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Your Side Hustle Really Is a Business and Other Tax Insights with Hannah Cole of Sunlight Tax

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In this episode, Emily interviews Hannah Cole, an artist and the founder of Sunlight Tax. Sunlight Tax primarily serves artists and creatives in their business tax needs, but there are many overlaps between artists and the academic community. Hannah and Emily discuss the best practices and insights that graduate students, postdocs, and PhDs with side businesses need to stay on the IRS’s good side. Hannah clarifies exactly when a business starts, the first step you must take with your finances, and how to calculate and pay your additional tax liability.

Links mentioned in the Episode

Your Side Hustle Really Is a Business and Other Tax Insights with Hannah Cole of Sunlight Tax

Teaser

Hannah (00:00): You know, we have a whole tax industry out there trying to, you know, its marketing is based around making us all hate and fear our taxes and actually kind of implicitly training us not to even look at it, to just feel so fearful. And so, like, hands off that we don’t even look at it. And I’m just here to say I hate that. I disagree with it.

Introduction

Emily (00:29): Welcome to the Personal Finance for PhDs Podcast: A Higher Education in Personal Finance. This podcast is for PhDs and PhDs-to-be who want to explore the hidden curriculum of finances to learn the best practices for money management, career advancement, and advocacy for yourself and others. I’m your host, Dr. Emily Roberts, a financial educator specializing in early-career PhDs and founder of Personal Finance for PhDs.

Emily (00:58): This is Season 19, Episode 3, and today my guest is Hannah Cole, an artist and the founder of Sunlight Tax. Sunlight Tax primarily serves artists and creatives in their business tax needs, but there are many overlaps between artists and the academic community. Hannah and I discuss the best practices and insights that graduate students, postdocs, and PhDs with side businesses need to stay on the IRS’s good side. Hannah clarifies exactly when a business starts, the first step you must take with your finances, and how to calculate and pay your additional tax liability. This whole episode is devoted to business taxes, but before we get started I want to ask you if you or your peers need help figuring out taxes on your academic income, your graduate student stipend or postdoc salary and the attendant benefits. Now is actually the best time to start the conversation with your graduate school, postdoc office, graduate student association, etc. about bringing my tax content to your university in the upcoming tax season—so that they have time to plan their budgets. In this upcoming tax season I’m offering live workshops that I will tailor to your university and state and also pre-recorded workshops that are widely applicable. I would be very grateful if you would issue a recommendation to a potentially appropriate host at your university. You can find links to more information from PFforPhDs.com/financial-education/. Thank you! You can find the show notes for this episode at PFforPhDs.com/s19e3/. Without further ado, here’s my interview with Hannah Cole of Sunlight Tax.

Will You Please Introduce Yourself Further?

Emily (02:56): I have a really special guest on the podcast today, Hannah Cole of Sunlight Tax. I have been listening to Hannah’s podcast, Sunlight, the Sunlight podcast for, I don’t know, definitely more than a year now, maybe closer to two. And she is an amazing, uh, podcaster and practitioner in her field because she teaches about taxes to her community. I’m gonna have her introduce her community to you, but I see a lot of overlap between Hannah’s community and our community of academics and PhDs and graduate students and so forth. So Hannah is really gonna be able to bring her insight into taxes and specifically self-employment taxes to our conversation today. Um, which is going to focus on self-employment situations that grad students and postdocs are typically in, which is like a self-employment side hustle. So Hannah, thank you so much for agreeing to come on the podcast. I’m really excited. Will you please introduce yourself a little bit further for our audience.

Hannah (03:48): Sure. Um, thank you so much, Emily. I appreciate it. Um, yeah, so I am an artist first. I, I went and got my MFA in painting. Um, and I have a degree in art history and, uh, started my life as a professional artist and was so upset at how I was treated by the world of accounting <laugh> by my dad’s accountant that eventually I, you know, went out to get the information on my own. I went all the way back to school for accounting and studied taxes. Um, ’cause I live with a, you know, artists are solitary creatures. You know, you, when you’re a painter like me, you’re in the studio for long, long hours alone. And the only way to build your career is through a network. So, you know, we are like, uh, super networkers and my community of artists was deeply in need of the same information that I was. And I, I like, knew there was a need out there, and I was like, I’m so upset by the way that this has been delivered to me, if at all. Um, there’s, there’s a market here. Um, so I started my business Sunlight Tax. Um, and that’s my mission is to, it’s much, it’s much bigger of an audience than just creative people, but it is really kind of for people who maybe where money is not the sole interest that they have when they do the thing they do. Right. And I think as academics, you can probably relate to that because most people who go into academics have a passion for their field. Right. They’re trying to do some research, and that probably is a little bit primary over money. And so, you know, that’s very similar to artists that’s very similar to sort of mission-driven people. So it’s kind of a big group of people where money is not the only thing, but these people need to do their taxes too.

Similarities Between Academics and Creatives

Emily (05:37): Yes. I see so much of an overlap between how you described your journey to what you do today, uh, in the tax world, at any rate, and what I do with, uh, as being a financial educator. Yeah. Um, I love you sort of got started comparing the community that you come from the artist community with the academic community. I totally agree about those, um, overlaps. Are there any, would you like to elaborate on that in any way? Specifically? I’m thinking of are there like mindsets or like skills that you’ve observed or perhaps lack of skills among your community, um, perhaps that overlap with ours that either are, um, helpful or not so helpful when it comes to running a business, which some academics end up doing.

Hannah (06:16): Yeah. Well, I’m, the, the world of academia is not foreign to me. I mean, I taught, I was a professor, uh, at Boston University for a brief moment, <laugh> before I realized that I, I, uh, the, the strictures of academia were not, not for me. I think for people like us, when you’re, when your identity is formed around a passion for a thing, um, money can become the enemy by accident. Not really on purpose usually. But I think, um, I see a parallel between people in creative fields where, you know, there’s no artist in the world who’s gonna tell you that they do anything except make the best possible art they can. Right. And I think the same is true in academia. You’re gonna do the best, highest quality research you possibly can. You’re gonna, you know, whether that’s the most innovative or, you know, you’ve got the best ideas, the best protocols, whatever, however you’re doing it. And I think when that’s the case, you can kind of lose, you know, what you focus on is what does well, and if your focus comes off of money, too much money can get, uh, it can atrophy, right? Your skills in it can atrophy. Um, when your attention is not there, you just, uh, it can kind of get away from you. Right? And so I think that that is a sort of similar issue that, um, people in academia have to people in the creative world. Um, and I think just, you know, we’re busy, right? We’re busy doing the thing, we’re doing <laugh>, and this is one of the reasons I didn’t wanna be in academia ’cause of how busy you get <laugh>. Like, I was like, I, I’m never gonna be in the studio again if I do this. Um, and, and you just, it’s hard to check like, you know, self-employment, you know, when you’re talking about like grant income or the types of income that, that we’re talking about here, like track doing, doing, setting up bookkeeping, paying estimated quarterly taxes, like things like that. You know, they are a little bit complex and they do require some ongoing attention. So that’s, that’s a challenge.

Emily (08:23): Totally agree with everything you just said. Underline that. Um, in addition, I wonder if you could speak to, because I think another commonality between these communities is a percep- a perception among ourselves that our work is undervalued by other people and then we end up undervaluing ourselves in some cases, um, which is really dangerous when it comes to business ownership

Hannah (08:45): Very much. Yeah. And I think it’s, it, it’s easy to get into a mindset like that, especially if people around you in your daily life have a mindset like that. You tend to absorb the attitudes of the people you are with all day. Um, and so yeah, if you have people around you who feel like, uh, you know, the good ideas are over here and the money is over here and they’re in opposite directions, you’re gonna start getting outta balance where with, where money is in your life, like, I, I like to think of it this way, that money is neutral, right? Money is a tool. It’s like a hammer. You can do good things with it. You can do bad things with it, right? Like it’s amplifying the power of the person who has it. So if you’re doing good work, if you’re an ethical person, you can do amazing things and you can do more of them when you have more money. I don’t know. Think, um, think Oprah, think, um, Dolly Parton, you know, these are people who have great amounts of wealth and who do truly world changing wonderful things with their money, right? Uh, we could also probably think of quite a few examples of people who do not so great things with their money <laugh>. But I think the problem is when you go from thinking of money as neutral, right? Money as just being an amplifier of your agency to being negative, that that’s where you start getting problems. You start getting in a sort of stuck space around it. Because if you think of money as negative, or if you think that somehow your motives or ethics will be corrupted, if you simply have money more of this tool, you won’t advocate for yourself properly, right? Um, you cannot walk into a job interview and really nail it, um, nail the salary negotiation part of it specifically. Um, you’re not gonna advocate the way with the fierceness in that interview that you would if you believed that money was good, right? Or, or money in your hands was a good thing. If you fundamentally think, you know, having a fully funded retirement is makes you kind of a yucky person, you’re not gonna ever fund your retirement. You know, these things are related.

How Do You Know When You’ve Actually Started a Business?

Emily (10:55): Mm-Hmm. That is so interesting. I’m really, I really like the way you put that. I haven’t thought about it quite that way before. So thank you so much. Um, okay. I wanna narrow down to talking about like business ownership for, again, my community, which has many similarities with yours. Uh, they’re gonna be doing this as a, we’re gonna say a side income though, right? They have their primary thing as being a graduate student or being a postdoc, and they’re pursuing that, but they have a self-employment side hustle as well. Oftentimes what I see is people acting as like consultants, for example. Um, or maybe they’re a writer or an editor in, in this kind of world. So these, these kinds of side hustles, whether maybe, or data science. They’re employing some skills perhaps that they have developed as an academic, but outside of that academic context as a business owner. So, and I love that you’ve talked about this extensively on your podcast, but the question to you is how does someone know when they’ve actually started a business? Because especially when it’s something on the side, it may be a little vague at first.

Hannah (11:50): Yeah. This gets really confusing if you start thinking of the other organizations that think of your business start time as different. Um, and I, I do have a whole podcast episode about specifically when each one thinks you start. Um, so if you want me to, you know, link to that in your show notes, I would be happy to send that link. Um, but, you know, that’s on the Sunlight podcast. So to the IRS and this, you know, I’m a tax person, so I’m orienting towards that. When it comes to when you report the income, when you report the expenses, um, to the IRS, your, your business begins the moment you advertise. And that actually makes a lot of sense if you understand what makes you a business. The IRS says that you’re a business versus being a hobby. Um, so your side hustle is a business and not a hobby. If you have a profit motive, if you are trying to make money with it, right? It doesn’t mean that money has to be, you know, you worship at the altar of money and there’s nothing else in your life and you throw all your ethics and your, you know, value and, and your amazing work out the window. Not that, but it has to be in there, has to be in the mix, and it has to be, you know, strong. Um, and so if you think about that, having an intent to make a profit, which is the IRS definition of you being a business that happens before you make a profit, that happens before you make money. And I think this is where people get confused. They think, I I, I, I only get to report it once I’m making money, but actually no, because you start that business with expenses, right? You have expenses first. Then once you’ve built something, um, let’s use an example of like a pizzeria. ’cause it’s very tangible and we’ve all been to one. Um, you don’t start generating income from that pizzeria day one, right? The pizzeria has to exist first. Like, you can’t sell a slice of pizza if you don’t have an oven <laugh>. You have to install the oven, you have to have a bakery, you have to have flour, right? So you’re gonna have a lot of expenses before you ever can even bring a dollar in the door. And I think it’s really important to get your head around that concept. You are not broken because that’s how your business is working. That’s actually normal, right? And we have in business school, they teach this concept called the break even point. Well, what is that? The break even point is the magical moment when you go from negative income, AKA, AKA spending <laugh> and, and, um, it’s that magical moment when you go from negative income to zero, right? And then over the zero, then the number starts getting positive. That’s the moment you become profitable, right? When your, when your income rises above the amount of your expenses for the first time, and you know what, there is no guarantee or promise that that will ever happen or that it will happen on a certain timeline. That’s all within your control and your profit motive should be driving that bus. But, uh, it’s, it’s good to know that it’s normal to have expenses first. And in fact, you’re entitled to file a Schedule C that is where you put this stuff on your tax return. You’re entitled to file one before you have a profit. So the title of the Schedule C is profit or loss from business. So one, you have to be a business, it’s in the title, but also you don’t have to have a profit that’s also in the title. So that’s kind of a good baseline. So remember, the moment you advertise, and if you think about it is, is the moment that you start that your business starts. And if you think about it, that makes sense. ’cause advertising says hello world, hello clients, I’m open, I have this thing available. If you’re the right person, if this will work for you, come and get it. Right? But also, you know, to somebody who is, let’s say, doing some freelance editing on the side, advertising is not gonna look the way it does for Coca-Cola, right? Advertising for you is probably gonna be an email to a couple of friends and family. You’re still advertising. You probably aren’t thinking of that as advertising, but whatever you do that’s signaling, Hey, hey, I do this thing, are you interested? So maybe that’s an Instagram post. Maybe it’s an email to friends and family. Um, maybe it’s a website going live. Those are all your moment when you started advertising.

Emily (16:14): I’m so glad you gave that example because as I said earlier, I see a lot of like service-based businesses as side hustles, um, for this community. And so just when you were describing that, I was like, yeah, if you put something up on LinkedIn, if you put your services out there on, um, whatever the current version of Upwork is, um, or like you said, an email to a friend putting up a website, Hey, it costs money to host a website. So like, you’re probably having your first expense when you do that. Um, or maybe you’re starting to pay for software to like get client scheduling set up or whatever it might be. Um, I think part of the confusion when people are asking this question is they think somehow it’s like a, a bad or like an onerous thing to be considered a business and have the attendant tax filing, uh, requirements along with it.

Emily (16:57): But what I really learned from your podcast and your attitude around it is no, this is a great thing to be considered a business, especially as you were just saying, when it takes some time to get to that turning point where you actually have profit. So like, if you have a whole year when you have some, some loss, even though you’ve started advertising, maybe you have some expenses, the income isn’t there yet. Um, you can use that to reduce your tax liability, actually. And so it’s not, it’s not a bad thing to be considered a business earlier. It does have some complications, but it’s, it’s, it’s actually a very positive thing to realize that you have a business

Hannah (17:29): Very much. I mean, and it, it tangibly lowers your taxes. <laugh>. I mean, we in this country are supporting business not out of a charitable purpose, but because it’s good for the u- US economy, right? Like when we support us small businesses and, and we count, you and me, Emily, we count <laugh>. Um, when you support a small business, you are, you are helping the US GDP grow, right? That’s in the interest of the nation we live in. Um, ultimately, you know, you’re gonna spend a lot of money, you get business deduction, you get business expenses, they are deductible on your tax return. That’s a incredible benefit given to you by Uncle Sam. I mean, I, I don’t think we all appreciate that quite as much as we should. Um, but that’s, that’s huge. Um, and yeah, and so you’re, you’re getting this subsidy <laugh> and it’s nice to take advantage of. It’s nice to know what your rights are and take advantage of it. Um, and of course, if you weren’t a business, if you were operating as a hobby, instead you wouldn’t get those deductions. So there’s a real difference.

Emily (18:38): Yeah. Thank you.

Commercial

Emily (18:41): Emily here for a brief interlude. Would you like to learn directly from me on a personal finance topic, such as taxes, budgeting, investing, and goal-setting, each tailored specifically for graduate students and postdocs? I offer workshops on these topics and more in a variety of formats, and I’m now booking for the 2024-2025 academic year. If you would like to bring my content to your institution, would you please recommend me as a speaker or facilitator to your university, graduate school, graduate student association, or postdoc office? My seminars are usually slated as professional development or personal wellness. Ask the potential host to go to PFforPhDs.com/financial-education/ or simply email me at [email protected] to start the process. I really appreciate these recommendations, which are the best way for me to start a conversation with a potential host. The paid work I do with universities and institutes enables me to keep producing this podcast and all my other free resources. Thank you in advance if you decide to issue a recommendation! Now back to our interview.

Best Financial Practices for Early Career Academics With Businesses

Emily (19:59): Okay. So I’m thinking still about this grad student or postdoc or early career PhD who’s, has this business now they know they’re starting it on the side. What are some best practices that they should implement in their finances from day one to make things easier or like totally above board going forward?

Hannah (20:16): Sure. Um, the first is to open a separate bank account. Um, you wanna keep your business income and expenses separated from your personal bank account and personal expenses. Um, there’s many reasons why this is a good idea. All of it is a good idea. <laugh>, there is no negative, um, except that you have to go through the effort of opening an account. Um, but the magic that that separation does is now when you have that business bank account and you deposit all the money you earn from that freelance side hustle, you know, that gig, whatever it is, now you are creating a record of everything into and out of your business. That record becomes the backbone of your bookkeeping. So now from there, setting up bookkeeping, setting up tracking becomes far simpler. Um, Emily, when I started out as a professional artist, before I knew to do all this stuff, I was printing out bank statements going through, you know, like three days before tax time, going through my bank statement, line by line with a highlighter, trying to, trying to recall if that trip I made back in February last year to Lowe’s was for business or for my home, right? <laugh>, Like we don’t want that <laugh>. If you have a dedicated business account and you keep a mindset of I only spend this money on business expenses, then everything in there is deductible. You just have to sort out what category of deduction it goes into. So man, it makes your life simple. And then, you know, once your business grows, this is a thing that grows with you. Um, you can automate that bank feed into bookkeeping software. That’s a next step thing. You don’t have to do that day one, but it gives you the, you know, the easy option. Um, also if you one day create an LLC for liability protection, your LLC will be instantly invalidated if you don’t have a separate business bank account, you, when you have a liability, uh, limited liability corporation, the whole thing you’ve done legally is to separate your business and personal selves. And if you then don’t actually do it in the background, a court of law can say you don’t have an LLC, you don’t have any liability protection, and basically your LLC is thrown out, you’ve wasted all that money. Um, so <laugh>, there’s no downside, in other words, to a business bank account. PS it doesn’t actually have to be technically a business account according to your bank’s rules. It can just be a personal account. That’s another separate account. It’s the separation that’s important. So it can be, you know, technically a personal account according to the bank. That’s fine. Just use it like it’s your business account.

Emily (23:05): Thank you so much for that. Um, that clarification, and actually you threw out a couple of terms there. So I just want to, this is partially some things I’ve learned from you, clarify for the listener. Um, this, this term LLC, the limited liability company, this is a legal status and it’s not, it doesn’t necessarily confer a specific tax status. So when you’re first starting out out, when you’re first starting out with a, a side business or something, you’re likely gonna be operating as a sole proprietor. Then maybe for the entire lifetime of the business, you’ll be a sole proprietor. Whether or not you open an LLC as well, your tax status will stay a sole proprietor. That is, unless you decide that you want to grow your business to the point where becoming a different kind of tax status would make sense, like an S selection, et cetera. But for people who keep businesses on the side, I would imagine many of them continue to operate as sole proprietors indefinitely.

Hannah (23:55): Yep. I would say that’s probably true. Yeah.

Preparing for Tax Season as a Business Owner

Emily (23:58): So you just mentioned this core first step, which is to open a separate bank account, and I totally agree with it. You know, when I first started out my very first side hustle, I didn’t have that, but I knew by the time I started this business that it was important. So that was the first thing that I did when I started this, um, this business, even though I’ve been a sole proprietor the whole time as we were just talking about. So is there anything else that someone should do, um, like at this point in the year, you know, we’re sitting in September when we’re recording this. Is there anyone, anything that, uh, business owners should do outside of their actions during tax season to set themselves up to, you know, prepare a tax to return easily to minimize their tax liability beyond this core, as you said, the backbone of having a separate account?

Hannah (24:39): I mean, there’s a whole world of year-end tax planning. I would say independent of year-end tax planning, which is coming up, we are coming upon that time of year. But independent of that, I would say from your separate business bank account, just setting up some basic bookkeeping is a good idea. Having the separate bank account isn’t bookkeeping itself, though. It forms a basis for it. So if you don’t love the idea of like sitting with your bank statements and pulling everything into a category, you know, before tax time, doing that in advance is quite nice and quite helpful. <laugh>. And I actually think if it’s at the level of a gig or a side hustle, I actually think you don’t need bookkeeping software at all. I think bookkeeping software, if I’m just being totally honest with you, it’s very easy to make very expensive mistakes that compound and, uh, that you can only get undone with very expensive accounting help. Um, so I actually don’t really think people with very, very small like side hustle level businesses maybe even should have software for bookkeeping at all. Um, but that doesn’t mean you do bookkeeping. You can just do it on a spreadsheet. So have a spreadsheet, lay out your expense categories, track your income, and just do the tallies. Um, because knowing if that will help, you know, in an ongoing way if you’re profitable or not, which is a, a big deal, it’s also what your taxes are based on. So, um, paying estimated quarterly taxes, for example, if you need to, is only going to be possible when you know what the number is, <laugh>. Um, so you wanna be able to know what your profit was for the quarter. So you can do a little calculation about what percentage of that you need to pay to the IRS and to your state for taxes.

Side Hustles and Estimated Tax

Emily (26:29): This is a little bit nuanced. Um, what I’d like to specifically talk about is how to like sort of add the estimated tax process on top of an existing salary, right? Because this is a side hustle business, so. What would you tell someone who’s, uh, who has that situation, how they should handle their estimated tax?

Hannah (26:50): Yeah, I might tell them to avoid it altogether. Um, honestly, because human behavior being what it is, estimated taxes are manual. You have to do the calculation, you have to make the payment. And we just know from data, you know, from behavioral science that people don’t do things like the, they do the default more often than not. So if you can default your taxes, that’s what you wanna do. So if you’re in the side hustle zone, the thing you wanna understand is that your taxes are holistic. They are all of your income lumped together and your spouses lumped all together and put onto one tax return with one number of what you owe, or you know, what you got a refund for if you overpaid. So if three quarters of your income comes from a job, you know, where you’re an employee and you have payroll withholding your taxes throughout the year, and one quarter of your income is coming from this gig or side hustle, you have enough proportionally money that you could take out of your W2 to never have to pay quarterly taxes. But what you need to do, the action you do need to take is to file a new W four with your employer to adjust your withholding at your day job to over withhold. In other words, you don’t wanna withhold only enough taxes to cover the tax obligation formed by the employment. You wanna overdo it and go into taking enough taxes to account for your self-employment. Um, your gig, your side hustle income that is considered self-employment income. FYI, um, and the taxes on that are always higher than you think because self-employment tax applies to self-employed income. So your employer is paying one half of that amount. It’s one of your wonderful benefits as an employee. You pay both halves when you’re self-employed because you legit are the boss <laugh>. You pay the employee and the boss half of Medicare and social security. And we call that self-employment tax. So my tip there is pull a W 4 off the internet, go to irs.gov, grab yourself a W 4, fill it out. You might need some old pay stubs. You might want last year’s tax return. If you have any bookkeeping from your business year to date, that’s great. Um, or just last year’s tax return. Um, hopefully if that gig was going already last year. And then you just wanna fill out the little, um, paycheck checkup tool on the IRS website that will help you, um, adjust your withholding to essentially give you, you know, the refund level that you wanna have. Um, I recommend zero <laugh>

Emily (29:34): I, it’s the same way I would approach things. That’s how I also teach. Um, anyone, anyone who has a fellowship income, which does not have withholding on it, but who also has W2 income, their spouse or them, that’s the same thing. I say, make this easier on yourself, just fill out a new W 4. But let’s add the added wrinkle of they don’t have the W2 position. Let’s say they’re receiving a fellowship, it already doesn’t have tax withholding on it. Maybe they’re already doing estimated tax because they have that fellowship. Um mm-Hmm. How should they incorporate the self, the self-employed income and, and the income and the self-employment tax from that, um, in with their ongoing like fellowship type income, uh, calculations?

Hannah (30:12): Yeah, well they’re gonna, you’re gonna need to do some degree of bookkeeping or else it’s gonna be a very stressful moment before the tax deadline. Um, and you will, you know, you’ll need to pay quarterly taxes every single quarter that that’s your legal obligation. So under US tax law, if on last year’s tax return you owed more than a thousand dollars, then you have to pay quarterly taxes this year or else you’ll get penalties and interest. Um, and you can pull out last year’s tax return and you can check if you’re in this category. So line 37 of your 1040 personal income tax return is gonna tell you what you owed last year. And if you see a number on there and it’s greater than a thousand, you gotta be paying quarterly taxes this year. Um, PS line 38, the line just below that is your estimated tax penalty <laugh>. So you can look at that line to see if you’re already being punished for not doing this. Um, I think that people, you know, we have a whole tax industry out there trying to, you know, its marketing is based around making us all hate and fear our taxes and actually kind of implicitly training us not to even look at it to just feel so fearful. And so, like hands off that we don’t even look at it. And I’m just here to say, I hate that I disagree with it. Your taxes are yours. Your 1040 is your information and you can, you know, the first two pages of it summarize every single thing that is in that big tax packet. And if you just look at every line on the first two pages, you have massive power. You know what’s happening. Um, and I just told you two lines, the power in those two lines, line 37 and line 38 and that, you know, that will, that will help you kind of get your head around <laugh> whether you have to pay quarterly or not. If you do, um, you know, if you think about what line 37 tax, you know, what you owe, like owing something at tax time is not supposed to happen, right? It does happen. It’s okay. It’s a reconciliation document where we reconcile the actual amount paid versus the expected amount, um, and we settle up the difference. But essentially owing anything means you underpaid your taxes throughout the year. ’cause we live in a pay as you go tax system. You’re supposed to pay your taxes as you go through the year, not all on April 15th.

Emily (32:40): I think what I would say, in addition to what you just said, um, the, the form form 1040, ES, the estimated tax worksheet is a very helpful document in calculating your estimated tax due. Um, people in the audience listening may already be familiar with this for their fellowship income, but you just have to add in a few more lines relevant to the business income and so forth. But if they don’t wanna do more calculations, I think I would tell them just to kind of, as a rule of thumb, set aside an additional 15.3% of their business profit. If there is a profit for that self-employment tax pay, that plus whatever their marginal tax rate is, let’s say it’s 12% usually for graduate students, maybe 22% for some postdocs. Um, if they’re single and just doing that much, if you don’t wanna do like a full calculation is gonna get you, that’s an 80 20 <laugh> on that is to add mm-hmm, that additional amount of money in with either your W 4 or your estimated tax payments if you’re doing it on your fellowship already. Um, but doing the detailed calculation is always gonna be the most, uh, thorough and the most accurate way to go. But Hannah, uh, when you were.

Hannah (33:46): Sure, although keep in, keep in mind ’cause it’s stressful for people. I think like especially if you’re coming to this and you’ve not learned about how estimated quarterly taxes work, um, it’s really important to remember the first word. It is an estimate and you’re not gonna know, like fundamentally you can look at your tax rate from last year, but last year’s tax rate does not guarantee this year’s tax rate, right? So even if you do it in good faith and you did the best possible job, you could, you can still be wrong. And so really, I just encourage you like 80 20 is a good attitude on this because it is called an estimate because you don’t have a crystal ball, like the law cannot compel you to accurately predict a future. So we can all just breathe a sigh of relief and just estimate and that’s okay.

Emily (34:35): The other good thing about paying those quarterly taxes, um, as you go, as you were saying is that, um, there’s never gonna be such a huge balance built up. Like something that often happens in our community with fellowship income is that people get to tax season and they realize they owe three, four, $5,000 because they never paid estimated tax or had tax withholding during the year. And that is a huge shock on like this level of income that we’re talking about. And it can happen with business income too, um, especially if you’re taking distributions from your business and then you’re spending that money. Um, so either keep the money in your business account and don’t take the distributions or as you take the distributions, make sure you’re putting aside something for either your quarterly or your annual tax bill so it doesn’t, doesn’t get away from you <laugh>.

Hannah (35:17): Absolutely. Yeah.

Sunlight Tax and the Sunlight Podcast

Emily (35:19): So just a few minutes ago when you were talking about how, um, you know, our, our system, mostly the tax industry that’s built up around our regulations, they want you to feel a certain way about taxes and in fact you should be empowered about this, et cetera, et cetera. This is a taste of what people can get on your podcast. So I would love you to take a minute and just tell everybody where they can find you, what you put out there, what you do in your business, and if they want to learn more from you or work with you in some way, how they can do that.

Hannah (35:46): Sure. Thanks Emily. Um, well, so my business is Sunlight Tax. If you go to sunlighttax.com, you’ll find everything there. So if you miss something, sunlighttax.com, I have my podcast, which comes out every Tuesday, Sunlight, um, you can find that on my website, sunlighttax.com. Um, I also have a bunch of free resources like, uh, deductions guide, a visual Guide to Tax Deductions, which you can also find on my website. Um, I offer a lot of free courses, including a recent one about, um, LLCs. If you go to sunlighttax.com/llc, if you happen to have formed an LLC for your side hustle or your business, um, there’s a mandatory, a mandatory new report required, um, from the US Treasury <laugh>. Um, but also I have a program called Money Bootcamp where I teach, um, people how to set up very simple systems to track your taxes, um, pay your estimates and fund your retirement using tax advantage accounts. So, um, all of that you can find @ sunlighttax.com and,

Emily (36:51): Excellent.

Hannah (36:51): Yeah.

Best Financial Advice for Another Early-Career PhD

Emily (36:52): Yes, and I will definitely personally vouch for the podcast because I am a listener every single week and I learn something new every week and I think it’s great. Um, okay, Hannah, I’m gonna end by asking you the question that I ask all my guests, which is, what is your best financial advice for an early career PhD? A grad student, a postdoc, someone recently out of their PhD training? Um, and that can be something that we’ve touched on already that’s related to tax, or it could be something completely aside from what we’ve discussed.

Hannah (37:19): Sure. Um, I’ll say this, it’s a bit of my personal religion, but, um, if you have never played with a compound interest calculator and seeing what the power of your money is when it is invested, um, please do yourself that favor, <laugh>. Um, and I would say do not just write yourself off. Say, I am broke right now. I will wait to put money in an IRA I really highly encourage you, if you do nothing else, maintaining an annual habit of maxing out your IRA will put you in a better position. Um, it, it will, you know, you invest the money inside the IRA so it will grow with compound interest and tax sheltered. So it’s really a wonderful thing that works when you start young <laugh>. You don’t wanna miss five years of compounding because you’re in grad school. Um, if you can, you know, just make it your religion to do it every single year without skipping, I think that is my best piece of advice. And believe you as a 45-year-old woman, woman, <laugh> talking to you, I, I wish for everyone here that we could all have started at the age that you are now. Um, and the age you are now is only it, you know, the best time to start this investments your investments was 20 years ago, but the second best time is now.

Emily (38:41): Love that advice. You touched on my two favorite topics today, taxes and investing. So it’s amazing. <laugh>. I will also just say, I mean, I love the goal of maxing out an IRA, but that’s not gonna be possible for many people. So even if it’s just, um, $50 a month, a hundred, 200, whatever you can do, be in the habit of it. And do as much as you can. And then absolutely, once you get that higher income from your lovely post-PhD job, then you can really ramp it up and use your 401k and use everything else. But having that habit of doing it from earlier and having sort of developing the identity of I am an investor and understanding things like compound interest that is gonna serve you so well later on, um, not just the dollars and the numbers, but all that psychology that comes along with it.

Hannah (39:24): Absolutely. Yeah. They, they show that even very, very poor people who have a savings account save more because just having it there helps you do it. So if you haven’t opened an IRA yet, I encourage you to do it this year. Even if it, even if you put 10 bucks in <laugh>, like open it. The fact that it’s there is setting up the infrastructure to make it easier to do that, you know, thing. And really saving, savings and investing is a muscle. So think of it as like a muscle that you have to get in some reps to get good at.

Emily (39:55): I love it. Hannah, thank you so much for joining me today. It’s been a wonderful episode and thanks again.

Hannah (40:02): Thanks so much, Emily. I really loved joining you today.

Outtro

Emily (40:15): Listeners, thank you for joining me for this episode! I have a gift for you! You know that final question I ask of all my guests regarding their best financial advice? My team has collected short summaries of all the answers ever given on the podcast into a document that is updated with each new episode release. You can gain access to it by registering for my mailing list at PFforPhDs.com/advice/. Would you like to access transcripts or videos of each episode? I link the show notes for each episode from PFforPhDs.com/podcast/. See you in the next episode, and remember: You don’t have to have a PhD to succeed with personal finance… but it helps! Nothing you hear on this podcast should be taken as financial, tax, or legal advice for any individual. The music is “Stages of Awakening” by Podington Bear from the Free Music Archive and is shared under CC by NC. Podcast editing by Dr. Lourdes Bobbio and show notes creation by Dr. Jill Hoffman.

This Grad Student Puts Half Her Stipend Paycheck into High-Yield Savings

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In this episode, Emily interviews Maggie Canady, a rising second-year grad student at the University of California at Irvine, on her budget breakdown. Maggie gives us a peek into her life via her top five expenses each month, which are rent, car insurance, groceries, utilities, and travel. Despite taking a pay cut when she started grad school, Maggie maintains close to a 50% savings rate on her stipend. Maggie and Emily end their conversation by discussing how Maggie can get started with passive investing.

Links mentioned in the Episode

This Grad Student Puts Half Her Stipend Paycheck into High-Yield Savings

Teaser

Maggie (00:00): I live in a, uh, beautiful, like two story craftsman house here in LA and I have three other roommates. One of them is my boyfriend. Our house is, uh, $4,500 like total, and there’s four roommates total, and we split it four ways evenly. So we each pay, um, 1100. My boyfriend and I share, um, the like master bedroom, the larger bedroom. Yeah, I’ve lived in this house for two years now. It’s been great. I love my place and that’s also why I’m kind of doing the commute from LA to Irvine because I really love the community I’ve built out here.

Introduction

Emily (00:44): Welcome to the Personal Finance for PhDs Podcast: A Higher Education in Personal Finance. This podcast is for PhDs and PhDs-to-be who want to explore the hidden curriculum of finances to learn the best practices for money management, career advancement, and advocacy for yourself and others. I’m your host, Dr. Emily Roberts, a financial educator specializing in early-career PhDs and founder of Personal Finance for PhDs.

Emily (01:13): This is Season 19, Episode 2, and today my guest is Maggie Canady, a rising second-year grad student at the University of California, Irvine, and we break down her budget. Maggie gives us a peek into her life via her top five expenses each month, which are rent, car insurance, groceries, utilities, and travel. Despite taking a pay cut when she started grad school, Maggie maintains close to a 50% savings rate on her stipend. Maggie and I end our conversation by discussing how Maggie can get started with passive investing.

Emily (01:47): Let’s talk fellowship taxes for a minute here. These action items are for you if you recently switched or will soon switch onto non-W-2 fellowship income as a grad student, postdoc, or postbac; you are a US citizen, resident, or resident for tax purposes; and you are not having income tax withheld from your stipend or salary. Action item #1: Fill out the Estimated Tax Worksheet on page 8 of IRS Form 1040-ES. This worksheet will estimate how much income tax you will owe in 2024 and tell you whether you are required to make manual tax payments on a quarterly basis. The next quarterly estimated tax due date is September 16, 2024. Action item #2: Whether you are required to make estimated tax payments or pay a lump sum at time tax, open a separate, named savings account for your future tax payments. Calculate the fraction of each paycheck that will ultimately go toward tax and set up an automated recurring transfer from your checking account to your tax savings account to prepare for that bill. This is what I call a system of self-withholding, and I suggest putting it in place starting with your very first fellowship paycheck so that you don’t get into a financial bind when the payment deadline arrives.

Emily (03:07): If you need some help with the Estimated Tax Worksheet or want to ask me a question, please consider joining my workshop, Quarterly Estimated Tax for Fellowship Recipients. It explains every line of the worksheet and answers the common questions that PhD trainees have about estimated tax. The workshop includes 1.75 hours of video content, a spreadsheet, and invitations to at least one live Q&A call each quarter this tax year. The next Q&A call is this coming Friday, September 13, 2024. If you want to purchase this workshop as an individual, go to PF fsor PhDs dot com slash Q E tax. You can find the show notes for this episode at PFforPhDs.com/s19e2/. Without further ado, here’s my interview with Maggie Canady.

Will You Please Introduce Yourself Further?

Emily (04:14): I am delighted to have joining me on the podcast today, Maggie Canady. She is a current graduate student at UC Irvine, and today we’re doing a budget breakdown and we haven’t done one of those in a really long time, so I’m very excited about it. So Maggie, would you please introduce yourself to the audience a little bit further?

Maggie (04:30): Yes. Hi, everyone and Hi, Dr. Emily Roberts. That’s so, I’m so happy to be here. Um, my name is Maggie Canady. I am a rising second year clinical psych PhD student at UC Irvine. I’m originally from Dallas, Texas. I received my bachelor’s degree from Harvard in 2020 where I majored in psychology and minored in dance. Um, really broadly, my research interests, interests include understanding the risk and resilience factors around trauma exposure, as well as, um, learning about culturally responsive trauma interventions.

Emily (05:07): Okay, fascinating. And actually now that I know that you had a little bit of a gap between finishing undergrad and starting graduate school, let us know what you were doing during that period.

Maggie (05:17): Yeah, so my first year after I graduated and obviously graduated during the pandemic, I received a traveling fellowship from Harvard and I was supposed to be in Southeast Asia for a year. Um, that obviously couldn’t happen, so they said, okay, we’ll still give you the money, um, but you have to choose and create a project that stays in one state. So for my first year I was interviewing and photographing mixed race individuals and doing a, um, kind of like ethnographic project, um, about mixed race identity. And then after that I worked full time as a research assistant at the University of Southern California.

Emily (05:54): Okay. And I’m trying to sort of place some numbers on those kinds of jobs, like did you take a pay decrease when you started graduate school from that assistantship position?

Maggie (06:04): Yes, I did. So, um, at USC I was making about, I think I was making about $48,000 a year, $49,000 a year, and then went to a graduate student, uh, stipend <laugh> after that.

Current Stipend, Additional Income, and Household Size

Emily (06:17): Yeah, go ahead. Tell us what is your stipend right now?

Maggie (06:20): So this past year as a first year, I made a total of $29,125. Um, and that was for nine months of working as a part-time teaching assistant, which is defined as about 20 hours of work a week. Um, I also received a diversity recruitment fellowship of about $5,000 when I first started, and then I also received a merit award to help with summer costs, um, which I received at the beginning of the summer for $3,000. Um, this upcoming year I’ll make about $35,000, and this is due to the 2022 strike, um, that happened all across UC campuses. So starting, um, this, this year, the lowest paid workers will make $34,000. And then based on your level of experience, you make a little bit more incrementally. So this upcoming year I’ll make 35,000, which is great.

Emily (07:14): And that’s again for teaching assistantship, is that right?

Maggie (07:16): Yes, uhhuh.

Emily (07:17): Wow, I’m so glad to hear that. I’m so glad to hear that was the, the effect and also that you had some bridge funding for last year to kind of bring you closer up to that a number that you know, we will get to in this upcoming year. That’s really, really good to hear. Do you have any sources of income outside of your stipend?

Maggie (07:35): I occasionally tutor and babysit, but it’s very like one off and kind of just if my schedule allows, I’m also a dancer and I’ll get paid for gigs occasionally, um, like music video gigs or performance gigs. Um, but that’s more for like my own interest and like personhood as opposed to depending on that as, as like a source of income.

Emily (07:59): I see. Okay. And is there anyone other than you in your household, any living beings?

Maggie (08:05): Living beings? Yes. So I live in a, uh, beautiful, like two story craftsman house here in LA and I have three other roommates. One of them is my boyfriend, um, my boyfriend and I split a lot of the house grocery expenses, but when I pay my taxes at the end of the year, it’s just me.

Emily (08:24): Gotcha. Um, so no dependents, but you do have people, your boyfriend and other roommates that you’re sharing expenses with.

Maggie (08:30): Exactly.

Current Financial Goals and 50% Savings Rate

Emily (08:32): Alright. Are you currently working towards any financial goals?

Maggie (08:36): So I would eventually love to buy a house that feels a little bit, um, kind of like of a, a dream in the far distance right now, just with my stipend and how crazy California is with, um, like yeah. Houses. Um, but it’s definitely in the back of my mind, mind and when I put money into savings, that’s kind of what I’m thinking. I also love to travel, so I feel like I’m always kind of planning a trip or thinking about a trip and having money tucked away for a trip. I feel like when I think about my budget budgeting categories, that’s definitely one of them that I’m always, um, saving money for.

Emily (09:15): Okay. So you are, you do have some kind of savings rate for this like eventual house goal, um, and that could be several years away. Are you keeping that money in, in cash right now in like a savings account or are you investing it in some way?

Maggie (09:29): So I have, uh, Robin Hood and I am investing it, but I also have a high yield savings account. Um, and so I, this is like kind of one of my like tips or things that I learned this year, but, um, my 50% of my direct deposit goes directly to a high yield savings account and that, uh, a, that high-yield savings account is not connected to any of my credit cards or any of the ways that I spend money. So I feel like it’s just like this pot of money that, um, is really growing, which is really awesome. Um, and then I will also invest, um, invest like kind of every other month or so depending on like my schedule.

Emily (10:06): Wow, okay. A 50% savings rate. So once the money goes into the high yield savings account, does it come back out for spending in the present, like for travel, for example, like you just mentioned?

Maggie (10:16): I try not to, I try to really use like my 50% and, and go from there, but I definitely can pull from it and like have in the past, but I really try not to, I try to not touch it.

Emily (10:28): Okay. Wow. So you’re, you’re close to a 50% savings rate then. Yeah. This is something I’ve never heard of from <laugh>, a graduate students, so, okay. Now I’m very interested to hear how you’re managing your expenses to make that happen on the stipend numbers, um, that you mentioned. So that’s incredible. Let’s start talking about that. So we’re gonna go through your top five largest monthly expenses. And tell me first, are we hearing about these top five expenses based on like your average spending over the last year or like what you budget or like just last month or how did you come to this list?

Budget Breakdown: Housing and Car Insurance

Maggie (10:58): Yeah, so a couple of them are set in stone. Like my rent for instance is set in stone, that’s every month. My car insurance, I pay, um, every six months, so I just averaged it out for each month, but I pay it kind of in bulk. Um, and then my groceries, utilities, and, um, like flights that I pay for, um, that’s kind of an average. Um, so yeah, my rent is my biggest expense. Of course, it’s $1,100 a month. Um, so I’m, I immediately automatically budgeting for that.

Emily (11:30): Okay. So $1,100 per month for rent. Are you sharing? Okay. Just tell me more about the house. Like how many bedrooms are there? Yeah, how many people are there? Are you sharing a bedroom with your boyfriend and then you’re splitting it? Like, just tell me how you came to this number and what the house looks like.

Maggie (11:43): Yes, so fair. So, um, our house is, uh, $4,500, um, like total and there’s four roommates total and we split it four ways evenly. So we each pay, um, 1100. Well, we used to pay, we used to pay 1125 each. Um, but we have like a apartment. It’s kind of a long story, but now we each pay 1100, um, and we split it evenly. My boyfriend and I share, um, the like master bedroom, the larger bedroom. Um, and yeah, I’ve lived, uh, in this house for two years now. Um, we’ve lived together for coming up on four years. It’s about like three and a half right now. Um, and we’ve always split the rent evenly. Um, yeah, it’s been great. I love my place and that’s also why I’m kind of doing the commute from LA to Irvine because I really love the community I’ve built out here. Um, so yeah, 1100 and that’s what everyone in the house pays.

Emily (12:40): Gotcha, okay. Yes. ’cause I didn’t realize that you weren’t close to the university. So how long was your commute?

Maggie (12:46): My commute is anywhere <laugh> from 40 minutes to an hour and a half. Um, but I usually take the train and the train is like a clean an hour, 20 door to door, and I’m doing work on the train, et cetera. But if I drive, it varies depending on the traffic.

Emily (13:05): And do you commute every day? Every weekday?

Maggie (13:08): I, so during the school year, I commuted every day for the first two quarters, so about two thirds of the year. And then the last quarter I commuted for, I think it was, I think it was three days a week. Um, it really just depends on the quarter. It, and like these first two years are the most class intensive obviously. Um, so I will be commuting every day. And then the expectation is that as classes lessen more of my research becomes kind of independent. I won’t have to commute as much. And so it was like this real back and forth that I went of like, okay, do I move down to Irvine and like, do I kind of lose this community that I have but I’m closer to school or do I invest in kind of like my personal happiness and then have this balance? Um, and obviously I cho chose to stay in Los Angeles, um, and it’s, it’s been great. Um, occasionally I’ll house sit down in Irvine, which I guess is also, I don’t make money from it, but it is like kind of a relief from the commute. So it is an investment in some sorts but I’ll house, sit, dog sit, uh, closer, closer to campus.

Emily (14:12): I’m curious, um, how you and your roommates found this house,

Maggie (14:17): Craigslist, <laugh>? Yeah, so we were living in, um, echo Park, um, which is different neighborhood in la and we were looking for a new place that was slightly bigger. So we looked for about a year, really, I think eight years, eight months to a year. Um, and then my boyfriend found this place on Craigslist before it was on Zillow in the other, um, rental websites. So we were the first to apply. Um, we had three interviews with the landlords because they wanted to, um, rent to a family. Um, yeah, so they wanted to rent to a family. Um, but we convinced them that, you know, we all have incomes and steady incomes and that we’re reliable. So it’s been great. They’ve been great landlords.

Emily (15:05): Oh, that’s really interesting. I’m glad I asked about that. <laugh>. Um, yeah, ’cause I don’t talk with too many graduate students who live in houses with multiple roommates, but I think it can be a very cost effective, um, situation. So anyway, I’m, I’m just glad to hear all those details about yours.

Maggie (15:19): Oh my gosh. Yeah. I feel like it’s just like such a great perk of Los Angeles, that there’s so many beautiful, like artisanal houses and we have a front in the backyard and laundry and, you know, AC and uh, a fireplace. Like there’s so many, like, I don’t know, homey perks of it. And it is cost effective, which is sick.

Emily (15:37): All right. Number two, expense

Maggie (15:40): Car insurance. Um, so I pay $300 a month for a car insurance, which is definitely on the higher end. Um, I recently got an electric vehicle and it was a more expensive premium because of that. Um, yeah, my car insurance expires in September, so I’m definitely gonna be shopping around for a cheaper premium. So if you have any recommendations, I’ll definitely take them. Um, yeah, so it’s 300 a month.

Emily (16:10): I actually don’t have recommendations because I just found out that our car insurance company is pulling out of California.

Maggie (16:16): Wait, mine too.

Emily (16:16): I was using E-surance.

Maggie (16:18): Yes, same.

Emily (16:19): Okay. So we will both be shopping around.

Maggie (16:21): Okay.

Emily (16:21): For insurance on our electric vehicles. ’cause I also recently got an electric vehicle. Um, tell me, yeah, you too. How did you acquire this car? Because I’m not seeing a car payment on your list of expenses.

Maggie (16:33): Yeah, so I had a little electric car, um, before this one. It was like a little 2015 Nissan. Um, and I bought it on Facebook marketplace. Um, and it just didn’t go the distance. Like I had to charge it constantly, um, and all of that. So I was selling this car, I I put it on Facebook marketplace and then after about three to four months on Facebook marketplace, someone, um, purchased it. So I had, um, like that immediate check. Um, and I had, I’d say about like, so the car was 30, $37,000. I had this like about $10,000, $11,000 check from the car I sold. So then it was $26,000. I had about half of that money that I could, you know, I had allotted to like buy a new car. And then my parents helped me with the last like $12,000. So that’s how I bought the car full out. And then when I got my tax return in April, I got $7,500 back from that that I was able to give back to my parents. Um, so, so I’m, I know that math is kind of hard to like, speak out loud without seeing it. Uh, my parents probably gave about $5,000 to help me just like pay it out in full. And I had the rest in savings, the rest with selling my last car and then the, uh, tax stipend.

Emily (18:02): Yeah. Amazing. Um, I guess you probably had a pretty high savings rate during your last position as well, right? Making more money living in this same place. It sounds like same people.

Maggie (18:13): Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>.

Emily (18:13): So similar rent.

Maggie (18:15): Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>.

Emily (18:15): Um, yeah, so I, I see how that savings account was, was healthy enough to help you with that purchase, so that’s amazing not to have a car payment during graduate school, but, uh, yeah, hopefully we can get that insurance, uh, monthly cost down a little bit. I mean, you and I were probably both with insurance because it was a pretty good bargain <laugh> the last time we looked around, but hopefully there will be another bargain that we can both find. Um,

Maggie (18:36): I hope so. Yeah. <laugh>.

Emily (18:37): Yeah. Anything else you wanna say about that? Car insurance?

Maggie (18:40): Yeah, I guess this is more of like, um, kind of like a bigger thing, but, um, like my, my parents are like huge savers and I feel like I have like a very kind of like conservative background when it comes to money of like, okay, I’m going to like save my money and like, really just like, be aware of like, what’s coming in. And so I feel like I, I’m like always like, like nesting acorns or something, <laugh> with my money, which has been, has really paid off with like these bigger, um, payments. Um, so yeah, I, I think that that’s where it’s coming from of like, ’cause I know it’s like kind of insane to have like 50% of my income going to payments. Uh, sorry, 50% of my like, um, income’s going to savings. Um, but yeah, so I think that that’s where that’s coming from of this like very like, almost like must conserve my resources. Um, yeah.

Emily (19:35): Okay. Well let’s put a pin in that. We’ll come back to it at the end of the interview.

Commercial

Emily (19:41): Emily here for a brief interlude. Would you like to learn directly from me on a personal finance topic, such as taxes, budgeting, investing, and goal-setting, each tailored specifically for graduate students and postdocs? I offer workshops on these topics and more in a variety of formats, and I’m now booking for the 2024-2025 academic year. If you would like to bring my content to your institution, would you please recommend me as a speaker or facilitator to your university, graduate school, graduate student association, or postdoc office? My seminars are usually slated as professional development or personal wellness. Ask the potential host to go to PFforPhDs.com/financial-education/ or simply email me at [email protected] to start the process. I really appreciate these recommendations, which are the best way for me to start a conversation with a potential host. The paid work I do with universities and institutes enables me to keep producing this podcast and all my other free resources. Thank you in advance if you decide to issue a recommendation! Now back to our interview.

Budget Breakdown: Groceries, Utilities, and Travel

Emily (20:56): Let’s continue with our list. What’s your third largest monthly expense?

Maggie (21:02): Um, my third largest is groceries. And so I split this with my boyfriend. Um, but even after splitting, it’s anywhere between like one 50 to two 50 a month. Um, I love to cook and we’re always kind of cooking meals, so that’s part of it and that’s more cost effective. But groceries are expensive. Like I can see the difference even from being here since 2020. Like it’s just, it’s just crazy.

Emily (21:30): Yeah. But that number actually seems pretty low to me. I mean, I also <laugh> grocery shopping, cook for a family of four, but it’s two little kids, so it’s not that much more than, you know, just two adults and, uh, we spend quite a bit more than that. So you must be doing something right. Tell us about a few of your go-to meals.

Maggie (21:47): So we have, um, a Costco membership. And so like, we’ll get like a rotisserie chicken, like $5 rotisserie chicken from Costco.

Emily (21:54): The loss leader.

Maggie (21:56): Um, Yes, love, um, big fried rice, stir fry kind of people. I just made like a shrimp fried rice, so frozen shrimp and then whatever veggies I have. And, um, we buy like a 20 pound thing of rice, which is awesome. Um, soups, I, not really right now ’cause it’s summer, but I’m a big soup girl <laugh>, and that’ll last, like, that’ll be made in bulk on like a Sunday, and then I’ll use that as like meal prep for the week. Um, and then I eat like, pretty light breakfasts, like I’ll buy like a pack of like a big thing of yogurt and like granola. Um, yeah. Yeah.

Emily (22:36): So eating out does not appear in your top five expenses, but let us know where that falls in the list. Like, are you eating out, how often do you do? So,

Maggie (22:45): Uh, it really depends on my social battery <laugh>, which I feel is like this pendulum swing. And, um, like, so I was in Europe, um, this, um, at the first two weeks of this month, and like my shopping was like through the roof, like my eating out obviously because, you know, we were on vacation and so like when I came back I like shut my doors, like grabbed my groceries and like, have been cooking, like eating in just because like I can’t, like eat out for the whole month. Um, and then when I’m back in LA like it’ll kind of depend on like, oh, okay. I’ll feel like, oh, I have a little bit more free time in my schedule, so I’ll see more of my friends and then we’ll like go like, grab a drink or we’ll go out to eat. Um, and then I’ll like feel like, oh no, I’m way too stressed. I have to like, just can’t see anyone have to stay in and then I’ll just do that. Um, yeah, so it really kind of varies. Um, but when I, I do go out, I try to just like go for coffee or like, um, frozen yogurt or something, like, something that it’s like still I’m, I’m still paying for something, but I’m not paying like 30 bucks for a meal, you know?

Emily (23:56): Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> especially if your purpose is to see people, then it doesn’t really matter how much money you’re spending on the food or whatever, it’s more having this setting to to be together with other people.

Maggie (24:06): Yes, exactly.

Emily (24:07): And how about, um, takeout or, you know, DoorDash, GrubHub? Do you do any of that?

Maggie (24:13): So, no, my mom owns a restaurant. She’s had a restaurant for like 30 years and I worked for her growing up. Um, and then even throughout college whenever I was back. Um, and GrubHub and DoorDash just like are so awful to small business owners. Um, and so kind of seeing like behind the scenes, I was just like, I, I cannot endorse this. So it’s like more of a personal value. Um, but I, I don’t, I don’t, DoorDash, yes, <laugh>. Um, I’d say utilities, they average about $75 a month. Um, it’s $25 for, um, wifi and then like somewhere between like, like 10 to $20 for gas. And then depending on the month, the rest of it is, um, uh, electricity. So anywhere, honestly, probably like closer to 75 to a hundred dollars a month. Like it really just depend, like we’ve had the ac blasting this, you know, this past month, so it’s going, it’s gonna be a lot higher than usual, but then kind of in the fall and spring it’s, it’s very, very little, very minimal.

Emily (25:26): Yeah. And this is one of those areas where having the multiple roommates really, really helps because yes, your utilities go up a little bit more with the higher square footage, but things like internet, like that’s just gonna scale down. Right, exactly.

Maggie (25:38): Yeah. Yeah, yeah. That’s exactly right.

Emily (25:40): Sounds great. And your last expense? The fifth one,

Maggie (25:43): My last one, it’s, uh, most recently been flights. Um, I’ve been trying to buy like my holiday flights early and then, like I said, I was in Europe, so I bought those flights. Um, the most recent flight I bought was for my parents actually to come visit me. Uh, my dad had a coupon and then for my mom’s, uh, ticket was $400 round trip. And so like kind of going back to that, like travel as like a bucket for my budgeting, like it’s, it’s one of those things that I’m like, I will be traveling home for the holidays or like, I want my family to come see me or I wanna go on vacation. So it’s one of those things that I just, I’m like, okay, this is where money is gonna go, you know?

Emily (26:24): Yeah. And with a 50% savings rate, nobody can argue with spending a little bit on travel as well. Um, tell us about your, um, strategies around buying flights, if there are any. Like, are you loyal to any airlines? Do you use any certain credit cards? Like how do you work this?

Travel Credit Cards

Maggie (26:40): So I have a Southwest credit card, which honestly has not been as great as I expected. Um, but I’m from Dallas and uh, Southwest, um, has like love, uh, love Field Airport, which is 10 minutes from my house. So it’s, um, it’s nice to have the Southwest credit card because I am building points on that and I try to use those when I can, but the flights are usually quite expensive still. I also have a, um, I have to look at the exact one, but it’s a Chase, like traveling credit card and that’s been great.

Emily (27:14): The Sapphire Preferred, I’m assuming?

Maggie (27:16): Yes.

Emily (27:16): Okay.

Maggie (27:16): Yes, the Sapphire Preferred. I love that card. I try to do like all of my expenses on that card and that card actually paid for my flight to Europe this past time, like after, like, just spending for the entire year. And I love that. So those are my two. I also have a Amex Blue Preferred, which gives 6% back on groceries. Um, and so I’ll just give that back as like a, um, kind of like cash, like return. Um, so yeah, those are my, my top three.

Emily (27:51): Uh, what airline did you use for your trip to Europe?

Maggie (27:53): Oh, great question. I used, um, I think it was, I’m, I will probably get the name wrong. France Air or like Air France. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. Okay. Yeah. Um, because they’re a partner with Chase and so I was able to transfer my points from Chase to Air France.

Emily (28:10): Yeah, I’m, I’m quite familiar with the Chase system because I also was trying to be loyal to Southwest for a little while. Um, it’s a little bit easier actually with the family because we can do the Southwest Companion Pass, which is a really great like, value. Are you familiar with it?

Maggie (28:26): Yes. That’s amazing.

Emily (28:27): Yeah, so like you can always take one for the listeners once you earn the companion pass. You can always take one when, when the primary person books a flight, they can always take a companion with them on any flight, unlike some other airlines where it’s like once per year. Nope, it’s every flight as long as there’s a seat available, um, for free, which is amazing. Uh, but anyway, the Chase points Trav, uh, transfer to Southwest as you probably know. So I was working that system for a little while. And smart. Yeah. Seeing where else the Chase points could go. ’cause we also have the, um, the Sapphire preferred card, but I haven’t gotten into any of the other systems yet. Like I’m not an Amex, you know, so it’s something to explore and see what those partners are. ’cause yeah, I mean, using credit card rewards for travel seems to be the kind of the biggest bang for your buck.

Maggie (29:07): Yes, I totally agree. And I feel like I’m like so sold on Chase as like my credit card because of how many flights and like how many points I get that I can then transfer. I’ve heard that for American Express, like it’ll start paying off once you have like the platinum or whatever, like the highest kind of credit cards are, and I’m just not, I’m just not ready to spend like $600 a year on a credit card. So I haven’t yet, but <laugh> maybe one day.

Emily (29:34): Um, yeah. Well this is really exciting. So you’re spending quite a bit on travel, but you’re also trying to optimize as what, as much as you can with points and so forth. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. Um, and it seems like you’re sort of using that, uh, save the high yield savings account that you split your paycheck into as, um, what I would call a, a targeted savings account, at least to a degree. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> because you can pull from that account when you have these like large flights or whatever coming up, right?

Maggie (29:57): Exactly. Yeah, you’ve got it exactly on the head.

Saving Vs. Investing

Emily (30:01): Okay. Um, so the question I kind of wanted to come back to is why are you saving and not investing given that you have quite a high savings rate and you could be doing some of both?

Maggie (30:12): Yeah, that’s a great question. I honestly feel like it’s from a, like lack of knowledge around investing. Like I know that investing kind of consistently and monthly and like diversifying your assets is the way to go, but I feel like there’s still a bit of fear for me there. And kind of going back to this idea of like where my parents came from of like saving, like my, my mom and I just got into investing in 2020, so it’s kind of this new endeavor for both of us and she’s really gotten into investing, um, in the past few years. Um, and for me, like, it’s just, I haven’t put that like energy into like really knowing what I’m doing. Um, but I feel like that’s potentially like a financial goal I can work on, um, alongside like saving for a house, um, just because there is like so many benefits, um, to it. So if you have any advice for me, I would definitely take it.

Emily (31:14): Yeah, I mean, I, I said a second ago that you weren’t investing, but that’s not quite true, right? Because you are using Robinhood Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> you said sort of inconsistently. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. What kind of investing are you doing with Robinhood? Like what are you investing in?

Maggie (31:26): Um, like I’ll invest, you know, I have to honestly go back and like, look, it’s kind of all over the map. Like, like I, it would be like Apple <laugh>,

Emily (31:37): But single stocks is what we’re talking about.

Maggie (31:39): Yes. Yeah, Exactly.

Emily (31:39): Not Like, um, ETFs or something

Maggie (31:41): Like that. No, not ETFs. Yeah. Okay. And see, like I, I feel like I can feel myself like not even really know, like exactly like feel, not feeling super confident in like having a conversation about it because I, it’s just, it’s like a place where there’s a big gap in my financial knowledge. Um, so yeah, I think that that’s definitely like kind of a next step for me. Um, yeah.

Emily (32:04): Yeah. Well I have, I have content recommendations for you, please. Are you more of a reader or more of a podcast listener? Um,

Maggie (32:13): Podcasts, I think for, especially with my drives,

Emily (32:16): So there’s a very, uh, well known person in the, uh, the fire space, the financial independence and early retirement space. His name is JL Collins. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And he has a book, if you are a reader, I would recommend his book. Okay. But since you’re a listener, I would say find his interviews, which he goes on a lot of different podcasts, but he’s been on, for example, the Choose Fi podcast several times. So I, I would go find like the earliest one or two interviews where they’re probably going over the basics of, uh, his book is titled The Simple Path to Wealth. So it’s all about this strategy, which is passive investing, which is investing in, um, index funds and ETFs that are based on indices. And so it’s a very like set it and forget it kind of investing strategy, which I really like. And it’s the kind of strategy that I teach also because it’s the most effective Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>

Emily (33:02): In terms of the money that you’ll have at the end of the decades, like in your pocket because you’re paying very little in fees and you’re not letting your, um, psychology and your human emotions, you know, get in the, in the way, in the way of like your investing strategy. So I would go find some interviews with him, definitely on Choose fi. You can probably just search like your podcast player for Col j Collins and hopefully some interviews will come up. But choose FI for sure, has him. Um, I might also suggest Afford Anything that’s another podcast name. I bet he’s been on that podcast too, although I haven’t listened through all the archives extensively. So yeah, just find, find a few interviews with him and see if you sort of like his argument, his philosophy.

Maggie (33:42): This is so helpful. Thank you so much. And I will definitely check out The Simple Path to Wealth. Um, I have like two free audio book credits for some reason right now, so that’ll be one of ’em. <laugh>.

Emily (33:54): Yeah, I don’t know if it’s an audio book. I certainly heard Hope it is Okay, because it is very popular, so hopefully they have turned it into an audio book. But I’m curious, um, whether he the author is the one who’s reading it or whether they hired someone else. He has a very like deep like gravelly like old man voice, which actually think would be great for an audio book. So, um, yeah, I’m curious if if he’s the one who’s who, uh, read it or not. Um, but yeah, start, start there, I would say.

Maggie (34:19): Okay. I definitely will. And if, like, I’ll definitely take a book recommendation too, especially with the summer. I have like ex like exponentially more free time. Mm-Hmm. So

Emily (34:27): The one After The Simple Path to Wealth that’s also great on investing is Ramit Sethi’s book, I Will Teach You To Be Rich. Mm-Hmm. And that’s on more broad personal finance topics, but he’s, he does have a couple chapters devoted to investing, passive investing. So that would be another good one to read.

Maggie (34:42): Thank you. That’s so helpful.

Emily (34:44): Oh, sure. I mean, you are already, honestly most of the way to winning the game by just having like a very high savings rate on obviously a limited income and really dialing in your expenses. Obviously you’ve thought a lot about what you value, um, in the travel and so forth. So like you’re already doing a ton of stuff really well, and if you decide you want to, you know, devote some of that very high savings rate toward investing, you’ll really be able to grow your money, um, over the next few years. And even, um, this is not like advice, but depending on how far out that potential house purchase is, um, you know, a savings account might not be the most appropriate place for it. Some conservative invest investments might be an appropriate place, but it kinda depends on what your timeline is on, on that front. So it’s just something to think about. Like you could do a split, right? You can do a certain percentage into just straight savings, a certain percentage into investing. Maybe some of it’s for long term, some is for medium term. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, um, again with high savings rate you kind of can’t go wrong. Um, yeah. With choosing where you wanna put that money.

Maggie (35:42): Yeah, that’s a great point. Yeah. Okay. This is a great summer project. I am excited to Yeah. Kinda go down this route.

Emily (35:50): Yeah. Um, I hope the listeners enjoyed this because this is a really, you know, unique example of like living in a very high cost of living area. But as we were talking about kind of setting those highest, you know, the, the expenses that are, have the potential be the biggest in the budget, the rent, the transportation, getting those set at the, the best level that you can and sort of letting everything else fall where it may, and, and doing that, um, strategy of paying yourself first by splitting your paycheck. These are really great examples. So I wanna say to the listeners, if anybody else wants to come on and do a budget breakdown, I love doing these kinds of episodes. I wanna hear from people all over the country with all different kinds of stipends, and it’ll be every one single one is gonna be a very different story. Right.

Best Financial Advice for Another Early-Career PhD

Emily (36:29): Um, so Maggie, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. I’d love to ask you the final question that I end all my interviews with, which is, what is your best financial advice for another early career PhD? And it could be something that we’ve touched on already in the interview, or it could be something completely new.

Maggie (36:44): Ooh, okay. Yes. Well, a couple things We’ve already touched on. High-yield savings account. Definitely recommend that. Um, I use SoFi because I had a great offer. Um, so kind of look at whatever has, you know, a great, uh, high interest rate. Um, like I said, the, you know, trying to like immediately put my direct deposit into savings and into that high yield savings account, so I don’t even have to think about it, um, was like kind of a great, like passive like, or, you know, intentional act that now has become like routine. So that was really helpful. Um, I listened to, um, financial Feminists by Tori, uh, Dunlap this, uh, at the beginning of this year. And I feel like it was a really like great, um, like supportive start into thinking about finances, um, because she really breaks things down and you don’t feel like overwhelmed or Yeah, she, it just feels like it comes from like a context in a place in a positionality that I also, uh, subscribe to.

Emily (37:48): And that was the audiobook version, right? Yes. She has a podcast as well. I don’t think it’s called Financial Feminist though.

Maggie (37:53): No, it was the audiobook. Yes. Great distinction. Um, and that’s where I learned about, um, kind of like values and having like when you’re thinking about budgeting, kind of breaking up the budgeting into buckets and like three buckets that you care about. Um, and that was a really helpful framework. And then this is kind of like a small piece of advice. Sorry, I feel like I, I just have my list, so I was like, oh, lemme just say it. Go for it. Um, but institutions have money and like applying for stuff, my first year was really fruitful. Like I was a mentor and received a stipend, you know, like I was a volunteer for a conference and I received a stipend. Um, yeah, just like reading the emails weekly, weekly emails you might get from your institution and just like checking those for additional pockets of money.

Emily (38:42): Great. Great advice. Um, you won’t be needing it as much, right? With a massive pay increase that you’re gonna enjoy this year, but should still be available to you should you want to access those opportunities and amazing. Well, Maggie, thank you so much again for volunteering to come on the podcast and sharing your life with us for the last half hour.

Maggie (38:59): Of course. And thank you so much for having this podcast. It’s so helpful for people like me. So yeah, I really appreciate you.

Emily (39:06): You’re absolutely welcome.

Outtro

Emily (39:16): Listeners, thank you for joining me for this episode! I have a gift for you! You know that final question I ask of all my guests regarding their best financial advice? My team has collected short summaries of all the answers ever given on the podcast into a document that is updated with each new episode release. You can gain access to it by registering for my mailing list at PFforPhDs.com/advice/. Would you like to access transcripts or videos of each episode? I link the show notes for each episode from PFforPhDs.com/podcast/. See you in the next episode, and remember: You don’t have to have a PhD to succeed with personal finance… but it helps! Nothing you hear on this podcast should be taken as financial, tax, or legal advice for any individual. The music is “Stages of Awakening” by Podington Bear from the Free Music Archive and is shared under CC by NC. Podcast editing by Dr. Lourdes Bobbio and show notes creation by Dr. Jill Hoffman.

Investing 101 for Your Post-PhD Job

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

Links mentioned in the Episode

Investing 101 for Your Post-PhD Job

Teaser

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

Introduction

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

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

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

Will You Please Introduce Yourself Further?

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

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

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

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

Finance Related Employee Benefits

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

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

High Deductible Health Insurance Plans

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Traditional Retirement Savings Vehicles: 401Ks and 403Bs

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

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

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

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

Should You Ever Pass Up On The Employer Match?

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

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

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

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

Roth Vs. Traditional Retirement Accounts

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

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

Commercial

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

Roth Vs. Traditional Retirement Accounts

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

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

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

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

What Exactly Should I Invest In?

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

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

“Safe” Investing Options

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

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

Different Fee Structures of Financial Advisors

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

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

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

Socrates Financial Planning

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

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

Best Financial Advice for Another Early-Career PhD

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

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

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

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

Outtro

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

What You Should Know about Money Early in Your PhD Career

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

Links mentioned in the Episode

What You Should Know about Money Early in Your PhD Career

Teaser

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

Introduction

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Commercial

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Outtro

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

Unveiling the Hidden Curriculum of Grad School Funding for First-Gen BIPOC Students

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In this episode, Emily interviews Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu and Dr. Miroslava Chavez-Garcia, the co-authors of the recent book Is Grad School for Me? Demystifying the Application Process for First-Gen BIPOC Students. Yvette, Miroslava, and Emily dive into the financial aspects of the grad school application and admissions process, from applying for external fellowships to negotiating funding offers to preparing financially to start graduate school. Yvette and Miroslava share their personal experiences as well as their insights from prospective students involved with Yvette’s Grad School Femtoring coaching and podcast and Miroslava’s McNair program at UCSB. This episode is a must-listen for prospective PhD students, especially those who come from underrepresented backgrounds.

Links mentioned in the Episode

Uncovering the Hidden Curriculum of Grad School Funding for First-Gen BIPOC Students

Teaser

Yvette (00:00): One year, there was one student who was really, really struggling financially, had gotten into his top choice, had to move from California to the Midwest, and he couldn’t even afford his airfare. So he contacted his soon to be advisor, told that person his situation like, look, I, you know, I’m really trying to make it things work. I’m trying to work, I, but I, I just can’t afford my flight. And that advisor, without even thinking twice, bought him the flight.

Introduction

Emily (00:37): Welcome to the Personal Finance for PhDs Podcast: A Higher Education in Personal Finance. This podcast is for PhDs and PhDs-to-be who want to explore the hidden curriculum of finances to learn the best practices for money management, career advancement, and advocacy for yourself and others. I’m your host, Dr. Emily Roberts, a financial educator specializing in early-career PhDs and founder of Personal Finance for PhDs.

Emily (01:06): This is Season 18, Episode 4, and today my guests are Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu and Dr. Miroslava Chavez-Garcia, the co-authors of the recent book Is Grad School for Me? Demystifying the Application Process for First-Gen BIPOC Students. Yvette, Miroslava, and I dive into the financial aspects of the grad school application and admissions process, from applying for external fellowships to negotiating funding offers to preparing financially to start graduate school. Yvette and Miroslava share their personal experiences as well as their insights from prospective students involved with Yvette’s Grad School Femtoring coaching and podcast and Miroslava’s McNair program at UCSB. This episode is a must-listen for prospective PhD students, especially those who come from underrepresented backgrounds. In fact, I think Is Grad School for Me? is a must-read as well, so I’m giving away three copies of this book to listeners of this podcast. If you are applying to PhD programs in fall 2024 and are in the target audience for this book, i.e., a person of color who is a first-generation, low-income, and or non-traditional student, you can enter the giveaway at PFforPhDs.com/isgradschoolforme/. I would also appreciate you sharing this episode with any prospective graduate students in your life. You can find the show notes for this episode at PFforPhDs.com/s18e4/. Without further ado, here’s my interview with Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu and Dr. Miroslava Chavez-Garcia, the co-authors of Is Grad School for Me?

Will You Please Introduce Yourself Further?

Emily (02:56): I am delighted to have joining me on the podcast today, Dr. Yvette Martínez-Vu and Dr. Miroslava Chavez-Garcia, who are the authors of the recent book Is Grad School for Me? Demystifying the Application Process for First-Gen BIPOC Students. And as you might imagine, well this guide is incredible for this population and frankly, any prospective graduate student, I highly recommend the book. I just finished it a couple of weeks ago and there’s a lot of financial content within this, as you might imagine. So I was really excited to reach out to these authors and get them on the podcast so we can dive even further into the financial aspects of the application and the admissions process for graduate school. So, Yvette, Miroslava, again, welcome to the podcast. Would you please introduce yourselves a little bit further for the listeners? Yvette, why don’t you go first?

Yvette (03:41): Yes, of course. Hi everyone, my name is Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu. I’m a first gen Chicana, chronically ill neurodivergent productivity and grad school coach, consultant, author, speaker. Um, I do a lot of things. I have a PhD in theater and performance studies. I worked in higher ed for over 10 years supporting predominantly low income first gen students of color. That’s actually how I met Miros a few years back. Actually, at the start of the pandemic, she became my supervisor. And since then we’ve developed and nurtured a great relationship, which has manifested in US publishing and co-authoring this book together. So that’s a little bit more about me and what I do.

Miroslava (04:25): Great. Yeah. Hi. So I’m Miroslava Chavez-Garcia and I’m a professor of history and I’m also the faculty director of the UCSB McNair Scholars Program. So I’ve been at UCSB probably for the last 10 years, and before that I was at UC Davis, and then I had another job before that. So I’ve been in the game for a little while. Um, also a product from UCLA PhD Yvette and I have that in common as well. And what else about myself? So I’m also a mom juggling with children and a little needy dog. So life just keeps happening no matter what phase you are.

Grad School for Me? Demystifying the Application Process for First-Gen BIPOC Students

Emily (04:59): Fantastic. So let’s hear more about the book. Um, who is the intended audience for the book and why did you write it

Yvette (05:05): As referenced in the title of the book, uh, Is Grad School for Me? Demystifying the Application Process for First-Gen BIPOC students. The book is predominantly, um, catered to first gen bipoc students. But then, um, more broadly, we also address concerns for anyone who fits the quote unquote low income category or also non-traditional categories. So we’re thinking here of, you know, folks from working class backgrounds, we’re thinking of folks who, uh, maybe ages 25 and older. We know that more and more college campuses are no longer having what we may consider traditional students. A lot more of the, uh, student population is going back, they’re older, they have dependents, they have other commitments, and we wanted to meet, be able to address those other factors that individuals consider when they’re thinking about whether or not they want to pursue graduate school.

Miroslava (06:02): Yeah, definitely. I think that we were really interested in this, these folks who had not seen themselves reflected in all the literature that’s out there. So in looking at what’s been written, um, it’s all kind of cookie cutter in some ways. And they imagine maybe they don’t even imagine who, but we imagine it’s not us, right? When we’re looking at these books. And so we were very much with that intention to be able to provide a guide to all those folks who perhaps didn’t see themselves, um, you know, reflected and, and, um, and that was really important to us. And initially, I would have to say for myself, and I’m not sure if that had this thought, I was thought like, what, is there enough? Are there enough of an, is there enough of an audience for this? And, and yes, there is, you know, it’s, it’s that sort of, um, audience that we don’t hear from, but they’re definitely there. And the press was very, um, supportive of, of this, um, of, of, of the approach of the book. So we’re really happy that we were able to, um, target this population that’s been overlooked for so long.

Yvette (06:56): I have had the idea for this book since I was an undergrad. I was part of the inaugural cohort of Mellon May Fellows at UCLA. And despite the fact that I was in a very privileged position of getting into this prestigious graduate school preparation program, despite receiving ample support, I still was stumbling so much along the way. There was still so much information that I was missing out on. I still struggled to find mentors femtors, and I felt really frustrated and I found myself constantly pulling, you know, trying to find from the weeds as many resources as I could and then sharing them. And every year I was always surprised like, why is there not a book like this? Why is there not a book like this? I don’t see myself represented, not just, um, among the faculty, among my department. I was an English, uh, literature major at the time, but even within the literature, the research, the books I was running into, I didn’t, again, I didn’t see anyone like me a First Gen Chicana represented. And I wish that I had had that how to book. So that was, you know, an idea that I had many, many years ago. Of course, it didn’t come into fruition until Miros literally asked me when I’m gonna be writing a book. I never took it seriously until she approached me. And I thank her for her Femtorship and for her support and guidance, even through this publication process. This work wouldn’t have happened if it hadn’t been for the two of us coming together.

Miroslava (08:26): Like Yvette, most of my career has been focused on doing this kind of work, right? The hidden cur- un- unraveling or uncovering the hidden curriculum, addressing all of those isms, all these things that we feel, but we can’t quite put our finger on it. And so, um, when I was in grad school, there were some guides, but nothing like in the last that has been produced in the last 10, 15 years. And I didn’t even think we could encapsulate. And, and granted, this is not all about grad school. This is about just applying, right? So, but we’ve, it’s a pretty hefty book and we’ve top- tackled one topic. I think there’s many more that can be tackled, um, in the future. There’s other books out there as well. But definitely, um, it’s nice that we’re able to bring so many things together. I, with my more years in academia, but Yvette, with all of our up to date since, you know, things get really quickly, get out of date in academia and there’s new things, new trends, new um, approaches, um, especially we see right now a lot of changes happening. But yeah, it would just worked really well actually.

Emily (09:21): And if someone is convinced already that they need to get their hands on this book, where can they find it?

Yvette (09:26): Yeah, you can get it at IsGradSchoolForMe.com, and you can also find it at most major bookstores and even, um, a good number of independent bookstores have it too.

Miroslava (09:36): And definitely the press. And there is, um, if, if, if, uh, listeners are interested, they can contact us. We have, there’s a, there’s a discount code for now as well. It should probably be there for a while. That makes it more accessible to our, our population

Yvette (09:48): Yeah, you, you can go to the UC press website and this code should work it’s ucpsave30. So again, ucpsave30, it should work as far as we know. We don’t, it doesn’t have an expiration. So if you wanna get it and get it 30% off, um, go ahead and, um, get your copy directly from uc press.

Financial Support During Grad School and It’s Impact on Student Success

Emily (10:10): Perfect. And I definitely learned from reading the book that you all, uh, have an aligned position with mine that having, um, sufficient financial support during graduate school is very important to the students’ overall academic and personal success throughout that time period. Um, can you elaborate on that idea a little bit more? Um, how important is this? I mean, I know you said in the book like, you know, we discourage taking out student loans for our graduate degree and so forth. So just tell me a little bit more about how you came to that position.

Yvette (10:40): I mean, I think a, a big part of it is our experience, uh, both personal experience, experience working with student- with this population in particular for a lot of low income first gen students of color. The question of can I afford it and will I have adequate fund- funding is a very, very important question. And without it, some of them are even willing to go the extra mile of pursuing graduate school. So yeah, getting an advanced degree, especially pursuing a PhD is a significant investment in time, effort, resources. And for some, it’s not even an option without having at least some funding. So that’s why for us, it’s important for them to know, you know, what are the differences in funding options is between PhD programs, between master’s programs, what are these funding options packages even look like? That’s why we provided samples in the book because, um, the more financial burdens you have, if you don’t come in with generational wealth or trust funds or a savings account, just some sort of support, that means that a lot of people end up taking on insurmountable amounts of debt, debt that holds them back from reaching other major life milestones, or they end up staying one too many years in graduate school, they’re having to juggle multiple jobs to make ends meet. Or for a lot of people, they end up getting pushed out. We know that 50% of folks who go into PhD programs don’t actually make it and get to finish. And that’s a problem. And I wouldn’t be surprised if sometimes funding plays a factor in that. So we do think it’s important to, to consider the funding aspects of it, um, when you’re thinking about grad school as your next step in your career.

Miroslava (12:24): Yeah, definitely. One thing that we tackle a lot throughout the book is this idea of fit. Like is this program or this, you know, university institution for me, and one of the, I would say one of the main, you know, sort of categories of that would be around funding. I know my department does not take any PhD students. We can talk about master’s program that’s a little bit different or could be quite different. But PhD programs, we will not take anybody without funding. I mean, we have to bring in people who have support them. So that’s been going on for a while now. And I think lots of programs run that way. Uh, the PhD programs, at least in the humanities where, you know, there’s so much upfront and then no guarantee on the other end that you’re gonna be able to make up pay off that loan and, and, you know, thrive if you’re able to do that, the STEM fields might be a little bit different, but I know that in humanities, um, institutions are a little more cognizant of that, um, disconnect. Sometimes it happens.

Emily (13:13): This is something that I point out when I speak with, um, prospective graduate students. Current undergraduate students is like the funding mechanism for your undergraduate degree and professional graduate degrees is just completely different from, you know, the PhD or the, the research based graduate degrees. And while it may be perfectly okay, um, to take out debt for, um, an MD or a JD or a similar type of degree like that, it’s because the salaries on the other side of that justify taking out that debt. And depending on the PhD field that you’re in, as you just said, Mirsolava, you don’t really know what kind of career you’re going to have or what that salary is going to be on the other side. So it’s that much more important to make sure that your, um, PhD is, um, uh, you’re not, um, leveraging your future <laugh>, uh, when you’re doing that PhD, you’re only building into the future. And so in your book, one of the, one of the sections is about, um, applying for external fellowships in particular. And so why did you take the time in the book to encourage prospective graduate students to apply for that type of fellowship?

Yvette (14:14): You know, I’ll, I’ll share a personal anecdote in relation to this question. When I went into my PhD program, I was awarded a prestigious fellowship. It was a departmental fellowship, and everybody told me, oh, you got full funding, you’re good to go. You don’t have to worry about applying for anything else. And I remember my advisor at the time discouraging me from applying to external fellowships and only later on finding out about fellowships that covered multiple years that could have provided me with additional years of being on a fellowship could have minimized my teaching burden and could have even increased my chances of getting more competitive dissertation year fellowships later on. So for me, I do think it’s important, it’s not just the financial advantage of having another offer that you can then use to leverage your funding package and to shift things around as best as you can, depending on your department and their flexibility, but also access to a network. So for instance, when I became a four dissertation year fellow, I was, you know, I, I entered this space of networking, I joined the national conferences, I started meeting up with people for networking meetings, and I realized, wow, there’s like this whole world of Ford fellows out there that I didn’t know that I could have been exposed to earlier if I had known to apply to the Ford Predoctoral Fellowship if I had been encouraged. So I do think that it, it only increases your chances of, um, having access to more opportunities, having access to bigger networks. So why not do that? Why, like, don’t put all your eggs in one basket and expect to only get funding from your department or even from your program.

Miroslava (16:02): Yeah, and I would definitely agree. I’m also a Ford postdoctoral fellow. I tried the pre-doc and the dissertation, um, but the postdoc was fortunate to get that. And so Yvette’s talking about the networks, like you can’t put a dollar price on those because they’ll stay with you throughout your career. Particularly with the Ford, they always talk about us being a family and people, um, you know, in a good way, <laugh>, I don’t, so families, uh, you know, uh, but those relationships are there. They reach out to you for networking. So it’s, that’s really valuable. I think another thing to think about as well is that they bring prestige. I hate to, you know, I’m not a big, you know, showy kind of person, but nevertheless institution, it brings prestige to the, you know, value to you. Um, it shows that other institutions also value what you’re doing and it also brings more hum umph to your, the significance of your work. And I think that anytime that happens, you know, it’s, it’s for the, for the work, it’s for your subject, it’s for your project, your research, and that’s a win-win. So

Emily (16:56): I think all those reasons are so fantastic to apply for fellowships, apply for fellowships throughout your PhD, not just early on. As you said before, you aren’t when you aren’t sure what your funding is going to be. Um, but I particularly like them for prospective graduate students because, um, during admission season, it can be quite an advantage to have already been awarded an external fellowship. You can come to your program and say, Hey, I’m actually, you thought you were gonna fund me, but I’m actually bringing in X amount of dollars from this other fellowship that, that I just won. Um, can you speak more about the, um, advantages to, to that situation for that perspective graduate student?

Commercial

Emily (17:36): Emily here for a brief interlude. Would you like to learn directly from me on a personal finance topic, such as taxes, goal-setting, investing, frugality, increasing income, or student loans, each tailored specifically for graduate students and postdocs? I offer seminars and workshops on these topics and more in a variety of formats, and I’m now booking for the 2024-2025 academic year. If you would like to bring my content to your institution, would you please recommend me as a speaker or facilitator to your university, graduate school, graduate student association, or postdoc office? My seminars are usually slated as professional development or personal wellness. Orientations or very close to the start of the academic year would be a perfect time for tax education or general personal finance content. Ask the potential host to go to PFforPhDs.com/financial-education/ or simply email me at [email protected] to start the process. I really appreciate these recommendations, which are the best way for me to start a conversation with a potential host. The paid work I do with universities and institutions enables me to keep producing this podcast and all my other free resources. Thank you in advance if you decide to issue a recommendation! Now back to our interview.

Negotiating as a Prospective Grad Student

Miroslava (19:03): I, I will, if it’s okay, I’m gonna jump in. I’ll give a specific example of one of our, our McNair scholars who, um, had applied to many institutions and, um, a prestigious one UCLA. She would I think she applied in the STEM fields and she got an NSF and that decision happened like overnight. I mean that they, the door was open quickly at UCLA for her to come in. They’re like, oh, come step right in. And, and so she took that position, but she had been, wait, not waitlisted, but I think she hadn’t heard. Um, and so that really granted her that, um, you know, provided I say the ticket to make her own decisions and choices. And so, um, that’s the example I like to share.

Yvette (19:40): I’ve seen the same scenario, so I was gonna say almost an identical scenario, but with a different student <laugh>. Yeah.

Emily (19:48): Yeah, because sometimes the reason for a rejection is not anything lacking in the candidate, it’s just the funding is not gonna go far enough to accept as many people as we would like, or, you know, this particular advisor didn’t have funding, but if you come with it, then you can work with that person. Um, and so it can reverse those decisions or get you off a wait list or whatever that, um, you know, situation might be. And it also provides you leverage for negotiation <laugh>.

Emily (20:12): So let’s talk about that next. I loved that you included information about negotiation in this book. I think a few years ago I didn’t really hear that many people talking about it, but it’s been, I’ve just heard more and more people familiar, like prospective graduate students when I bring up negotiation, they’re like, oh yeah, I, someone already told me I was able to do that, or at least able to attempt it. Right. So let’s talk about that, um, a little bit further. Like, how have you seen prospective graduate students successfully negotiated their funding packages? Do you have any tips about how they should do so?

Yvette (20:40): I think that it’s always important to tread the waters carefully, right? When it comes to negotiating. And it’s also good to have all of your information available. So you wanna know, don’t start to negotiate before you know, you know, what is even feasible. So, um, I’ve, I’ve seen a lot of different scenarios. Uh, one of the most successful scenario that I’ve seen work time and time again is where when someone gets multiple offers and then they send their best offer to their top choice school who maybe may is offering less, and they ask if they can match or increase their offer. And in many cases, they either increase or match it, or sometimes they say, you know what? This is the best that we can offer you. We still really want you, but there’s no way we can compete with that. And it’s up to the student to decide maybe sometimes it is worth it for them to accept the lower offer because cost of living might be different and cost of living makes it so that that’s actually a better offer financially at the end of the day when you crunch the numbers and, and create your budget. So that’s one scenario where that’s been fairly successful. What I’ve also noticed is that a lot of times folks don’t feel like they can negotiate because they say, oh, well I don’t have another offer, or, oh, they’re not offering me any funding. How can I ask? And in these scenarios, I mean, it doesn’t hurt to ask, it is rare. In fact, I’ve only seen this happen for summer programs, but it, it’s rare for folks to have their offer rescinded because they asked for more. Of course, you want to be conscientious, of course you want to be grateful, of course you want to express your enthusiasm. Um, but you can ask, and I’ve seen this happen more than once, where someone didn’t get any, they got into a master’s program, didn’t get awarded any funding, asked if there was any funding that they could apply for or that they were eligible for and could be considered for. And the next thing you know, a few days later, they’ve got a $12,000 scholarship that wasn’t there before. I’m like, so overnight you got $12,000 for asking, you wouldn’t have had that. Aside from that, a lot of applicants don’t know what else they can ask for. It’s not always just tuition remission, it’s not always just a stipend. Some graduate students get, uh, a laptop covered, some graduate students get their travel, um, or re- relocation expenses covered. Sometimes it’s partial, but it’s still something some, uh, I’m trying to think about other things that, that folks will ask for. I remember one year there was one student who was really, really struggling financially, had gotten into his top choice, had to move from California to the Midwest, and he couldn’t even afford his airfare. So he contacted his soon to be advisor, told that person his situation like, look, I, you know, I’m really trying to make it things work. I’m trying to work, I, but I, I just can’t afford my flight there. What can I do? Can I work for you? Like, is there any way that I can figure this out? And that advisor, without even thinking twice, bought him the flight. So it’s all about advocating for yourself. It’s about asking for what you need. It’s about building genuine reciprocal relationships, helping one another out. But it also, it’s about knowing again, what even can you ask for? And sometimes you get some stuff, sometimes you don’t. Uh, but I always kind of lean, lean on the side of asking because I wish that I had been taught this skill a lot earlier on. Now I have that skill of negotiating took many years trial and error. Um, but I, I just, I, I want folks to learn this skill as early as possible because it’s gonna continue to be an ongoing skill that they practice for the rest of their career.

Miroslava (24:26): Yeah, I would definitely agree that it’s like the biggest hurdle is even knowing what to ask. And I would, I was, I don’t wanna say I grew up in the generation, but I came of age in terms of academia that of my generation where we just didn’t ask. We were just grateful, right? As a, as a Chicano Latina, I was accepted first gen immigrant, you know, that I was being, I didn’t even know that this happened at all. So even for me to get comfortable after all these years, it’s really, really hard. So when you, if you’re newer, new-ish or newer ish coming into academia, practice it and you’ll get more comfortable. And, um, also there’s a question of like sharing information with your peers. That’s another topic as well. In terms of funding packages. Do you talk about them or not? Um, other, I’ll just add two more things that I’ve seen in, in the, the last, um, few years I’ve been academia a lot of times I, what I’ve seen in, um, in terms of packages is that it’s kind of set the amount, but the one thing you could do is you could ask for money to be moved around. Like instead of having that fellowship off the first semester, I’d like it to be off the second semester so you can negotiate those things. So moving money around. Also, another thing to not, not forget or, um, is summer funding. Um, ’cause a lot of these packages do not include summer funding and then summer rolls around, it’s like, oh, oh, you know, we’ve had horror stories here on my campus where students live in their cars and things like that because there’s no, they can’t afford, you know, rent in the summer In Santa Barbara here it’s very, very expensive. So some programs are getting much better at providing funding or helping them find some form of a TA ship over the summer. There’s a lot of course, a lot more online, um, online courses. There’s a huge push in our University of California system for more of those courses. And so that’s a, a space where graduate students can work and make some money over the summer. But, um, I would have summer funding like on the table when thinking about a program.

Emily (26:10): I love what kind of both of you pointed out in that, is that the, the, the start of the negotiation process or the pre-negotiations aspect is figuring out, just really having clarity on what the offer is on what the funding path is, both in the first year and in subsequent years. Um, and even just asking some clarifying questions like Yvette, your example of someone saying, well, you know, is there an internal fellowship that I could apply for anything that we can do here, um, that can sometimes result in, uh, the, the outcome you want from a negotiation without even feeling like a negotiation. You were just asking some clarifying questions. Oh, I didn’t see that there was, um, a moving stipend included in this offer, but I, I’ve seen other universities do that. Is that something that you all offer? That’s pretty like low stakes and easy to ask and it could potentially result in an offer being made. I think something that perspective graduate students should know about the negotiation process, and you all both kind of pointed this out in different ways, is that the, the director of graduate studies or whoever the person is that you’re approaching about this, um, potential augmentation of your funding offer, they know a lot more about what levers, you know, can be pulled, what can be adjusted than you do. And so I think it’s really helpful to keep your question or request very open-ended. Like is there anything that you could do to augment this package? I’m not sure how that could come about. Um, instead of saying something like, I must have my stipend increased by X many thousands of dollars because it’s an, that’s an easy no, a lot of times a base stipend can’t be increased because the rates are set, you know, above that person’s pay grade by far. But maybe there’s, you know, a top up fellowship that they could offer you. Maybe they can put your name forward for an internal fellowship. Maybe they could, uh, get you into subsidized housing. So they know all the kind of background things that could happen much better than you do. And so I think, yeah, just keeping it open-ended is a good idea. Do you have any other tips about the negotiation process that you’d like to add?

Yvette (27:57): Well, there’s one thing that you just reminded me of is about asking clarifying questions. Because not every offer looks the same. Some are very clear and they lay out every year what you’re getting. And others are more vague. They’re like, you’re gonna be receiving a stipend of X amount every year in the program. Okay, how many years is guaranteed? And you wanna have that in writing. So first I would say get very clear about what your offer is because sometimes it’s not very clear and you’re made to feel like maybe you just aren’t reading it right. So I’ve had so many cases where folks ask me to read an offer alongside with them to make sure that they’re understanding it correctly. And then I go over, I’m like, yep, they’re not telling you how many years <laugh> you need to ask this and this and this. You need to ask about healthcare. ’cause healthcare is also not the same. You need to ask about professional development support because again, that’s not the same. I’ve had clients who have had their departments pay for my coaching services and I’ve had folks ask, and if they hadn’t asked, they wouldn’t have had that support. So you, again, just make sure before you negotiate, ask as many clarifying questions as you need to know exactly what you’re getting offered. And once you know what you’re getting offered, sometimes it can help to see if you get in somewhere else to compare and contrast the offers or compare and contrast to some of the offers we mentioned in the book. Which, you know, unfortunately, I would say they might become outdated at some sort, but, or at some point. But, um, sadly these stipends are not going up that much more. So you can kind of compare and contrast between your offer and a friend’s offer if they’re comfortable, your offer and another offer or your offering, even the samples that we have in the book. So you can get a sense of what information you do have, what information you’re missing and what’s, what are the things that are your priorities that you want to ask for. Even childcare is another one that comes up too, that people ask about. Yeah, yeah.

Miroslava (29:52): I, I will add to, um, to last things and something just piggyback on what Yvette was saying in terms of, uh, you might ask as well, like, will there be other opportunities for, um, fellowships or small grants in our program at the end of the year, we have the award ceremony and people apply for these smaller, you know, pots of money, a thousand, 2000 or even $500. Um, and sometimes those pot, those awards are for people working in specific areas, but sometimes the larger, beyond your department, the graduate division might have, um, fellowships for, um, maybe first generation students or maybe Asian American students working in a particular field. So again, like as Yvette saying doesn’t hurt to ask, um, are these opportunities available for me down the road?

Emily (30:33): I wanted to follow up on one of the thing you said Miroslava, which was that, you know, um, some time ago or, or back when you were admitted to graduate school, there was this attitude of, oh, they admitted me. I’m so grateful. This is amazing. I’m not maybe gonna look too closely at what this offer is. I’m just gonna say yes. Um, because you’re so flattered, right? To be admitted right to academia, this, um, this particular institution. And I, I definitely don’t think that attitude serves the student well. In fact, during the, um, admission season, after they’ve extended an offer of admission and before you accept it, that’s the time period when that student has really the most leverage and the most power in terms of negotiating and getting what they want and, and so forth, um, compared to any other time later on in graduate school. ’cause once you say yes to them, you’re committed. And the longer you spend in that program, kind of the more sunk costs, um, there are. And so you really don’t have as much as much leverage later on as you do during the application process. So I just wanna point that out as like, um, it’s, it’s a, it’s a golden opportunity <laugh>. So when you get are in that season, um, take the best advantage of it that you can because it’s not, it’s probably not gonna come around again, frankly.

Yvette (31:38): And I would encourage folks to get support in this process because for some of us, it’s also a major cultural difference and it feels wrong to do it. Like there’s guilt <laugh> and there’s shame involved in asking for more. And so it can help to lean on a mentor femtor, someone who’s been there, who has experienced that, who can push you or coach you or guide you so that way you can test it out and have that support. Maybe they come back, reply back, we can’t do this, but can we do that? And just that, just a lot of people do this even just professionally in their careers. They’ll hire someone to help them with the negotiation process. You know, a lot of folks, recruiters, you know, they work outside of academia, like this is the norm. But for a lot of first gen students, they don’t know this is the norm. And if they’re coming from different cultural backgrounds, then they’re made to feel like this is not okay. But it is. And, um, yeah, just if, if it’s really hard for you because it was for me at one point, get the help and support that you need from a trusted mentor Femtor,

Emily (32:44): I think something that might help with that, um, sort of realignment of mindset there is understanding that, again, as I said earlier, being sufficiently financially supported during your graduate degree is more likely to help you get to that desired end point, um, of graduating and moving on to a wonderful career, which is actually where your interests and the interests of the program are completely aligned. We, everybody wants that for the student. And if finances are going to, um, help that and help the person not be stressed and not be distracted and not have to side hustle and do all the other things that people have to do, um, to make ends meet, then that’s good for the program too. So I don’t think it’s, um, illegitimate at all to <laugh> to bring it up, but as you said it, it can take a little bit of an adjustment of, of the mindset and, um, dealing with the, the cultural backgrounds of everybody. So thank you so much for, um, for elaborating on those points.

Opportunity Costs of Pursuing a PhD

Emily (33:31): And then last question, or second to last question here, um, is let’s talk a little bit about what the opportunity costs are of pursuing a PhD because they are quite steep. And how should a prospective graduate student evaluate whether graduate school is going to be, um, a good investment for their career?

Yvette (33:50): I mean there, there are a lot of opportunity costs. Um, the first thing that comes to mind off the top of my head is the amount of time that a lot of people spend in graduate school. You might be spending anywhere from four to 10 years of your life in a PhD program. And while you, your income stays relatively the same, you’ve got colleagues whose income might be going up, who are advancing in their careers, who are getting promoted, and it can feel like that’s a big, um, that’s a big sacrifice that you’re making to pursue this PhD. So that’s one thing is the the income. The other thing I think about is, um, saving and oh, not saving, investing for retirement. A lot of times when folks are in graduate school, because your income is relatively low for a lot of people, unless you’re working on the side or working full time while you’re doing your PhD, you know, a lot of folks put their, uh, retirement investing and retirement accounts on hold. And what does that mean? That means, again, four to 10 years of your life that you could be investing, that you could be preparing for your future retirement that’s gone. Um, and even some folks put their life on hold, big major life decisions on hold. They’re like, oh, I don’t wanna have a baby or I don’t wanna get married or I don’t wanna, whatever the big milestone is in their life. So those are some things to keep in mind. That’s why we ask in the book, if graduate school is right for you and also when is the right time? Because people ask all the time like, when is the right time to go? Should I go after undergrad? Should I take a gap year or two? Should I get some work experience? And really it’s you and your circumstances and you get to decide when is the right time for you. There is no right or wrong time, even if you go back 10 years later. So it is important to calculate these costs to think about like how much is it gonna cost you? Not just if you think about taking on student debt or not just if you think about your income loss, but just thinking about the timing and other life factors and whether or not you’re willing to make that sacrifice for the end goal in sight, which might be a PhD and then whatever other career opportunities can come with a PhD.

Emily (36:03): I wanna underline everything you just said, especially about the investing time lost. Amazing. But let’s not forget about student loans either. If you have student loans from your undergraduate degree and they’re unsubsidized, they’re gonna continue accumulating interest. And as you said, if you put off, uh, if you are able to defer them, which is wonderful for six or 10 years or however long it is, it’s gonna be, you know, the interest will capitalize and the balance will be that much higher on the other side.

Miroslava (36:26): Those years I was thinking, I was thinking about that my twenties, right? ’cause I went straight through, uh, and I was thinking about how much it your life is sort of on hold. I guess for me personally, I kind of felt like I couldn’t make those decisions that Yvette was referring to in terms of a family this or that. ’cause I was so focused on my work and it was really hard for me coming from a family. Um, the questions came up, when are you gonna get a real job? When are you gonna get married? You know, or somebody to take care of you, quote unquote. And I thought like, oh my goodness. And you just have to tell them I’m one, at one point I just said, I’m gonna be in school for the rest of my life and get used to it, you know? And so that, I don’t know if that settled things or not, but um, yeah, I mean you don’t realize these things later I realized, oh, I didn’t invest. I could have been investing. I mean this is for myself, you know, coming from immigrant family and, and um, not having any of this information, uh, later on. But I will say like being on the other side now for all these years, it’s the best decision I could have made.

Best Financial Advice for Another Early-Career PhD

Emily (37:15): This has been just, um, the most wonderful conversation. I thank you so much for agreeing to come on the podcast and telling us about the book and diving deeper into some of these financial aspects. It’s been so wonderful to talk with you. So I want to pose to each of you the question that I ask all of my guests at the end of interviews, which is, what is your best financial advice for another early career PhD that could be a prospective graduate student or a current graduate student, or however you wanna interpret that. And it could be something that we’ve already touched on in the interview or it could be something completely new.

Miroslava (37:43): This is based on some of the the, my own experiences, but I think it’s important when you start thinking about graduate schools, I think it’s important to come with your finances in order to the most, to the best of your ability that it’s important not to come with tons of debt or financial obligations. I think I just think about the, this is sort of like, I don’t wanna say the the, so it is the femtor in me, right? To say not to um, to come and risk putting excessive stress on yourself, on your career in grad school. Just thinking about like you have all these mounting bills, these grad, these undergrad, right? Uh, not only loans, but maybe perhaps car loans or your, you are supporting your family that you decide to, you know, come to graduate school because you, you did get a package and then that will, you know, offset you for a while. Um, I think that it’s really hard to be able to focus on your work if you have all those financial burdens. You know, we can’t, many of us can’t sleep at night when we are just thinking about where’s our, our next paycheck or am I gonna be able to do these things? Um, so you need to think about, you know, because there’ll be so many other hidden costs in graduate school. And so I’ve seen some of my students come with lots of stress, you know, financial stress and I’m always with my mouth jaws my jaw open. Like, oh my goodness, how are you doing it? So that’s one thing I would say, if possible, try to get your finances in some kind of working order or get a system to help you, um, get to your goals.

Yvette (39:01): Yeah, I mean, I’ll echo what Miros just said. I do think it’s important that this starts before you even accept an offer. So create a budget before you accept an offer and make sure you can actually make ends meet with that offer. Um, if it’s possible. Again, I know everybody’s circumstances are different, but if it’s possible, minimize debt of any kind. Um, especially, I mean all all debt I’m not a fan of, but especially when it’s more than federal debt, when it’s personal loans, when it’s credit card debt, like to try to avoid that as much as possible. And more importantly like learn about financial literacy, learn about personal finance. I put that on hold throughout my graduate school journey. I didn’t start learning until after I got my PhD and it’s a shame. I wish I would’ve just done that homework on the side because it would’ve saved me, like literally saved me a lot of money. <laugh>, Um, explore other funding or income opportunities. Some of us already learned those skills because we have to. Um, but if you haven’t quite learned that skill, you know, explore what, whether that might be tutoring, mentoring, teaching, editing, you name it, you have a lot of skills that you can use to help you make ends meet. Um, and also maximize your institutional access and resources because at one point you’re not gonna have access to that really great healthcare or to that free or low cost therapy or to those LinkedIn learning courses. At one point you’re gonna have to be the one to pay for it. So ask around, find out what those benefits are and and maximize them. And then of course, I cannot say this because I wish that older me would’ve taught younger me how to do this, which is like getting, getting into the habit of investing earlier on. Um, even if it’s something as small as, I don’t know, $25 a month, if that’s all that you can do, just getting into the habit of investing will help you in the long run. Even if it doesn’t feel like it’s gonna make a big dent, that habit will make it a lot less burdensome, a lot less scary for you to then increase that amount in the future so that you can set yourself up for success. I wish I would’ve had that. Now I have to work even harder because I started out a little later.

Miroslava (41:15): I think most of us didn’t even know that was something in my family I grew up with, um, hoarders in terms of money, immigrant, you know, put it underneath the, the mattress and save every penny. And I’m sort of grateful I didn’t go the opposite way. We sometimes we go opposite what we learn and so I’m very much a penny pincher. Um, but you know, it doesn’t grow if you leave it underneath your mattress. So, um, anyways, so we just wanna play catch up, but we try to then share that information with others to help them sort of correct some mistakes that we made.

Emily (41:46): Well, we don’t have enough time for me to praise every single piece of advice that you two just gave because that was absolutely fantastic. So I’ll just say to the listener, if you need to, you know, rerun the rerun the last couple of minutes, listen to it over and over again because there was so much gold in just those quick responses. Um, and I certainly hope the listeners will take it to heart. So once again, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Um, it’s been absolutely great to have you. And the book again is, Is Grad School For Me? Demystifying the Application Process for First-Gen BIPOC students. Will you say the website again where they can get it?

Yvette (42:14): Yes, that’s isgradschoolforme.com.

Emily (42:17): Perfect. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Yvette (42:19): Thank you

Miroslava (42:20): This was really fun.

Outtro

Emily (42:30): Listeners, thank you for joining me for this episode! I have a gift for you! You know that final question I ask of all my guests regarding their best financial advice? My team has collected short summaries of all the answers ever given on the podcast into a document that is updated with each new episode release. You can gain access to it by registering for my mailing list at PFforPhDs.com/advice/. Would you like to access transcripts or videos of each episode? I link the show notes for each episode from PFforPhDs.com/podcast/. See you in the next episode, and remember: You don’t have to have a PhD to succeed with personal finance… but it helps! Nothing you hear on this podcast should be taken as financial, tax, or legal advice for any individual. The music is “Stages of Awakening” by Podington Bear from the Free Music Archive and is shared under CC by NC. Podcast editing by Dr. Lourdes Bobbio and show notes creation by Dr. Jill Hoffman.

This PhD Promotes DEI with a Focus on Finances

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In this episode, Emily interviews Dr. Carolina Mendoza Cavazos, who holds a PhD in microbiology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and currently works in industry. Carolina has long been interested in and open about personal finances, and she focused her DEI efforts while in graduate school around finances, including starting a money club and creating clear communications regarding pay and benefits. Carolina shares her insights into the kinds of financial issues graduate students face and how universities should back up their recruitment of diverse candidates with sufficient financial support and communication. Finally, Carolina and Emily discuss the financial goals and lifestyle upgrades Carolina has enjoyed since starting her job in industry.

Links mentioned in the Episode

PhD Promotes Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion with a Focus on Finances

Teaser

Carolina (00:00): Basically like who, who can afford to go to graduate school and how the people that have made it to graduate school, how can we support them during? There’s a lot of focus on the DEI efforts within recruiting. I also think that if there is not a support system for the students that are coming in and staying, I think that is a disservice to the minorities that you recruited. While it’s really great to get a fellowship, if the school can get to brag about the funding that you have, the schools should also support you through the issues that may arise due to that funding.

Introduction

Emily (00:55): Welcome to the Personal Finance for PhDs Podcast: A Higher Education in Personal Finance. This podcast is for PhDs and PhDs-to-be who want to explore the hidden curriculum of finances to learn the best practices for money management, career advancement, and advocacy for yourself and others. I’m your host, Dr. Emily Roberts, a financial educator specializing in early-career PhDs and founder of Personal Finance for PhDs.

Emily (01:24): This is Season 18, Episode 3, and today my guest is Dr. Carolina Mendoza Cavazos, who holds a PhD in microbiology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and currently works in industry. Carolina has long been interested in and open about personal finances, and she focused her DEI efforts while in graduate school around finances, including starting a money club and creating clear communications regarding pay and benefits. Carolina shares her insights into the kinds of financial issues graduate students face and how universities should back up their recruitment of diverse candidates with sufficient financial support and communication. Finally, Carolina and I discuss the financial goals and lifestyle upgrades she has enjoyed since starting her job in industry.

Emily (02:10): When I teach budgeting, I emphasize that it actually consists of two components, budgeting aka telling your money what to do and tracking aka checking that your money did what you told it to do. While I love and use automated tracking software, in my opinion nothing beats manual tracking, which naturally keeps you accountable to yourself for your spending. In fact, last year I made a custom expense tracking spreadsheet for my own use. If you would like to try out manual expense tracking, feel free to take my spreadsheet and use it as is or build it out however you like. I built in a couple of budgeting principles that I like to follow and teach to PhDs. There’s a companion video available explaining those principles. If you’d like to grab the spreadsheet, it’s totally free, simply sign up through PFforPhDs.com/tracker/. You can find the show notes for this episode at PFforPhDs.com/s18e3/. Without further ado, here’s my interview with Dr. Carolina Mendoza Cavazos of Finances with Carolina.

Will You Please Introduce Yourself Further?

Emily (03:29): I am delighted to have joining me on the podcast today Dr. Carolina Mendoza Cavazos. She is a scientist working in the private sector. She finished her PhD about two years ago, and like me, Carolina is also really, really into personal finance and also she has a special focus on DEI, efforts related to personal finance. And Carolina has a website called FinancesWithCarolina.com, and I first came across her, it must have been several years ago on Twitter, and I’ve been keeping my eye on her for a while. We finally had reason to connect recently and set up this podcast interview, which I’m really excited about. So Carolina, would you please go ahead and introduce yourself further for the audience?

Carolina (04:04): Sure thing, Emily. Hi everyone, my name is Carolina and I obtained my PhD at the University of Wisconsin Madison. I’m currently a scientist in the r and d department at Promega, and um, I’m very excited to be here today.

Finances During Childhood, College, and Beyond

Emily (04:21): Yeah, let’s go back, um, even further because I want to hear about, uh, your background, especially with respect to finances starting kind of in your childhood. You can give us a brief overview of how things were, um, financially growing up and then through college and graduate school and I’m, I’m interested both in kind of materially what was going on and also how that affected your mindset through that period.

Carolina (04:41): My family and I moved to United States in 2011 and I finished my senior year of high school, then applied to college and I obtained my undergrad at California State University Fullerton. My dad is an accountant, so he talked about money quite often. I would say that being an immigrant, we did have certain like mindset that came with that and frugality was a really important one. I would say that from the both sides of my family, either one or two generations broke the cycle of poverty and I grew up in a family with two college educated parents and we were able to migrate here to the United States, um, due to a job opportunity for my mom. So that was kinda um, how we got here. I would say I was always interested in finances in general in college. The first time I got a paycheck was through a program called MARC Maximizing Access to Career Research and is a pipeline for like graduate school program. So that’s kind of where my budgeting journey started. I lived at home, uh, during college and receiving that paycheck was the first time that I was, you know, making all my budgeting spreadsheets and stuff like that.

Emily (05:58): Yeah. So let’s kind of turn to graduate school now. It actually seems like you were set up pretty well to understand maybe the finance of graduate school having been in that program, the MARC program during undergrad. Um, so tell us about like that transition and maybe the kinds of offers you got and whether you considered, you know, finances. It sounds like you probably would in your selection of which university to attend.

Carolina (06:17): I don’t think I looked at the stipend as carefully as I would today. I gravitated towards the Midwest because the Midwest had awesome microbiology and I knew I was gonna end up somewhere in the Midwest. Um, my last two top school choices, like were between UW Madison where I ended up attending and um, Wash U. So those were my two offers. And in general, stipend wise, they were pretty similar. However, UW Madison had a program similar to MARC called SciMed, shout out to SciMed, it’s called Science and Science and Medicine Scholars. And basically it was a community that I could plug into that I did not see at any other universities and I felt that that was, uh, a good fit for me. So that’s kind of why I decided to go to UW Madison.

Emily (07:16): So tell us a little bit more about how finances were going for you during graduate school. You said that you had, you know, uh, a frugal and a debt averse kind of background with your family. Um, you’re in the Midwest. Yeah. Was the stipend livable? Were you able to save? How are things going for you personally?

Carolina (07:33): Yeah, in terms of finances, I did move here to Madison with a partner at the time, now my husband and we, that’s kind of when we started not fully merging our finances, but we’re definitely operating as a household at the moment and basically we were like kind of equally splitting everything. So that was definitely helpful and I would say that the stipend was livable, however, having a partner was definitely helpful. And one interesting thing is that I was funded the whole time during graduate school, so the five years I had different grants, fellowships, things like that. So I was fortunate that I didn’t have to pay segregated fees or like the student fees for that. Um, I ended up working as an hourly for assignment and that was, um, a workaround in order to get retirement benefits like a 403B or something like that.

Carolina (08:35): I definitely think that my husband and I had like different mindsets about finances and it was interesting to kind of get into that. But I would say in graduate school I found your podcast through Hello PhD and I think the, the thing that really caught my attention was the use of, um, buckets for like high yield savings accounts. So I think that that was like one of the first things that I did in order to get the same service but like in a cheaper way. Like for example, like car insurance, I faced a lot of issues with funding transitions that ended up being, in my opinion, DEI issues in terms that I don’t know, I, I saw a lot of the times like the same pe- people in the program doing the same jobs and being funded differently would still face different issues. And in terms for advanced opportunity fellowships like for, um, minorities like me and things like that, I would say like that was like a double whammy of you might have a surprise tax bill and things like that. And like how, how do you deal with that? Do you, do you have your emergency fund set up? Do you rely on a network? Is there network that you can rely? Do you incur debt? And things like that. Issues that I encounter with my funding, I always wonder and through the grapevine have heard that other people that were funded had this issues. So I think that that was my first step to get into using personal finance and deed efforts during graduate school.

Financial Challenges During Grad School

Emily (10:15): Hmm. Yeah, I definitely wanna hear about more about that in a minute. Um, can you expand at all on the, the issues you were just talking about with like the funding? So like quarterly estimated tax bills. We talk about that a lot in the podcast, hopefully the listeners familiar with that. Um, anything else? Like, just tell me what, what the issues were that you either experienced or that you observed.

Carolina (10:35): Yes, so one of the issues right off the bat was taxes obviously. And um, I definitely had a tax bill that I wasn’t expecting and I wasn’t aware of the fellowship, um, quarterly estimated taxes on my first year or something like that, the Kiddie tax. Why not? One of the things that I would say is that access to benefits was a little different. So for example, there was no, someone in my lab and me, the other peop- the other person could contribute to an FSA account or they would be able to and eligible to open a 403B. Um, what else? Gaps in insurance or, um, what are they called? Potential gaps in insurance. For example, some of my friends that were in the NSF were getting COBRA letters when they were having their funding transitions because you might have lost insurance and they were not aware of this and it was just because some paperwork was delayed and things like that.

Carolina (11:46): Personally, I did a, an internship during my fourth year summer, somewhere between fourth and fifth, and I had to take a short leave of absence for that. I had to prepay my insurance and there was a lot of issues with that. Um, I, I think I was the first one to do this and the program that was receiving a stipend that, that was receiving a stipend and had to pause that in order to go into the private sector and get, um, private sector money. Usually if you were in your, I don’t know, a W2 route, I don’t know how they would have handled it, but there was miscommunication on that. Uh, one point I wasn’t sure if I was gonna have insurance over the summer and access to healthcare is definitely something that everybody should have. And, um, I had some health issues during graduate school, so that was a very scary time for me.

Carolina (12:45): And through the grapevine again when that happened, I started documenting if other people have faced this within the, the fellowships during, within the T32s and stuff like that. So when I was working as an hourly for assignment, some of my job was to write down what should you do if you are going to into a internship, what are the, um, I also implemented, I was part of the DEI committee in my program and I also proposed and implemented a funding transition form to pinpoint where is your money coming from in this semester? Where is your money gonna come from next time? Do these people know each other? Should we introduce everybody? Do they know that you’re coming or that you’re leaving the, the fellowship training grant, et cetera. And I found a lot of people that were having trouble with this things and it wasn’t just me. So I think that there is, there, there is a very powerful thing in community and I was trying to find the people that were having these issues and try to play safety nets for when people did face them because they’re bound to happen sometimes. They knew what to do, who to contact and things like that.

Emily (14:10): So helpful. I mean, it’s amazing that you, you know, worked along with your peers to put that resource together, um, through SciMed. It sounds like it was kind of part of your job, but to the extent, yes, you were doing it and it wasn’t part of your job, uh, amazing community service, but probably should have been taken up by the university. Um, obviously they’re the ones providing these benefits or facilitating the benefits, so like, yeah, they should be taking charge and making sure the transitions are seamless. I think about some this sometimes with respect to the tax questions of, you know, calculating, filing quarterly estimated tax or dealing with stuff during tax season. Um, like I know it’s really normal in the US for your employer to be very hands off about taxes. Like yeah, we’ll do withholding, that’s it, that’s the extent of what we’ll handle. But like universities aren’t even doing that much in most cases for fellowship recipients. And I do think they should be a little bit more proactive and, and thank you so much to the ones that work with me and are proactive about this, but be proactive about at least communicating right when the students, um, about what’s gonna happen. And it sounds like not, not only in the tax realm, but it extends with all these other benefits like you were just talking about. So I’m really glad you kind of gave us that overview. Um, so it sounds like you were working with, you know, SciMed and also talking with your peers. Can you tell me a little bit more about kind of what you learned or observed about how your peers were handling this stuff financially? Not just with, with respect to the benefits issues that we just spoke about, but maybe more generally what they needed to know or what they needed to apply, um, in their personal finances during graduate school?

The Birth of the Money Club

Carolina (15:36): Yeah, I, I think a lot of my peers were either, I don’t know, like I would say like there was like two categories. People that were in the category of like, you know what, I don’t wanna think about it. I am, I’m gonna take a pause on this while I’m in graduate school and once I figure out what my career path is gonna be, I’m gonna pick it up. And there was a small subset, small but mighty that was interested on talking about this and was sort of like, I think the taxes are the foot in the door for everybody that they’re just want to learn a little bit more of how to handle those. But once they’re in and then you just start chatting and like, where do you put your tax money before the thing is due? How are you, um, self withholding and things like that. I think that was kind of like the natural birth of the, the, the money club that we developed. And I really can’t remember if that was part of the SciMed job or eventually we kind intertwined it or something like that. The SciMed job was basically really help your community, how can you do this? Obviously there was like events and food ordering or flyer making and stuff like that, but I, at one point I was trying to explore student services as a career, so I think that that was my in, um, with that position. And then it turned into a way for me to look at this DEI issues and try to create resources for the people that were within the fellowship where in the fellowship were gonna come into the fellowship and things like that.

Emily (17:22): I totally agree with you that the taxes are the way to most, uh, you know, getting most people’s attention into personal finances. Yeah. Uh, where did it go after that? You know, you already mentioned using targeted savings or sinking funds as a helpful sort of addendum to your budgeting. Did you all talk about that or what other topics did ended up being of interest to this group?

Carolina (17:42): One of the topics definitely people were interested in investing. I think that that was one of the other ones that we’re kind of popular and, um, I don’t know, mystified a little bit and people wanted to ask around. I think, I think the money club really started getting around going like in 2021 after the summer of 2020, um, when George Floyd was murdered the entire a a group in the program started writing a letter to our admins and our professors and things like that in which we were quote unquote demanding changes in our program and whatever. So I was involved in that effort and I do remember putting some personal finance stuff in there and, um, I think when the whole program read it and they knew that there was like some of the things that I was requesting, like for example, um, I had recommended you to, to our program. I don’t know if they ended up hiring you or not. Basically like in the program then I, I became known as the person that talked about money and then people that wanted to talk about money found me. And, um, the other topics that I would say not so much as investing, but I kinda wrapped it around with investing was retirement and some of the benefits that the university was offering for students that did have access to those. The majority of my program was not like brought partners or anything like that. I, I don’t remember, but sometimes there was students that had in their budget a, a way to invest and they just wanted to start.

Emily (19:22): Absolutely. For me, I always say taxes and investing are my two favorite topics to discuss. And it’s lucky because those are the two top, um, most popular topics that get requested, which is really fun for me. Um, it’s so interesting too being in an environment where some people have access to that 403B, um, and even the other, well you mentioned FSA not an HSA, um, through the university, but perhaps other benefits that’d be relevant, you know, for investing. Um, and obviously if you’re on fellowship or, and if you’re not an employee, you’re not gonna have access to that, but it sounds like a subset of people would, and you and you also had access to <crosstalk>.

Carolina (19:55): So I found a loophole

Emily (19:57): Yeah. To be, um, a proper W2 employee at least for a few hours enough to give you that benefit.

Carolina (20:03): And I made it automatic that all a hundred percent of my hours with SciMed would go to the 403B.

Emily (20:10): Well, that’s kind of cool that they let you do that. I know sometimes employers that have like a restriction like no more than 50% of your paycheck or 25 or something, but obviously since it was just part-time for you, if that makes sense. Um, yeah. Anything else you wanna tell us about the money club?

Carolina (20:25): I think people just need safe spaces to talk about money, and I think it’s one of the cases that if you create it, people will come. I, I personally feel that a lot of people wanted to start working on their finances and they just didn’t have the language, the space, sometimes the resources or like the, the uh, uh, closed mindset of, well, I’m not making enough money so I, how can I work on this? And I think that’s my main, one of the things that I try to help people with is that your personal finance, like, and starting to work in your personal finance, it doesn’t have to be this ginormous thing that you have to put thousands of dollars into it. I think it’s small actions that just kind of add up and, um, my whole spiel is that I, I would like to create systems that you later edit when you get a different job and there’s a lot of things that you can do in order to work in your personal finance that don’t cost money or they can be a $2 thing and, and it’s more of like flexing that muscle as a lot of people say in the community. I think it’s true.

Emily (21:51): I totally agree. Um, and I, going back to kind of what you said earlier about, you know, the, you sort of encounter two kinds of people, like some people who wanted to engage, but some people just wanna say, you know, I’m not making that much money, it’s not the right time to be working my finances. I will pick this up later. And they are overlooking that benefit of, as you said, flexing the muscle of learning a few skills, of getting a little bit of extra knowledge, um, whether that can be applied during grad school or whether it’s just gonna be something that’s practiced a bit or set aside for later. Um, all of that does help you set up for financial success in your next post PhD career when you have that higher salary coming in. And of course it will be easier in some sense when you have, when you’re making more money, but if you’ve never practiced budgeting, if you’ve never really thought about what’s important to you in your spending, if you’ve never opened an IRA before, well that’s stuff you’re gonna have to learn, um, when the stakes are a little bit higher later on. So of course you know that I’m a proponent of working on that stuff during graduate school, you know, if at all possible, and as you said, it doesn’t have to, you don’t have to be able to save necessarily to have a savings rate to do positive things, um, in your personal finance, there’s lots of cost neutral things that you could do. Um, and hopefully you can get to a point where you’re able to save.

Commercial

Emily (23:05): Emily here for a brief interlude. Would you like to learn directly from me on a personal finance topic, such as taxes, goal-setting, investing, frugality, increasing income, or student loans, each tailored specifically for graduate students and postdocs? I offer seminars and workshops on these topics and more in a variety of formats, and I’m now booking for the 2024-2025 academic year. If you would like to bring my content to your institution, would you please recommend me as a speaker or facilitator to your university, graduate school, graduate student association, or postdoc office? My seminars are usually slated as professional development or personal wellness. Orientations or very close to the start of the academic year would be a perfect time for tax education or general personal finance content. Ask the potential host to go to PFforPhDs.com/financial-education/ or simply email me at [email protected] to start the process. I really appreciate these recommendations, which are the best way for me to start a conversation with a potential host. The paid work I do with universities and institutions enables me to keep producing this podcast and all my other free resources. Thank you in advance if you decide to issue a recommendation! Now back to our interview.

DEI and Personal Finance

Emily (24:32): I wanna get back to this point about how you, um, use the topic of personal finance within your own DEI efforts. And it’s something you’ve mentioned a few different aspects of it until now, but I just wanted you to just make it really explicit, like how do you view this and how do you work in this area?

Carolina (24:47): So I think DEI efforts are sometimes in some spaces, and this is not particularly about my university or my program or anything like that, but they get a little bit performative and they can get into, uh, check a box. We have a DEI committee and that’s it. That’s it. So I was involved in the DEI committee since this founding at, um, my program after the letter that I mentioned that we wrote. So through that there was two representatives for the students in this committee and we’ll bring issues forward regarding whatever our, our peers had brought up. And a lot of those ones sometimes were personal finance related, for example, there was one time that our paycheck schedule changed from a monthly to a biweekly time and a lot of the students were like, how am I gonna make rent if the biweekly paycheck is happening and then that I’m receiving that in this amount of time. I don’t have a safety net to just make that payment at the beginning of the, of the month if this happens. Um, so trying to make explicit what type of resources are available in the university for, uh, emergency hardship and stuff like that. That was one thing I definitely always advocated for more clarity on funding transitions as well as the fellowship letter. For example, I know that that one or my specific university came in March while your W2 came in January. So we had a case in which a student basically submitted their tax return after they got a W2 and they then they got the fellowship letter and they had to amend it. So basically being more transparent and proactive about the types of issues that funded students might face having I, I know one of my, um, one of the other representatives really advocated for having the, the number of the stipend for our incoming students instead of just kind being this nebulous number that you kind of hear there when you’re already in the interview.

Carolina (27:24): During the time that I was there, another person, not myself, but they got my full support, was really trying to start the conversation of a livable wage. So what is that? Like, how do we compare to other programs? And um, she did a tremendous effort, um, in order to look at the cost of living and how is that going and how, you know, it might not be our stipend might not be keeping up with this, what are we gonna do about that? So I would say that I definitely advocated for transparency in my, um, dei position from the program for the university. And I basically started spreading the information and just kinda reporting back to the committee and say like, this is what I did and I had my, my PI’s full support. I was very fortunate that she had my back. And um, there was instances in which I think if my PI was not supportive, like maybe they could have been like some issues and um, in terms of just like, hey, I think that what we’re doing is wrong, not wrong, but like not having the stipend number really there.

Emily (28:46): Yeah. Sort of obfuscating. Yeah.

Carolina (28:49): Yeah, I didn’t like that as much. My main issue was the medical coverage and I, I did as much as I could in order to create as much documentation and as much process safety nets for people to not receive that letter, um, of the COBRA Fellowship, um, not have to pay out of pocket for necessary prescriptions. If you have a lacking coverage, you cannot even make an a, a doctor’s appointment. It’s not like you can make it for later when you have coverage, they’re just not gonna talk to you. I had a back injury during graduate school and um, other chronic conditions that access to healthcare was, is necessary for everyone, but for me was particularly scary not to, and just the threat of not having it, it’s sometimes it was just that the, some deadline was occurring and like you’d really never had a lack of care. But just having that big thing in your brain that you might not have it, I think you, that takes you away from science and then you’re worrying about that instead of your experiment.

Emily (30:04): That’s exactly what I was thinking when you were going through, um, that response is that if we want to keep graduate students and postdocs, um, focused on their research, focused on progressing in their programs, successful in their academics, academia has to materially support them properly so they aren’t one distracted by the things like the benefit issues and all the, all the one things that we’ve talked about so far. Um, but then also by financial stress overall, um, having to be super, super frugal or having to make very extreme sacrifices in what your expenses are. Or on the flip side, you know, maybe spending a lot of time side hustling because your stipend is just not sufficient. And as a DEI issue, I mean if we want <laugh> more diversity in academia, um, and more people being successful across the board, we have to support them in a way that we’re assuming that they’re not gonna have to depend on family members or partners or other people who might or might not be able to contribute financially to them. Um, and frankly, a lot of people, you know, now have caregiving responsibilities. They have to contribute to the finances, other families too. And so again, you can’t even assume it’s just like a single person and all we have to do is provide for your basic living expenses and that should be enough for you because even these small bumps in the road, like you’ve been talking about these small emergencies or something medical comes up or I have to take an unexpected flight, these irregular expenses that you mentioned earlier, um, that can completely throw off your budget if you’re living with very little margin very close to the edge in the first place. So the way that I see it, we just have to fund graduate students, um, more than the baseline, right? Like not even the living wage. We gotta go beyond the living wage because you, to really be financially secure, you have to have a savings rate because these things will ease emergencies, these things will come up and it’s so much easier to recover from them and get back to being focused on your program and on your work, um, when you have the finances there and you don’t have to scramble and be stressed about it. So <laugh> that’s my part of the soapbox there. Um, yeah, anything more that you’d like to say about your, like the way that you do these DEI efforts?

Carolina (32:13): What, what I, I currently try to do and what I tried to do during graduate school was really providing the information that some people might not have. Basically like who, who can afford to go to graduate school and how the people that have made it to graduate school, how can we support them during, I believe that there are, there’s a lot of focus on the DEI efforts within recruiting and being like, yes, come to our university and having admissions numbers. And I think that that is very important. I also think that if there is not a support system for the students that are coming in and staying, I think that is a disservice to the minorities that you recruited. So while it’s really great to get a fellowship and it’s really good to be a funded student and that opens the doors for you to go into a lab that you might not have access before or gives you more research freedom and things like that, I think that if, if the school can get to brag about the funding that you have, the schools should also support you through the issues that may arise due to that funding.

Emily (33:48): Very good point. Thank you so much for adding that. Let’s turn our attention back to you in your post PhD life with your proper job, with your proper, uh, salary, which sounds amazing. So how are you pursuing financial goals these days and how are you doing with your, um, spending and just like, what’s going on in your finances now?

Post-PhD Finances

Carolina (34:08): Well, the private industry pays very well and as we know, our equation for our budgeting income is one of the biggest, um, in there. So I would say that for the first six months that I was at my full-time employment, I didn’t give myself a raise and I threw everything into retirement. So I think I started in the end of August, so I tried to get as close as the max as I could for the employee sponsored 401k and um, that, that was really great because, um, we were used to living in a given stipend and we didn’t really change much during those six months. Then after that I would say that my husband and I made a list of things that we wanted to upgrade in our house and one of them was a new bed <laugh>, one of them was a new fridge and, you know, things that we were like, it’s large expenses and is, I don’t know, it just felt like it was definitely a, a pivotal moment in an income that we could just buy this and not really like budget for it or something like that. And I, I think we bought the fridge for like a bonus or something <laugh> my sign up bonus or something like that. And I would say right now, because in graduate school I faced some medical issues, I would say that I really became a quote unquote vaulist that I was really trying to find what adds value to my life and the things that I really care about. And I think when people get sick or something like that, they really turn inward and, and start thinking of like, what is important in life. And I really started seeing like, okay, what in my budget reflects my values? What doesn’t and how can we reconcile those? So for example, family is very important to me and my husband, so I am happy that travel is a big category in my budget and we, we ran the numbers for the last year and I think like that was like our third category that we spend money on because our families are not here, so we have to travel to see them and we are pursuing fire. I think right now we don’t have responsibilities that are really sinking funds at the moment. So, um, I think I’m, we’re just kinda understanding what this new income can do and where can we put it into the long term retirement plans. And I’m also focusing on trying to live the life that I, I want. And I feel like during graduate school sometimes people really throw themselves into work and they’re like, they’re passionate about their stuff and they kind of like sometimes like don’t have like outside things. I definitely was guilty of that. So I’m trying to course correct and really focus on things that bring me joy in my every day today and spend on those ones I wouldn’t say previously, but definitely spend on, on the things that bring me joy and the things that I don’t care about, like my cell phone plan to definitely cut it as much as I can.

Emily (38:00): I just hope that, um, the listeners who are still in graduate school and are looking forward to the transition that you, um, have com- have, um, completed, can remember this example when they’re in your shoes because in, in my view, you have executed this like just perfectly <laugh>, um, which is kind of a combination of live like a grad student, like okay, don’t make any major changes right away. You, it sounds like you didn’t have to move or anything. So like there was some stability and it was, uh, easier in a sense to continue on with your previous level of spending, but in combination with that sort of as a default, okay, we’re not gonna, we’re gonna default to not changing anything, but then as you said, be so intentional about thinking through where you do want to spend more or where you wanna save more, um, to reach your financial goals and your lifestyle goals and everything and just add money to those buckets and to those places, um, and really get, as you said, like introspective about what’s important to you and apply that to your budget and reconcile them as best you can. Um, I just think it’s a wonderful, wonderful example, especially for someone who, who doesn’t right immediately after graduate school because the moving process brings in like more variables and more opportunities for like chaos in your budget when you have those kinds of transitions. That was the one that I went through personally. But yeah, I just think it’s so wonderful and awesome job. Of course, given the background that we heard, we knew that you were gonna do an awesome job with this, but it’s just amazing to like hear some more details about that.

Financial Mindsets, Skills, and Habits That Help With Post-PhD Life

Emily (39:22): Were there any skills or mindsets that you developed during graduate school with respect to your finances that you found useful in this post PhD, uh, life that you haven’t already brought up?

Carolina (39:34): I think making things automatic was something that I am still doing and I’m glad that I started before and I think like going back to the beginning about the savings accounts and we, we had a lot of transactions being automatic and right now I feel like we’re just kind of coasting. Like it, it’s something that we, we have developed already and I think that I’m never gonna pay my car insurance by month. I think that that is something that, um, I started doing in grad school because it was cheaper and now we, we just kind of continue with that. I think the frugal mindset of, of graduate students and like finding fun things to do for free, that is something that I have continued. Just yesterday I went to the library because they had a craft cafe and I made a craft and I had a blast and, and it cost $0. So I, I think a graduate student is good at finding those things around and taking the opportunity to, you know, have fun with a free activity when you, when your stipend is not as large, you sometimes like you really try to find the things that you care about and spend money on those. Like for example, I have a friend that he was willing to bike in and he bought a rather expensive bike, but it brought him a lot of joy and that was something that he did during graduate school and biking was his like stress reliever. So that was very worth it for him. And I think finding the things that are worth it for you, I think graduate school is a great time because you are sort of like tied on the money side and then sort of like continue those things and cut merci- mercifully, um, in the rest.

Finances with Carolina

Emily (41:37): Mm-Hmm <affirmative>, that’s Ramit Sethi <laugh>. I know that quote. Yeah. Um, well it was so great. It was so wonderful talking with you Carolina. Can you tell the listeners more about Finances with Carolina and what you do through your business?

Carolina (41:48): Sure. This business started out of the money club and I, I wanted to have a space in which I can help graduate students that are facing similar challenges to the ones that I faced or that my peers faced. And I would say that right now I do a lot of coaching calls in which students fill out a questionnaire that I have for them and that covers things, uh, as I mentioned, what brings you joy in your life and uh, I’m not gonna ask them to cut in their budget if that thing brings them joy <laugh> and, um, we go all over debt repayment and, um, trying to set up those high yield savings account, what are irregular expenses that they are gonna face. Retirement a lot of people are interested in that. And I would say personally from my community, I think finding someone that went through graduate school is just helpful that they can relate to you. I think that that is something that you and I bring to our communities that we, we know what it was like and we know what the problems might have been and, and heard about certain solutions or know someone that might have gone into that. So I would say the network that we, that I developed during graduate school, I have been using that for my clients as well. If someone is, and, and right now I would say coaching like just once on ones are my main focus and the way that I try to get funded is basically making the program, uh, cover those so the grad student doesn’t have to pay. Yeah, anything from budgeting to debt repayment. And I really like the one-on-one conversation. I I don’t think that’s scalable, but uh, I’m having a lot of fun with that. So, and I do like having an impact on someone’s life directly. So I think that’s why I am, I’m keeping it on the one-on-ones at the moment and I do have one digital product in which I have put like just kind of like stuff together in which, what the most common questions are and things like that. And I understand that not everybody likes the, the chatty, um, the chattiness that comes with like one-on-one coaching. So that’s, um, why I developed that one. In the future I hope to develop one that is not focused on graduate students and just in general because now I have been finding at work that some people that I did not find them in graduate school and they’re now starting their careers and they’re in their first full-time job with benefits and things like that, they’re a little bit lost. So that is another digital product that I wanna develop but is not ready yet. <laugh>.

Emily (44:38): Yeah, sounds like you’re repeating, repeating what you did during graduate school. You’re, you’re just a person that is open about money that people can feel comfortable talking to you and you find other people who are interested and you find other people who need your help at every single stage. So that’s just wonderful. And tell the listeners where they can find you.

Carolina (44:55): Yes, listeners can find me at financeswithcarolina.com and in there there’s uh, there’s a link to the digital product that I talked about. Um, there’s a link to the coaching services and things like that. So if you find me relatable and you wanna chat about money, schedule something <laugh>.

Best Financial Advice for Another Early-Career PhD

Emily (45:16): Beautiful. Okay, let’s finish up with the last question that I ask of all my guests, which is, what is your best financial advice for another early career PhD? And that could be something that we’ve already touched on in the interview or it could be something completely new.

Carolina (45:29): My best financial advice. The, it’s, it’s a marathon, not a sprint. And I think that if you start flexing the muscle of working on your personal finances with small changes that are sustainable in realistic for you, you’re more likely to stick to those goals. I would also say that in order to keep that momentum going and that inspiration that you sometimes need on, on personal finance, I really would like to encourage the listeners to find content creators that speak with relative, like speak to you in experiences that you relate to in experiences that you might have aspirational in things. And, and overall really find the content that is gonna keep you motivated. And the content is the same, it’s just the delivery, it’s the, the, the experiences that the people that are delivering the content, the network of those people. So overall, find someone that does inspire you and keep you motivated and slow and steady.

Emily (46:46): All right. Name your top few content creators that you love to follow for, for yourself personally.

Carolina (46:52): Yes. Um, well of course your podcast. I think that was one of the ones that Hello PhD. You you did a cross interview with them and that’s how I find you and I was just mesmerized of all the things that I could do with my stipend <laugh>. Um, so that’s one definitely related to graduate school in terms of minorities, I I really like the podcast Brown ambition. There’s two ladies in there and they have everything about career questions, entrepreneurship, money stuff and how that relates to one another. They’re in different stages of their careers and lives and just very interesting to see where they’re coming from and where they’re going. Uh, popcorn Finance is another one that is very nice and um, it has a lot of investing. I love their investing series. I referred everyone to that one because they have a lot of content of like, what is an ETF, what is an index fund, what is a lot of what is and and when you start reading all these things,

Emily (48:01): I didn’t know about that series. I’m gonna check that out.

Carolina (48:03): It’s really good. Um, journey to Launch is another one, that I follow, she definitely has like really cool interviews and just a lot of inspirational stories. Afford anything by Paula Pant. Yeah, those, those ones are the ones that like I probably listen like yesterday or today.

Emily (48:27): Yeah, every single one of those podcasts is also on my feed except for Popcorn Finance. I’ve only listened on and off to Popcorn Finance, but the rest of ’em, I’m a regular listener. I love all of them, especially, um, Afford Anything is like taking the podcast medium to like the next level with like journalism, um, around finances, which is so amazing. Paula Pant doing an amazing job. Um, okay. Well Carolina, thank you so much for giving this interview. It’s been really insightful and it’s been lovely talking with you. Um, thank you so much for agreeing to come on.

Carolina (48:55): Of course.

Outtro

Emily (49:06): Listeners, thank you for joining me for this episode! I have a gift for you! You know that final question I ask of all my guests regarding their best financial advice? My team has collected short summaries of all the answers ever given on the podcast into a document that is updated with each new episode release. You can gain access to it by registering for my mailing list at PFforPhDs.com/advice/. Would you like to access transcripts or videos of each episode? I link the show notes for each episode from PFforPhDs.com/podcast/. See you in the next episode, and remember: You don’t have to have a PhD to succeed with personal finance… but it helps! Nothing you hear on this podcast should be taken as financial, tax, or legal advice for any individual. The music is “Stages of Awakening” by Podington Bear from the Free Music Archive and is shared under CC by NC. Podcast editing by Dr. Lourdes Bobbio and show notes creation by Dr. Jill Hoffman.