In this episode, Emily shares the microinterviews she recorded at two conferences this year and solicited from subscribers to her mailing list. The prompt she gave to everyone was “What is your best financial advice for a funded graduate student matriculating in fall 2026?” Emily was very curious whether the advice would be timeless or unique to 2026, and you can listen for how the respondents interpreted it. You’ll hear first the responses from the conference attendees at the Graduate Career Consortium Annual Meeting in June 2026 and the Higher Education Financial Wellness Summit in July 2026. Virtually all of these respondents work at universities, and most have PhDs themselves. Second, you’ll hear the responses submitted by my mailing list subscribers. Some of them came in audio form and some in written form, and Emily voices the written submissions. I’ll also make a few comments in between some of the submissions if there are podcast episodes that relate to the given advice.

Links mentioned in the Episode

• PF for PhDs Resource: Nine Factors That Affect Your Financial and Overall Wellbeing During Graduate School
• PF for PhDs S16E4: How This Grad Student-Parent Managed Her Money and Time in the Bay Area
• PF for PhDs S24E4: Even More Reasons Not to Fund Your PhD with Federal Student Loans
• Host a PF for PhDs Seminar at Your Institution
• Emily’s E-mail Address
• PF for PhDs Subscribe to Mailing List
• PF for PhDs Podcast Hub

Introduction

Emily R (00:00): 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 R (00:30): This is Season 24 Episode 5, and today I’m sharing the microinterviews I recorded at two conferences this year and solicited from subscribers to my mailing list. The prompt I gave to everyone was “What is your best financial advice for a funded graduate student matriculating in fall 2026?” I was very curious whether the advice would be timeless or unique to 2026, and you can listen for how the respondents interpreted it. You’ll hear first the responses from the conference attendees at the Graduate Career Consortium Annual Meeting in June 2026 and the Higher Education Financial Wellness Summit in July 2026. Virtually all of these respondents work at universities, and most have PhDs themselves. Second, you’ll hear the responses submitted by my mailing list subscribers. Some of them came in audio form and some in written form, and I am voicing the written submissions. I’ll also make a few comments in between some of the submissions if there are podcast episodes that relate to the given advice.

Emily R (01:38): If you are matriculating into graduate school in fall 2026 or are a prospective graduate student, go to PFforPhDs.com/offerletter/ to download a one-page reference sheet listing nine factors that affect your financial and overall wellbeing during graduate school. Ideally, you would use this list during admissions season to help you decide among offers, and it’s still valuable upon matriculating into graduate school to investigate how your university and program stack up on these factors. You’ll find several commonalities between this list and the advice given in this episode as well as some new points. Again, if you want to join my mailing list to download this quick resource, go to PFforPhDs.com/offerletter/. You can find the show notes for this episode at PFforPhDs.com/s24e5/. Without further ado, here’s my compilation episode on the best financial advice for funded graduate students matriculating in fall 2026.

Best Financial Advice for Funded Graduate Students Matriculating in Fall 2026

Brent R (02:52): My name’s Brent Richards. I am the Assistant Dean for Graduate Research and Education at the University of Oklahoma, uh, Graduate College on the health campus. And, uh, my advice for a new student, um, coming in, uh, in the, uh, uh, fall of 26 would be, um, first of all, uh, really know what the funding model of the program you’re going into looks like. So if it’s funded all the way through, or if it’s only funded through the first year or two, and then if, if that’s the case, how does the funding, uh, continue? Are you gonna be expected to get your own training grant? Um, are you gonna move on to your, your PIs grant? And just know that from the beginning and don’t wait until, you know, you’re already two or three years in and, and now suddenly you have to scramble to, to find money.

Grace K (03:43): Hello, my name is Grace Kimball. I work as the Assistant Director of Professional Development at UC Santa Barbara. My advice to incoming funded graduate students would be to plan very carefully with your finances and save wherever you can, because you sometimes just never know what the future may hold.

Ilana H (04:02): This is Ilana Horwitz. I’m an assistant professor at Tulane University. And my best advice is to find other people who do really cool things and make soups or take photos, uh, or build furniture and try to barter with them for services that you can offer and tra – and create a trade economy.

Emily R (04:22): Ilana gave a previous interview for this podcast in which she expounded on this advice, so if you’re interested, listen to Season 16 Episode 4.

Briana M (04:33): I’m Briana Mohan. I’m a program director at University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. I think primarily I would encourage people to find colleagues, classmates, acquaintances who are really into how to manage money, how to invest money, whether it’s in retirement, whether it’s in stocks, whether it’s, you know, put it under your mattress, like, whatever. Um, don’t talk to my 13-year-old who thinks that counterfeiting is the way to make money. But talk to, like, adults who are really enthusiastic and knowledgeable about money and how to make it work for you. Um, and don’t think that that’s something that should only start after you have, like, a salary, right? Um, because you kind of can’t start too early, and at least with knowing what the, I don’t know, what the landscape is like for money.

Nicole L (05:34): Hello, my name is Nicole Lilly, and I work at Florida State University in the Career Center. So thinking about what you can do best when you’re getting started with your first stipend is paying yourself first. So making sure you put aside some sort of money, whether it’s 10%, 5%, anything from your salary, because sooner or later something’s gonna go wrong. A car might break down and you have to pay additional pet deposit. Who knows what? But just get in the habit of just saving stuff now, because when things get more complicated with more salary, more responsibilities, you’ve already started that saving habit. So you have, like, an emergency fund, money that you can dip into without having to go on a credit card to kinda get you to stay out of trouble.

Emily S K (06:17): Hi. My name is Emily Sferra Kapela. I am the program specialist for career and professional development at the University of Michigan Medical School. My advice would be to think ahead to next summer. Do you have funding for next summer? And if not, what are you going to do? Will you save part of your earnings over the academic year to fund yourself? Will you seek out additional funding? Or will you find a job?

Cindy V (06:59): My name’s Cindy Vigueira. I am a Director of Curriculum Programs, uh, for the Division of Biology and Biomedical Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis. My advice is to save money. Um, don’t spend it all. Make sure you have a rainy day fund so that if you have an unexpected expense, you’re ready to cover it.

Natalie D (07:20): Hi, this is Natalie D’Silva. I am the Senior Manager for Career Professional Development at Scripps Research in San Diego. My advice for international students matriculating this fall is to start saving, especially if you’re considering, uh, immigration and continuing on in the country. Especially if that is years away, start saving now because it costs a lot of money, um, to immigrate.

Chris G (07:47): Hi. My name is Chris Golde. I’m a career coach for PhDs and postdocs at Stanford University. And my piece of advice is to take advantage of your funded status, to really explore broadly the resources that are available at your university. It’s very tempting to really focus, particularly in the first couple years, on life within your department, but your university has so much to offer you, and you will grow as a person, and your opportunities in the world will grow as you look around and seize opportunities and take advantage of them and try things.

Raquel S (08:21): My name’s Raquel Salinas, and I’m the Assistant Dean of Career and Alumni Engagement at MD Anderson UT Health Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences. And in a previous role, I specifically worked with master’s students in a bridge to the doctorate program. So I worked with these students, uh, to apply for PhD programs, uh, and then help them transition as they were leaving their master’s and starting their PhD programs. And so that question of how do you deal with finances during that time came up, especially because many of the students I worked with were first generation, came from low socioeconomic backgrounds. And this was a really challenging time. How do you move across the country? How do you, um, prepare for a move when you don’t make a lot of money, or maybe you’ve made no money, and now you have to navigate that. Um, and you may not be, be paid your first stipend until you’ve worked fully a month. Uh, and family support is very limited. And so in these cases, we often visited that idea of, do you take out a loan in your last semester before you, to prepare and save for that move? Um, and so one of the things that we constantly talked about was estimating the cost of the move and taking out the minimum required to do that move, because as we all know, loans compound. And so they can be really helpful and effective before you get to graduate school, but they have to be planned very carefully. So taking out too much can really lead to a lot of long-term strife when you, especially when you get to that point of graduating your PhD and having to pay it back. Um, the other thing would be to reach out to your graduate school and see if there’s any funds or support, um, that can help with that move or advances on those first paychecks, um, or loans to help with the move as well. So that would be my advice if you are finding this to be really challenging time in moving, uh, and covering those expenses.

Emily R (10:29): I want to double triple quadruple underline what Raquel said about planning carefully for taking out federal student loan debt, and to that end, if you are considering a federal student loan, please listen to Season 24 Episode 4 for the latest updates. If you take out a federal student loan in or after July 2026, you are locked into the new repayment plan options, the tiered standard plan and the Repayment Assistance Plan, so if you want or need to retain access to the legacy income-driven repayment plans, you absolutely cannot take out another federal student loan. Again, for more details, go to Season 24 Episode 4. I love Raquel’s suggestion to approach your graduate school about alternative ways to fund your moving expenses.

Brian C (11:22): Hi, I’m Brian Campbell, Associate Director of Graduate Career Development at Loyola University of Chicago. My PhD in History from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. And my piece of financial advice for someone in a stipend granting PhD program would be to find small side hustles at some point during your PhD that can help you for a specific purpose. For me, it was paying off some private student loan debt that I had while I was in my PhD. So I did that in a number of ways. Um, I, in, in part, I worked with some friends on a couple of projects and got some, like, side money for that. Um, at one point, I, I’ll be honest, I was one of those people who donated plasma on the side, because I could do it. I had a plasma donation place right next to me. Um, and I made a lot of money doing that, uh, you know, a couple of days a week, and it enabled me to pay off those student loans. So whatever’s gonna work for you, um, and you feel like is healthy and, uh, healthy and productive side hustle.

Jessica V (12:30): Hello. My name is Jessica Vélez. I am the senior manager of engagement, community building and professional development for the Genetic Society of America. And my advice is start a budget yesterday. Start it as soon as possible. There are lots of software out there that you can use, some of which are free. Uh, I will quickly plug one called You Need a Budget that gives you a free year. And I started that when I was in graduate school, and I will give a personal anecdote that after I finished graduate school, I had a job lined up. It fell through as these things happen. But because I had been using YNAB for so long, I was able to live fine for three months off of my savings that I had been able to save because of the budgeting habits that I had developed. So cannot recommend a budget enough.

Emily R (13:16): If you want to take a deep dive into You Need a Budget in particular, subscribe to this podcast so you won’t miss the forthcoming interview with returning guest Elle Rathbun, who has used the program to great success during graduate school. The episode will be published in Season 25.

Sophie L (13:33): Hi, I’m Sophie Lewis. I’m a graduate assistant and doctoral candidate at Boston University. I think the biggest piece of advice I would have for matriculating PhD students this fall is to know when you’re getting paid and how much you’re getting paid so that you can kind of track your income and budget it out over time so there’s no surprises when you kind of get paid. 

Jessica M (13:57): Hi, my name is Jessica McCarthy. I am the Director of Grad Student Support at Boston University. And a piece of advice, well, two pieces of advice that I would give to incoming PhD students is know, find out who in your department oversees your pay so that if there is an issue, you know who to go to directly. The second piece is that if you are in a teaching role or some other sort of role that’s affiliated with a classroom, find out a little bit more about what the expectations and assumptions are for any summer teaching. Is it an extra stipend? Is it included in your stipend? Are you allowed to do it? Are you prevented from doing it? Um, because we’ve seen some PhD students kind of get a little bit surprised in the summer, um, thinking that they would be teaching another course for X amount of dollars and maybe it didn’t end up being that way.

Letty T (14:46): My name is Letty Treviño, she/her/ella pronouns. I’m the Assistant Director of Inclusion Initiatives for graduate programs in postdoc affairs and the biosciences at UCLA. What financial advice would I give? You should read every, uh, every bit of a financial statement. Read all the fine print. And for the UC system, specifically, read your union contract on the union website because that’s where you will find it in its entirety.

Lizzy M (15:18): Hello. My name is Lizzy Machado, and I’m a career counselor for graduate students at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. And the advice that I would give is to make a budget if you haven’t already. So basically tracking how much are you getting from your funding? How much do you have coming in? How much do you have in your savings? Are there any other sources of income that you have coming in? And then what are your expenses? Housing, what do you expect for food? Other fixed things so you know what your margin is and whether or not you need to supplement that by finding an on-campus job, seeking other ways of funding, applying to grants, uh, applying to scholarships, other things like that.

Alicia R (16:09): My name’s Alicia Roy. I work at the Gladstone Institutes in San Francisco, and I’m a career services manager there. And I did my PhD from UC Berkeley. And when I think about the question of financial advice, a big one is to not compare your financial situation to other people. It’s very easy in grad programs to compare yourself to your friends or friends of friends or family who did not go to grad school and see their income, their purchases, and, and wonder why you’re not doing that or, or worry about it. And I would say the only reason I would pay attention to those worries is that if they become really all consuming, then maybe that’s an indicator that you’re not actually satisfied with your current situation. And the pros and cons of why you decided to go to grad school and the material benefit that maybe you see other people getting is a factor that’s bigger than maybe you initially realized. If you find it difficult to dismiss those thoughts, then I would say that that’s an interesting line to follow. But otherwise, I felt like I was happy with my situation. I was able, I was focusing on what I was able to do that I wouldn’t have been able to do otherwise, like get funding for travel. Um, and, you know, get, get support in, uh, doing things like setting up your Roth IRA early if you can. I did that with a friend and that helped a lot. But I think it was so often the discussion about, like, what we saw colleagues who weren’t in grad school doing and the savings that they had or the purchases that they were making or the, the places that they were living. Um, and ultimately, I don’t think that was a helpful thing to focus on with that caveat that I mentioned.

Commercial

Emily R (17:58): 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, budgeting, or designing your financial life, each tailored specifically for graduate students and postdocs? I offer live workshops, asynchronous online courses, and cohort-based programs on these topics, and I’m now booking for the 2026-2027 academic year. If you would like to bring my content to your institution, would you please recommend me as a speaker or facilitator to your university, graduate school, graduate student association, medical school, postdoc office, or postdoc association? My workshops are usually slated as professional development or personal wellness. The fall semester is an excellent time for any type of 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.

Best Financial Advice for Funded Graduate Students Matriculating in Fall 2026

Emily S (19:33): Hi, I’m Emily Schwartz. I’m the director of financial education for MidFirst Bank. And, you know, my advice would be start planning your finances from day one. I know there’s so much to start doing when you enter grad school, but make sure that getting your finances figured out is part of it that you do right away. Don’t save it for later. That’s when those bad habits start to creep in.

Thedley N (19:57): Hi, my name is Thedley Nicolas. I am a student at Florida International University, a DBA student, and I am also a financial education specialist. One advice I will tell you, have consistency and discipline. Know when to say no to the wants and follow your financial goals. The more you are consistent with the small, um, deposits, the, um, eventually will increase. And you got this, okay?

Sara E (20:28): So I’m Sara Early from Iowa State University, a financial aid advisor. And even if you are funded by your graduate program, I still recommend talking to your financial aid office just in case there’s anything else available to you. Um, because you can get financial aid up to your cost of attendance. And a lot of financial aid offices also have, uh, financial success programs to help you figure out how to finance your life past college.

Emily R (20:55): From further conversation I had with Sara before and after this audio clip, I wanted to clarify that she was referring to scholarships and fellowships that you might be able to get through the financial aid office, not only student loans. That would not at all have been apparent to me as a funded graduate student.

Kathryn W (21:12): Hi, everybody. My name is Kathryn Wilson. I’m the Associate Director of Student Financial Support and Housing Resources at the Boston University Medical Campus. Um, my best financial advice for a funded graduate student matriculating in the fall 2026 is to pay yourself first. So set aside anything you can for that rainy day fund, whether that be for emergencies, um, or just a little bit of a break in your academic studies to get out and enjoy life. I think that that’s really important balance to have as a student and as a community member.

Sara R (21:42): My name is Sara Ray. I’m the incoming director of Powercat Financial at Kansas State University. So for a graduate student who is, say, starting in fall 2026, um, they are super excited about starting, but you might encounter some hurdles along the way where you realize, “I might not finish this program.” Um, that can feel really sa – scary and you’re facing something called the sunk cost fallacy, where you put in so much time and effort and you’re, you’re feeling that you need to finish. You might also be facing some opportunity costs around, “I need to go earn money, um, and I need a real job. Um, but also I wanna finish this degree despite all of the obstacles.” I think it’s really important to sit down and it could be a basic pro/con list. It could be, um, you know, any number of decision-making frameworks, but really evaluate at that moment in time in your life what’s really important to you. Um, and of course, just having financial stability can be a, a part of that process. Um, a thing that I really found when I was in grad school and I was facing sunk costs, something that I wish I had was, um, I wish I had really sought out either mental health counseling or career counseling, um, for some of our universities that have access to one-on-one financial counseling. Any of those resources can be really helpful. Just having a more objective third party is amazing, um, when you’re, you’re really looking at all areas of your life, including, you know, this difficult graduate program and deciding if you wanna finish and what might be financial obstacles, opportunities, and just really making the best choice for you. I think that’s the most important thing is there’s so many opportunities and what you’ve done in your grad program isn’t lost. Even if you don’t finish the degree, you can take what you’ve learned and the skillset you’ve built and it can become an amazing next part of a career, even if you don’t finish the PhD.

Amgad H (24:08): My name is Amgad Hussein. I am the financial wellbeing program coordinator at the University of Buffalo. My best advice for a funded graduate student who’s starting in the fall of 2026 would probably be to look inward and kind of analyze your relationship with money. Learn what makes you spend, what makes you save, and how those things interact with each other, and how those things affect your general wellbeing and your general wellness. And that point of reflection can be really rewarding and really helpful for setting up your future.

Jennifer C (24:36): My name is Jennifer Careaga. I’m the Assistant Director of Student Financial Literacy and Wellness at University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston. And my best advice for a funded grad student matriculating in the fall of 2026 is to live within your means. Know the money that’s coming in, know the money that’s going out, and make sure what’s going out is less than what’s coming in. One of the ways that I recommend students try to live within their means and cut their expenses is take advantage of all of the free stuff you can get. Um, whether it is on campus food pantry or a city food pantry, um, you know, there’s a lot of food drives, especially in my area. Um, apply for SNAP benefits if you’re eligible. In my state, students are.

Lyndsi B (25:27): My name is Lyndsi Burcham, and I am the financial wellness program manager at the University of Pennsylvania. Um, my best financial advice for a funded grad student matriculating in fall 2026 is go see your school’s financial wellness office to talk about your financial goals and, um, you know, s – uh, you don’t have to worry about student loans at this point, so let’s think about how we can be proactive and, um, set yourself up for success post-grad.

Anna (25:54): My name’s Anna, and I work with the Peer Financial Counseling Program at University of Virginia. And my advice to first-year fully funded PhD student would be to set up a budget and to make sure you’re fully funded the whole time.

Lynn L (26:08): Hi, I’m Lynn Letukas. I’m head of strategic programs and partnerships at Intuit for Education. Uh, there’s so many things that are going through my mind, but I really wanna emphasize the importance of starting to save early and compounding interest. So even if you only have a few dollars, you wanna take even that $25 a paycheck that you have, save it, invest it, and let it compound other, over time. So by the time you graduate or as you move throughout your career, you will see that money grow and it’ll help you for retirement.

Melissa G (26:39): So I’m Melissa Groves. I’m the chairperson of the economics department at Towson University in Maryland. And my best financial advice for a funded grad student who’s matriculating in fall 2026 is to, uh, enjoy the benefit of having your education funded, but be careful that that doesn’t translate over into carelessness in other large expenses like housing and transportation. Um, and you keep in mind kind of best decision making, um, in those areas and don’t, um, overspend.

Jonathan L (27:16): Hi, my, my name is Jonathan Lewis, and I am a PhD-trained research fellow at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, working with faculty in the leadership and education program. I would say you need to know explicitly what your funded commitment, what the terms of your funded commitment look like. In other words, are you expected to teach a certain number of courses or produce a certain number of research papers based on your assistantships? How many semesters are you guaranteed funding? Uh, what is your plan B if your faculty member was to go to a different institution or the priorities or financial situation of the department were to change? So really understanding what the school is committing to and what they’re kind of sort of hoping to commit to, but things might change. Um, and understanding how you can create a multi-year sustainable financial plan for yourself that relies on the funding and then supplements elsewhere as needed to get you to graduation.

Barbara S (28:19): Barbara Sweeney, coordinator of Food Security Outreach, University of Rhode Island, Kingston, Rhode Island. My best financial advice for funded grad students actually has two pieces. One, learn about the basic needs that are available on your campus. Food pantries, housing, uh, advocacy, um, emergency funding. You may need those and you wanna know about them before you need them. The second is, it’s not too early to think about summer funding. We all, uh, we get funded for fall and spring, and summer is a long 14 or 15 weeks, and it’s really important to find out if your major professor will have funding for you next summer.

Rohit P (28:58): My name is Rohit Prasad. I work within financial literacy space in education, higher education. Um, I’d say, you know, in this particular question, assuming a student’s fully funded in the sense that they don’t need any additional financial aid from the university, they have their main expenses covered and all their needs covered. At that point, a student can really kind of venture with their money into the realm of usually investing. ‘Cause at that point, that frees you up and frees up your money to now use it to grow your money long-term. This is things like compounding interest, long-term investing, you know, folks that may interpret as, like, stock market and bonds, long-term CDs, however you choose to interpret that. But it does allow for investing versus just trying to maintain your lifestyle day-to-day or budgeting month to month.

Sara L (29:50): I am Sara Lorenzen, and I am the Assistant Director of Financial Wellbeing at UNC Chapel Hill. And advice I would give to a fully funded student is Um, to still always know what your other funding options are, because especially with like recent changes, funding can change. So it’s important to make sure that you still file your FAFSA even if you’re not gonna utilize student loans. Um, and that you know what your private lending options are if something happens and you lose part or all of your funding, so you don’t have to stop in your course to finish your degree.

Haley H-D (30:24): My name is Haley Hamblin-Dold, and I’m the Assistant Dean of Students for Basic Needs and Student Support at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. And my advice to incoming graduate students, um, for financial tips is to just know where your food resources are. So when you come into your graduate program, you may think that you have all the financial resources you need. You’re not concerned about where your food is gonna come from, but at any point during, uh, your time, something might happen. And so knowing where your food pantry is, following them on social media, locating them on your campus, it might not be near where you’re studying and researching, and so being able to access that and know how to get there is really valuable so that if something, when something comes up, you know where to go and have those resources available to you.

Elena E (31:05): My name is Elena Evans. I’m a PhD candidate at Vanderbilt University, and my best piece of advice is to get a high yield savings account. Something that’s around 3% or even higher is great. Something that’ll give you a lot of interest just for having a savings account.

McKenzie (31:23): I’m McKenzie, a PhD student at the University of Washington. My best financial advice is to join your union if you have one. In our last contract negotiations our union won a base stipend increase from $32,000 to $46,000 over three years and we successfully countered a proposal that would raise our health insurance premium costs by $1,000 a year.

Latasha W (31:50): Latasha Woodward, Engineer I At Pro2Serve. Use a zero-based budget to manage finances. This helps you keep track of what is coming in and out. With this method, every dollar has a purpose. Even though money will be tight, put aside money to go have fun, even if it’s just getting coffee. Coffee runs are important in graduate and professional school.

Rob R (32:14): I’m Rob Rich, a former PhD student in English at University of Rochester, finished in 2023. My advice, pay down your undergraduate loan debt, if you have any, as quickly as you can, because the faster you pay it down, the less you end up having to pay. Then start putting money in money market funds and index funds. Live as close to campus as humanly possible.

Karen L (32:39): I am Karen Lawrence, program manager at St. Jude Children’s Hospital. Save painlessly in a separate account. I prefer mine to be in a separate bank with no ATM card access, so when you access it, it is a different effort and intentional. Ways to build. If possible, have a small portion of your paycheck be automatically deposited. Even $10 a paycheck will add up quickly. Anytime you get money beyond your normal paycheck, birthday money, tax return, raise, split it in half. Put half in your savings account and then enjoy the rest. You still get a treat, but also are investing in your future needs.

Outro

Emily R (33:25): Listeners, thank you for joining me for this episode! I have a gift for you! You know that final question I ask of all my guests regarding their best financial advice? My team has collected short summaries of all the answers ever given on the podcast into a document that is updated with each new episode release. You can gain access to it by registering for my mailing list at PFforPhDs.com/advice/. Would you like to access transcripts or videos of each episode? I link the show notes for each episode from PFforPhDs.com/podcast/. See you in the next episode, and remember: You don’t have to have a PhD to succeed with personal finance… but it helps! Nothing you hear on this podcast should be taken as financial, tax, or legal advice for any individual. The music is “Stages of Awakening” by Podington Bear from the Free Music Archive and is shared under CC by NC. Podcast editing by me and show notes creation by Dr. Jill Hoffman.