest
  • Budgetary data collection and categorization

Workshop

  • Goals
    • How to move through financial stages
    • Creating SMART process-based goals
    • Brainstorming bite-sized goals
  • Irregular expenses
    • How irregular expenses challenge a grad student budget
    • Identifying irregular expenses
    • The targeted savings solution to irregular expenses
    • Building individualized targeted savings categories, amounts, and timelines
  • Adapt your budget
    • Creating a prioritized list of goals and targeted savings
    • Brainstorming how to cut back in budget categories
    • How to weigh uses of money against one another

Decipher Your Stipend Offer Letter

June 24, 2016 by Emily

Title: Decipher Your Stipend Offer Letter

Format: Live Lecture with Q&A (In Person or Remote)

Intended Audience: prospective graduate students receiving stipends

Length: 60 minutes

Timing: January to March

Live Seminar Outline: Decipher Your Stipend Offer Letter from Emily Roberts on Vimeo.

Summary: The stipend offer letters that graduate schools send out tend to be flattering to the recipients but difficult to understand. This presentation teaches prospective graduate students how to analyze their stipend offer letters to figure out what is truly being offered to them and what is expected of them. They will learn the key words to watch for in offer letters and what additional questions they need to ask of their prospective departments. Ultimately, they will compare their offers to one another directly by factoring in the local cost of living in each city.

Outline:

  • Factors in choosing your graduate school
  • Why money in graduate school matters
  • What is a typical funding offer for your field? (research assistantships vs. teaching assistantships vs. fellowships, funding guarantees, part-year stipends)
  • What is your stipend and why are you receiving it? (calculate take-home pay, work requirement)
  • What does your university expect from you? (fees, fee amount trajectory, residency)
  • What are your benefits? (health insurance, unions)
  • Compare your stipend to the local cost of living

 

Back to Speaking home page.

Why and How to Passively Invest as a Grad Student or Postdoc

February 1, 2015 by Emily

Title: Why and How to Passively Invest as a Grad Student or Postdoc

Format: Live lecture with Q&A (in person or remote)

Intended Audience: Graduate students receiving stipends, postdocs

Length: 60 minutes

Timing: Year-round

Live Seminar Outline: Why and How to Passively Invest as a Graduate Student or Postdoc from Emily Roberts on Vimeo.

Summary: According to the Council of Graduate Schools’ Financial Education: Developing High Impact Programs for Graduate and Undergraduate Students, doctoral students seek information on investing at a higher rate than any other financial education topic (49%). Passive investing is not only the most effective form of investing, but it also fits well with the capital and time constraints that most trainees face. However, graduate students and postdocs often don’t realize that passive investing is within their reach while they are still in training because the method is not advertised. This presentation teaches trainees what passive investing is, why it is a great choice for them, and how to get started with it. It addresses practical considerations like where to open an investment account, which type(s) of tax-advantaged retirement account to use if any, and how to balance investing with other financial goals.

Outline:

  • Why invest?
    • Compound interest
    • Inflation risk
    • Types of investments
    • Mutual funds
  • What is passive investing?
    • Active vs. passive investing
    • Diversification
    • Index funds
  • Why passive investing is a superior method
    • Effectiveness
    • Low cost
    • Low time commitment
  • How to get started investing
    • Tax-advantaged retirement accounts
      • Workplace-based
      • Non-workplace-based (compensatory pay)
      • Roth vs. traditional
    • Choosing a brokerage firm
    • Choosing funds
      • What is your goal/timeline?
      • DIY passive investing
      • Lifecycle/target date funds
  • Balancing investing with other financial goals
    • A healthy financial picture
    • Choosing how to increase your net worth (investing vs. debt repayment)
  • The importance of savings rate
Schedule a Call to Discuss This Seminar

Back to Speaking home page.

Demystifying Taxes for Graduate Students and Postdocs

February 1, 2015 by Emily

Title: Demystifying Taxes for Graduate Students and Postdocs

Format: Live lecture with Q&A (in person or remote)

Intended Audience: Graduate students receiving stipends, postdocs

Length: 90 minutes

Timing: January to July

Live Seminar Outline: Demystifying Taxes for Grad Students and Postdocs from Emily Roberts on Vimeo.

Summary: Preparing a tax return can be daunting for a trainee, especially when fellowships and scholarships are involved, and it’s difficult to find resources that address this special situation. This presentation introduces how ordinary income is taxed and addresses how to calculate and report trainee income specifically.

Outline:

  • Federal income tax basics (deductions, credits, progressive tax brackets)
  • Tax preparation methods
  • Finding and categorizing your income
  • Applying education tax benefits
  • Where to report your higher education income and expenses
  • Quarterly estimated tax for fellows
  • State tax
  • Tax repercussions of awarded income
Schedule a Call to Discuss This Seminar

Back to Speaking home page.

Money Management Basics

February 1, 2015 by Emily

Money Management Basics explores in depth the basic techniques of handing money, which are unique to each individual.

The major sections of the presentation are:

  • identifying values, setting goals, and choosing tactics
  • budgeting methods
  • banking and credit
  • emergency funds
  • savings and debt repayment

This talk is a great fit for grad student orientations because it puts grad students in the proper frame of mind for setting positive financial habits from the beginning of school.

(45 minutes plus time for questions)

 

 

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