transcript

Combatting Climate Change with Your Finances, Individually and Collectively

March 30, 2020 by Lourdes Bobbio

In this episode, Emily interviews Jewel Tomasula, a graduate student at Georgetown University in biology, specifically ecology and evolutionary biology. Jewel participates in climate change collective action through the Sunrise Movement, through 500 Women Scientists, and at her university. Emily and Jewel discuss how people can combat climate change as individuals and collectively through the lens of personal finance, covering frugal and environmental strategies, socially responsible investing, and leveraging our affiliations with universities. You do not need to be a homeowner or in command of massive capital to explore the advice in this episode.

Links Mentioned in This Episode

Teaser

00:00 Jewel: I think people are maybe a little quick to discount the power that you have as an individual in these collective action movements and just being a body that’s part of this protest really makes an impression on the people who are making the decisions. People we’ve elected can’t ignore you when you were physically sitting in their office or physically outside the building and you’re part of a mass group of people.

Introduction

00:28 Emily: Welcome to the personal finance for PhDs podcast, a higher education in personal finance. I’m your host, Dr. Emily Roberts. This is season five episode thirteen, and today my guest is Jewel Tomasula, a graduate student at Georgetown University in biology, specifically ecology and evolutionary biology. Jewel participates in climate change collective action through the Sunrise Movement, through 500 Women Scientists, and at her university. We discuss how people can combat climate change as individuals and collectively, through the lens of personal finance, covering frugal and environmental strategies, socially responsible investing, and leveraging our affiliations with universities. Listen on for actionable strategies that do not require you to be a homeowner or in command of significant capital. Without further ado, here’s my interview with Jewel Tomasula.

Will You Please Introduce Yourself Further?

01:24 Emily: I am so happy that Jewel Tomasula is joining me on the podcast today. This is a really special one for me because Jewel was the person who worked with me on editing the podcast and creating the show notes in the first three seasons, so really happy to have her back on now as a guest even though she’s moved on from the editor role. And today we are actually talking about kind of one of Jewel’s areas of special interest, which is climate change and climate change collective action. And we will get into how this intersects with personal finance momentarily. But before we do, Jewel, would you please introduce yourself to the audience?

01:50 Jewel: Hi. Thanks Emily. So I am a PhD student at Georgetown University. I’m working on a biology PhD and more specifically my discipline is ecology and evolutionary biology. The ecosystem that I focus on is the salt marshes. And they’re an ecosystem that is really affected by human activities, as well as really important for us adapting to climate change in dealing with sea level rise and salt marshes are important for carbon storage. I look at the resilience of this ecosystem and so I have a very ecology perspective, but I also think about climate change a lot because of the setting of my research.

02:47 Emily: Yeah, that’s perfect. So very strong professional connection as well. What is it that you’re doing outside of your professional capacity in terms of climate change collective action?

02:57 Jewel: I would call myself an active participant in the Sunrise Movement, and also a mobilizer of the 500 Women Scientists network. I wouldn’t say that I’m like a big leader in any sorts, but I’m someone who closely follows along and participates when I can. With the sunrise movement, I participated in a December 2018 action, where we visited out members of Congress and talk to them about supporting a Green New Deal resolution, which hadn’t been formally introduced yet, but it was an initial talking about ramping up climate action and taking on more stringent goals than just the Paris agreement and saying we want a stronger plan for climate action. And then it was a sit in of Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer and McGovern — representatives of the top Democrat offices. That was a really powerful experience, just to be one of hundreds of people that joined together and are taking this action and really showing our representatives that people care about this. And they can’t avoid it when we’re all sitting in the hallway or sitting outside their offices.

04:18 Jewel: I’ve tried to keep up with Sunrise Movement and participate when I can, not that often because I’m doing my PhD work as well. Then with 500 Women Scientists, with other leaders in that organization, we wrote an op ed for Scientific American called “Scientists Must Speak Up for the Green New Deal” and we outlined why scientists should be interested in this resolution and should take it seriously and advocate for it. And then that’s the group that when I go to, and just participating in in strikes or protests, that I usually kind of group up the DC pod of 500 Women Scientists to go together to these actions and support the leaders. And I try to amplify in my offline and online networks what the leaders of the youth climate strikes…their message, and the Sunrise Movement message as well.

05:24 Emily: Yeah, I think you have this interesting crossover identity that you are, identity-wise, compatible with these various friend groups. And it’s nice that you can be an intersection point between them and be, as you were just saying, amplifying messages from one to the other. And back and forth. So that’s great. Thank you for detailing that.

Climate Change and Personal Finance

05:50 Emily: I think that now we’ll get to the point where I want to say a couple of words about why we’re even talking about climate change on a personal finance podcast. Because maybe, you know, you say, well, Emily, this isn’t a good fit. This is about money, why are you talking about this? Or like, Emily, this is too political, why are you covering this topic? You don’t usually cover politics. And that’s not at all my intention, but the reason that I think about climate change in the way that it intersects with my business is because within personal finance and what I do a lot is thinking about the long-term — in my own life and the lives of my clients. When I talk about like investing and the power of common interest, I’m throwing out 50 years as a timeline that we should be looking over to think about our money. And over 50 years, over many decades — as you said, we’re already seeing effects of climate change and certainly over to 2030 and beyond that point, this is something that I think should be factored into our financial plans. As well as whatever motivation you might have to care about this as a human being specifically, it intersects our finances in this longterm planning aspect and also short-term planning.

06:56 Emily: There is this wonderful sort of synergy between frugality and conservation, or environmentalism and minimalism. A lot of the strategies that you might use to reduce your carbon footprint or be more environmentally focused in general are also ones that dovetail really, really well with being frugal in general or being a minimalist in general and not consuming so much. And so I just think whether you’re focusing first on reducing your carbon footprint or focusing first on frugality, you’re going to end up probably doing a lot of things that will benefit both facets, just naturally by the choices that you make. Because, as we’ll go through in a few minutes, there are a lot of things you can do that are good for your wallet and good for the planet. That’s kind of why I wanted to bring this up because there’s just this wonderful overlap. Not only should you be thinking about your own finances and what’s best for you in the long term. Maybe you can also direct your finances and your life choices in a way that’s compatible with being more sustainable long-term, as well. Jewel, can you just start, just make a couple of comments here — what can people do as individuals to reduce their carbon footprint?

08:13 Jewel: I think you outlined that so well about how we have to think about our personal finances in the long-term and that’s good for us, that’s a healthy thing, but if we’re going to be doing that, we also need to be thinking about the state of our environment and how sustainable our economy is as a whole and how that might be changing over the long term. I would hope that our economy is going to look really different in 50 years, that’s what my big hope is. And so this question of the individual carbon footprint and your responsibility there, it really centers on the power you have as a consumer. That’s often what you see in articles. If you can just Google how to go green and you can find lots of options and lots of suggestions, but I feel like they hardly ever take into account what power you actually have as a consumer and your dollar. If you’re someone with a constrained income and you only have a few hundred dollars of discretionary spending every month, if even that, it looks really different than somebody who has a lot of discretionary income, and the power you have with that.

09:33 Emily: Can I just jump in to ask — something I see for example in these how to go green suggestions is make your home more energy efficient. And so I’m thinking, okay, well I’m a renter, I have absolutely no influence over this. When I become a homeowner, I would love to think about that, but it’s not something for me in the here and now. Is that the kind of thing that you’re talking about that people just have differing degrees of influence over their own lives in terms of especially how much discretionary income they really have?

09:58 Jewel: Yeah, exactly. I live in the state of Virginia and there’s essentially a monopoly with Dominion Energy and you don’t have very much choice over where your power comes from. You see a lot of these lists and it’s like install solar panels or make your home energy efficient. And I’m like, I live in an apartment. But it is really empowering to think about, even if you have a constraint income, where you do have power in your budget and your spending and trying to direct that as much as you can towards the way we want the world to look like — a more ethical world with healthier and safer communities. I think part of that is if you are living in an apartment, there’s only so much you can do, but maybe you can live closer to work and you can take out that transportation part of the carbon footprint because you’re walking or you’re taking public transit.

The Impact of Individual’s Choices

10:58 Jewel: With individuals, the big things I think for anyone are your diet and transportation. If there’s ways that you can alter those to have a smaller impact, a smaller footprint, then those are two big things. Meal planning is one that I’ve been engaging with more recently, especially since starting grad school. My partner and I found that that’s also part of frugality and really making a difference in our personal finance wellness. Meal planning makes a difference and also really reduces our food waste. It made a big difference in how much for wasting, not just in food but also in the plastic that comes with food. If you’re not having take out all the time or just getting pre-prepared meals, there’s like a lot of packaging waste that’s produced there.

11:52 Jewel: I guess something that I care about with having that zero waste is that I have really minimized how much I use. That’s kind of in that minimalism that you talked about. Kind of that buy nothing new or going to thrift shops or just holding onto things and repairing them if they break. There’s still clothing alteration shops and shoe repair shops out there and so that’s something that I utilize. Those things aren’t always the most frugal, necessarily. Sometimes it is cheaper to just buy a new pair of shoes, but if I have a pair of shoes that I can get fixed, then that’s more in the mindset. Just because it is just as cheap to get a new pair, they are still a good pair of shoes. Those kinds of things I’ve really built into my budget and I think a lot of PhD’s could think in those terms as well and just rejecting our disposable consumer system that we have. Those are some of like the individual actions I think people could look towards.

13:02 Emily: Let me jump in there because I have a couple of comments about what you just said, which I thought was great. In terms of like the food that you eat, you’re talking about reducing waste, which is awesome. I think I read, years and years ago, I think there’s a book called American Wasteland*, which is about food waste. And I think it said that 50% of food is wasted, like that we grow in America doesn’t get into people’s stomachs. Most of that does not happen in your refrigerator, it happens prior to that point. Again, not something you necessarily have influence on, although I guess we can choose where we source our food from. So maybe getting it more from like local farmers or something rather than conventionally grown agriculture.

[* This is an affiliate link. Thank you for supporting PF for PhDs!]

Emily: And also, I guess I’ve been seeing these advertisements for ugly produce and like similar sorts of services like that where it’s food that wouldn’t make it to the grocery store, you can still buy that and eat it because it’s perfectly good. It just doesn’t look pretty enough to be in the grocery store. There’s different sourcing things you can do around that as well, and you were just saying about packaging. That also reduces packaging, all that kind of stuff. You didn’t mentioned what you eat, but I know that one of the major things that you can do is reduce your consumption of meat and dairy, particularly beef. I think beef is one of those big offenders in terms of greenhouse gas emissions. Food selection can also go into that. And it’s really difficult to change your diet, I know that. There’s all kinds of things that influence why you eat what you eat, but to the degree that you’re able to, think about addressing that in terms of less beef, lamb consumption, and dairy.

14:35 Jewel: It’s a really personal thing, that’s something that I’ve experienced. I would say I’ve spent the last 10 years of my life trying to be vegetarian. And it’s a really personal and often a cultural thing too. Food is how you connect with your family often. I get really excited with plant based diets. I have a special spot in my heart for plants and so I think it’s so cool what we can do with plants. I have like a personal excitement about plant based diets and then from the frugal side, meat is often more expensive, especially beef. When we do have beef every now and then, it’s always what’s on sale. If we’re getting it on sale, it’s not really part of the driving demand for beef, in a way.

15:30 Emily: I see what you’re saying.

15:31 Jewel: Right. That’s thinking about what’s the power of your dollar here and having beef is part of it. I have looked into what they say the average American consumption of beef is and it’s a little absurd. It’s not healthy for us as a culture to be eating that much beef, for our own bodies, as well as for our environment. That’s very justified and that’s one of the first things to cede. But if you’re someone really constrained in your income then you’re probably not eating very much meat anyway and I know there are calls for meatless Mondays and stuff. When we do meal planning — and this is me and my partner — my partner is environmentally minded, he still has the attachment to meat and that cultural element that we’re kind of working through.

Jewel: I’ll just be honest there, I’m the one that pushes more for plant-based foods and he’s still like, “Oh, but the meat, it tastes good. And it’s part of how I know how to cook.” That’s just the expectation that your plate has like a meat and then a veggie and a potato. It’s like a very ingrained American conception. But we’ve been looking at our weekly meal plans and it’s only meat for one meal a day typically and often the meat is a small part of the meal. That is something that has changed as we’ve started being more intentional with our meal planning. If you just think meatless Mondays, that’s three meals out of your week that don’t have mea. I would say for everyone, if you can have two meals a day without meat, that’s kind of a big win right there and you’re probably a lot less than the average American. We definitely do need to change this expectation that every meal should have meat in it.

17:39 Emily: Yeah. And I don’t actually think that’s a historically accurate view of the American diet. But anyway, you’re right in that it is sort of in the cultural zeitgeist. A larger point that I wanted to make about what you were just saying is that, as you were just saying earlier, as a consumer and especially if we’re talking to graduate students and postdocs and people who have a smaller degree of control over their finances and their lives — make the changes that you can and that you’re willing to and do what you can. It’s okay if for the time being you cannot change your diet because of whatever else is going on in your life, or you cannot change where you live to start taking public transit. Maybe you can choose one of these areas to make a big shift in and worry about the other ones later. It’s good like to make even a small change, like you were just saying with meatless Mondays or having two meals a day that are meaningless or whatever. It’s not that you have to become completely vegan or completely vegetarian to make an adjustment from where you are today. It’s just about making some degree of progress in that area. Were there any other individual actions that you wanted to discuss?

Being Mindful with Where You Keep Your Money

18:47 Jewel: Yeah, I have one more that I’ve been exploring recently, but I do want to mention two articles that I’ve found can really be like light bulb awakening for the nuance of this issue. One of them is titled “What We Should Really Do for Climate” by Samuel Miller McDonald and that’s published in The Trouble. The other is “I Work in the Environmental Movement. I Don’t Care If You Rrecycle” by Mary Annaise Hegler.

19:16 Emily: I think actually read that one.

19:17 Jewel: Yeah. And honestly, anything by Mary Hegler is on point. That one’s in Vox. Those are two I think that are really helping to increase awareness and making you understand how constrained this can be and how to feel that individual responsibility but also to channel it and grapple it with it better and understand how income plays in and how we kind of just need the whole system to change. How trapped you can feel, but also what personal empowerment you can find in it. Along those lines, something I’ve been looking at just this summer that kind of just slipped by me before was where my money is actually kept in my bank — who I’m letting have my money while I’m waiting to use it. And also looking into investing and trying not to be a typical like 20-something grad student who just puts off investing.

Jewel: I have been using Wells Fargo just because that’s the bank that my parents set up for me and I never really thought about it. Even when I was learning about how Wells Fargo is funding oil pipelines and doing other shady stuff, I just didn’t think about it and didn’t think about taking my money out of there. That’s something I’ve like just done and I’m transitioning to using a bank called Aspiration. They are an online bank that tries to make themselves an accessible option that’s not using any of the money for fossil fuels or gun manufacturing either. Those are two of their big things and building that social awareness into their whole model. It’s nice to have a bank that’s like thinking about this ethically. They also have sustainable investing options. I have $2,000 in there now, but I put in $1,500 and so over two years — I think it’s a little over $1,500 that I put in, so it’s grown like a few hundred dollars over two years. And you actually get to set your own fee for that. They have what’s called a pay what’s fair fee. I had it set pretty low and so over two years I’ve only paid just under $10 in the fees and you could set it to zero actually, if that’s something you really need to do, just to start trying investing.

21:52 Emily: That’s interesting. I hadn’t heard about that model before. And even Wells Fargo’s actions that you just mentioned — I know that they’re sort of blacklisted because of their like consumer protection fails, but I didn’t think before about the way that they’re using just the cash you have with them at any point. I’ll have to take a look at my bank and see how they’re ranking on this metric.

Commercial

22:21 Emily:

Emily here for a brief interlude. Tax season is upon us and while no one loves this time of year, it’s particularly difficult for post-bac fellows, funded grad students, and postdoc fellows. Even professional tax preparers are often thrown for a loop by our unique tax situation. And don’t get me started on tax software. I provide tons of support at this time of year for PhD trainees preparing their tax returns. From free articles and videos, to paid at-your-own-pace workshops, to live seminars and webinars for universities and research institutes. The best place to go to check out all of this material is pfforphds.com/tax that’s P F F O R P H D dot com slash T A X. Don’t struggle through tax season on your own. Visit my website for the exact information you need in the most efficient form available. Now back to the interview.

Socially Responsible Investing

23:24 Emily: Okay, great. So you thought about where your cash is. I know we also wanted to talk a bit about investing, about what’s called socially responsible investing or SRI. This is something that you’re learning about, that I’m learning about right now, so can you start making a couple of comments about that?

23:41 Jewel: My understanding is that there’s a spectrum. Maybe it’s with typical investing group like Fidelity or Vanguard and they just have options that are more socially minded and you can pick those options as well, but it’s still focused on growing your money. And then —

23:59 Emily: Oh, we should say more generally that socially responsible investing is not just about these environmental causes. It could be about like social justice or working conditions or the sort of sin areas, like tobacco and firearms and those kinds of areas. Depending on your exact social preferences, you can make different choices within these groups. But continue, I just wanted to say that SRIs they cover more categories than we’re talking about today. But yeah, go on.

24:31 Jewel: Yeah, kind of this overall ethical minded. Like “Is what I’m investing in doing harm to other people that I’m not necessarily seeing every day? Is there harm or sketchy things being done out in the world with where I’m investing my money?” And that empowerment say, “no, l want my money to be supporting the things that do good in the world and not the things that are doing harm.” And that’s bigger or more encompassing than just environment or carbon emissions. It’s about how the people are treated as well. There’s someone more typical — I guess I don’t know if that’s more typical options, like through Fidelity or Vanguard. They’re big investing options. But then there’s kind of the filter out options since that’s what I have, where it’s still performing pretty well.

Jewel: Through Aspiration, they have these pretty accessible investing options. The deposit you have to make is pretty low, they have where you can set your own fee. I think for someone starting out in investing it’s something accessible, and it’s also passive, like you’re not having to pick out each stock that you want to invest in. It’s a diversified portfolio already, but they do have, I think I was looking at it, Amazon and Facebook are part of their portfolio. Some people might think that those companies are a little sketchy, but then what they do have filtered out are anything with fossil fuels and gun manufacturing and some of these other big sin stocks, as you had mentioned before. And then with socially responsible investing, there is the option to pick out the specifics stocks, but then it’s not passive anymore, and that’s something that I don’t have any experience with and it’s a little like out of my realm at this stage in my life that I would look into.

26:38 Emily: Yeah. Long time listeners definitely know that I teach the strategy of passive investing versus active investing. And so when we’re talking about getting into the socially responsible realm, it is a bit more active, because you’ve decided, you the consumer, and also the person running the fund or whatever, have to look into, okay, it’s not just a strict definition on what are the biggest companies in the US, it’s more like, okay, we have some criteria that we’re evaluating these companies on and some are not going to make the cut. So it’s a little bit more active in that sense, but it can still be a fairly passive approach if you go with a managed fund, because their criteria can be rather fixed.

Emily: And again, they’re not trying to market time and they’re not like picking and choosing necessarily individual companies that are in or out based on whims. It’s all based on sort of an investing plan that’s been laid out in advance. So it can still be a fairly passive strategy, in terms of the important aspects of passive investing, like being well-diversified and not trying to market time and so forth. It’s a little bit more active than like classic passive investing strategies, but still fairly passive overall, or at least it can be. And really I think that it’s so difficult as an individual to do all the research that is necessary to pick individual stocks when you’re trying to evaluate them on these metrics that we’re talking about, that SRIs care about. So I do think it’s a really good idea to go in with a larger fund where there’s a professional, a set of professionals doing that kind of research for you. And as long as you are selective about which fund you go into and make sure that it matches up with your values, then you should be good to go and it’ll be fairly passive on your end.

28:18 Jewel: Yeah, and I’ve been trying to think in terms of like, I really appreciate that Aspiration just has a whole values model behind what they’re doing, as opposed to just being a bank that’s all about the money, no matter who or where is getting hurt, or just what’s good for business.I feel like it’s part of that system change. Let’s have institutions that are actually accountable, and that care about the well-being of communities instead of institutions that are about the bottom line with profit.

28:57 Emily: Before we started recording this episode, I sent you another podcast episode that I had listened to from “How to Money,” which is another great personal finance podcast that I’d definitely recommend. Episode 97, “Socially Responsible Investing” is where they went over this model that I was really learning about for the first time, that there are gradations within social responsible investing. And I think you’ve already covered two of them — what’s called ESG, environmental, social and governance, and then also SRI, socially responsible investing. Those are more about…They’re pretty similar to like your classic like mutual fund where it is largely driven by what’s going to be best in terms of like the profit and bottom line for the investor, with differing degrees of sensitivity towards these social issues that you might care about. And then the final category was impact investing where the goal of impact investing is not necessarily get a great return, although maybe that will happen, but the goal is really to influence the world through with the companies that you invest in. The profit thing is secondary to the mission. Do you do any impact investing at this point?

30:07 Jewel: No. It’s a little out of my realm, as someone who’s at the grad student stage, where I’m just trying to actually invest instead of not investing in. I could bring up here that if you go into the real job that offers the 401k, that’s a great plan and you need to do it, but I am trying to take this time in my life where I don’t have that option, where I don’t have employer match, I don’t have the 401k option and it opens me up to try other investing options. I’m trying to look at it that way, but still with that passive investing, where I can just pick a managed fund and make contributions to it. That impact investing is interesting and I don’t know if I would manage to get there in the future, because you have to really pay attention and do research.

31:06 Emily: Well I think there could still be impact investing funds that you go into. It’s just that they’re going to be composed differently than like the SRI or the ESG types of funds. But I totally agree with you, I think that’s an amazing point that when you have an employer and you’re being provided a 401k or 403b, especially if there’s a match involved, you really do need to use that in terms of your own personal finances. That is the best place for your retirement money to be. But when you have an IRA, either because you don’t currently have access to a 401k, or you haven’t in the past, but any IRA money that you have is completely self-directed. So if you want to invest inside SRIs with your IRA money and do whatever is offered to you through your 401k, that’s a really good balance that you can strike as an individual. And as graduate students, postdocs, we start out probably only having access to an IRA. So the core and the part of your investments that are growing the most over time because you started them the earliest, those are the ones where you can have like the most discretion over where they go. And every time you leave a job, you close out your 401k or 403b, you can roll that money into your IRA and still have that total discretion over how it’s invested. I really love that you made that point.

Collective Action

32:15 Emily: We’ve kind of moved from talking about individual actions and diet and transportation and so forth to now we’re talking about investing, which is something you can do as an individual, but you’re really banding together with other individuals when you go into these funds and you choose SRIs over conventional investments. What are some other things that we can do as individuals but that is joining together with other people for this collective action around climate change?

32:40 Jewel: With collective action, I think the understanding there is that there are some decisions made at the collective level with the idea that they’re accountable to you as an individual. We have voted people in that should be accountable to us as voters or there are people working on behalf of the community that should be accountable to the community members. Whether it’s elected officials or a board of trustees at university or at another institution that you are associated with, those people are making the decisions on behalf of everyone else, but they should be accountable to you and you have power in holding them accountable. That’s where you as an individual have the chance to use your voice and to pay attention.

Jewel: Maybe starting with, since we were talking about investing, there’s also the question with universities and where they have their investments and their endowments. If you’re a PhD, you have an association within a university, whether you’re currently there or you’re an alumni and you have power in influencing how the university is using their money. Especially I think when you’re an alumni, when you can say, I’m not going to donate to you. Or you can contact the university, or be part of a movement. I think people are maybe a little quick to discount the power that you have as an individual in these collective action movements. Just being a body that’s part of this protest really makes an impression on the people who are making the decisions. The people we’ve elected like can’t ignore you when you are physically sitting in their office or physically outside the building and you’re part of like a mass group of people. Paying attention to those and joining anyone you can and just even voicing support and talking about it amongst your coworkers and your family is an important thing. If you have the right to vote, where you are able to use your vote, in the US, paying attention to what kind of plans the candidates have and how firm they are in their belief and voting for those candidates and then not stopping at voting. Actually realizing that you have power as a constituent to go and meet with them and join as a group to go meet with them.

Jewel: I mentioned being part of the Sunrise Movement action in December. That started with us going to our representatives office. I went with a group of people who are Northern Virginians to representative Tom Steyer’s office and we talked with the staff there. Then about a month later we got an email that our representative had changed his attitude towards the green new deal because of what we had come and said to him. You can all see more immediate change and impact just by like stepping up a little and using your voice and being part of movements. But you could also look in your communities and see what kind of like actions are happening there and any time that you can like hold systems accountable or change systems and think about how can your community be more resilient. I think it’s part of that power that is a little under utilized by people in their 20s. It’s definitely growing. And that’s really exciting to me but I think we could use more people. We could always use more people at least paying attention.

36:34 Emily: I like what you brought up there and it goes back to what we said near the beginning of the episode of like you as an individual can be part of groups at different levels. You’re a voter and you have representatives at both the national and also the state and the local levels and you vote for the people that you want to be in office. But then also once they’re in office, you still have influence with them, to some degree, over the decisions that they’re making once in office. They’re still supposed to be representing you. And then not only are you a voter, but you’re also a member of an academic community with your university, maybe multiple different universities. And then you also are a person who lives in your community and like you, you’re using your identity in terms of what age you are, to be affiliated with one movement. And also like you’re a scientist, you’re affiliated with another movement. I think we can all think about the various facets of our identity, and where we live and so forth, and the different groups that intersects with, and to see, as you were just saying, sort of see what’s going on in our own communities at these various levels and start participating as you feel comfortable, or as you see there’s something to participate in to make your voice heard. I really appreciate that. It’s not something I’ve been involved with personally to this point, but I’m definitely now going to be looking for more of those opportunities.

37:50 Jewel: I think just following your representative on social media or signing up for their email is really enlightening and just like a way to see what are they actually saying about these issues or what kind of bills are they introducing? That’s a really simple way that raises your awareness by a lot and shows you the opportunities to go to a town hall or to call them up. That’s one really simple thing.

38:18 Emily: The larger point around a lot of the discussion we’ve had today is you can evaluate where you are now and what you’ve been doing and you don’t have to keep doing the same thing. You don’t have to give into inertia of “well, I’ve always eaten this way” or “I’ve always lived in this place” or “I’ve always kept my money here.” Now that you are aware, if you weren’t already, that these various different areas impact how sustainable your lifestyle is or where you’re putting your money and what it’s doing in the world, now that you have a little bit heightened awareness about that, you can reconsider and make changes where you’re able to.

38:52 Emily: Jewel, thank you so much for coming on the podcast today. This is a real treat for me.

38:57 Jewel: Yeah. Thank you Emily.

Outtro

38:59 Emily: Listeners, thank you for joining me for this episode. PFforPphDs.com/podcast is the hub for the Personal Finance for PhDs podcast. There, you can find links to all the episode show notes and a form to volunteer to be interviewed. I’d love for you to check it out and get more involved. If you’ve been enjoying the podcast, here are four ways you can help it grow. One, subscribe to the podcast and rate and review it on Apple podcast, Stitcher, or whatever platform you use. Two, share an episode you found particularly valuable on social media or with your PhD peers. Three, recommend me as a speaker to your university or association. My seminars covered the personal finance topics PhDs are most interested in, like investing, debt repayment, and taxes. Four, subscribe to my mailing list at PFforPhDs.com/subscribe. Through that list, you’ll keep up with all the new content and special opportunities for Personal Finance for PhDs. See you in the next episode, and remember, you don’t have to have a PhD to succeed with personal finance, but it helps. The music is Stages of Awakening by Podington Bear from the Free Music Archive and is shared under CC by NC. Podcast editing and show notes creation by Lourdes Bobbio.

This Grad Student Didn’t Let a $1,000 Per Month Stipend Stop Her from Investing

March 23, 2020 by Meryem Ok

In this episode, Emily interviews Dr. Rachel Blackburn, an assistant professor at Columbus State University. Rachel’s PhD stipend at the University of Kansas was approximately $1,000 per month and her rent claimed half of that, but she resolved to do more than scrape by financially. Emily and Rachel discuss in detail how Rachel optimized her pay rate in her side hustles, generated extra income through credit card churning, and travel hacked her personal and professional trips. By combining these techniques, Rachel not only contributed to her Roth IRA during grad school but also paid down student loan debt. You won’t want to miss the excellent insight she shares at the end of the interview.

Links Mentioned in the Episode

Teaser

00:00 Rachel: Don’t underestimate your own creativity. One of your strengths and skills as a PhD student is researching, so why not take that same skill and apply it to your financial life?

Intro

00:18 Emily: Welcome to the Personal Finance for PhDs podcast, a higher education in personal finance. I’m your host, Dr. Emily Roberts. This is season five, episode 12, and today my guest is Dr. Rachel Blackburn, an assistant professor at Columbus State University. Rachel’s PhD stipend at the University of Kansas was approximately $1,000 per month, and her rent claimed half of that. But, she resolved to do more than just scrape by financially. We discuss in detail how Rachel optimized her pay rate in her side hustles, generated extra income through credit card churning, and travel-hacked her personal and professional trips. By combining these techniques, Rachel not only contributed to her Roth IRA during grad school, but also paid down student loan debt. You won’t want to miss the excellent insight she shares at the end of the interview. Without further ado, here’s my interview with Dr. Rachel Blackburn.

Will You Please Introduce Yourself Further?

01:17 Emily: I have with me on the podcast today, Dr. Rachel Blackburn, and she has a really exciting story to tell us from back when she was in graduate school, how she managed to generate extra income so that she was able to start a Roth IRA which is just an amazing goal and I’m so excited to hear more about the story. So, Rachel, thank you so much for joining me today, and would you please introduce yourself to our listeners?

01:40 Rachel: Yeah, thank you so much for having me. So, I am Dr. Rachel Blackburn, and I am currently an assistant professor at Columbus State University, which is in Columbus, Georgia.

01:51 Emily: Great. And where were you in graduate school?

01:55 Rachel: So, I did a Master of Fine Arts degree at Virginia Commonwealth University, and then I did my PhD at the University of Kansas.

02:04 Emily: Excellent. So, you’ve moved around quite a bit, it sounds like.

02:08 Rachel: Yeah, I have.

02:11 Emily: Tell me about your stipend during graduate school and why you needed to look outside of that–why you ended up generating extra income.

Grad School Stipend at the University of Kansas

02:20 Rachel: Yeah, absolutely. So, during my MFA program, it was all student loans. That’s all it was. And when I got to my PhD at KU, I was really determined to not take out any more loans no matter what my stipend was. And my stipend was basically $1,000 a month, and my rent was of course about half that. And so, I realized that if I ever found myself in a situation where–it was okay to scrape by, like if I budgeted really carefully, I knew I’d be okay. But I was worried about unforeseen elements like a car breaking down, a major hospital visit. You know, something that would really require me to come up with a lot of money at once. And that’s what I was concerned about.

Balanced Money Formula: Necessary Expenses = 50% of Pay

03:08 Emily: A couple of points in there that I just want to follow up on it because I think it’s a great example for anyone who’s maybe looking at a stipend offer letter or maybe you’ve just started graduate school and you’re kind of still figuring out what your budget’s going to be. So, you just mentioned your rent was about 50% of your pay, which is sort of widely considered to be too high. Right? So, according to the balanced money formula, which to me is a good reference point, all of your necessary expenses should be about 50% of your pay. So, not only rent but also utilities and paying any contracts that you’re in and your transportation and your basic food–all of that stuff is supposed to be within 50%, which is actually a high bar for many graduate students to reach, but it’s just kind of a good reference point.

03:53 Emily: So, you knew seeing rent at 50%, this is going to be pretty challenging. And like you said, you also were anticipating having occasional large, hard to cashflow expenses, which is so, so common. Anyone who lives for about a year or longer, you’re going to realize you have these large expenses sometimes. So, that’s why you turned to generating extra income outside of your stipend. So, did you start that right from the beginning of graduate school–or, rather at the beginning of your PhD program–and I’m wondering, was this a common thing among your peers? Did your advisor know about it? Was this a thing that people did and they were open about or was it more kept quiet?

Side Hustles and Financial Situation Often Kept Quiet

04:34 Rachel: You know, it was really kind of kept quiet. I don’t know how many students revealed to faculty that we were all taking on side hustles. I think maybe later on it did when push really came to shove and things like my advisor saying, “I think we need to look to defend your dissertation in the following semester instead of this one.” And me being like, “I literally cannot afford another semester of tuition. You’re going to have to help me get this done now.” So, things like that. I think when push came to shove, we probably revealed a little bit more about our financial situation, but really the only people that were doing okay in grad school and didn’t need to side hustle were frankly people that had two-income households. So, most often married couples. Yeah.

05:25 Emily: Yup. Super common there. I mean, really, paying $1,000 a month. The faculty should be aware–I mean also living in the same city, right? And presumably having a much higher income. They should be aware that that is not enough to live on without either taking out student loans, which as you said, people have enough experience with student loans to know that they should avoid them if at all possible. No, it’s really not enough to live on. So, it should be no surprise to anyone that this is going on. Yet, as you said, most of the time, it’s not really something that is talked about very openly, at least between students and their advisors or students and the administration. Maybe students, among themselves, talk to each other. Okay. So, thanks for giving us kind of the picture for being on the ground there. So, just give me a quick overview. What were your methods of generating extra income that we’ll then dive into?

Primary Side Hustles: House and Pet Sitting

06:15 Rachel: I would say, primarily, my side hustles were housesitting and pet sitting. Those were easy to do, and what was great about them is that if you did a decent job with one, that professor would recommend you to other professors. And professors are always going out of town for guest lectures and conferences. A lot of them have pets. If you have a halfway decent sense of compassion as a human being, you’ll be fine taking care of a pet. Some just want their plants watered or some just want their home to look lived in while they’re away. So, falling into that circle is a really great thing. And that was a lot for me. Also, I did some teaching online and there are various ways to do this. So, I actually taught online for a community college in just outside of Lawrence (KS). And also, another hack about this is that if you’re interested in possibly teaching English online, for whatever reason, there are a lot of companies specifically for Chinese and Korean and Japanese students who will advertise their online teaching English programs, but they will do so on the New York City Craigslist. At the end of the day, you only need be online. You don’t have to live in New York City, but they’re targeting those bigger markets because they’re just expecting to have more people that they can interview. And so, I honestly went on to New York City’s Craigslist a number of times and found online teaching that way as well.

Secondary Side Hustles: Online Teaching and Waiting Tables

07:43 Emily: Just to jump in there, I have another interview where another grad student is currently side hustling with VIPKid, which is one of the companies that you just described that offer that kind of work. So, if anyone’s specifically looking for a company that’s going on right now and we’re recording this in July, 2019, check out VIPKid and check out that other interview. Yeah. Any other online teaching besides that, that you did?

08:08 Rachel: Those mainly comprised what I did online. Now, some people are a fan of waiting tables. This is also something I did. And, really, the only hack there is that if waiting tables is something that really takes it out of you, energy-wise–and it can, you’re on your feet the whole time–I recommend if you can only do it like once a week, do it on a Friday or Saturday night when the restaurant is busiest, that’s when you’re going to make the most tips. Doing a Wednesday lunch is not going to help you out. Doing a Friday night dinner might actually cover your groceries that week, or what have you. So, that’s the hack there. Try and get signed up for the busiest times.

08:48 Emily: Get that hourly rate up as high as you possibly can so you can minimize the number of hours you actually have to do it. Okay.

Side Hustling Apps

08:56 Rachel: I will just add really quickly that there are a few apps out there that can help you generate income as a side hustle. I made a list of some that I’ve used. So, Rover is a pet sitting app, so sign up to petsit. TaskRabbit is basically anything. So, somebody in the neighborhood needs help painting a fence. That’s TaskRabbit. Turo, you can rent your own car out to other people. That’s T U R O. Fat Llama is where you rent out your own possessions. So, say you have a Nintendo Wii sitting around not being used. You could rent out your Nintendo Wii for a weekend to some kids. So, there’s that. Also, Instacart is where you shop for other people. So, anyway, those are some of the ones that I’ve tried.

09:44 Emily: That’s awesome. Thank you so much for adding those specifics. In fact, I guess I talk about side hustling a lot on this podcast because in fact we have another interview where someone’s talking about using Rover and another interview where someone is discussing Instacart. That’s season three, episode two with Shana Green. That one’s already out. So yeah, to follow up on any of those, but thank you so much for giving those specifics. That’s a really great next step for anyone looking to those side hustles. And we also wanted today to talk about credit card churning and travel hacking. So, the listeners may not be very familiar at all with what credit card churning is, what travel hacking is. So, can you start with some basic definitions here for, let’s say, credit card churning first?

Credit Card Churning Fundamentals

10:29 Rachel: Yeah. So, credit card churning is the idea that you take advantage of credit card signups who are offering major big signup bonuses for when you sign up for that credit card. Now, let me preface and say that I’m really just a beginning level churner, like beginner-level churner. Some people are really sophisticated with how they’re tackling this. And I’ve seen spreadsheets of multiple cards when you’re signing up, when you’re canceling the card and things like that. In a nutshell, that’s credit card churning.

11:10 Emily: There’s suddenly a huge subculture within personal finance that is specifically about credit card churning and maximizing credit card rewards. So, if people want to dive, dive, dive into this, that is available. We are fine with the beginner level here. So, whatever you’ve been doing is great. I want to specifically point out that there’s a difference between credit card churning and having credit cards on a longterm basis that give you ongoing reward. So, what we’re specifically discussing today is getting, as you said, those signup bonuses. And so signing up for new cards fairly frequently, doing whatever you need to do to get the signup bonus. And then usually either moving on–keeping the card open, but not using it anymore–moving onto the next card in your churn list, or, potentially closing it pretty quickly. So, just wanted to clarify that for the listeners. So, can you tell us how you got started with this? What was the first credit card you opened for this purpose, for example?

12:06 Rachel: Yeah, absolutely. So, my first year in my PhD program, I was friends with a guy who was an entrepreneur and he was opening his own business. And he fell into the credit card turning scene because he was starting to try and figure out, “How can me and my business partner fly around the US? Because we anticipate that we’re going to fly a lot. So, how are we going to cover all of those tickets?” And so, he really introduced me to the world of credit card turning. So, I should say from the very top that if you’re someone who has trouble paying off your credit cards every month, if you have not so good credit, it’s not the best thing. It’s really ideal for someone who’s really good at paying off the full amount every month, who’s really good at not spending a credit card on things that either you don’t need or things that may be superfluous to your daily life. And so, the one that I opened was Chase.

Disclaimer: Use Credit Card Churning Wisely

13:10 Emily: I want to jump in a second and just emphasize that point because credit card churning and using credit card rewards is really a fairly advanced strategy. I would not recommend this for anyone who is new to using credit cards. My personal rule on this would be use credit cards in your life, in your regular budgeting for at least one year before you even attempt something like this. Because you need to have a lot of confidence in yourself, as you were just saying, that you’re going to be paying off that card in full every month, that you’re not going to be spending any extra money just for convenience factor or whatever it is because you’re excited about the rewards. You need to be a super, super good budgeter and super, super organized before you jump into this world. And it can be really lucrative, as we’ll get into in a moment. So, it’s very tempting, but show restraint. Hold back. Be sure you have your budget totally aligned before you try to attempt it. I’ll link in the show notes, I have an article that I wrote previously called, “Perfect Use of a Credit Card.” So, that will outline what you need to master in terms of using a credit card before you jump into what we’re talking about now. So, thank you so much for emphasizing that. Now, you were just mentioning that you opened a Chase card, first.

14:18 Rachel: Yeah. So, when I first started to get into this–now, like I said, I just wanted to take baby steps. I have used credit cards for most of my adult life, and I feel pretty confident with my use of credit cards that I don’t really have an addictive personality. I don’t go gambling or drink alcohol very much. I’m just kind of pretty unattached that way. So, I felt confident starting to do a baby churn with just one card. I should also mention by the way, that if you open too many cards within the space of 12 months or 24 months, some credit card companies will take note of that and they’ll say, “Okay, don’t give them any more cards.” And it can damage your credit that way. So, that’s just something to be aware of.

15:03 Rachel: So, I recommend, personally speaking, I would probably top out at three in the space of one year. I think that’s plenty to keep up with. So, Chase, for example, had a credit card, and often what they are is that there’s a signup bonus and in order to achieve that signup bonus, which is usually in the value of points and then those points can be exchanged for either travel points, like they can translate to air miles. They can translate to gift cards. Sometimes they can translate to cash back. With Chase–and I did this a few years ago, so I can’t speak to what it is now, but–when I took the Chase card a few years ago, I crunched the numbers and I basically found that gift cards was my biggest bang for my buck. So, I exchanged my signup points all for gift cards for things that I would spend money on regardless, like grocery stores, gas stations, things like that, Walmart, those kinds of things.

Credit Card Churning: Timing is Everything

16:05 Rachel: A lot of these signup points are dependent on you spending a certain amount of money within the first three months, that’s often the typical amount of time. So, I would time my opening a credit card with an event in my life where I knew that I’d be spending more money than I typically do. So, say for example, I think mine was $1,000. I had to spend $1,000 within the first three months of opening this card. And if I did, I was given a reward of 50,000 points, which ultimately translated to my plane ticket to a conference I was presenting at. So, I timed this for when I had been to the doctor and I’d had a hospital visit and I knew I was going to be paying off a lot of doctor’s bills. So, I knew I’d be spending that money anyway. So, that’s how I timed it.

16:53 Emily: We use the exact same strategy–I wouldn’t say we were credit card churning, but signing up for signup bonuses from time to time–doing the exact same thing as you did, like looking at our upcoming six months or a year, whatever, and identifying a few points in the year where, “Okay, we are going to pay our car insurance once every six months.” So, that’s like a pretty big bill, we can put that on the card. “Oh, we’re going to have to buy a flight to here or there. We can put that on the card.” All within a window that was the window that we needed for achieving the signup bonus. So, we did the exact same thing. I think that meeting those minimum spending requirements can be, very typically, a challenge for someone who lives on a lower income, right?

17:31 Emily: Because you don’t have a lot of spending that goes on in a given month, let’s say. Most people will not be paying their rent with a credit card. Usually you have to pay a fee or something to do that. So, if you’re going to exclude rent from this calculation, then there are not that many other things, maybe, that will help you achieve this minimum spend. So, definitely looking your calendar and anticipating upcoming expenses, signing up for a card that’ll give you the right window when you’re going to have to pay those expenses. There’s a little bit of a trick to it when you have a lower-spending lifestyle.

18:00 Rachel: Absolutely. Timing is everything. I also didn’t realize, even for myself, how much I spent cash on lots of things. When I started really concentrating and focusing and saying, “Okay, I could pay cash for this, but I could pay a credit card. Let me just pay with a credit card.” I’m starting to realize that there are very few instances in which it benefits me to use cash, to be honest. Now, I do keep cash on me at all times, just in emergencies. Who knows. But I did start using a credit card for a lot more things than I had. And I find that the rewards do come back to me. Yeah. But no, that’s a fair point. Timing is everything with the credit card churning. When you open the card, when you decide to cancel the card, that kind of thing. Yeah.

Credit Card Points for Gift Cards and Air Miles

18:50 Emily: So, you said that for you, you probably max out at about three cards per year. That’s what you’ve decided you can handle in your personal spending and tracking everything. Other people do a lot more, but that’s what works for you. And that, when you first started doing this, you would trade these points you generated for gift cards because that was what you figured was going to be maximizing those points. Has that continued to be the case? So, do you always do gift cards, or have you redeemed for other types of rewards?

19:18 Rachel: At one point, I did redeem for travel points because, like I said, I was paying for a plane ticket. So, it was easy to translate those to air miles and to do that. What I have found, in my experience–what’s helpful is letting life happen and determining, “Oh, okay, you know what? This month, I have a lot of unexpected expenses. So, actually what I could do to save myself some money this month is go ahead and redeem some points for, say, a grocery store gift card or a gas station gift card. Because that helps offset the unexpected expenses that I’m having.” However, later on down the year, I might find like, “Oh, I really need to take a trip to this conference,” or, “I need to go on this research trip.” And at that point, maybe the air miles are more helpful.

20:10 Rachel: So, it just depends. The nice thing about gift cards too is that if you want to, dare I say, splurge, and get yourself a gift card to like AMC Theatres so you can see a movie, or something that’s like a small, not too expensive luxury. Later on, when you go use that gift card to go see that movie, you don’t really feel as guilty about it because you’re not spending your own money. You’re actually just spending the rewards that you’ve already incurred from paying on your credit card. So, that’s kind of a nice thing that I feel like is a guilt-free way of treating yourself to the occasional movie, or what have you. Because, as we all know, grad school is so stressful. Yeah.

Credit Card Churning: Spreadsheets Are Your Friends

20:53 Emily: I really like that strategy that you’re using the points or whatever that you build up as almost kind of a piggy bank that you can then deploy as needed in the future. And of course, using it for lifestyle upgrades, like going to the occasional movie or whatever you want. When you have your stipend paying your baseline expenses, then you can use your side hustle money, the credit card rewards, whatever it is, for big expenses as they come up to ease your stress or just more of life’s pleasures. So, I really like that strategy. Any other things you want to share with us regarding credit card churning?

21:27 Rachel: I really do recommend keeping a spreadsheet with all of your information, just to make sure that you’re keeping track of what you’re spending, you’re keeping track of, “Is this really for sure financially benefiting me? Am I getting rewards?” Versus, “Am I tempted to spend more money just because I’m trying to meet some kind of signup reward, or something.” Also, don’t be afraid to cancel credit cards. A lot of these cards start off free the first year, but then have an annual fee that they’ll charge you. And sometimes those annual fees hit you and you go, “Oh no, I didn’t realize I was already a year out from when I started this card.” So, you know, make sure that you keep a tally of dates of like, “Okay, I need to make sure I cancel this card by this date,” and so on and so forth. Just to keep yourself on the straight and narrow with the churn.

22:18 Emily: Totally. Totally agree. I have to admit myself, just last month I had an annual fee for one of my cards hit, and I was kind of like, “Oh I guess I’m keeping that card another year.” I mean, I could probably still call and get out of it, but I was kind of debating, “Should I cancel it before the year is up or should I keep it?” And then the year was up before I had my bearings about it. So, I’m going to start a spreadsheet and put that in because I’m definitely canceling it by the end of the second year. In fact, it’s already on my calendar as a reminder to do that. So yes, being very organized, super, super crucial with this strategy.

Commercial

22:57 Emily: Emily here for a brief interlude. Tax season is upon us, and while no one loves this time of year, it’s particularly difficult for post-bac fellows, funded grad students, and postdoc fellows. Even professional tax preparers are often thrown for a loop by our unique tax situation. And don’t get me started on tax software. I provide tons of support at this time of year for PhD trainees preparing their tax returns, from free articles and videos, to paid at-your-own-pace workshops, to live seminars and webinars for universities and research institutes. The best place to go to check out all of this material is pfforphds.com/tax. That’s P F F O R P H D S.com/T A X. Don’t struggle through tax season on your own. Visit my website for the exact information you need in the most efficient form available. Now, back to the interview.

Let’s Talk More About Travel Hacking

24:01 Emily: So, let’s talk more about travel hacking. And you already mentioned using the credit card signups to then generate points that can be translated to different airlines depending on the card and who their partners are. So, that’s definitely one way to go about travel hacking. But you said you had a few other travel hacks that you like to use.

24:19 Rachel: Yeah, I do. So, okay. So, some of these are really simple and kind of a onetime thing. Some of these are a little bit more “shady,” if you will. Not shady, I’m not going to recommend anything illegal, but a little sneaky. So, one of the sneaky things that I did, and I’m sure I can’t be the first person to do this or come up with this, but I would be very careful about timing my applications for funding within the university, because some funding applications will say, “Are you receiving funding for many other source?” And I want to be able to say, “No, I’m not.” And that’s true if I have not yet received official funding from another source. So, I was very careful to time my applications in such a manner that allowed me to always be able to say, “No, I’m not receiving funding from another source.” And if I then applied to another source after I submitted that application, well you know, who could have foreseen that I would do that. So, that’s one. Yeah. Another smaller hack is that a lot of us, I think, forget that as grad students, we’re still entitled to student discounts. So, things like STA Travel, which is the Student Travel Association. They have a website where you can look up airfares and all kinds of things. That’s something to take advantage of in addition to all of the sort of usual suspects like couchsurfing and Airbnb, and things like that.

25:52 Emily: I don’t know about Student Travel Association. Can you say more about that?

STA Travel and Hostelworld

25:56 Rachel: Oh yeah, sure. Student Travel Association. I discovered them when I was in college, actually, because I was studying abroad and I was looking into airfares and things and wondering if, “Is there a way I can hack my way into traveling more beyond my study abroad semester?” So, that’s when I discovered STA Travel. STA Travel covers a lot of things. They also, and I could be wrong on this, but I believe they are the same company that issues international student identification cards. That’s the ISIC card, International Student Identity Card. And that has some benefits to it. In fact, recently they’ve started making them like a credit card so you can even add money onto them and use them as a form of payment. But yeah, STA Travel has a lot of different options. And some of the airfares might be, the stipulation is merely just that you’re a student. Some of them might be, you need to be 35 years and younger. So it kind of depends. You have to check it out. But it’s at least another source.

27:00 Emily: This reminds me, and maybe this is part of that association, but just about hostels–like some of them are only open to students or maybe people of a certain age; not super common in the US. But abroad, much more. So, is that kind of the same idea?

27:14 Rachel: Yeah, absolutely. And actually when it comes to hostels, if you haven’t discovered Hostelworld–hostel W O R LD.com–they’re a great source for housing. And I’ve used them abroad a lot. But in the bigger cities in the U S you’ll find Hostelworld locations, too. And it’s amazing how cheap you can get. A lot of people say, “Well, I don’t feel comfortable sleeping in a room with 10 other people that I don’t know for $10 a night.” A lot of properties on hostelworld.com do offer private rooms, and they’re still cheaper than what you would find on Airbnb.

27:54 Emily: I actually used Hostelworld–I think it was through Hostelworld–when I traveled to Chicago one time when I was in graduate school. And my husband and I, who had no interest in staying in separate rooms with many other people, were able to book a private room together at the hostel, which worked out really well for us. It was very inexpensive. So yeah, thanks so much for mentioning that. And also STA Travel. I spent 10 years in college and graduate school and I’m really kicking myself that I did not know about this. So, thank you so much for mentioning it. What’s the next travel hack on your list?

Budget Airlines, Driving, and Incognito Browsing

28:26 Rachel: Yeah. Okay. So, some of those websites also worth mentioning briefly if you ever are traveling abroad. Ryanair and EasyJet are budget airlines and they’re really inexpensive. That’s helpful to know. But unfortunately, those seem to be limited to Europe. Okay. So, I’ve also crunched the numbers on this, and if it’s possible to drive and if you are receiving funding for say a conference or a research trip, driving actually optimizes the money that you’re spending because you might actually get more back. A lot of universities have a really nice high mileage reimbursement for driving. And so if you can drive but you were thinking of just taking a plane just because, it might actually be worth your while financially to drive. Another thing is, I don’t know if this is widely known, but browsing “incognito” on your browser when you’re looking at flights and hotel rooms and things like that.

29:27 Rachel: So, with most browsers, you just go to the settings. I use Google Chrome. So, for Google Chrome, it’s the upper right-hand corner, and you pull down the dropdown menu and you just say that you want to browse incognito. And what that does is it sort of erases all of the memory and cookies that are stored in your browser. And for whatever reason, say like Orbitz for example, if they know that, “Oh, Rachel Blackburn comes to us and she buys plane tickets through Orbitz a lot, we can probably charge her just a little bit more because she’s likely not going to look at any other sites for fares.” And so browsing incognito takes away their ability to do that.

30:12 Emily: Yeah, really good tip. Anything else in that travel hacking list?

For the Bold and the Brave: Motel Pricing Negotiation

30:18 Rachel: Okay. So, one thing I’ve done–and this might be a little on the riskier side, and I certainly would never, ever blame anybody for not wanting to do this–but, let’s say I’m driving long distance and I know that I’m going to have to crash somewhere. If you feel comfortable, and especially as a single woman, maybe you feel more comfortable doing this if you have a friend with you or something like that. A lot of hotels that are these kinds of like motels that you see on the side of the highway when you’re driving long distance and you’re kind of in the middle of nowhere. They will lower their fares quite a bit if you show up late at night and you’re like, “Hey, I need a room.” And they’ve only got like maybe 10 other people in the hotel and they’ll say, “Okay, it’s $99 for the night.” And I’ll say, “Oh, you know what? I’m sorry. That’s a little bit more than I was wanting to spend. So, I’m just going to go on.” And then they’ll say, “No, no, no, no, wait.” Because who else is going to drop by late at night to stay? So, a lot of them will actually negotiate fare with you, and they’ll drop it down, say like, “Okay, well can you do 75?” “Yeah, that’s better.” Okay. Now, that does mean that you’re not making a reservation ahead of time. You also run the risk that they may not negotiate with you. That can happen too. So, if I’m taking this route, I try to always stop off in a town that’s large enough to have at least three or four off-the-highway motels where I can try that tactic.

31:52 Emily: I’m really glad you mentioned that because we have so few opportunities for negotiation in the US for these types of sales. So, yeah, that never occurred to me, but I really like this strategy. I can’t say I’ll necessarily do it, but I like the idea.

32:08 Rachel: Yeah, it’s for the bold and the brave for sure.

32:11 Emily: I mean, if there is a town where there are two, three, four of these, then they know that you can just walk down the street and try the same tactic. It’s not going to cost you hardly any more time. So, why not? How late is late at night by the way, for you, after what time?

32:25 Rachel: Hmm, that’s a great question. Most people, especially thinking of highway driving, a lot of people like to be in a motel before it gets dark, especially people with families and stuff like that. So, I would say any time after sunset you’re good to negotiate. Yeah.

32:44 Emily: Yeah. Sounds good. Any more travel hacks?

Inviting (non-PhD) Friends to Conferences

32:49 Rachel: One thing I have done, and I wouldn’t exactly call this a hack, and anytime I have done this, I’ve been totally upfront with my friends about it. If I’m going to, say, a research conference or a research trip or something. I’m going somewhere, I can anticipate I’m going to need a hotel room or an Airbnb. I will often invite my friends along, and not friends who are PhD students, but just friends of mine. And I’ll be upfront and I’ll say, “Listen, would you want to come hang out with me in this city for a weekend? We can split an Airbnb, and when I’m at my conference, you can do your own thing. And when I’m not at my conference, we can hang out together.” And I’ve done that before and it’s great. It’s a double benefit of getting to see friends that you wouldn’t otherwise see. But also, you have someone to share the conference with who’s not necessarily associated with the conference. So, I did a research trip to LA at one point and I invited two of my girlfriends along, and I said, “Hey, I’m going to be in LA for a long weekend. Come hang out with me. There’s going to be times when I’ll have to be at this conference, but most of the time I’ll be free to hang out.” And so they shared an Airbnb with me and immediately split my Airbnb three ways instead of one way. So yeah, that’s another hack, sort.

34:06 Emily: Yeah, why not? If you’re going to a desirable location and you like your friends and like to hang out with them, no harm in suggesting it, certainly.

34:13 Rachel: Yeah. I mean, I know so many people that go, “Oh no one else is going to this conference. I guess I’m footing the bill for the whole hotel room by myself.” And it’s like, “No, you might have some friends who like to travel and who would love the excuse to just get away for a weekend.” So, yeah.

34:33 Emily: Yeah. I like that idea.

Prefixes: To Doctor, or Not To Doctor

34:35 Rachel: Okay. Last one. This is the last hack. I often, when I’m booking a hotel or a plane, I have read that specifying your prefix as doctor can make a difference. Even if you’re not a doctor yet, what are they going to do? They’re going to go find your transcripts? Probably not. I don’t think American Airlines has time for that. So yeah, start using doctor as a prefix. It couldn’t hurt.

35:03 Emily: So, when you say that it can help, what do you mean? Would that actually change the rate that you’re paying, or what difference would it make?

35:13 Rachel: Yeah, well I’ve read stories of people saying that they got a better seat or they got a better rate. Sometimes it might just be like, “Oh, you’re a doctor? Continental breakfast is free for you,” or whatever. Or maybe it’s just a few dollars off your bill, or something. But my guess is that this only leads to really minute differences, but again, every little bit helps. Why not? Worst-case scenario, somebody calls you Doctor?

35:44 Emily: Yeah, I think I may try this out. I’m trying to remember. I think in most cases when I travel, I don’t use doctor as a prefix because I don’t want to be approached with a medical situation on a plane. Of course, I’ve never even seen that happen. So, the chances that it would are really, really, really tiny. But I think that’s been my reason to shy away from using my proper title. But now that I know that I may actually get something out of it, I might try using it consistently going forward. Okay. So, we’ve talked about your side hustling. We’ve talked about how you’ve generated other extra income and how you’ve reduced expenses with your associated travel and so forth. And you told me when we started preparing this episode that all this allowed you to open a Roth IRA during graduate school, which, if you told me I’m being paid $1,000 a month and I’m going to be living in Lawrence, Kansas, I’d be like, “Good luck with that.”

36:46 Emily: You know, who would ever think that that would be possible? Yet, it sounds like through these different mechanisms that you were able to. So, tell me more about why you decided to start saving for retirement while you were in graduate school and why in particular you used a Roth IRA?

Why Start a Roth IRA in Graduate School?

37:00 Rachel: Yeah, absolutely. So, I’m in the humanities. I was a theater professional, theater artist for many, many years professionally before I decided to go back to school, years later. And because of that, I was a freelance contractor for a lot of my life–a lot of my working adult life. So, I was never hired on a permanent full-time basis. I was often hired on a full-time basis for the next three months, you know? And then I was again hired somewhere else for the next three months. And I think in the back of my mind, I kept hoping, one of these days, surely, I will get a job that will offer me benefits and savings plans and things like that. And after a few years, I realized, that’s not going to happen. And then when I went back to school, I didn’t know what my options would be there, either.

37:54 Rachel: I knew it was going to be a tight budgeting situation. I was not under any illusion that I would be–I mean, the idea of like saving for an IRA was completely out of my mind. But somewhere during the PhD–and at this point in my life, I’m like early thirties, 32, 33–and I thought, “If I don’t make this happen for myself, it might never happen.” We all know the statistics about finding a tenure-track job after you graduate. And I just thought I can’t keep telling myself, “Don’t worry. One day you’ll get that job. Don’t worry, one day you’ll get those benefits.” I thought, “Okay, it’s up me. It’s up to me to do it. So, I just need to really be creative and smart about how I’m saving money.”

Know Yourself to Choose Which IRA Works For You

38:42 Rachel: I was able to open a Roth IRA with Vanguard. Now, there again–and for those listening, PhD students who are great at research–just research around, figure it out. One thing I liked about Vanguard was that they seem to have, I believe–and I don’t want to misspeak because I could always be wrong. There could be information I don’t have–they seem to have kept their nose clean, relatively, through the recession. And that was one thing that really attracted me to them. I also spoke to friends and family that were involved in business and they all said, “Oh yeah, Vanguard’s a great company.” So, that’s how I chose them. I also just researched financial products and I said, “Okay, what makes the most sense to me?” I wanted something that would hold onto my money and wouldn’t let me at it. Because if I could pull it out without penalty, I probably would. And that’s just a personality assessment on myself. So, I wanted a financial product that I could put money into anytime. I wasn’t worried about being taxed on it. So, that’s why I chose the Roth IRA that I did. And, it would give me incentive to not take the money back out. So, yeah.

39:53 Emily: That sounds perfect. I think you had great insight there. If you don’t make this happen for yourself, it may not happen. Now, we know that you now have that tenure-track position. You’re one of the lucky few, right? But so many people, so many people currently in grad school or maybe in a postdoc or something–yeah, you don’t know what your job is going to be in the future. And kind of the way things are trending is, not only are pensions in many cases a thing of the past, even having what would be full-time benefits, like having access to a 403(b) or 401(k) or whatever, that is disappearing too as more and more people are entering the freelance market, as you said, or doing contract work. So, really, at some point, as you just said, you just need to make it happen for yourself because you can’t necessarily rely on an employer to do this for you anymore.

40:50 Emily: So, it’s a hard realization, but it’s one that if you do have it early on, like you did prior to graduate school or maybe during graduate school or during a postdoc for other people you know what, go ahead and get started. Because now is always kind of the best time to do it, right? Like best time to start saving for retirement. Well, that was 10 years ago, but the second best time is right now. So, go ahead and get started and don’t let, “Oh in the future things will be different hold you back from that.” So, I really love having the story from you of, “Yeah, my stipend was very small, not really sufficient for even a relatively low cost of living area. Yet, this is what I did to change this. I hustled in this way. I was super smart about deploying my credit score in this other way. I kept my travel expenses down in this way, and look at that. I was able to start saving for retirement based on all those strategies.”

Best Financial Advice for Early-Career PhDs

41:39 Emily: And now of course you have the full-time job and things are working out very well, it sounds like. So, love this story and thank you so much for this interview. And as we kind of sign off here, I just wanted to ask you, what is your best financial advice for another early-career PhD?

41:55 Rachel: Don’t underestimate your own creativity. One of your strengths and skills as a PhD student is researching. So, why not take that same skill and apply it to your financial life? If you had told me when I was in my MFA program, “Hey, guess what? In a few years, you’re going to make up your mind that you’re bound and determined to open an IRA.” I would’ve said, “That’s crazy. How am I ever going to save for an IRA on a stipend that I have?” And my other best piece of advice, I decided that because your loans are deferred while you’re in school, if you can pay on your loans while you’re in school, you’re only paying principal. So, that was my other goal throughout grad school. Financially speaking, I was bound and determined, even if it was $10 a month, that was still $120 less on my principal at the end of the year. So, however small it is, just chipping away at those student loans while you’re in school will really help you by the time you’re out of school.

43:01 Emily: I love both pieces of advice. Deploying your creativity and your research skills to your finances as well as your academic interests. And then, just because your student loans are deferred doesn’t mean you have to ignore them. Go ahead and start paying on them to whatever degree you can or are interested in. And/or do this retirement investing. Both of them are going to greatly benefit you by the time you finish up with graduate school and start having to make payments on the student loans. So, Rachel, thank you so much for this interview. This is really, really insightful and I enjoyed speaking with you.

43:34 Rachel: Yeah. Thank you so much for having me. It was great talking to you.

Outtro

43:38 Emily: Listeners, thank you for joining me for this episode. Pfforphds.com/podcast is the hub for the Personal Finance for PhDs podcast. There, you can find links to all the episode show notes and a form to volunteer to be interviewed. I’d love for you to check it out and get more involved. If you’ve been enjoying the podcast, here are four ways you can help it grow. One, subscribe to the podcast and rate and review it on Apple podcast, Stitcher, or whatever platform you use. Two, share an episode you found particularly valuable on social media or with your PhD peers. Three, recommend me as a speaker to your university or association. My seminars cover the personal finance topics PhDs are most interested in, like investing, debt repayment, and taxes. Four, subscribe to my mailing list at pfforphds.com/subscribe. Through that list, you’ll keep up with all the new content and special opportunities for Personal Finance for PhDs. See you in the next episode. And remember, you don’t have to have a PhD to succeed with personal finance, but it helps. The music is Stages of Awakening by Podington Bear from the free music archive and is shared under CC by NC. Podcast editing and show notes creation by Meryem Ok.

Learn From This Poor Kid-Turned-PhD Student’s Different Perspective on Frugality and Debt (Part 2)

March 16, 2020 by Lourdes Bobbio

In this episode, Emily interview ZW Taylor (Zach), a PhD student in Educational Leadership and Policy at the University of Texas at Austin. As a child, Zach identified as a “poor kid” and never thought higher education was for him. His upbringing and winding path through community college and his bachelor’s and master’s degrees taught him lessons about money that he has carried into his life as a PhD student – for better and for worse. In this second half of the conversation, Zach gives detailed and unique financial advice to prospective and rising graduate students on evaluating stipend offer letters and selecting housing. He was determined to not go into debt during his PhD, so he thoroughly investigated his stipend offer letter and the socioeconomic layout of his new city before accepting the offer. Finally, Zach shares his vision for the future of his finances once he’s done with his PhD and earning a significantly higher paycheck.

Links Mentioned in This Episode

Teaser

00:00 Zach: If they want you and they offer funding, then in a different side of the same coin, they should be able to tell you specifically what you’re getting, because how can you budget, how can you plan without knowing what your income is? I mean, it’s incredibly important. So to your point, encouraging PhD students to be their own best friends and their own advocates and be very clear about what you’re getting before you go.

Introductions

00:29 Emily: Welcome to the Personal Finance for PhDs podcast, higher education in personal finance. I’m your host, Dr. Emily Roberts. This is season five episode eleven and today my guest is Zach Taylor, a PhD student in educational leadership and policy at the University of Texas at Austin. Zach has such a unique perspective and so much wonderful advice that I’ve split our interview into two episodes, last week’s and this one. In this episode, Zach gives detailed and unique financial advice to prospective and rising graduate students on evaluating stipend, offer letters and selecting housing. He was determined to not go into debt during his PhD, so he thoroughly investigated his stipend offer letter and the socioeconomic layout of his new city before accepting the offer. At the end of the episode, Zach shares his vision for the future of his finances once he’s done with his PhD and earning a significantly higher paycheck. Without further ado, here’s the second part of my interview with Zach Taylor.

Financial Advice for Early Career PhDs

01:30 Zach: You know, in terms of advice for other early career PhDs, in terms of saving money and thinking about going to grad school, especially with the kind of frugal mindset is I was not going to go to grad school one, if I had any debt. That was just something that I had always thought to myself that if I’m going, again another childhood lesson, if I’m going to pay for it, I’m going to pay for it in cash and I’m not going to take out a loan. My best advice for early career folks who are thinking about the PhD is if you can work before you go to grad school and pay down any undergrad debt you might have. I know it’s not possible for some folks, but try your best to get some work experience and pay down that debt.

Further reading:

02:18 Zach: And then when you’re thinking about doing the PhD, do some of the same leg work that I did. Investigate the city — where is public transportation? Where are groceries? How can you get around? Talk with other folks who have been there for a couple of years. You know, one reason I came to UT Austin is that everyone was eager to give me their perspective. I mean, when I asked people how do you like living? How much do you spend? Where do you live? How do you get to school? No one held information back from me. Everyone was so willing to share because I think you want to help other folks out. So ask questions and be inquisitive and see where you can make it work financially. But then when you make that choice, I made the choice that I was going to go to a funded PhD program. I was going to work through. I wasn’t expecting just to not have to have an assistantship. I’ve worked all the way through, but I’m also not gonna have to take out any loans. And I think if you have the right combination of work experience and academic experience in certain fields, you can find those programs that are very, very low cost or no cost and be able to work through.

03:27 Emily: I just want to add a couple of comments on those pieces of advice, starting with your most recent one. So in the STEM fields and engineering, where I’m coming from, there’s this advice I guess, that people sometimes say to a prospective graduate students, which is that an acceptance without funding is a tacit rejection. Like if you are not offered funding along with your offer of admission, they don’t really want you there. And that’s typical in those kinds of fields. And at a certain, I’ll say tier of university. Not every graduate students — I mean some people do either take, you know, fully pay for their PhDs on their own, like there’s no funding package offered or they go into a situation where they know, okay, sometimes there’s going to be funding, sometimes there’s not going to be, or okay I’m going to have funding to a degree but I’m also going to have to do X, Y, Z to make up the deficit.

Emily: It’s really hard for me to ever say something as blanket as don’t go to a PhD program if you have to take out debt, because I just, I want to allow for individual situations. But I mean it sounds like from your perspective, even being in a totally different field than I’m coming from, you were still determined, I’m not going to go to graduate school if I have to take out debt. It’s just not going to happen under those circumstances. So you were very selective about where you applied slash the programs that you were actually considering going to, to make sure that you could make it happen in that way, even though it did in your case involve outside work as well.

What to Research When Choosing a Program

04:59 Zach: Absolutely. And one thing that I really insisted upon before I came and I don’t, know of too many other young PhD prospective PhD students who do this, but you really have to push the graduate coordinator or someone in financial aid. Know exactly what you’re getting. It’s really easy to say you’ll have an assistantship and it’ll provide a stipend. After taxes and benefits, how many specific dollars am I getting? When in the month am I being paid? Am I being paid biweekly or monthly? Am I paid over the summer? What are the opportunities for employment over the summer? As someone who is going to embark on a five or six year journey, they owe that to you. They have the information, they can provide that to you.

Zach: Before I came I was very, very explicit in saying, if I’m going to leave this job that I know that I like and I’m going to forego wages for five years and give up a salary and not be able to save any money, what am I specifically getting? What are the specific opportunities? And then matching them up with the area and saying, okay, I can make this sacrifice for four or five years. Yes, I’m going to forego wages and a savings, but I’m also not going to be in so over my head or I’m going to feel pressured to make choices that I wouldn’t normally make. And you know, Emily, to your point, it’s absolutely been the case in my experiences and other classmates that there have been times where they’re unclear about their funding package because it wasn’t made specifically clear when they were admitted. Kind of that tacitly, if you’re not fully funded, we don’t fully want you. If they want you and they offer funding, then in a different side of the same coin, they should be able to tell you specifically what you’re getting, because how can you budget, how can you plan without knowing what your income is? I mean, it’s incredibly important. So to your point, encouraging PhD students to be their own best friends and their own advocates and be very clear about what you’re getting before you go.

07:10 Emily: Oh my gosh, I’m so glad that you made this point even more explicit because it’s one that I talk about frequently during admission season. Check the show notes, if you are a prospective graduate student because there will be links there to further articles and workshops and resources that I have on that exact topic of figuring out exactly what your offer letter is saying to you and asking questions when there’s a lapse in information in the offer letter. And I mean, to your point, pay frequency. I mean that’s not even something that you would necessarily think about, but it’s really important once you’re actually on the ground and doing that budgeting. I’m super glad you brought that up.

Further reading/listening/watching:

Emily: But to go back to one earlier point would you mentioned which was paying off debt and working potentially before starting graduate school. I totally have to concur on this because, now student loans I’ll put in one basket, okay, because student loans can be deferred while you’re in graduate school, but other kinds of debt — credit card debt, car debt, any other kind of debt that you have to be making payments on during graduate school — do everything within your power I would say to clear that before getting into graduate school because the stipend is already so meager, you don’t want to have ongoing payments that you don’t have to, once you’re in that situation. And then of course the student loans in another basket, if it’s at all possible to pay down part or all of them are maybe the ones that the highest interest rate or just to make some kind of progress on that student loan debt, if you’re carrying a lot of it, before you start graduate school. It’s an amazing step to take. It’s a gift to yourself. Me personally, I had some student loans coming out of undergrad. I was sure to pay off all of the unsubsidized student loans before I started graduate school. The subsidized student loans, they’re not going to garner interest during that time. At that point, wasn’t caring about that so much, but I got the unsubsidized ones wiped off before I started graduate school. Just wanted to emphasize that point as well. Please go on with your other other advice for early career PhDs.

08:59 Zach: Yes. So this is more about where you’re planning to study and how you can kind of network beforehand. You brought up a great point that I want to hit on again about where you’re living and how much you’re paying and understanding kind of the socioeconomic context of not the university, but the city. Austin, like you said, is really rapidly growing and I applied across the country. I applied to Indiana, Vanderbilt, Stanford, Michigan, Princeton, Cornell, all over the place. But I was really specific about researching Austin when I got in because I knew how rapidly Austin was growing. And to give you an idea of the cost of living increase and how much graduate students are actually paid, I moved into this current one bedroom apartment back in the spring of 2017 for $960 a month and I am a one hour commute from campus. So I’m one hour away for $960, with utilities it’s about $1200 a month. That was a sacrifice I made. However, these apartments now go for $1310. So they have increased almost $400 in two years. And I’m still one hour from campus. If I was arriving to Austin today and having to sign a lease today, I would pay almost $400 more than I would have paid just two years ago. Now you had talked a 10% increase — 30% increase, 40% increase. And these are not….we don’t have a garage. We don’t have a private yard. We don’t have too many amenities. It’s a pretty standard one bedroom apartment with air conditioning, but it’s also an hour away from campus.

10:53 Zach: I always host PhD students in the spring who are prospective students. And I always, when I show them apartments, I ask not only for the current rent because a lot of major cities have market rent, which means it changes, with the ebbs and flows of moving season throughout the year. Don’t only ask for the rent now and move in, but ask for it three years prior because they have records of all the leasing contracts and all of the, um, leasing and rental agreements. So you can see how rent has changed and gone up or gone down in a certain area. And actually I just helped a friend from Michigan move in just the other week and he and his partner made a very specific decision to go to a certain complex and neighborhood because the rent had been somewhat stable over the past three years and had only gone up about $180 over three years. Whereas my neighborhood is in a different kind of more developing area of Austin and it is growing like crazy.

Zach: Especially when you’re moving into a new city, getting an idea of historical trends and then do the exact same thing for the stipend. How much was the living stipend, how much was the assistantship five years ago? What does it now and do you anticipate a cost of living increase and is that going to be compensated by the university? Something that UT Austin recently did was dedicate new money to try to keep up with cost of living and try to develop some new graduate student housing, which we haven’t really talked about, but always inquire about graduate student and subsidized housing because some universities still do have it. Even though in a very landlocked, city locked university like UT Austin, there’s not a lot of room for expansion anymore, but always ask about the cost of living increases in historical rent in the city, how that relates to the stipend from the university and then what the university is going to do to keep up with that cost of living. I couldn’t agree more.

12:56 Emily: Yeah. I’m so glad you made that point.

Commercial

13:02 Emily: Emily here for a brief interlude. Tax season is upon us and while no one loves this time of year, it’s particularly difficult for post-bac fellows, funded grad students, and postdoc fellows. Even professional tax preparers are often thrown for a loop by our unique tax situation. And don’t get me started on tax software. I provide tons of support at this time of year for PhD trainees preparing their tax returns. From free articles and videos, to paid at-your-own-pace workshops, to live seminars and webinars for universities and research institutes. The best place to go to check out all of this material is pfforphds.com/tax that’s P F F O R P H D dot com slash T A X. Don’t struggle through tax season on your own. Visit my website for the exact information you need in the most efficient form available. Now back to the interview.

Understanding The Role of Cost of Living Increases

14:05 Emily: Really, a new idea for me is actually asking about those historical rents and seeing the increases. This might be a silly question, but does Austin have any rent protection in place? Like increases can only be a certain amount over time, like in terms of laws in place?

14:21 Zach: Not that I am aware of and it doesn’t seem to have translated to people who have actually been into leases and stayed multiple years. Our rent has only gone up $60 in two years, but for the same apartment, for new leases, it’s that new elevated price. However, and this to me was just absolutely ridiculous, I was actually outraged by this, that we have a valet trash fee that is mandated. That we have to pay $14 a month to have somebody pick up our trashcan outside the door and take it to the dumpster. Now the dumpster is a half a block away and I don’t want to pay for valet trash, but I have to because it’s part of the lease and it’s an industry that Austin supports. So there are some fees — you know I’ve heard a lot about the fee creep and higher education where you might have a tuition freeze, but you can keep charging student fees and those add up. The same thing happens with amenities and fees in Austin. The trash fee has gone up, water has gone up, electricity has gone up. It used to be that we would come in a close to $100 over the summertime for air conditioning. Now it’s closer to $140 or $150, and it’s a dramatic increase. So not only understanding the rent, but really understanding what fees you have to pay, what are mandatory, what are optional, and then how those feeds are going to be adjusted over time, because in some big cities they’re just mandated and you just have to bite the bullet and pay for them even if you don’t want to. But those really add up just in fees. We pay an extra $95 or $100 a month just in fees.

16:09 Emily: Yeah. What I’m getting from this part of our discussion is just the importance of interrogating every single component of your offer, of what your living expenses are going to be. And all the time that you put into researching these different components before you actually move to the city that your graduate school is in, or after graduate school, same story, it’s really going to be worth it. It’s going to pay off when you do this research, because the less you have to learn on the ground once you’re there and make changes, the easier it’s going to be. If you can find a place you want to live for several years right from the beginning, it’s a lot easier for you. I did want to go back to make one other point from what you said earlier about asking about the historical stipends. I definitely think you should and can ask a graduate program that, but I wanted to plug my own website, which is PhDstipends.com and also I have another one for postdocs, postdocsalaries.com. PhD Stipends has been around for five years now, I think. And people enter which academic year, the stipend their listing is for. So if your university has enough data in there, you definitely can look back, even potentially at your own department and see what they were paying five years back to compare it to what’s in your offer letter.

17:24 Zach: Yeah, absolutely. And to your point about having that access to data and actually seeking that out, now that you mentioned that, I don’t know anyone else who did that when they came. A lot of folks were really excited just to be able to come to Austin and to be in a PhD program. It’s a very highly ranked program. It’s very prestigious around the country, so a lot of folks were just happy to be there. But then down the road they really kind of regretted not understanding where they were going to live, how much they were going to make. Also the time crunch in making a decision. I had to make my decision in a series of three or four weeks. I mean really in graduate student visits when I was admitted to PhD programs, I the beginning of February really until about mid-March to visit places, do my research. So also understanding how that’s going to affect whatever job you have at the time.

Zach: When you’re exploring PhD programs, it is a serious time commitment. I mean just finding a PhD program in a city that fits you and your budget and that you can continue to maintain your expectation of living whatever that is, is like a full time job. It’s like being on the job market and people should take it with the same seriousness and explore all of those resources that they can because like you said, I have been very, very fortunate. It was some good planning, but I’ve been very, very fortunate not to have to move every year, not to have to sublet. That means my computer workstation has stayed the same. I have a routine. I’ve been able to write. I’ve been able to travel because I haven’t had to worry about where I’m going to live, how much money I’m going to make. It’s all very budgeted, all very meticulous and I think that has really made the PhD program a much more fulfilling experience, because like you said, I have gone through those hoops initially to make sure that I was in a place that I could afford and I would feel comfortable in.

Final Words of Advice

19:24 Emily: Yeah, absolutely. I’m so glad that you brought up that point as well. Any final advice for other early career PhDs?

19:31 Zach: Yes, so I guess lastly, and it’s kind of more of a philosophical point, is I did make the choice not to go to a PhD program that wasn’t going to financially support me. And I think, most people who pursue a PhD, it’s right in the prime of their earning potential, right? So you’re talking early twenties to anywhere in the late thirties like that 10 to 15 year period, you can make a lot of money during that time of your life and pay down a lot of debt. You have to understand that going and getting a PhD, you’re going to forego wages and you might take on debt. It’s such a double edged sword because you’re losing money on one hand, and you’re kind of having to borrow more money. So really, really committing and making that sacrifice, because understanding how many hundreds and thousands of dollars you may be foregoing in the future, and having to pay back debt, and having lost wages.

Zach: The sacrifices I made were having a very compromised social life and a very kind of frugal living down here because I knew it’s going to be four or five years of just extreme sacrifice. I am not going to go out. I am not going to go out to eat very often, I have only gone out for drinks three times in three and a half years and all three times were for professional networking, and to work on projects. I just don’t do it. A margarita is $12 and that’s my food budget for almost an entire week. I have made that kind of level of commitment to stay out of debt and to do it frugally. Not everyone can do that, but if you can commit to doing that, you can get out without debt or with very low debt and 10 or 15 years down the road, you’ll really thank yourself, and you’ll look back and you’ll realize, you know what? I think that sacrifice was worth it.

21:27 Emily: Yeah, I think so. I mean your point about opportunity cost is a very, very important one and not something that people, I think think about enough going into PhD program. For me, it’s another reason to work before you go into a PhD program because you have a better idea of what you are giving up on the one hand in terms of salary potential during that time. And you also have more context for your PhD work. What is this going to do for me on the career side?

Financial Plans After Grad School

21:51 Emily: I’m gonna surprise you with one last question, Zach. This is not what I prepared you with, but what do you think you’re going to be doing with your finances once you’re done with the PhD? And hopefully, you have a job you enjoy that pays you much better than whar you’re being paid right now. Do you see yourself shedding some of these mindsets and habits that you’ve carried with you to this point? And if so, how? How can you even step away from this since it’s been going on for so long in your life now?

22:22 Zach: Yes. It is such a lifestyle. I cannot emphasize that enough. I have thought about what I want to do with my money when I graduate and get a job and now I don’t have debt and the money is mine to spend. I don’t want a larger than two bedroom house because I’ve never lived in a place larger than that. I wouldn’t feel comfortable in a four bedroom house in the suburbs. That’s just not me. I would not feel at home there or comfortable. I could never buy a new car. I could never do that. I would not feel comfortable driving in a 2019 anything. I’ve always bought used cars. I wouldn’t even feel comfortable doing that. If you remember actually from HEFWA, though, what is really, really important to me is donating. I wanted to stay out of debt and get a PhD and have the earning potential to donate to certain programs that I was a part of as a kid and that really helped me out. I think when people are asked about “why do you save money?” I saved so I can give more. Since I’ve been a PhD student, I have been able to donate about $700 to my alma mater and a mentoring program that they have going that I was a part of when I was there. For me, that is such a better use of the money instead of going downtown a couple of weekends and having drinks. I feel so much better about it.

Zach: I think having an understanding of the kind of money I will make when I’m done and then how I’ve grown up, it’s going to allow me to do a lot more good and amplify a lot of the philanthropy that I’ve started doing, and that is really how I’m going to be spending a lot of my expendable income as you could say. I’m going to start a savings account. I’m going to start a 403B or a 401k or some employer sponsored a savings account. If there’s a state pension program, I’ll participate in that. But it’s really going to free me up to spend money where I think it needs to be spent, which is education and low income kids. And like I said, I’m going to look back on my time at UT and Austin and say, maybe I was able to send some kid to community college because I didn’t go out. I was able to help some kid get their associate’s degree because I made those sacrifices and I will trade that any day of the week.

24:56 Emily: I’m so glad to have that incredible perspective from you on the podcast today. It sounds like a really bright future and happy for you that you’ll be finished quite soon, and you’ll get there before too long. Zach, it’s been an absolute delight to have you on the podcast today. Thank you so much for joining me.

25:16 Zach: Absolutely. Thanks Emily.

Outtro

25:18 Emily: Listeners, thank you for joining me for this episode. PFforPphDs.com/podcast is the hub for the Personal Finance for PhDs podcast. There, you can find links to all the episode show notes and a form to volunteer to be interviewed. I’d love for you to check it out and get more involved. If you’ve been enjoying the podcast, here are four ways you can help it grow. One, subscribe to the podcast and rate and review it on Apple podcast, Stitcher, or whatever platform you use. Two, share an episode you found particularly valuable on social media or with your PhD peers. Three, recommend me as a speaker to your university or association. My seminars covered the personal finance topics PhDs are most interested in, like investing, debt repayment, and taxes. Four, subscribe to my mailing list at PFforPhDs.com/subscribe. Through that list, you’ll keep up with all the new content and special opportunities for Personal Finance for PhDs. See you in the next episode, and remember, you don’t have to have a PhD to succeed with personal finance, but it helps. The music is Stages of Awakening by Podington Bear from the Free Music Archive and is shared under CC by NC. Podcast editing and show notes creation by Lourdes Bobbio.

Learn From This Poor Kid-Turned-PhD Student’s Different Perspective on Frugality and Debt (Part 1)

March 9, 2020 by Lourdes Bobbio

In this episode, Emily interview ZW Taylor (Zach), a PhD student in Educational Leadership and Policy at the University of Texas at Austin. As a child, Zach identified as a “poor kid” and never thought higher education was for him. His upbringing and winding path through community college and his bachelor’s and master’s degrees taught him lessons about money that he has carried into his life as a PhD student – for better and for worse. In this first half of the conversation, Zach shares the financial struggles his family experienced when he was a child and how he finally committed to higher education – without debt – as a way out. Living in Austin, Texas, with its rapidly inflating cost of living, has its own challenges, and Zach still employs some extreme frugal strategies that he developed earlier in his life.

Links Mentioned in This Episode

Teaser

00:00 Zach: Whenever I submit to a conference, I will email the conference chair and try to arrange some sort of email conversation or phone call and ask to volunteer in exchange registration feeds. So there are probably 25 conferences that I’ve gone to in state and out of state. I have never been turned away.

Introduction

00:25 Emily: Welcome to the Personal Finance for PhDs podcast, higher education in personal finance. I’m your host, Dr. Emily Roberts. This is season five episode ten, and today my guest is Zach Taylor, a PhD student in Educational Leadership and Policy at the University of Texas at Austin. Zach has such a unique perspective and so much wonderful advice that I’ve split our interview into two episodes, this one and next week’s. In this episode, Zach shares the financial struggles his family experienced when he was a child and how he finally committed to higher education, without debt, as a way out. Living in Austin, Texas with its rapidly inflating cost of living has its own challenges and Zach still employs some extreme frugal strategies that he developed earlier in his life. Without further ado, here’s the first part of my interview with Zach Taylor.

Will You Please Introduce Yourself Further?

01:20 Emily: I have joining me on the podcast today Zach Taylor, and this is a really special episode for me because we’re recording this in August, 2019 and Zach and I actually met at a conference just last month. We were both at the Higher Education Financial Wellness Summit and Zach was a keynote speaker. And he had just this incredibly compelling story to tell during that keynote, which he’ll tell us a shortened version of that during this podcast, of his own personal story. And then during that keynote he also talked a lot about his academic work and we’re not going to get into that so much in this interview, but rather how Zach’s upbringing and the money mindsets and lessons he learned as a child have affected how he handles his finances as a graduate student. And also some tips for other graduate students who may find themselves in a similar financial situation to Zach. Zach, I’m so happy to have you on the podcast today. Will you please introduce yourself a little bit further to the audience?

02:17 Zach: Absolutely. Thanks Emily. Zach Taylor. At this point, I’m a PhD candidate at UT Austin in Higher Education Leadership. I have done a lot of things in education. I’ve been an admissions reader, college instructor, high school English instructor, youth coordinator, mentoring program coordinator. I’ve kind o, been in education my entire life. I really appreciate the opportunity to be here and be talking about this because so many of my life lessons in living an educational life. My mom was also a teacher. It’s been constantly learning new things and ways to save money. I’m so excited to be able to share it today.

Early Childhood and Living in Poverty

02:58 Emily: Yeah. Perfect. So let’s go back to your childhood, your pre-college days and tell us what was going on with you around that time, what was going on with your family?

03:09 Zach: I grew up very low income in the Midwest. Kind of grew up all over the place. My dad had a really hard time holding a job and it came to a head when I was about seven or eight years old. I think my mom realized that she couldn’t just take care of my brother and I, she needed to work, because my dad just couldn’t do it. She became a teacher, and we lived on that teacher salary pretty much my entire adolescence until I was 13. Something kind of tragic happened in my family at that point, so my mom and I decided to leave and go make a life on our own. And if any listeners out there are children of divorce, you can know how financially crippling that is, especially on a teacher’s salary. My mom paid child support to my dad. We were very, very poor. We split a apartment together. She became kind of more than a mom to me. She was kind of my roommate and my best friend and someone who split expenses with me.

Zach: And that was happening during high school. I was an athlete in high school and I quit most all sports by junior year because I needed to work. I needed to make money. I wasn’t able to buy food and pay for transportation and feel like I could save any kind of money at all. And that mindset growing up, coming from the family, I came from — loved going to the library because the library was free. I loved riding the bus because the bus was free. It didn’t cost anything. It was always reliable. It was always there for me. And so as I was growing up, having lived with my mom and having worked really, really early on, a lot of those behaviors really carried into college. I still, to this day, I love a good library. I love a good bus ride. I love having roommates. I’ve never really lived on my own because I’m so used to splitting expenses and living as frugally as possible. I’ve kind of foregone a lot of privacy in my life for that reason. I’m happy to share a lot of those experiences, and how they’ve translated in my college life because I’m again surprised how many habits were formed when I was a young kid that actually, I still practice to this day.

Path to the PhD

05:39 Emily: Yeah, we will definitely get into that in a moment. I also wondered if you could share for the listeners a little bit of your nontraditional path to the PhD. Because there may be some people in the audience who are thinking, well, they have some degree of imposter syndrome as many people do, but maybe a higher degree than others because of not going directly to college after high school or starting in a community college like you did. So can you talk about how you got to where you are now educationally?

06:08 Zach: Yes. I was not a good high school student. Like I said, kind of a broken home, working a lot. I never wanted to go to college. I actually didn’t think about going to college until my stepdad — I was living in my mom and stepdad’s basement working at a gas station and he had said, you’re a smart kid, you can probably go to community college. I was actually not fully admitted to community college. I had to take remedial courses. I had not taken even Algebra II at high school. I didn’t even pass Geometry. I was really credit deficient. I had no AP classes. I barely graduated when I did. And part of the reason I graduated was because my mom was a teacher and kind of helped me out doing summer school and getting and making up credits. I was extremely credit deficient coming in. Took the remedial coursework at my community college the first semester. I joked during the keynote that tuition at the time was $150 per class, but to me that was like food for months. That seemed so unaffordable. $150 per class was unaffordable to me and was initially a deterrent.

07:21 Zach: But I slowly came to realize that education was a way out of working at that gas station and being a poor kid. It was a a way out in many ways. I eventually finished about 18 credits or 21 credits at the community college. Got some really good academic momentum going. I applied to the cheapest in state public school that I could. I wasn’t looking at academic programs, wasn’t looking at what I was going to do. I solely looked at the tuition rates and I said, what can I afford to do as a part time student working part time so I don’t take out any loans? I was very debt averse and one of those things from childhood was if you couldn’t pay for it in cash, you didn’t buy it. And the same attitude translated to college. If I could not pay for tuition in cash, if I could not afford to support myself, I was not going to go. There were a couple of times then throughout undergrad where I stopped out and took a semester off and saved money and came back the next semester. I remember professors telling me, I hope I see you in the spring because they knew I wasn’t going to be there in the fall because I was going to take a a gap semester and make some money.

08:44 Zach: After seven years, I eventually finished. I transferred a few times trying to save money. My parents lost a lot of money in the housing collapse in 2008 so I ended up stopping out again and going back to work. But I was very persistent and also, another lesson from childhood was no waste. Don’t waste anything. And I had already had 80 or 90 credits. I didn’t want to waste those. I wanted to finish. So that was something that really propelled me forward was this investment. I already knew how many sacrifices, how much money, how much time I had already put into this thing, and I really wanted to finish.

09:24 Zach: I eventually did finish. Got a job as a mentoring program coordinator and teacher. I paid for master’s degrees with cash. I didn’t take out any debt. Granted, it took me five years to earn those degrees, but I didn’t accrue any debt because I paid as I was being paid. I was never able to save any money. To this day I have not had a savings account over a thousand dollars. however, I don’t have any debt. I don’t have any credit card debt. I don’t have any college student loan debt, specifically because I paid as I went. Now, that is not going to sound like how a lot of students do it. A lot of students go right from high school to college. They take off those loans, they get that degree as soon as they can. I took a much different path, but in looking back on it and hearing some of the stories that I hear from some classmates, some of them are a little envious of how I did it. And granted there were lots of sacrifices along the way, but being 33 years old, being in a really great PhD program, almost to the finish line and not having any debt is something I’m really proud of.

10:37 Emily: It’s a truly incredible story. And I hope that anybody who can relate to your path in any way, either about growing up as you said, as a poor kid and having some of the mindsets that come with that, or taking this sort of longer term route to get to the PhD to get to where you are now. But by the way, being 33 and being almost done with your PhD doesn’t sound too far behind to me. I hope that they’ll be able to follow up with you if they have anything that they want to you know, talk with you further about or learn from you about.

Carrying Forward Financial from Growing Up Poor

11:08 Emily: What I wanted to ask you about now is some of the attitudes or mindsets that you have carried from your childhood that are, that you’re carrying forward. Whether they are mindsets that you think help you or whether there are mindsets that you think kind of hurt you. You’ve already mentioned a couple of them. One is you being extremely frugal. We’ll get into more of that in a few minutes. Being extremely frugal, not wanting to waste anything. The other one is debt aversion, which I learned at this conference that we both attended is a very common thing for people who grow up in lower income families is having debt aversion, which can be very helpful in some situations and can also, as you were just saying mean that it takes you more time to do certain things like finish your education. If you’re not taking out student loans, there are just trade offs. Are there any other mindsets that you can see from your childhood that are carrying over?

11:58 Zach: I’ll start with the positives. Having the work experience and the education has been so helpful in interpersonal communication and just professionalism. I waited tables and I stocked shelves at gas stations and grocery stores and that kind of manual labor. And working with other people, working your body, you’re really just kind of come to an understanding that there are a lot of different kinds of work out there, about the different kinds of people out there, and to respect all professions and be able to communicate with folks from lots of different professions. In a positive, feeling like I needed to avoid that debt and work my entire way through, I’ve got to meet a lot of people I would never get to meet. I’ve got to develop my communication skills to a degree where I feel as comfortable on a public bus or a shelter or a church or a tier one research institution. Talking with senior level administrators, same level of comfort because I’ve been around and lived amongst all those kinds of folks. So that has really, really helped me in terms of the negatives.

13:13 Zach: Growing up, never went out to eat, never vacationed. The longest vacation we actually ever took was a weekend trip to Minneapolis when I was, I think eight or nine years old and that was it. That was the only vacation. Never left my home town. My first plane ride was at age 30, coming and visiting UT Austin. We never took vacations, kind of with the idea that if you can’t pay for it in cash you are not going to pay for it. And then thrifting almost everything. In prepping for this podcast, I was trying to remember going school shopping and I don’t think I ever did. I don’t think we ever went school clothes shopping. It was either hand me downs from older kids in our neighborhood and cousins or it was going to St. Vincent DePaul and getting used clothes. And to this day when I need something, a chair, shorts, shoes — I just bought a really great pair of used shoes — I still go thrifting for a ton of stuff. That has stuck with me, for better or for worse. To this day, I also just seek out free stuff even if I don’t feel like I belong, like free food on campus. There are speaking events that I go to that if they fit in my schedule, I’ll go for the food and for the socializing, which is totally free sponsored by the university. Also though, with having a really kind of frugal mindset, I had still made some really bad choices. I still tend to eat spoiled food and expired food. It’s just a bad habit to break. It’s kind of the no waste. I buy in bulk as much as I can and then if it goes bad, I still eat it. I still, for better or worse, shop at Walmart. A lot of my classmates are hard on me for shopping at Walmart, but it was the only grocery store in my hometown. It is consistently the cheapest. They always have discounted poultry and meat and bakery. I always freeze things and can things when I can. Some people have thought that I’m kind of weird for doing that. Like buying day old bread and buying day old meat and freezing expired food to kind of stretch the eatability and the usability of the food.

15:42 Zach: That has actually been a little socially stigmatizing. I find myself kind of gravitating toward other folks who grew up poor and just understood that that loaf of bread should last you a week and a jar of peanut butter should last you two weeks. And those can be meals, every single meal if you need them to be. It’s also been a little stigmatizing being an Austin because there’s so much money in this town. There’s so much technology and a lot of folks do come from money and going out to eat twice a week. Living downtown in a $2,500 a month apartment isn’t anything out of the ordinary. It’s so foreign to me and it’s been hard to relate to some folks who grew up that way, especially if we’re in the same PhD program, because I just don’t have those experiences. I don’t feel good about doing those things. So there are some positives than, as you said, there’s obviously some negatives too.

16:43 Emily: Yeah. I’m so glad that you’re telling this story here. It’s really good for me to get your perspective because I did grow up very differently, and most people who I know grew up more middle-class like I did. Or maybe if they had a background more similar to yours, maybe they were sort of concealing that. It sounds like you don’t do that, at least not all the time.

Commercial

17:12 Emily: Emily here for a brief interlude. Tax season is upon us and while no one loves this time of year, it’s particularly difficult for post-bac fellows, funded grad students, and postdoc fellows. Even professional tax preparers are often thrown for a loop by our unique tax situation. And don’t get me started on tax software. I provide tons of support at this time of year for PhD trainees preparing their tax returns. From free articles and videos, to paid at-your-own-pace workshops, to live seminars and webinars for universities and research institutes. The best place to go to check out all of this material is pfforphds.com/tax that’s P F F O R P H D dot com slash T A X. Don’t struggle through tax season on your own. Visit my website for the exact information you need in the most efficient form available. Now back to the interview.

Finances During Grad School

18:16 Emily: Okay. My question is around sort of the PhD program being kind of an equalizer in terms of income. Not that every PhD student or every PhD student at UT Austin makes the same amount of money, but more that you know, you’re kind of put on, let’s say within a factor of two, within your university, of one another. Now, some people coming into that situation are used to living a lifestyle that is higher than what they can afford on their PhD stipends. You, maybe, I don’t know, we’ll get into it, this may be have been a lifestyle increase to be able to have the stipend that you have, based on where you were coming from before that. But everyone has a choice to make when they hear the stipend that they’re receiving. They can choose to live within their means, at least semester by semester, sometimes funding changes, but they can choose to attempt to live within their means. Or they can choose to take on outside work or take out student loans perhaps and augment that stipend income with other sources of income or debt. I was wondering, maybe you could speak a little bit about what your finances are like right now — what is the stipend that you get at UT Austin and how did that compare is really briefly to cost of living? And whether or not you’re able to save on that or does anybody save on that?

19:35 Zach: In the college of education and most social sciences, the typical graduate research assistant or assistantship stipend is between $1,400 and $1,700 a month.

19:46 Emily: Not generous.

19:48 Zach: Not generous. And if you look around Austin, the typical one bedroom, entry-level, we’re talking no amenities, no garage, you might not have central air conditioning, you may have a box air conditioner, $1,500 a month, $1,700 a month, and if you want to live downtown and not have a car, it’s going to double and sometimes triple. It’s pretty ridiculous. The living stipend does not let you live comfortably whatsoever. And even really for my standard of living, you know, trying to find a one bedroom apartment on $1,500 a month, it’s incredibly hard to do and so incredible that I have had roommates my entire time here because there is no way that it would have been able to work. And in talking with other grad students in my program and, and in social work, and in psychology, sociology, linguistics, I don’t know anyone who lives on their own. They either live with family or they have roommates. Really in Austin there’s no other way to do it.

20:56 Zach: In terms of saving, there has been no saving. It has been avoiding debt. I’ve not had to take out any debt, but I’ve also not been able to save anything. And that’s common almost across the board. It’s just kind of four or five years of “I’m going to sacrifice earnings. I’m going to do my best to say at a debt, but I know I’m not going to save anything on the stipend”. Now at UT Austin, we do have healthcare paid for, so that is really great. It’s a great healthcare system. It’s really has really great coverage. There are other student benefits. We get to ride the bus for free. We get discounted food on campus. I mean there are lots of other perks of being a student. You are paid in other ways than just monetarily, but that money does not stretch far, that is for sure. In terms of being able to make ends meet and making enough money to be able to afford this town, I’ve picked up several other jobs, so I do work more than my assistantship for sure. I generally put in between 60 and 70 hour weeks. I also am an admissions reader. I teach courses part time at a nearby university. I edit dissertations part-time for about $75 an hour. And that has helped me make rent and pay for food some months. I also take automated surveys on Amazon Mechanical Turk during my bus rides. I’m a little bit car sick, so I can’t read a book and I can’t study, but I can be on my phone and take surveys. And through Amazon Mechanical Turk I can usually make $8 or $10 per commute, so I will drive my car to my park and ride for about 15 minutes. I’ll have about a 45 minute bus ride in, but in those 45 minutes I can make between $8 or $10 and that could be my food for a couple of days. I’ve been able to really stretch that out, but as you kind of alluded to debt aversion, but no savings whatsoever.

22:58 Emily: Yeah. Well I’d like to get now into more how you make it work. You mentioned what the stipend is at UT Austin, which I mean Austin is a rapidly increasing cost of living city, so I think what’s common in those cities is that the stipends that graduate students are paid and probably other people, the university, their salaries are not indexed at all to what the cost of living is increasing by. It’s a really tough situation to be in, especially as a graduate student, as you mentioned. Coming in and having maybe a five plus year path to the PhD, I mean in that five years, the cost of living can go up tens of percentage points, but your stipend is going to increase very little. So the situation that you sign on dotted line for when you start graduate school is not necessarily the situation that you’re in by the time you finish because your stipend is not going to be keeping up with cost of living. Just a word of warning there for prospective graduate students.

Frugal Strategies as a PhD

23:55 Emily: Now I would really love to talk about how how you make those ends meet. What are the frugal strategies? You mentioned extra income, which is fantastic, but on the side of being frugal, what are the strategies that you’re using that maybe you carried over from these mindsets from your childhood that you think are a little bit unusual? We already mentioned roommates. Okay. A lot of people have roommates. It’s kind of a necessity in most places. What are some other things that you’re doing that maybe other students wouldn’t think of? The idea behind this question is just so they can get some more ideas for other ways that they might be able to cut expenses. And also, with each tip or some of the tips, maybe say what you’re sacrificing to do things that way because there is always a trade off.

24:36 Zach: Absolutely. So, when I looked at moving here, I first and foremost looked at where the fastest public transportation was located and on which streets. In Austin, the big buses run on Congress and Lamar, so I knew I wanted to live off of those streets because I also understood that transportation was free with my student ID. First and foremost, before I even moved here, it was a very strategic move of I need to live on public transport and I also need to live near a grocery store because Austin is kind of known for having these food deserts and other major cities do as well, where there might be an entire swaths of the city where there is not a grocery store within walking distance or on public transport. Before I moved it was getting on transportation and getting on food and specifically living near a Walmart because I knew how much money I could save. Just being kind of a Walmart shopper, already having my budget from where I was moving from, I knew roughly how much I would spend so I could really budget my money really well.

25:48 Emily: With the first part, I just want to add that the selection, the location where you live determines so much about what you’re going to be spending during graduate school. You obviously are more highly aware, maybe then most students coming into graduate school. I really think this is something that other, you know, example that other people should follow.

26:05 Zach: And to your point about sacrifices, I do not live where the bars are or where the entertainment district is. I live miles and miles away from that. Right now, if I wanted to get to some place that had the live music venue, it’s a 12 mile bus ride. I do not live where all the action is in Austin and that’s a sacrifice. I lived on the bus line, I reserve myself to a 45 minute, one hour bus ride that was free. So those are are part of the tradeoffs. But I also went a step further specifically with Walmart and some thrift stores. And I asked, first of all, I would call the location and say to Walmart, when do you discount bakery? When do you discount meat? What day of the week do you put that out? And they’re happy to tell you like bakery and my Walmart is Mondays and the meat is Thursdays. So I know that I go Thursday morning, try to do grocery shopping on Monday and save a ton of money that way. And we’re talking, you know, ground beef that might be $12 is down to $4 and it’s the same amount of meat and you can still freeze it. So stuff like that.

27:14 Zach: Also thrift stores — when do you inventory and when do you give things away? A lot of folks who don’t shop at thrift stores don’t know that thrift stores throw out about 25% of the things that they get in donations and they tend to save those. So they’ll load everything in the back, they’ll sort through what is salable and then they’ll actually throw away everything that they don’t think is salable. A lot of good stuff is still in there though, so you ask thrift stores, down here it’s Goodwill. There’s lots of Goodwills and they are different in different places, but they’ll tell you when they’re going to chuck stuff and you can go on that day and not pay anything. You can go through and get good chairs, good tables. And especially in grad school, if you’re only going to be in a place for four to five years, a lot of that furniture can be just a rental, a four year rental. You go get a free set of kitchen table and chairs for free from a Goodwill, use them for a couple of years, and then give them away. Going the extra mile, especially knowing where I was going to live, but then the social services I was going to use — how could I maximize those? So that when I got here, it wasn’t a huge culture shock. I was doing a lot of same things back home that I had been doing here.

28:29 Emily: Yeah, I really love that combo, those first two tips of it’s not only where you shop, but when you shop. And I don’t think that second step when you shop is something that necessarily occurs to people right away. Thank you for that insight. What’s another tip that you have?

28:47 Zach: this is more along the academic side. in being a PhD student, there’s always pressure to publish and go to conferences and be an academic. But I have found that I am able to save quite a bit of money and do a lot of travel that I would never be able to do by one, when I do go to conferences, be extremely outgoing and friendly and —

29:11 Emily: I can attest to this, you are extremely outgoing and friendly. Yes.

29:14 Zach: And specifically try to meet people that are not from your state and those people become your friend network and those become people who have couches and floors that you can sleep on. So I have gone to a ton of conferences and not paid for a hotel or an Airbnb at all, just knowing someone in that spot. I’m going to Portland in the fall. I’m staying with someone. I’m going to San Francisco next spring. In San Francisco, the group hotel rates were $190 per night. I’m staying for free with a friend who I met at a conference and I have them return that favor. People who are coming to conferences in Austin, I always put them up, I keep a spare mattress, we throw it in the living room and they sleep on a mattress in the living room floor. That’s saving them hundreds and hundreds of dollars of conference hotels.

30:08 Zach: And then actually attending the conferences — I heard a lot of folks tell me they could never do this, but whenever I submit to a conference I will email the conference chair and try to arrange some sort of email conversation or phone call and ask to volunteer in exchange registration fees. So there are probably 25 conferences that I’ve gone to in state and out of state where I know when I will arrive and I’ll say, I can give you eight hours of my time before my presentation. I’ll help you at 5:00 AM and I’ll get the conference room set up. I’ll set up tables, I’ll put up projectors. TACAC is the admissions conference here in Texas and I have done check-in for the past three years in exchange for registration. I will happily volunteer a few hours of labor for a $200 registration fee that I don’t have to pay. And it also doubles as great networking, because they see a grad student who is eager to volunteer and help out and chip in, and I have never been turned away. I’ve never had anyone say, “no, we can’t support you in some way.” It’s not only saving the money in your personal everyday life, but in your academic life, there’s also some ways you can save some serious money and that money adds up over time. I’ve saved at this point over three years, thousands of dollars by doing those things.

31:34 Emily: Yeah, that’s a really incredible and powerful tip that I’m so glad you shared because I hear all the time, um, about how conference expenses are such a limiting factor in a grad student’s ability to network, ability to get their research out there and so forth and those fees and so forth are real barrier. Even if your department or your funding agency or whoever pays for part or all of it, it still is hard to have that money up front and what you’ve come to here is just a really brilliant solution, and I hope that a lot more people will start following your example. I mean the fact that you’ve never been turned down like when given that offer is just incredible. Well, I hope not too many people start doing it or else maybe you’ll have some competition for the volunteer jobs, but it’s a great, great idea and such an actual tip. Thank you.

Outtro

32:25 Emily: Listeners, thank you for joining me for this episode. PFforPphDs.com/podcast is the hub for the Personal Finance for PhDs podcast. There, you can find links to all the episode show notes and a form to volunteer to be interviewed. I’d love for you to check it out and get more involved. If you’ve been enjoying the podcast, here are four ways you can help it grow. One, subscribe to the podcast and rate and review it on Apple podcast, Stitcher, or whatever platform you use. Two, share an episode you found particularly valuable on social media or with your PhD peers. Three, recommend me as a speaker to your university or association. My seminars covered the personal finance topics PhDs are most interested in, like investing, debt repayment, and taxes. Four, subscribe to my mailing list at PFforPhDs.com/subscribe. Through that list, you’ll keep up with all the new content and special opportunities for Personal Finance for PhDs. See you in the next episode, and remember, you don’t have to have a PhD to succeed with personal finance, but it helps. The music is Stages of Awakening by Podington Bear from the Free Music Archive and is shared under CC by NC. Podcast editing and show notes creation by Lourdes Bobbio.

How The Lucrative Artist Identifies and Reverses Negative Money Mindsets with His Clients

February 24, 2020 by Meryem Ok

In this episode, Emily interviews Dr. Brian Witkowski, a Doctor of Musical Arts and the founder of The Lucrative Artist. Brian serves as a business and leadership development coach for artists and teachers. Brian often sees money mindsets in his clients that don’t serve them well, and these mindsets are common among PhDs as well. If left unchecked, these mindsets have detrimental effects on our finances. Brian and Emily discuss how to reverse negative money mindsets and how entrepreneurship is often the most lucrative and satisfying career for a PhD with a transformed money mindset.

Links Mentioned in the Episode

Teaser

00:00 Brian: When you’re starting out just by yourself, you don’t have to do all that. It’s just a matter of figuring out what’s your actual service, and who are the people you’re going to serve, and then what kind of value exchange you’re going to be creating that you can reasonably get paid pretty well for it, from the right people, in the right way.

Intro

00:20 Emily: Welcome to the Personal Finance for PhDs podcast, a higher education in personal finance. I’m your host, Dr. Emily Roberts. This is season five, episode eight and today my guest is Dr. Brian Witkowski, a doctor of musical arts and the founder of The Lucrative Artist. PhDs, like many artists, tend to have certain money mindsets that do not serve them well, such as a scarcity mindset. Brian and I discuss how negative money mindsets can detrimentally affect our finances and how to reverse them. For many PhDs, and Brian’s clients, the most lucrative and satisfying career path forward might be through entrepreneurship. Without further ado, here’s my interview with Dr. Brian Witkowski.

Will You Please Introduce Yourself Further?

01:06 Emily: I am delighted to have on the podcast today Dr. Brian Witkowski, and we’re going to be talking about mindset work and entrepreneurship and other fascinating topics like that. So, I’m really looking forward to this conversation and learning a lot from Brian. Brian, will you please introduce yourself a little bit further for our audience?

01:23 Brian: Yeah, so I’m originally from Michigan. My grandparents immigrated from Poland. My dad grew up in a very poor area of Detroit and kind of aspired to a much higher middle-class life and worked his way up and eventually became a professor and then raised me to someday want to be a professor, too. Obviously, the world is a lot different today than it was for the generation back then. You know, I’ve had to explore how else, where I can take my teaching and my work and what I really want to do. And so, when that tenure track job, after I finished my doctorate eight years ago, didn’t quite come up, I started exploring other opportunities. I started to really think what else is not being taught that we all could be taught and how can I better serve people. So, I started studying more about business and finance and looking to see where we can help people. Especially as myself, I have a doctor of musical arts degree, and especially in music and the arts, we know nothing about finance or financial literacy.

02:13 Brian: There’s so much to be learned and needs to be learned. So, you not only can just, you know, understand about money and know how to conduct yourself in life. And because we can’t just expect those few jobs we’re trained for, we have to be entrepreneurs, we have to come up with multiple streams of income, and come up with other opportunities and open our minds up to creating new opportunities as opposed to competing for just a few things that less than 1% actually end up having. So, basically, entrepreneurship is kind of the new golden age for higher education in some ways, is what I like to say. Because we can take our expertise and leverage it in new ways and recreate different learning opportunities, not just for the people in the college classes but for the lifelong learners. So, that’s kind of where I’ve taken my teaching nowadays.

Unhealthy Money Mindsets

02:56 Emily: Oh, that’s fantastic. I’m so excited to dive more into all of that, and I’m really excited to have you on as a guest because a lot of my audience, I think, is currently still in PhD training as graduate students or postdocs or maybe closely following that. They may still be competing for that tenure-track job or not sure what they’re going to do if it doesn’t work out. And so I’m really glad to have you on as someone who’s several years further down that line and has a lot more life experience and career experience in that way. One of the things that we said that we would talk about during this interview was money mindset. Because I think the people who you work with through The Lucrative Artist and also the people who I see through Personal Finance for PhDs have some troubling mindsets around money. So, can you talk a little bit more about the mindsets that you see your clients that also maybe overlap with mine? The money mindsets that they have that don’t serve them very well?

03:48 Brian: In some ways, one thing that doesn’t serve a lot of people is just that mentality that we don’t have enough and there’s never enough there. And we always think that it’s a scarcity mindset complex that so many of us have. Even my own father did, even though his adulthood was phenomenally better than his childhood, he was still struggling financially as a professor just putting it all together. There’s a book called Rich Dad, Poor Dad* by Robert Kiyosaki. More or less, he talks about how his poor dad actually worked his way up in higher education and became the administrator in the state of Hawaii, and so forth. Back in the fifties and sixties, when his “poor dad” was his friend’s dad who didn’t have any college training and just focused on acquiring real estate and thinking about owning a business and trying to earn money that way. And so, he more or less points out how we’re not taught about how to actually earn money other than to expect the job. So, part of the mindset is having your mind open to the possibilities of where you can create new income opportunities and new sources of revenue, and so forth, for your personal life using all you have to offer.

[* This is an affiliate link. Thank you for supporting PF for PhDs!]

04:52 Emily: Yeah, I can definitely see how the scarcity mindset–if you’re thinking only that, again, that tenure-track job is the only one for you and the only thing that’s worth doing after after a doctorate–there is scarcity in terms of that actual career path. That’s not imagined. That’s perfectly real. But I guess the mindset that doesn’t serve you is thinking of course that that’s the only or the best option for you following finishing your higher education. So, to think a little bit more broadly about your career track would be, I guess, the way to combat that scarcity mindset. Any other kinds of mindsets that you see in those populations?

Aim High: Raise Your Anchor Point

05:30 Brian: The only thing is, I guess we’ve focused so much like on student loans and the cost of higher education. It’s like we let the four-figure, accruing interest, to get in the way of thinking how we could maybe use that same energy toward, “How can I create maybe six figures of income or more later on?” We don’t open our minds up to the possibility of earning way more than what certain salaries we’re used to or what our parents or colleagues are earning. In a lot of different ways, if we package our expertise and services in the right way, you can find that clientele or that other startup, that kind of business that can easily make you enough money to more than pay off your debt and then some. And sometimes we get so bogged down with getting depressed over having a big student loan sum and we don’t realize that yes, it’s not that great, but it’s better than some other forms of debt that are out there.

06:19 Emily: Yeah. So, I think that’s like having an anchor point, right? So, like you in your mind around the amount of money you can make, you have anchor points, whether it’s what you were earning as a graduate student, if you had a stipend or as a postdoc or what you expect to earn as a faculty member or another kind of professional. Or, like you were just saying, the balance of student loan debt that you have or maybe the living expenses that you have to cover each month. These are anchor points that float around in your mind as, “Okay, I need to make this much money.” But really there’s no limit to that. Like, why are you anchoring yourself there? Go ahead and anchor yourself at 10 times that amount or a hundred times that amount, maybe.

06:55 Brian: Yeah, definitely. And there’s one interesting exercise that I sometimes give the clients to consider. Okay, what are you earning right now? What would you have to become to suddenly earn double that? Like who are some role models out there? Because there’s always going to be somebody out there we can imagine who’s already making more than what you’re making that you could easily–sometimes not even actually do a whole lot more, but just adjust the way you’re presenting yourself and to the right audience, and so forth. And then figure out how we can double that from there. If all else fails, at the end of this exercise, people usually say they’re going to be Oprah or Tony Robbins or something, which is great. You’ve got to not be afraid to think big like that.

07:32 Brian: Too often we think small, we don’t think we can be these celebrities and these great leaders, but anyone can really grow themselves to be more than just what they thought they could. And sometimes we’re not taught enough of that in our school. My father taught leadership courses when he was a professor. So, those are classes where I’ve kind of avoided anything that he taught when I was in school. Hence, I’ve got a doctor of musical arts degree. His degree was in criminal justice. And so, I wanted to make sure I wasn’t just recreating everything I absorbed by osmosis as a child. I guess you could say it was part of my motivation to make sure I picked a very different degree program. But there’s so many of these things that my father taught in his classes that are not taught to people in the arts and so many other fields as far as management skills, how to interact with people, and what kind of personal growth is out there. We’re too conditioned to just do the exact training for the exact skill to get specific sets of jobs and not necessarily create the jobs instead.

Challenges in a Culture of Volunteerism

08:29 Emily: Mmm, yeah. Great point. So, anything else on your observations around detrimental money mindsets and then how they translate to ill effects in our finances?

08:42 Brian: Yeah, I think partly the scarcity mindset that sometimes starts with just the job market and the opportunities for earning money. Another problem is, especially in the arts and education fields, it’s almost like there’s a nonprofit aspect to it or more if you’re working for a religious institution or, in my case as a professional singer, getting paid to sing in churches and so forth. There’s that guilt trip kind of situation where some people who are cutting the checks kind of make you think you shouldn’t be earning as much as what you should be. And there are other situations too where it’s kind of like the negotiation turns into a coerced charitable contribution in some ways, but not in one in which you can actually get a tax deduction for your time in a concrete kind of way. So, it’s another situation we have to deal with, whether we’re in the arts or in education. There’s that mindset, “Wait, I’m not supposed to get paid this much. I’m supposed to do it for the children and do it for God or whoever, whatever the cause is, basically.” So, that kind of keeps people from realizing their potential. And then I try to tell people to be in a position where you can actually tithe or donate that 10% back as we all ideally should later in life.

09:49 Emily: Yeah, I agree to great, great extent. There’s this, I guess I call it kind of a toxic culture of like compulsory volunteerism in academia and in other similar fields. Exactly as you were saying. When the high level institution has some kind of nonprofit-like status that somehow translates to, “We don’t pay people what they’re worth or we don’t pay people to do work for us. We expect a degree of volunteerism.” I encounter this myself sometimes with institutions who want me to work without pay or with much less pay than I’m asking for. They can kind of use that, “Okay, well we’re a nonprofit,” as like an argument, somehow. But it’s just something that it’s hard to combat because as you said, when you’re sort of indoctrinated into that culture, you think, “Yes, well I’m supposed to be giving back. I’m supposed to be doing this for X, Y, Z. What about the people who won’t benefit from receiving my talents if I don’t take this opportunity?” But at the end of the day, you have to feed yourself, right?

Finding Balance in Value Exchange

10:54 Brian: Yeah. And that’s the other thing. I also tell people that, at the very least, it’s a two-way street. How can they serve me in return if there’s an imbalance in the actual value of exchange that’s taking place? At the very least, maybe that institution could give you a referral for another service you’re providing, or they might allow you to advertise something else. Or, like I tell people who are performing artists, maybe they can sell CDs or trade their mailing lists. There are other ways to at least get some kind of fair exchange of value if you open your mind to those things. I try to help people think about those things and make that happen so that at least if they’re not getting necessarily the actual money, maybe they’re getting a leisurely vacation out of it if it’s a traveling musical gig or something like that. They’re getting something that makes it still worth their while to otherwise feel like they’re volunteering their time.

11:41 Emily: Yeah. Something that can be mutually beneficial instead of just beneficial going one direction. Okay. So let’s say, you know, someone in our audience has identified, “Okay, well I do have that scarcity mindset,” or “Yeah, my anchor point is 10 times lower than it should be,” or what have you. Any of these money mindsets we’ve been talking about. How do you actually go about changing a money mindset that doesn’t serve you well once you’ve identified it?

Changing Your Money Mindset: Self-Talk

12:05 Brian: For me and for people who I work with, sometimes I give meditative exercises. You have to think positively. Positive manifestation-type statements, saying to yourself, “Your bank account may be empty,” but rather than say it’s empty, say, “It’s wide open and ready to receive.” It sounds silly, but you have got to think, “Okay, the money is going to come to me eventually.” You can’t think that you’re never going to get it. It’s just a matter of figuring out the right way to find the right people willing to give you that money, basically, for when you willingly deserve it and earn it.

12:37 Emily: So, it’s kind of about self-talk, then, I guess is what you’re saying? Like it’s about, “Okay, I’ve identified my bank account is empty. Oh, it’s always going to stay empty.” That’s the toxic mindset.

12:48 Brian: So, it’s reinforcing that negative stuff. And before you know it, you’re staying on the floor at the bottom and not working your way up. And then another thing is, there’s the song “Love is in the Air,” but also you could say money is in the air, too. The way the global economy works, the way money compounds everywhere, there’s always going to be enough. You know, sometimes we think, “If I take this job then suddenly somebody else is not going to have any money,” and that’s not how the world works, actually. When we keep getting all that we’re supposed to earn, then there’s more to give around and more to grow the pie.

13:22 Emily: Mhm, yeah. So, it’s not like a fixed pool of money, right, that we all are trying to grab a little bit of a piece of, it’s about growing the entire economy–the entire pie for everyone. Is that what you’re saying?

13:34 Brian: Yeah, exactly.

13:34 Emily: Yeah, so we aren’t thinking, “Me gaining something is someone else losing something.” That’s not how it is.

13:40 Brian: Yup.

13:41 Emily: Yeah, great.

13:42 Brian: It’s how the markets work. If you notice, if you had invested a dollar a hundred years ago, it would probably be who knows how much now. It’s partly a result of that.

13:51 Emily: Mhm. Yeah. Anything else that we can do to change the money mindset aside from turning things in a more positive way and reinforcing that by self-talk?

Open Your Mind to New Revenue Streams

14:02 Brian: The other way probably: be open to thinking of new ways to earn, and be open to new revenue streams. Don’t be afraid to think outside the box as opposed to how you can make a living. Because we all get so caught up trying to apply for the exact same jobs and thinking these are the only ways to earn. There are so many different audiences out there and clientele that we could actually be serving that we don’t even think about. Especially for myself. People, my colleagues mostly, aspire to teach students who are college students and aspiring professional singers. And it’s kind of like we subconsciously only focus on the clientele that is like ourselves. And we don’t realize there’s another whole clientele out there that might be willing to pay way more, or you could actually set up scalable situations where you could easily earn way than you otherwise are used to earning. So, you’ve got to let go of that in one direction and think 360 every way around you, there’s something more you could probably do.

15:00 Emily: Yeah, I think this kind of relates. For people who are still in academia, they might not feel very special because everyone they’re surrounded by also has crazy advanced degrees. Very smart, very talented, very trained in a similar way. But if you can turn and look outside of that immediate environment like you’re talking about, you can see that there are many, many other opportunities to serve different groups of people or to leverage your skills in a different kind of way. And once you do step outside the ivory tower, your skills are going to be regarded in a way that you’re not used to. Right? They’re going to be much more highly looked upon because you are special. There’s only like 2% of the population or less or something that has doctoral level degrees. So, it’s not actually that common if you find the right group to serve. So, this translates really well once you’ve opened your mind to these other types of clients and other types of work that you might be able to do. At that point, why is self-employment more attractive than a job? Or why does self-employment serve you better with a different kind of money mindset than a job would?

You Can Be Self-Employed and Still Have a Job

16:07 Brian: It’s not necessarily mutually exclusive from having a job. And I think sometimes people get caught up thinking they have to quit their job and suddenly be a sole business owner right away. Not necessarily, although sometimes there are situations where you just need to get out of a toxic environment that doesn’t pay you enough. Then you easily find that one client and you can easily–or a few clients–you can suddenly afford to just say farewell to the job that wasn’t really serving you. But I think when you’re stuck in a job, you’re stuck with a cap on your income. Whereas if you start a business, you could think owning your own business, being self-employed, you’re open to more possibilities and there’s no limit necessarily. So, it’s like you’re removing an artificial cap and you’re also giving yourself more freedom once you get it going, you find the right clientele to serve, and so forth.

16:51 Emily: Yeah, I think this goes back exactly to that Rich Dad, Poor Dad book or idea that you were talking about earlier. The poor dad, right, has a job and his income is, as you were just saying, capped and scaled by the employer. It’s sort of out of his hands, right? But the rich dad is an entrepreneur and–well, Robert Kiyosaki’s really into real estate, so lots of different ways to be an entrepreneur–and in that case, the income streams are unlimited. And each income stream itself is unlimited in how much money you can actually bring in. So, there’s a downside to that, but there’s a big, big, big upside too, if you choose to walk away from a job. Which, like you said, it doesn’t have to be all or nothing. So, some people in my audience, again, are still in training. Self-employment is something that they can do on the side while they’re still in graduate school, while they’re still in a postdoc for now, as long as it’s permitted by their visa and their job and everything. But it’s something you can dip your toe into and see how it’s going, and you don’t have to just take the leap, like you said, right away.

17:53 Brian: Yeah, definitely.

Commercial

17:58 Emily: Emily here for a brief interlude. Tax season is upon us, and while no one loves this time of year, it’s particularly difficult for post-bac fellows, funded grad students, and postdoc fellows. Even professional tax preparers are often thrown for a loop by our unique tax situation. And don’t get me started on tax software. I provide tons of support at this time of year for PhD trainees preparing their tax returns, from free articles and videos to paid at-your-own-pace workshops to live seminars and webinars for universities and research institutes. The best place to go to check out all of this material is pfforphds.com/tax. That’s P F F O R P H D S.com/T A X. Don’t struggle through tax season on your own. Visit my website for the exact information you need in the most efficient form available. Now, back to the interview.

Pay Attention to What is Not Being Taught

19:01 Brian: The great thing is, while you’re still in grad school, it’s your perfect opportunity to realize what is everybody doing the same? Where do you feel like you’re literally just in “the Matrix,” and what’s not being done? I stress to people that it’s the perfect time to really observe and reflect and take notes for what’s going on and what’s not being taught that still needs to be taught in real life. Because there’s just so much of that that still needs to be taught. Whether it’s with finances or just personal development or other aspects of just knowing how to live. Too many aspects of our degrees are just kind of geared to train us for specific jobs but not for creating jobs. So, one strategy is to just observe what’s not being taught. And then how could you actually teach that? I like to joke with people who are getting their terminal degrees, their PhDs, that they could actually create something in which those same people who may not hire you for a faculty job might actually hire you to do their professional development. Because you never know. That fresh perspective of being young, just finished your degree, and offering a different viewpoint is something that’s going to be valuable to them.

20:07 Emily: You’re exactly describing my own journey into Personal Finance for PhDs, because what was going on for me in graduate school was, I was learning about personal finance because I had to apply it in my own life, or felt that I had to, right? So, I was learning how to apply it and then over some time sort of looking at the way my university was or was not supporting that growth and that journey. And I should say that Duke, which is where I did my PhD, actually does a great job with personal finance in comparison to many, many other institutions. But even so, I could see that there was more that could be done there. And that’s exactly how I stepped into my business was seeing, “Okay, well no one is teaching personal finance from the perspective of a graduate student or a postdoc or a PhD. They’re teaching personal finance from the perspective of a CPA or a financial advisor who deals with very, very wealthy clients.” And this is just completely foreign to the people that I was coming out of. And so, I decided to turn around, right? And teach the people who are coming up behind me those principles. So, exactly what you described. And as you said, I never applied for jobs, universities, or faculty positions, but I am now hired by plenty of universities to do professional development in this area. So, it’s totally, totally, exactly what you said.

Different Business Models for PhDs

21:22 Emily: So, what are the different business models that you can see with PhDs or other people with doctorates that are successful, that are easy for them to access, given the skills they’ve been learning throughout their higher education?

21:35 Brian: Yeah. One thing is just to simply think, “What kind of professional development services could I offer? Are there businesses, are there organizations or clients where what I have to offer with my knowledge and expertise can be valuable to them?” And sometimes it’s not necessarily just regurgitating the same content, but how can you repackage it in a way that is more meaningful to them. Sometimes, with my work, I stress that you can kind of integrate some personal development, leadership growth, using your content as the vehicle, so that people are thinking not just that they’re learning more about a certain thing about history, but they’re realizing how their own life embodies that same historical thing you’re trying to reinforce. Find something like that.

22:19 Brian: It personalizes it more and really fits the clientele or the audience that you’re serving. So, there’s that. Sometimes you can do something as simple as different kinds of coaching, whether it’s life coaching, business coaching. There are so many forms of coaching out there that still people need to hire people. That’s not enough just to go about life waiting for the job or expecting your business to take off. We always need more people to help us in different ways to give us different perspectives, different viewpoints to push us in different ways. In the arts, even though I have my degrees, I still take voice lessons. My voice is an evolving instrument. I’m always learning how to use it in different ways. And the older I get, the different kind of repertoire I suddenly get to sing. So, it’s a never ending thing. And there are other aspects of life where it’s the same way. So, people with PhDs and other graduate degrees, just that background alone gives credibility with certain types of audience members.

Self-Employed PhD and Beyond the Professoriate

23:11 Emily: Yeah, absolutely. So, I’m part of a community called Self-Employed PhD, which is underneath the Beyond the Professoriate umbrella program. And so, what Jen Polk and Maren Wood do, who run that program, is they are career coaches for PhDs. And there are many other people who have stepped into the same area. Seeing again like we were just talking about that a lot of universities don’t prepare PhDs well for knowing the possibilities for their careers outside of academia or being prepared to actually apply for those jobs or network for those jobs or get those jobs. Many people have decided to become career coaches in this area because there is a lack of support from many universities in that area. So, exactly what you’re just saying. Any other business models that you see as very accessible for this audience?

Think Big, Think Lifelong Learning

23:56 Brian: Sometimes it can just be simply, create your own school. It might even rival your university. Don’t be afraid to think big like that. Or something else to that effect. Some kind of supplementary, after-school program for elementary kids or high school. Really any age group. I read an article that there is going to be an enrollment crash in higher education soon where suddenly, because there’s going to be way more retirees than young people, not as many young people enrolling in college. So, more job cuts and other drama might be around the corner. But at the same time, we have a retirement population that is just growing, and they’re bored. There are ways to serve them. So, rather than think higher education, think lifelong learning or higher learning and other things you can offer that can serve any kind of population.

24:45 Emily: Hmm. Yeah. If what you really wanted to do when you were pursuing that faculty position was teach–I mean there are so many different audiences and different ways that you can do that. Even within the subject matter that you were highly trained in, if you want to stay in that area.

24:59 Brian: If you’re willing to leave the country, there are 7.6 billion people in the world. There’s going to be somebody out there who will pay you to teach them something.

25:06 Emily: Yeah. Or work online, and have access to everybody in the world. Yeah. Any other business models you want to add to that list?

Other Business/Teaching Models

25:14 Brian: Yeah, one-on-one coaching, teaching, offering professional development seminars or other workshops, and so forth, using your expertise. Also, you don’t necessarily have to not teach the same students you’re expected to teach that you went through school. You just need to be offering them something that’s different from what they’re used to. So, that’s why I also, with my own business, I help people specifically in the arts figure out how can I do this likewise? How can I create something different and empower myself to have control over my career and do more of the things I actually authentically want to do? Because one thing, especially in the arts, there’s a lot of interesting toxicity that goes on when it comes to career expectations. Especially with professional singers. We have a lot of people who started their careers in the last century and sometimes they just went about teaching as if that last century way of life was still going about and everybody could easily have the same career they had. Or at least that’s how they’d go about, conduct themselves, and just kind of otherwise disregard your actual career and what you’d be doing.

26:16 Brian: You have to really be more of an entrepreneur nowadays as a performing artist if you’re not going to suddenly get some of those few jobs that are still out there. So, position yourself to help those same people who are in your field, not getting the help they probably should have had.

26:29 Emily: Mhm. Yeah. And you mentioning actually using the specific skill you’re trained in, singing. But I’m thinking about–so I have a colleague named Chris Cloney who has a business doing research. He has an independent research company, specifically translating the research that he did as a PhD student into basically another way of delivering it to the world. So, we’ve talked about teaching and coaching and speaking and so forth, which is what you and I do. But there are other ways to translate even more precisely what you were doing in graduate school into the entrepreneurial sphere instead of just going after a job. So, you brought up what you’re doing through The Lucrative Artist. I would love for you to tell us a little bit more about that. Maybe a couple of minutes on how you came to this point. We’ve already heard some of that journey, and then what you do for clients right now.

Brian’s Work with The Lucrative Artist

27:16 Brian: Yeah. So, what I do is I help clients literally figure it out. Sometimes, the biggest barrier that we need to break through is figure out what else we can do other than those few jobs we were conditioned to expect to get. And so I help people think, “Okay, how can I assess all your skills and your strengths, your weaknesses? What’s something that you can synthesize that can actually become a viable product or service that you could give to other people? And you’re more or less in a position where you’re not having to worry about competing against other people and you’re serving the audience that really wants you to serve them and so forth?” And so helping people really package that together. We do authenticity training where we think, “What is it we really, truly want to do?”

27:57 Brian: Like, “What is your purpose? What really drove you to want to teach? And how can you get more to that?” Like for me, it wasn’t really necessarily about the actual content, but it’s about helping people really actually change their lives. Like I’ve witnessed my father as a child, growing up. He did the same thing with his students, seeing people who were, likewise like him, grew up really poor, had no idea what they’d be doing later in life. Then finally they realized, “Oh, I can learn this. I can do this.” And suddenly they have great jobs or they have their own businesses, they’re making a great living, and so forth. So, helping people realize there is another way out there, and anyone’s capable of doing it. And then basically once people figure out what ideal business would be for them, what kind of service they’d be providing–sometimes there’s not a specific service, it’s like a bunch of different services related to themselves through their art form. So, for people in singing, for example, sometimes it’s teaching lessons, sometimes it’s teaching speaking lessons, presentation lessons, helping people patch together other skills related to their singing. So, they’re not just performing, but they’re also providing expertise and educating the public more about the works to bring awareness and you know, make that same connection between a certain classical work and you know, what its audience is going through right now.

Combat Limiting Beliefs and Imposter Syndrome

29:12 Emily: That sounds like, based on what we were kind of talking about earlier, you help people identify the limiting beliefs they have, the mindsets they have around their career, for example, and then coach them in how to combat that within themselves. I guess I just think about this as related to imposter syndrome, right? There’s nothing that we are trained for to do outside of academia. All we can do is teach. And if we can’t get that job, we’re like worthless, right? That’s a horrible thing to think about yourself. But I think it’s indoctrinated into so many of us who go through academia to have that imposter syndrome that “I’m not worthy of another kind of job. I’m not worthy of being able to start a business. I don’t have translatable skills into these other areas.” And so, once people see, “Okay, well this is what’s holding me back. I’m going to engage Brian,” you help them turn those mindsets around in a very practical way. Because you can say, “No, here is what you need to be telling yourself instead of what you have been thinking.” And then they do the work, right? To actually uproot those mindsets.

30:14 Brian: Yeah. And then once they get through there, once they realize what they want to do, then I coach them through step-by-step, “What can I do to actually make a viable business take off the ground.” And it’s not always necessarily too scary or confusing. Some people, you tell them you’re helping them grow a business, they want to see all these weird numbers and other things. And when you’re starting now just by yourself, you don’t have to do all that. It’s just a matter of figuring out what’s your actual service and who are the people you’re going to serve and then what kind of value exchange you’re going to be creating that you can reasonably get paid pretty well for from the right people in the right way. And it’s a matter of figuring out how you can package that and who you’d be serving.

Growing a Business is a Gradual Process

30:52 Emily: Yeah. I think some people when they hear like starting a business, they think about the startup world and where you have to have a highly refined business plan you’re pitching to investors and so forth. And it is really important to have this high degree of models and understanding of what you’re going to be doing in that world. But just to dip your toe into self-employment is much, much, less than that. You don’t have to do all that. You have to try out some things, see what people aren’t going to pay you for it, see what you like to do. It’s a lot of experimentation at the beginning and it’s not really high stakes.

31:21 Brian: Yeah, exactly. I love helping people, walk them through that and realize, “Oh, I can do this.” And yes, there’s actually a demand. One interesting exercise to really take people through is just called hot or not. What are some ideas that can work, and we talk them out. And then we also might contact some other people and see what they think about that if it’s a totally new thing that they hadn’t heard of before. And just a matter of, you need an opportunity to just test the waters and you openly be in a safe environment where you can express ideas without somebody thinking you’re stupid or whatever. There’s no stupid idea. There’s, you know, millions of ideas everywhere. And it’s a matter of figuring out how to piece together to create something viable as far as the business goes.

Origin of The Lucrative Artist

32:00 Emily: Mhm. Yeah, that gives me a good idea of what your services are. But I wanted to ask you about your name, The Lucrative Artist, which is very provocative. So, can you tell us a little bit how you came to that?

32:09 Brian: It’s fascinating. It’s a provocative word. It’s a word they say all the time on CNBC and all the other finance channel for other businesses. But for some reason we’re conditioned to think we have to starve as artists. And it’s not necessarily the case. So, I try and help people realize, “No, actually if you’re getting paid what you deserve and what you should be, you’re actually in a position to make even higher quality art and you’re serving people even better.” So, it’s actually an empowering mindset that better serves them later on.

32:39 Emily: Yeah, I love that. Oh my gosh. Well, where can people find you?

32:42 Brian: Well, my website, thelucrativeartist.com, the lucrative artist, three words there, .com or there’s facebook.com/thelucrativeartist where I’m active on a Facebook page. I also have a Twitter and an Instagram where I try to be accessible to as many people as possible through all those platforms, wherever the world’s taken me. There’s a Self-Employment in the Arts conference taking place in Chicago in February that I’ll be presenting at. And also some universities here and there. I’ll be doing some presentations and masterclasses and so forth. So, I try to be all-around.

Best Advice for an Early-Career PhD

33:13 Emily: Sounds awesome. So, final question. This is a standard one that I ask all my guests, which is what is your best advice for another early-career PhD or another early-career doctor? And this could be something related to what we’ve talked about today or it could be completely other.

33:30 Brian: Yeah, I think as far as the best advice, always keep a mind open to creating new sources of income and having multiple sources of income coming in. And think of ways you could create some passive income for yourself as well as the active income. And then, when you’re in your PhD, look and see what everybody else is doing and then think, “What is everybody not doing they should be doing?” And realize that might be a gold mine of a business opportunity just waiting to happen. So, just to open your mind up to that possibility and not being afraid to go for it.

34:03 Emily: Thank you so much, Brian. Thank you so much for the interview. I’ve learned a lot. I hope the audience has as well.

34:07 Brian: I really appreciate it.

Outtro

34:07 Emily: Listeners, thank you for joining me for this episode. Pfforphds.com/podcast is the hub for the Personal Finance for PhDs podcast. There, you can find links to all the episode show notes and a form to volunteer to be interviewed. I’d love for you to check it out and get more involved. If you’ve been enjoying the podcast, here are four ways you can help it grow. One, subscribe to the podcast and rate and review it on Apple podcast, Stitcher, or whatever platform you use. Two, share an episode you found particularly valuable on social media or with your PhD peers. Three, recommend me as a speaker to your university or association. My seminars cover the personal finance topics PhDs are most interested in like investing, debt repayment, and taxes. Four, subscribe to my mailing list at pfforphds.com/subscribe. Through that list, you’ll keep up with all the new content and special opportunities for Personal Finance for PhDs. See you in the next episode. And remember, you don’t have to have PhD to succeed with personal finance, but it helps. The music is Stages of Awakening by Podington Bear from the free music archive, and is shared under CC by NC. Podcast editing and show notes creation by Meryem Ok.

How This Graduate Student Rejects the Academic Culture of Being Broke

January 27, 2020 by Meryem Ok

In this episode, Emily interviews Hajer Nakua, a rising second-year PhD student in neuroscience at the University of Toronto. Hajer describes how the culture of being “broke” in academia becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy for individual graduate students. Hajer and Emily discuss in detail Hajer’s top three strategies for breaking this cycle of brokeness in graduate school and how you can change your money mindset. Hajer identifies the culture of consumerism as the top culprit.

Links Mentioned in the Episode

Teaser

00:00 Hajer: You know, if people don’t talk about how they’re spending money and all they talk about is the fact that they’re broke, it’s really easy to be like, “Okay, yeah, sure.” But to be more open with money and not have it very taboo I think will really help spearhead discussions of what does it mean to be in graduate school and have money. Like, how are the best ways to spend my stipend?

Intro

00:25 Emily: Welcome to the Personal Finance for PhDs podcast, a higher education in personal finance. I’m your host, Dr. Emily Roberts. This is season five, episode four, and today my guest is Hajer Nakua, a rising second-year PhD student in neuroscience at the University of Toronto. Hajer describes how the culture of being broke in academia becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy for individual graduate students. We discuss in detail her top three strategies for breaking this cycle of brokeness in graduate school, and how you can change your money mindset. Without further ado, here’s my interview with Hajer Nakua.

Will You Please Introduce Yourself Further?

01:04 Emily: I have joining me on the podcast today, Hajer Nakua, and she is a recently started graduate student. We are recording this in August of 2019 so she’s going into her second year. And we’re going to be discussing today the “culture of broke” inside academia and how to combat that with your own personal finances. So, Hajer, thank you so much for joining me today. And will you please tell the audience a little bit more about yourself?

01:28 Hajer: Thank you very much, Emily, for having me. And sure. I just finished my undergrad in Psychology, Neuroscience & Behavior at McMaster University in Ontario. I finished in April 2018, and in September 2018, I started my graduate training at the University of Toronto. It’s technically in the Institute of Medical Science, but my field is specifically neuroscience. And even more specific, I use computational technology. So, things like neuroimaging, brain imaging, MRI, to better understand brain behavior relationships in a population of psychiatric children.

The Culture of “Broke” in Academia

02:07 Emily: Very, very interesting. So, you have been in academia–well, your PhD program, at any rate–for only about a year, but that’s been long enough to start to absorb the culture of being broke. So, would you please start to describe that for me?

02:22 Hajer: Sure. I’ve actually noticed this culture very, very persistently in undergrad, and it’s more of a student thing than when you’re a PhD–you’re still considered a student. And it’s just the idea that students, because they don’t have a very stable income, they’re supposed to be broke. And that is a very, very persistent limiting belief that many students have. And I find that particularly in PhD, Masters, or any graduate school program because of the high expense of the program, people just sort of settle into the idea of, “Oh, I’m broke, I’m supposed to be broke.” And it often limits them from taking the necessary measures to try to build wealth even during their PhD or graduate school training.

03:00 Emily: Well, you know you have found a very friendly audience in me with this message. I totally agree with you. To me, like if you’re looking at the numbers, right? Like if you’re actually looking people’s income and outflow and everything, to me, there’s usually a pretty big difference between someone who is paying out of pocket to be in school. They’re probably taking on student loan debt or maybe they’re supported by their families or even maybe they’re drawing on their own savings from the past, and someone who does have their education expenses paid for, plus there’s a stipend on top of that. That to me is like black and white, a very different situation. But you’re right that, because there’s often a continuum between those two things, people who are on the, “Well, you actually do have an income side of that,” can have some of the mindset still from when they were on the other side of the equation. Again, because as you said, the label of “student” is still there. And you said for me a couple of magic words, which were “limiting beliefs,” which I am very interested in. Can you expand on that a little bit?

Can You Expand on Limiting Beliefs?

04:03 Hajer: Sure. So, in general, a limiting belief is this very persistent idea someone has that often allows them to settle into something that prevents them from moving forward with whatever it is that they want in their life. And that’s a very vague and general explanation. But in this case, I find that when people say things such as, “Oh, I’m broke,” they sort of get over the idea that, “Maybe I should have a savings account, maybe I should start, you know, being more financially savvy.” They’re like, “Should I buy this $10 meal? Yeah. Whatever. I’m broke. What another $10?” So, it’s this constant idea that any sort of wealth, any money management is not applicable to their life.”

04:46 Emily: Yeah.

04:46 Hajer: I think that’s very persistent in particularly graduate school. And quickly commenting on one thing that you said. Although there is a stipend, and it’s fair that many people move for a PhD program, so that often goes towards living expenses. So, of course, the amount of money that someone gets, it’s not high, but it’s still, as you said, a little bit surprising to me sometimes that there’s such a strong sense of, “I have no money,” even though technically there is some sort of cash flow coming in.

05:16 Emily: Yeah. And this is another difficult point, right? Because for some people, the stipend is insufficient to live on in that city. It’s tragic that some graduate schools choose to pay their students that way–their workers or their fellowship recipients–that’s something that needs to change kind of about the higher education system as a whole. So, in some cases, it really is true. There’s not enough to live on. You have to be going into debt, whether it’s student loan debt or consumer debt or you’re being supported by someone else. And I think around 50%, or if I’m trying to remember the stats correctly, around 50% or less of doctoral students ultimately do take out some sort of student loans during their graduate degrees, right? Not just from undergrad. Yet, in other cases, as you were just saying, the stipend may be sufficient to live on maybe even sufficient to do a little bit more with.

06:09 Emily: But because of those limiting beliefs, that isn’t even considered, it’s just an assumption. You’re a student, you’re going to be broke, there’s nothing else you can do about it. And like you said, sort of acquiescing to that idea and not acting in a way that could change that situation just because you think that it can’t be changed. Yeah, this is a big part of my message, so I’m really glad that we can have this discussion today. So, what would you say that if someone does accept being broke as a limiting belief, even if it’s not factually numbers-wise necessarily the case–what’s the harm in that? What’s the effect in that?

The Harm of Brokeness as a Limiting Belief

06:48 Hajer: It prevents them from trying to seek opportunities to sort of build any sort of wealth or income. When I say wealth, I don’t mean, you know, those like $1 million wealth. I mean, just sort of being able to work towards your financial freedom, which is a huge goal, particularly in the West as a lot of prices have been getting a lot more expensive. So, it prevents starting that. People often say, “Oh, in my PhD I’m broke so I’m going to stay that way. And then maybe after I’ll sort of think about how I want to think about money or how I want to build my income.” I find that very problematic because PhD is a really pivotal time in your life. So, the vast majority of people start between 22 to 32, in that decade, a lot of students are. And that’s a really key time to sort of build for retirement, or whatever it is, any goals that you may have.

07:40 Hajer: So, starting from an early age, they think, “Oh, that’s it. That’s a problem for later.” Or, “No, I don’t have the money to try to really focus on building financial freedom slowly, slowly, slowly.” It can really be detrimental in their ability to A) save, and also learn how to be good with money when you don’t have a lot of money. Because we’re not saying that PhD students have a great salary, as we’ve spoken about before, but it’s still important to sort of think about ways to be financially savvy at a time where you may not have a lot of wealth. And then as you build on later in life, you’ll get better and better at it. So, I feel like there’s a lot of wasted opportunity during the PhD years once someone succumbs to that limiting belief.

Investing in Yourself: A Cautionary Tale to Grad Students

08:25 Emily: Yeah, I totally agree. There are two points in there that I’d like to follow up with. The first is, so at least I have heard, you know, from some aspects of the culture, that your twenties are your time to invest in yourself. Don’t really worry so much about saving for retirement or whatever it might be. There’s time to do that later. Your twenties are your time to invest in yourself. And, if you’ve heard that message, you might think, “Well, yeah, I’m pursuing a PhD. Like that’s a great thing to be doing with my twenties in terms of investing in yourself.” And that’s true. But I do think that maybe the people who are propagating that, “Twenties are the time to invest in yourself” message are assuming that people have a much higher income. That during the course of your 20s, you’re going to be ramping up that income and you know, pursuing all these different opportunities.

09:12 Emily: Maybe you’re starting your own company or whatever it is. That’s a little bit of a different level of potential wealth, you might say, then what we’re talking about in more like the PhD land. Because it is a really difficult thing to start off, let’s say in your twenties, with a certain stipend. And then five, six, seven plus years later still have pretty much that same stipend that’s coming in. It’s very difficult to increase your income at all while you’re in graduate school unless you turn to outside sources of work. So, that’s something that doesn’t really jive for me about that message of like, “Invest in yourself in your 20s.” It’s like, yeah, you can do that, but please note that your income, if you do that through graduate school, is not actually going to be increasing during that time. Or at least not, you know, appreciably.

Investing in Retirement: Slow and Steady Pays Off

09:57 Emily: So, that was one thing that I wanted to point out. And the other one was just, as you were saying, I just wanted to underline the power of starting to invest. Whether that’s, you know, paying off debt or actually investing in stocks or something in your 20s is incredibly valuable because you have so much more time on your side before you reach the goal of, “Okay, I want to support myself in retirement,” or whatever your goal might be. It’s so, so valuable to put away even a very small amount of money early on. The earlier on you can do it, the better because of the magic and the power of compound interest. So, it’s something where like, as you were just saying, if you acquiesce to the idea that you’re going to be broke and you can’t, you know, invest for retirement or pay off your debt or whatever–if you succumb to that idea in your 20s, you might dismiss, “Oh, well, okay, I did have like $20 this month that I could have saved, or like $50. That’s not that much money, whatever. It’s fine.” Actually that is a lot of money once you compound it over multiple decades. So, it’s something where, as you were saying, succumbing to that limiting belief really does damage you in the long-term. If there was something you could have done about it, you know, in the present, which again, for some people it isn’t, but for others perhaps you could.

Investing in Yourself vs. Your Future ≠ Mutually Exclusive

11:16 Hajer: Yeah. And also I wanted to comment on the idea that, “Oh, in your 20s you’re supposed to enjoy yourself and invest in yourself.” And while I agree with that philosophical idea, I think that people often make it very mutually exclusive where there is being financially savvy and then there’s enjoying spending on yourself and investing in yourself and quote unquote self-care and all that kind of stuff. So, I think the message which is driven by consumerism teaches people that, “Oh, you don’t need to think about the future now. You don’t need to be financially savvy now. It’s just spend whatever you want to spend.” And if you have that limiting belief that you’re broke, it’s a very easy message to take in. And it also sort of fills that cognitive dissonance that anyone may have. However, again, I don’t think it’s mutually exclusive.

12:02 Hajer: I think that you can equally–if you’re able to support yourself and your stipend is sufficient–I do genuinely think that you can enjoy yourself and invest in yourself, whether it is with consumerism goods or other self-care habits, and also plan for the future and try to be more financially savvy. And it doesn’t need to be as complicated as investing, but like you said, it could just be having an emergency account that you know that every month a hundred dollars is going to be put in the savings account. I definitely think that in many cases, you can do both. And I think life is very enjoyable when you do both because you know that you’re enjoying the present, but you also know that you are planning for the future, and I think that there’s a lot of sort of warmth that comes with that on the inside.

12:45 Emily: Yeah, I totally agree with what you’re saying. This is what I found to be the case as well, that I never wanted to completely sacrifice my enjoyment of the present. A part of me enjoying the present was feeling more secure in my finances. And so it wasn’t like it has to be all one way or the other. And again, this is another limiting belief, right? Like, “You can only work on your financial future and then the present is going to be completely sacrificed.” Or, “You can only enjoy the present and then you cannot do anything for the future.” In fact, there usually is a balance between those two things. And why also when we choose to be extreme in one way, do we always choose the extreme of enjoying the present and not the extreme of sacrifice in the present, at least for the vast majority of people? So, yeah, I really enjoyed that part of our discussion. So, okay, let’s say we have a listener who says, “Okay, I’m hearing you. I’m hearing you. What can I do now on my grad student stipend or my postdoc salary?” Or whatever amount of money is coming in. You know, “How can I not be broke anymore? I’ve been telling myself that I have to be broke. Okay. Maybe I don’t have to, but what do I actually do to not be broke anymore?”

How to Exit the Cycle of Broke

13:51 Hajer: Okay. I love this question. I wanted to say more of a philosophical idea and then go towards practical tips. The first thing is to recognize that you’re always accountable for all the money that you use and you spend, because I think that people often–I hear this all the time, “I don’t know where the money goes. It just sort of leaves my bank account, and I just keep tapping. I have no idea what I’m buying.” So, I think when you’re at that level, you really need to step back and think, “Where is my money going?” If you’re a Tapper, if you’re just like, “I can tap my way through life,” you really need to sit back and think, “Well, what am I actually tapping on? How do I stop these habits?”

14:29 Hajer: So, I think that’s the first important step to acknowledge self-accountability in your spending and financial habits and your financial future. That’s number one. Number two, I think saving money can be a lot easier than people expect. And oftentimes when you go to YouTube or you read these blogs, they have these very complex budgets and you know, all these things are very meticulous and they understand that as a graduate student, a lot of our time is spent on project management, making sure that we’re sort of completing every stage of the project. So, you don’t want to add so much more to your plate that you’re being super meticulous. So some habits that I started off with is A) have an automatic transfer from a checking account to a savings account. So, I will check how much money would I need to save per month for whatever it is that I want. Maybe I’m saving up for a vacation, saving up for a car, whatever it is that you want to do. Calculate your monthly budget and then just transfer that so it’s on autopilot. You never have to think about it. And whatever’s left in your checking account, you can just spend. And that way it’s a much simpler methodology to get the end goal. Which is that, there’s a certain amount allotted for things that you want to do. You’re thinking about the future, but you have enough to enjoy.

You Don’t Have to Budget in Order to Save

15:43 Emily: I want to add to that for a moment because I think this is a really, really good and important point. Because there are some people who as you said, maybe it’s because of busy-ness, but maybe it’s not–some people don’t want to keep a budget. They don’t like to be feeling–even though they’re telling themselves what to do–they don’t like being told what to do with their money at any given time. So, the thing is though is that you don’t have to budget to save, but you can just go ahead as you were just saying and take the step of saving. And as long as you don’t end up overdrawing the amount of money you have left, then Hey, you’ve accomplished the step of saving and you’re trusting yourself to stay within the ultimate confines of the remainder of your money.

16:25 Emily: And you don’t have to silo all that money off into different categories if you don’t want to. If that’s helpful for you, great. But if you’re too busy, you don’t like it, just start saving and you know, adjust–you can live off the rest of it. So that tip, I mean, if that’s the only one anyone gets out of the podcast, that’s a hugely powerful one. I totally agree with you. Automate savings, do it first thing after you get paid. Don’t allow yourself to consider that money part of your general monthly spending, but rather put it first thing towards whatever goal it is that you’re working on, as you said. So, please continue. But I love that first point.

Tip 1: Automated Savings. Tip 2: Check Your Food Expenses

16:57 Hajer: I’m happy that you like it. What really helps me, especially during grad school–because I’m someone who is more on the meticulous end. I like know exactly where everything’s going in all aspects of my life. But I really found that this tip is the best one to start off with because I’m a big believer in gradual changes. So, nobody’s going to go from a reckless spender to a meticulous budgeter in a month because they have this very intense goal. And I think that it’s not practical to think that or to take those steps. So, I think sort of automated savings is the best way to go especially for graduate students. And then further on, as your money increases, you may want to be a little bit more meticulous. My second tip, and I’ve seen this in undergrad and graduate school, people spend an absurd amount of money on food, I’ve learned.

17:43 Hajer: And not grocery shopping. We’re not talking about whole foods, organic apples, we’re just talking about buying food every single day, buying a coffee and a drink with that. So, a lot of people that I know in graduate school spend $20 a day just on their daily food intake, in addition to any grocery shopping that they may do. And I really wanted to bring this up because when you really calculate how much money food takes out of your wallet, it almost would make you cry because it’s just one of those things that you don’t feel it because it’s $15 here, it doesn’t seem like a lot. The next day, $7 here, it doesn’t feel like a lot. So, that’s one thing. If you find that a lot of your money is being spent on to-go food, so food outside of your own home and outside of groceries, I really think the first step in addition to the savings account is tightening that up and trying to just do the grocery shopping and meal-prepping or whatever it is that’s how you want to eat. It’s up to you. So, we’re not talking about from a health perspective, although it helps. But from a money perspective, I really think that’s the first place people need to look at–their food spending habits.

Pay Attention to Repeated Spending Patterns

18:48 Emily: Yeah, of course. I have more to say on this as well because I love this tip as well. So, I actually found myself falling into this when I was in graduate school. So, something that would happen to me–and you can tell me if you relate to this–this is especially in the first couple of years when I was in grad school and I was still in classes and had like homework to do and stuff. So, you know, go to campus, you know, do your classes. I’ve packed my lunch. Okay. I packed my lunch every day, but there were plenty of days when I would sort of, without knowing in advance, I would actually stay late. So, I would stay over the dinner hour and be working on campus in the evenings because, you know, I had like a good study group going for like a couple of my classes.

19:23 Emily: We would meet and kind of talk about the homework and stuff, you know, in the evenings, a couple days a week. Maybe there’s something in the lab that I didn’t get to during the day. I need to get to it a little bit later. But I didn’t want to be hungry, of course. So anyway, I would go and buy convenience food on campus. This would happen, you know, once, twice a week, something like that. Not seemingly a hugely damaging habit. But when I kind of stepped back and evaluated that, I was like, “Okay, this is a pattern. It’s not totally unexpected that I stay into the evenings at least a couple days, you know, on campus.” So it’s not like, “Oh my gosh, this is only happening this one time. It’s a one-time exception.” No, it was an exception that was happening on a regular basis.

20:05 Emily: And so once I realized that that pattern had formed, I was like, “Okay, I need to do more than just pack my lunch. I have to also keep some food that I could eat for dinner at least as a heavy snack or something that’ll tide me over until I actually get home in the little bit later part of the evening.” So, it’s one thing, of course–people have heard the tip, right? To pack your lunch–but I would say just if you see patterns developing where you need to eat on campus and you see yourself turning to convenience foods, just try to acknowledge that that’s happening and take some steps so that it doesn’t catch you by surprise.

Keep a Snack Drawer, and Bring Your Own Tea (or Coffee)

20:38 Hajer: I actually had the exact same experience. I started to develop like a snack drawer. So, there’s a couple of healthy snacks I like, some that I make, some, you know, whatever it may be–maybe it’s like an apple or something for the week–and I keep that there. And that way, whenever I have to stay later–which I try not to do, I am someone who, you know, at 4:00 PM that’s my home time–but of course, like you said, there are times you just can’t control it. So, I know that there is something there and it’s something that I brought. Even if it’s a $3-4 bagel, that still adds up. My biggest thing was I used to really enjoy buying tea outside. I just loved in the morning coming with my tea and it was only $2 and 67 cents from Starbucks at the time.

21:24 Hajer: I memorized it and I always had it ready because I knew exactly how much it was. But over time you realize how much it would cost. And what I started to do is A) bring my own tea and buy a really cute mug. So, I felt good walking in with my tea mug. But sometimes if I didn’t have my mug, I would actually just ask for a cup and hot water and I would bring my tea bag, and I have them on my desk. And that saved a lot of money. But you just don’t feel that because $2.67 doesn’t seem like that much money. So, even something as small as tea, I felt that like, “Oh wow. By the end of the month, I have considerably more money than I did last month.” And it was just one very small change.

21:59 Emily: Yeah, because it’s a daily or an almost daily habit. Making a small change can make a huge difference.

Commercial

22:09 Emily: Emily here for a brief interlude. Tax season is upon us, and while no one loves this time of year, it’s particularly difficult for post-bac fellows, funded grad students, and postdoc fellows. Even professional tax preparers are often thrown for a loop by our unique tax situation, and don’t get me started on tax software. I provide tons of support at this time of year for PhD trainees preparing their tax returns, from free articles and videos to paid at-your-own-pace workshops, to live seminars and webinars for universities and research institutes. The best place to go to check out all of this material is pfforphds.com/tax. That’s P F F O R P H D S.com/T A X. Don’t struggle through tax season on your own. Visit my website for the exact information you need in the most efficient form available. Now, back to the interview.

Changing Your Money Mindset

23:12 Hajer: One thing that has really helped me is–so, there’s multiple aspects of consumerism that we all fall into, and I think it’s very pertinent in grad school just because, “Oh yeah, the whole broke culture.” But it’s a very funny dissonance where we love to talk about how broke we are, but we love to spend money at the same time. So, I find that’s very common. So, in general, in addition to food, other habits that you may have, I think it’s very important to check. So, many of us like to spend a lot of money on fast fashion. And we know that it’s not going to last very long. We just love the idea of going into a fast-fashion store, buying a $40 shirt. Seems like a good idea, but you know, in four months you’re not going to wear that shirt anymore.

23:54 Hajer: So, it’s things like that where you really want to try to look at alternatives where you may have to put in a greater sum in the beginning, but in the long run you’re really going to help your finances. And I think thinking in that way has really helped. So, instead of the idea of instant gratification, “I want a latte right now. I want this shirt right now. I want this meal right now.” Get outside that mindset. And instead think, “Okay, long-term, what do I want? Because when it comes to the food or the clothes or whatever, the idea is, “I want to have a meal that I enjoy.” That’s really the core of what you want. But that can come in many different ways. And many of it you can save a lot of money with.

24:34 Hajer: “I want to buy clothes that I enjoy.” Okay, well, what are better spending habits that you may do so that in the long-term, you know that you’re saving money? So, and just in general, letting go of the need of instant gratification, which to be honest, is very, very hard in our very, very multi-consumerism culture. Many businesses make billions of dollars because of the fact that it’s very hard to let go of instant gratification. But the way that I like to think about it is, the PhD is the biggest test of lack of instant gratification in your entire life. You are never going to get this level of delayed gratification where you work two years and you got one paper. You know, you work four or five years, you finally got your PhD. So, really changing your mindset and saying, you know, “I’m doing this for the long run. Like I know that the PhD is not going to be enjoyable all the time, but at the end I’m going to enjoy it.” Think that same way about money and your finances. And I think that one thing is just so powerful, and it can fuel a lot of change. So, although it’s not as much a practical tip, but I think that’s an important way to redirect or reconceptualize how you view your spending habits.

The Multiple Benefits of Being Future-Focused

25:47 Emily: Yes. Unsurprisingly, I love this point as well. This is actually something that I’ve spoken and written about on a few occasions, but I’ve never heard anybody else bring it up. So, I’m really glad that you did, which is the specific characteristics of a person who is in a PhD program or has completed a PhD program. Some of those characteristics can lend themselves very, very well to financial success. As you were just saying, thinking long-term about your career. “Okay, I’m going to dedicate multiple years to achieving this PhD.” As you were just saying, sometimes the experiments, the research itself, can take a really, really long time, especially at the beginning. You become really persistent. You are dedicated when you are in a PhD program or have accomplished a PhD, and you’re really future-focused.

26:33 Emily: And all those things serve really, really well if you’re able to translate them into the area of your personal finances as well. PhDs are also resourceful. They are creative. They’re all these really positive things. Even just getting admitted into a graduate program means that you have a lot of these characteristics and you will further develop them during the course of the PhD. And so yeah, if you can find a way to apply those in the financial realm as well, I mean you’re going to be a superstar, basically. Just by the characteristics that brought you to the stage of training that you’re already at. So, I really, really totally agree with this point. I think something that you said that people don’t necessarily acknowledge is if they take a step back from the treadmill of consumerism, they might think, “I have to live this way forever. I have to be frugal forever. I have to say no to buying X, Y, Z forever.”

You Don’t Have to Be Rich in Order to Be Frugal

27:27 Emily: But the thing is that if you can take that step back from consumerism for a period of maybe a few years and really get your finances solid underneath you, and really do things like investing in yourself and increasing your income and so forth, you can add–I mean consumerism is kind of a negative word–but you can add mindful spending back in after a period of, you know, stepping back from it, if you just again, have some wherewithal to your finances. So, for example, something that is a common criticism of frugality tips that are disseminated is that you have to already have money to be frugal, right? So, stuff like buying in bulk or like what you were just saying, actually, buying an investment piece of clothing that’s a little bit more money instead of multiple cheaper pieces of clothing that aren’t going to fall apart faster.

28:19 Emily: Well, you do need money upfront to do those things. So, a common criticism of frugality is you have to be rich to be frugal, right? It kind of doesn’t make sense. But the thing is that it doesn’t take that long of building up some savings or something to have enough money to start taking those frugal steps that do require an upfront investment, which of course not all of them do. And so, it might be that, “Okay, yeah, I’m just going to go on a spending fast for three months. At the end of the free three months, I will be able to take all these other frugal steps, which will then be able to fund me starting to spend again.” So, it doesn’t have to be a forever sacrifice. It can be a short-term thing that can then sort of catapult you to greater and greater ability to build your wealth. Does that make sense?

Inching Toward Investments: Take Your Time

29:04 Hajer: Totally. And I had a couple of comments on the frugality. Because I used to actually think like that, too. I used to think, “You know, frugality comes from a relative place of privilege.” To be able to think–and even the comment on fast fashion that I brought up, I was listening to a podcast and one of the key women who tried to really vouch for sustainable fashion. She works with a lot of celebrities. She talks about the fact that if you really calculate how much money you are spending on fast fashion, you could easily buy a couple of those things and investment pieces. So, again, it’s the idea–and like you mentioned as a PhD student–you know, really understanding where’s the investment worth being put in. And another really important point that I wanted to say is, I don’t think it’s wise to do all these changes all at once.

29:54 Hajer: To be like, “Okay, that’s it. I’m kind of all out. I’m changing everything I wanted to change.” There are of course going be habits that trickle in and that’s totally fine. But it’s again thinking that you’re responsible for your wealth, your financial management. So, what are the steps that you think you can do? And then start from there and slowly build in. So, you know, if you want to be a little bit more frugal or you want to go on a spending fast, but you want to make sure that you have some money initially just in case, then make that your priority and you’ll sort of focus on that. So, these are all gradual tips that require time to sort of get back on your feet of comfort with your money and comfort with your finances, but it’s important just to start somewhere and then, you know, build from there.

30:41 Emily: Yeah, I think that the idea that you have to revolutionize everything in your life at once to be successful with money is another one of those limiting beliefs that isn’t true that we tell ourselves as an excuse to getting out of doing anything. So, when I think about my own journey–when I started my business, Personal Finance for PhDs, it was when I finished graduate school and I had already attained a great deal of financial success at that point. And so if you looked at me at the end of graduate school and saw, “Okay, she’s got her stuff together, she’s budgeting, she’s saving, she’s investing, paying off debt, all that stuff.” It’s easy to overlook the seven years between college and when I finished my PhD that it took to get to that point of success. And I did not start off doing everything right out of the gate, right? This is something that I learned very gradually over time, and yet still, by my own definition, obtained a great deal of financial success several years later. So, it’s not that you have to exactly be like me or exactly be like you or exactly be like someone else you hold up as a model, like a financial mentor or something. You don’t have to instantly transform to be that person. It’s okay for it to take years. It will still be effective if you make slow changes. In fact, probably more so because it’s more sustainable.

Personal Finance Really Is “Personal”

31:55 Hajer: Exactly. And also take into consideration your personal situation. So, many PhD students live at home, so of course they don’t have the very high rent to pay. And of course that makes many things easier. Many PhD students are supported by other individuals that help them out. And some PhD students, again, are living in a more difficult financial situation in the sense that they have to pay rent and they’re solely responsible for themselves. So, take in your situation, and really think about what are the actionable steps that I can do, what are the beliefs that are holding me back? How do I change those? And again, it will take years to be really comfortable with the way that you want to spend money, and that’s completely okay. And there’s never the best way to money. There are certain things that some people may think, “Oh, you don’t need to spend on that.” But I personally like to and I’m okay with that. So reaching that place where you’re confident and comfortable in your money spending, it takes many years. But like you said, it’s always worth it. But it’s always important to take in your personal situation and your personal wealth and not try to compare your situation to someone else’s.

33:02 Emily: This is actually one of my favorite things about personal finance, is that it is intensely personal and intensely individual and there is not a cookie-cutter solution that’s going to work for everyone. It’s a challenging thing for me as a personal finance educator, but it’s just something that makes it such a rich field to be in. I want to get back to this question of mindset. Are there any more comments that you want to make about how to break this mindset, this accepting of the culture of being broke?

Encouraging Open Dialogues About Money in Grad School

33:29 Hajer: I think the first thing I want to say, like we mentioned, this culture is very, very persistent. This mindset is very, very hard to stay out of. Like sometimes I find, even though I’m totally against it, I find that I say things about the whole broke culture of being a student. In terms of breaking the mindset, it’s just always important to understand what being broke means and what us casually saying the word means. Many people, as we mentioned, do have some level of finances that they can spend. If you find that you are able to spend money, you’re technically not broke. So, you just think about that, and then take the steps that you want to take to get more financial freedom. And also just, I think it’s really helpful to bring up the conversations around your colleagues, whether that’s in school, your classmates, those in your lab.

34:22 Hajer: I do that often in my lab. It’s quite a big lab. So, we often talk about money and what does it mean to have money in graduate school. And sometimes if someone says, “Oh, you know, graduate students are always broke,” it’s important to sort of chime in and think, “Okay, well why are we broke? How do you break those down? Is it something that we just think in our head?” So, that’s why I think this podcast, I really gravitate towards it. Because it is just trying to have that conversation started. And I think that’s the most effective way to break that down because it’s hard as an individual, even if you got over that, just sort of change the culture around you and it will always creep into your mindset. But just starting the conversation, it doesn’t have to be on a podcast, of course.

35:02 Hajer: Individually, it’s really important to talk to the people around you about money and not make money a very taboo topic. Because I think if people don’t talk about how they’re spending money and all they talked about is the fact that they’re broke, it’s really easy to be like, “Okay, yeah, sure.” But to be more open with money and not have it very taboo I think will really help spearhead discussions of what does it mean to be in graduate school and have money. Like, how are the best ways to spend my stipend?

Call to Action: The Importance of Budget Breakdowns

35:32 Emily: This is one of the reasons why I really love doing the budget breakdown episodes that I have done in the past. In my first season of the podcast, I did 50% of the interviews were budget breakdowns where I think it was all graduate students except I did my own as well. I think it was all graduate students and talking about, “Okay, this is where I live, this is how much I make and this is how I spend it and these are my financial goals.” And it’s something that I’ve continued with the podcast, although not at the 50% frequency, but I just want to point out that I love these local examples, right? These very relatable examples. If someone else from that same institution living in the same city hears that particular podcast, that’s an easy way to start a discussion–not necessarily even with the person who was interviewed, but just someone else like, “Oh my gosh, I heard this thing and that person is spending how much on rent? And that means that they can turn around and do this with their finances. I wonder how I can find a place where I can only spend that much on rent?” Or like, “Wow, they meal prep their food and that means they only–you know.”

36:25 Emily: But it’s really valuable to see those local examples that are very, very relatable to you. Because it’s very easy to dismiss, as we were talking about before, frugal tips or something as something that doesn’t apply to me because I live in X , Y, Z and this is my particular situation. Well, if you end up talking to people who make the same amount of money that you do and live in the same place that you do, it’s a lot more relatable and their strategies are a lot more translatable. And frankly, you’re more likely to hear them if you listen to them. If you hear them from someone who you can identify with in those other factors. So, this is basically just a call for any listeners, please volunteer and submit your budget breakdown. Volunteer for a budget breakdown episode because I love doing those and I’m not really getting that many volunteers for them now, which is why we do a lot of other types of episodes. But anyway, I still love them. They hold a special place in my heart and I think they’re really valuable.

37:11 Hajer: I love them as well. On YouTube, I think Glamour magazine on YouTube has a lot of budget breakdowns, particularly in individuals in very expensive city like New York, San Francisco. And again, it’s really nice sort of think about how someone else spends their money and then you can translate that into thinking about how you spend your money. Another tip is, the first step if you’re going to take one actionable step, especially to break down the whole broke culture, is to really calculate how much money is going in every month, how much money are you spending? And that way you can numerically counteract the idea that, “Oh, you’re broke.” Because if it’s the, “Oh wow. After all the money that I get and after I spend it, I still have $400, like I’m not really a broke.” So, I think it’s really getting in tune with how much you’re spending. But because of the way the culture is right now, not many people are in tune with their spending habits. So, again, falling into that very broke culture. It’s very easy.

Tell Us More About Your Podcast Team

38:07 Emily: So, I understand you are part of a podcast team as well. So, what is that podcast and how can people find it? What is it about?

38:15 Hajer: So, it’s called Raw Talk Podcast, and essentially it’s a science communication podcast headed by students in the Institute of Medical Science at the University of Toronto. And essentially what the team tries to do is take these really key topics that people are interested in and go to scientists and ask them about their research and the latest discoveries of those topics. So, we’ve covered a wide array of topics such as autism spectrum disorder, the circadian rhythm, mental health in graduate school. And the idea is just to help you know, the general public and everyone understand what is the latest research and how do we best understand some of these topics that are not always well-represented in the media or that people may be curious in. You can find it on Facebook, Instagram, any podcast app, and Twitter and it’s just Raw Talk Podcast. And on Instagram, there’s a lot of new content featuring our guests and some really cool science tips or science fun facts. So, we really just try to break down some of the complex parts of science and be able to translate it using very local researchers that many people can Google and email.

39:31 Emily: This is such a fun way for people to get involved in science communication, I think. I mean I love podcasting obviously, And I just think it’s an amazing medium. And so, this is something that I know has been started. This kind of thing has been started at many other universities as well. And so, I mean if this is something that attracts you about potentially communicating science from your own university and you don’t want to take it all on yourself, it’s a really good idea to get a few other students together who are also interested in the same thing and start it up together and kind of spread the work around. So, that’s exciting. How long has this podcast been going on for?

40:06 Hajer: When the summer finished, which was about April, May, we just finished our third season, so we’re starting our fourth season in September.

How Else Can You Be Reached?

40:18 Emily: Great, great. Okay. And how else can people find you individually?

40:23 Hajer: Sure. So, I recently just started a science communication account myself as a science student and also moreso to share the graduate student experience and experience with research and academia. What does it look like, particularly being from more of an underrepresented group? I really wanted to share what that looks like, navigating academia and research. So, my main platform right now is Instagram, but I do hope to branch out and start blogging. But my Instagram is, @itshajernakua. So, I T S H A J E R N A K U A. And yeah, it’ll be really nice. And I try to share tips of grad school, tips about finding passion with research, and I’m also starting to get more into financial and money tips as a graduate student.

41:08 Emily: That sounds amazing. Okay, well, thank you so much for coming on the podcast and sharing this wonderful content.

41:14 Hajer: Thank you so much for having me. This is my first podcast being interviewed, not interviewing. So, this is really exciting.

Outtro

41:20 Emily: Listeners, thank you for joining me for this episode. Pfforphds.com/podcast is the hub for the Personal Finance for PhDs podcast. There, you can find links to all the episode show notes and a form to volunteer to be interviewed. I’d love for you to check it out and get more involved. If you’ve been enjoying the podcast, here are four ways you can help it grow. One, subscribe to the podcast and rate and review it on Apple podcast, Stitcher, or whatever platform you use. Two, share an episode you found particularly valuable on social media or with your PhD peers. Three, recommend me as a speaker to your university or association. My seminars cover the personal finance topics PhD’s are most interested in like investing, debt repayment, and taxes. Four, subscribe to my mailing list at pfforphds.com/subscribe. Through that list, you’ll keep up with all the new content and special opportunities for Personal Finance for PhDs. See you in the next episode. And remember, you don’t have to have a PhD to succeed with personal finance, but it helps. The music is Stages of Awakening by Podington Bear from the free music archive and is shared under CC by NC. Podcast editing and show notes creation by Meryem Ok.