In this episode, Emily interviews Quinn Nguyen, a 4th-year PhD student in chemistry at UC Irvine. Quinn has been highly intentional with her finances during graduate school. She maintains a zero-based budget, uses targeted savings accounts for her cat and annual trips to Vietnam, keeps emergency savings, and pays herself first into a Roth IRA. She also lives in subsidized graduate student housing and drives an electric bike in addition to a car. Quinn and Emily discuss the advantages of these practices, specifically the Roth IRA, and how Quinn has developed confidence that she can make her finances work no matter what life throws at her post-graduate school.

Links mentioned in the Episode

• PFforPhDs Quarterly Estimated Tax for Fellowship Recipients (Individual Purchase)
• PFforPhDs Quarterly Estimated Tax for Fellowship Recipients (University Sponsored)
• 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

Teaser

Quinn (00:00): Because I’m a computational student, a computational chemist student, chemistry student, I do simulation all the time. So to motivate it myself, I actually plug in the number, um, let’s say pretend that I contribute $200 a month, uh, to my Roth account. I want to see how much I have when I turn 60. When I see the number, I was like, I was so motivated.

Introduction

Emily (00:25): Welcome to the Personal Finance for PhDs Podcast: A Higher Education in Personal Finance. This podcast is for PhDs and PhDs-to-be who want to explore the hidden curriculum of finances to learn the best practices for money management, career advancement, and advocacy for yourself and others. I’m your host, Dr. Emily Roberts, a financial educator specializing in early-career PhDs and founder of Personal Finance for PhDs.

Emily (00:53): This is Season 25, Episode 1, and today my guest is Quinn Nguyen, a 4th-year PhD student in chemistry at UC Irvine. Quinn has been highly intentional with her finances during graduate school. She maintains a zero-based budget, uses targeted savings accounts for her cat and annual trips to Vietnam, keeps emergency savings, and pays herself first into a Roth IRA. She also lives in subsidized graduate student housing and drives an electric bike in addition to a car. Quinn and I discuss the advantages of these practices, specifically the Roth IRA, and how she has developed confidence that she can make her finances work no matter what life throws at her post-graduate school.

Emily (01:36): 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, permanent 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 p. 12 of IRS Form 1040-ES. This worksheet will estimate how much income tax you will owe in 2026 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 15, 2026. 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 (03:01): 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 video content, a spreadsheet, and invitations to at least one live Q&A call each quarter this tax year. The next live Q&A call is on Tuesday, September 8, 2026. If you want to purchase this workshop as an individual, go to PFforPhDs.com/QEtax/. If you’d like to request sponsorship of this workshop for you and your peers from your department, graduate school, postdoc office, etc., send the potential host to PFforPhDs.com/sponsorQEtax/. You can find the show notes for this episode at PFforPhDs.com/s25e1/. Without further ado, here’s my interview with Quinn Nguyen.

Will You Please Introduce Yourself Further?

Emily (04:13): I am delighted to have joining me on the podcast today, Quinn Nguyen, who is a fourth year PhD student in chemistry at UC Irvine, and we are going to talk about how she has made her finances work during graduate school and what it takes to do that and what kind of financial goals she’s been able to work towards. So Quinn, thank you so much for volunteering to come on the podcast. Would you please introduce yourself a little bit further?

Quinn (04:35): My name is Quinn Nguyen. I’m from, originally from Vietnam. I went to the United States, um, nine years ago for college. Uh, went to college in, um, Ohio, uh, for four years and then I work a year and then I moved to California, Southern California to start my graduate school. Um, so for, throughout college, uh, I have my scholarship, my parents and my part-time job that cover pretty much all my expenses, uh, tuition. So I graduated without any student loan. Um, I worked for a year, saved up a little bit, and that helped me with the cross country moved. Um, I started graduate school with about $3,000. That’s, that’s all my saving and, um, that’s how I started graduate school. So no debt, $3,000.

Emily (05:20): Yeah. Amazing, like, really solid, I would say for, you know, it, it could have been a lot worse and having even just that little bit of savings I’m sure helped so much at the beginning. Um, may I ask, are you still considered an international student or have you changed your status?

Quinn (05:34): Yes, so I’m still on my student visa, so I’m still considered international student. Um, yes.

A $35,000 Stipend at UC Irvine: How Far Does It Go?

Emily (05:39): Okay. Wonderful. Big question right off the bat, which is how have you made your finances work during graduate school? And so we need to start by talking about what is your income, what’s your stipend?

Quinn (05:50): Um, so I started graduate school with about $35,000 in stipend. Um, that has changed a little bit because we have the, uh, strike and we have, um, the union negotiate our stipend, but has been roughly amount to the same. And also the st- stipend also increased a little bit every year due to the increa – the increase in experience, but yeah, roughly 35,000. Um, so after tax every month I get about, uh, 2,600 to about 3,000. Um, my first year was about 2,600.

Emily (06:24): And do you have any other sources of income aside from the stipend?

Quinn (06:29): No, I don’t have any other source of income. That’s, that’s all the income I have.

Emily (06:33): Okay, wonderful. So let’s move to talking about expenses then. Um, just give us kind of a broad overview, like what are some of your expenses and then in, in this vein of how have you made it work, um, yeah, how does it fit in with your expenses overall, your budget overall?

Quinn (06:51): Um, so I have, uh, fixed expense like housing. Um, I’m very fortunate because UCI have graduate housing, um, and that cover, my rent cover every utility, so the rent is about 1,000. So after rent, I have about 1,600, um, dollars to work with every month.

Emily (07:09): Actually, let me ask about that first of all, because I, we have had previous, um, interviewees from UC Irvine who have mentioned subsidized graduate student housing. So would you consider this to be subsidized?

Quinn (07:19): Yes, this is a subsidized graduate housing. Um, it’s so much better than the market rate housing.

Emily (07:25): And do you have, like, what’s the housing setup? Do you have, like, a flatmate? Like, how many people live in a unit?

Quinn (07:32): Um, so I pay thou – one, 1,000, and I live in a two bedroom, one bath apartment. Um, there are cheaper options, but when you, uh, when I go, when I went to the school and started out, uh, I did not get to choose and they placed us into different communities and this is the only choice that I have. Um, so yeah, I have one other roommate. Uh, I have a cat living with me, so that also a part of the expense as well, uh, with the, the vet bill and the vet basic. So yeah, uh, so for 1600, I, uh, pay for my, I pay a I pay for my grocery, uh, eating out, friend, um, gas, which is a big part here in Southern California. Um, I also, um, contribute a little bit to my saving account, uh, my Roth IRA. Um, I want to go back to Vietnam once a year, so I also have a sinking fund set up for international travel and domestic travel. Um, yeah.

Emily (08:35): Okay. Let me ask about a couple of those items. So you mentioned gas, so tell me about your car and how you use it. Like, do you use it for daily commutes or what?

Quinn (08:44): Um, so I have a car, but I, because I live in graduate housing, um, I’m just about a mile or two mile away from my office. So I, um, use, I invested in an electric bike that I bike to school every day. My car is just used for the, in the weekend when I want to go to grocery or when I want to go out with friend.

Emily (09:03): How do you charge your bike?

Quinn (09:07): Um, so I charge my bike in my apartment, uh, or sometime when I drive to my office, I can charge it there in my office.

Emily (09:14): And it sounds like, you said your utilities were a part of your rental cost, right? So like no marginal cost to charging it it sounds like.

Quinn (09:22): No. Yeah.

Emily (09:23): Amazing. A good deal. <laugh>

Quinn (09:25): Yes, it’s, it’s a very good deal here and at least in Irvine. Um, I get to have my own bedroom. Uh, a bedroom here in Irvine can cost about 1500. Um, so having a bedroom for just a thousand is such a steal.

Emily (09:38): And has that housing cost gone up yearly? Is it fixed to a certain percentage that it can go up? How do they calculate it?

Quinn (09:45): Um, I think it’s, it has been increasing, uh, every year since I first lived here. So I have been in the same apartment since I first came, so that was four years ago. Every year’s increase by about 5%.

Emily (09:59): Okay. Not insignificant, but glad to hear it’s not more than that. <laugh>

Quinn (10:04): Yes. Yeah.

Sinking Funds and Roth IRA Contributions

Emily (10:05): Okay. You also mentioned traveling home at least, or once per year, and then also some other travel. Do you have any. I mean, I know you mentioned using a sinking fund. So for the listeners, sinking funds, targeted savings accounts, we’ve talked about this a few times in the past. Basically, you save a small amount of money every single month for each of those types of expenses that you would, uh, use a sinking fund or a targeted savings account for. So specifically on the travel front, um, do you have any, like, strategies around travel to help reduce the cost?

Quinn (10:34): Um, so I, um, beside the, beside the sinking fund, uh, that I send, like, I send at least about 100 a month, uh, into a sinking fund, I, because I know roughly the, the cost of a ticket back, back home and back. Um, I usually book the ticket as soon as I can, uh, just to save on the, the price of the ticket. Um, I started using a credit card with some points, so that help a little bit with that. But yeah, usually a sinking fund is very helpful for me. Uh, I, the tickets usually cost less than the, the amount that I saved up, but I also have some extra money that can buy gift for people at home or prepay for the trip.

Emily (11:15): That sounds great. You mentioned that you, um, contribute to your Roth IRA. I don’t know if you’re also saving up cash, um, or, or have been in the past, but, like, how much would you say that you save? Is it a consistent monthly amount? Does, does it fluctuate?

Quinn (11:29): Um, so I, whenever I get my stipend, I set up an autonomous system that basically, um, automatically transfer my money from my checking account to my Roth IRA account, and it’s also buy the index fund every month. So roughly every month I send, uh, 250 to my Roth IRA account, uh, that I came to that number after, um, doing the math, taking out, uh, subtracting my rent, all the necessary expense, and so that was, uh, 250 what I, uh, I feel comfortable contributing to a Roth IRA account.

Emily (12:03): That’s great. And that’s almost 10% of your net income, so that’s a very significant amount for graduate students. So great job. Um, do you still have $3,000 in cash or, like, how much with your sinking funds? I don’t know if you also have a separate emergency fund. Have you built that up over the years as well?

Quinn (12:20): Yes. So, um, I started contributing to the Roth I – to Roth IRA, um, about a year into my graduate school. Uh, before that, I only contribute to a, uh, I only have an emergency fund that I send about 400 into that emergency fund. Uh, after the first year, I found out about Roth IRA, and I decided to split that by half, so I send about 250 to my Roth IRA and 200 into my emergency saving fund.

Using Zero-Based Budgeting as a Grad Student

Emily (12:48): Is there anything else you’d like to share about how you make your finances work in graduate school? Actually, we haven’t talked yet about your maybe financial, um, habits in terms of, like, do you budget? I mean, you already mentioned the strategy of pay yourself first, you know, for the Roth IRA, that’s amazing. The sinking funds, those are strategies. Do you use any other kinds of strategies for, like, your variable expenses? 

Quinn (13:09): I use a budgeting method called an zero dollar base method. Um, I, I use an app, uh, it’s very easy to use called Every Dollar. So, uh, after I get my paycheck, I send all the money to the saving account, I pay my rent. I only have about $700 to $800 in my various expense. Uh, so I put that into different bucket, um, grocery, uh, eating out, gas, um, yeah. And, um, the rest is, I owe in the sinking fund, my saving and my rent.

Emily (13:44): Sounds perfect. How, how often are you checking in with the app? Like, how often are you using that tool to help you make spending decisions?

Quinn (13:52): Um, yeah, so because with a zero-based, um, budgeting method, you kind of have a purpose for every dollar you spend. Um, so let’s say I usually put about 200 into grocery and 200 into eating out with friends. Um, so every time I go to grocery store, I basically pull out the app, put in what I spend, and then it automatically subtract that amount. Um, whenever I, you know, need, want to buy something, I open the app to see, oh, how much money I have. Uh, and, and by the end of. I try to spend all the money by the end of the month because, um, because that’s, I want to have every dollar I have a purpose. So, uh, that’s really helpful because I’m naturally a very frugal person. Um, I just try to save, save, save all the time, but now having an app and see that, oh, I actually have this much money just to go out and eat with friend, I try to enjoy as much, um, get as much joy out of those my those dollars as possible.

Emily (14:49): I love that philosophy of budgeting, and it’s actually one that I experienced as well. So I’m actually not a natural saver. I’m not naturally frugal. Um, I grew up more of like a spender, but when I started receiving a stipend, it was like, “Whoa.” <laugh> Like I gotta shut everything down, you know? So I, I really went hard the other way into any spending that I did really made me feel like anxious and like, was I like messing something up by like, you know, going out to eat or whatever it was. And so I really found budgeting to be helpful in the way that you just mentioned of like, “Oh no, I know I have confidence that I’m allowed, I’m allowing myself to spend up to this amount of money on this purpose every single month, and I know that it all balances out and like it’s gonna be okay.” So it really was giving myself like permission to spend that helped me feel much less anxious about each one of those decisions because when you don’t have a budget and you have a, you know, a tight income to work with, then if you’re just flying by the seat of your pants, like I don’t even know how you make those decisions of like yes to this, no to that. So the budget is really helpful in that way. It can both help you like know when you have to reign it in and it can also help you, like you’re talking about, know that you’re, um, permitting yourself to spend those dollars in a joyful manner that you know is gonna be really meaningful to you. Um, and it gives you like a goal to like spend like up to this amount on eating out, as you mentioned, or whatever else you’ve budgeted for. Well, I, I love that you shared that. Um, one question though, because like with the every dollar method, with the zero-based budgeting method, every dollar is accounted for, so what do you do when you have an unexpected expense come up or when you just really do come in under budget, you didn’t manage to spend everything in a category, like how do you, um, balance the books?

Quinn (16:31): So, um, that’s when, um, the sinking fund came in because let’s, uh, I have various type sinking fund, um, and for, so I have the saving account that kind of is called piggy, smarty pigs kind you have, it’s like you have different piggy bank for every purpose. So for, um, because I have a cat, I try to put in a few, about $20 a month, uh, contribute to that sinking fund so that if my cat needs to go to the vet, I have some money that I can use, uh, travel, that of, you know, when you buy a international travel ticket that basically wipe out all my stipend for the month. So that’s really helpful. Um, and if I, you know, if I use up all the sinking fund, I, you know, and there’s no room for my budget, uh, then I use my emergency saving fund that I have, um, a few thousand dollar in. So yeah, that’s how I account for those, um, emergency situation. But luckily I never had that situation, never experienced that situation. 

Emily (17:35): It’s there as backup though if you need it. Um, that’s great because it sounds like then you’ve anticipated all the. I mean, I, I’m saying unexpected expenses, you’ve expected them. You’ve racked your brain, you know, though about your pet, thought about all the things that are like the likely unexpected or emergency type expenses that would come your way and you’ve just decided to save and advance them. It’s an absolute textbook application of targeted savings accounts, so I’m really delighted to hear about that. Um, anything else you wanna add around how have you made finances work as a graduate student?

Quinn (18:09): Yeah, so, um, I think of m- my finance as like three layers. So I have my budget that I deal with every day, um, and then I have my sinking fund, uh, that once in a while I have to pull the money out from that sinking fund. I also have the saving layer. So the saving, if I need money right now, like very emergent, I pull out from the emergency fund, and then I have the Roth IRA. Um, a lot of people don’t know that you can actually use the Roth IRAs as kind of an emergency fund as well because you can withdraw the, the Roth IRA, the contribution, uh, tax-free and penalty-free, um, your contribution only, tax-free and penalty-free. So that’s another layer of, um, emergency fund that I could, uh, use as well. So yeah, that’s, uh, I contrib, I approach my finances with multiple layers.

Emily (18:59): Very smart. And I, I can exactly see how it would play out that way.

Commercial

Emily (19:05): 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, 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. 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.

Discovering Roth IRAs as a First-Year Grad Student: The Potential for Life-Changing Money

Emily (20:33): Let’s talk a little bit more about the Roth IRA, actually. So you shared with us so far that about a year into graduate school, you found out about Roth IRAs and decided to start using one, and also some of the advantages, like you said, um, a Roth IRA can technically be used as, let’s say, the emergency fund behind the emergency fund, right? I wouldn’t say it should be the first layer, but as a backup, backup, backup, yes, you can withdraw the contributions without, um, too much fuss. Uh, so yeah, maybe start with, like, how you found out about Roth IRAs and then why you decided, um, that it was the right tool for you.

Quinn (21:08): Yeah. So, um, I found out about Roth IRA in my first year of graduate school. Um, I, you know, first time in my life, I have a salary, uh, have my own money, so I, I deci – I wanted to something, do something with it. Um, so I, you know, ma- many of my friends, um, have a brokerage account and they pick some stock, they sell when they buy. Um, uh, but then I found, I found out that it takes, it took so much, so much money, uh, so much time, um, and sometime you don’t, and you don’t, you cannot, it’s hard to beat the market, um, picking stock. Um, and so I, I look into various account and then look at various strat – various strategy, um, and I found out about Roth IRA. Uh, if Roth IRA is a good, uh, retirement account to have in graduate school, because for many STEM graduate student, um, graduates pro – who have much higher earning potential after they graduate, um, graduate school may be the only, uh, direct, the only years in their life that they are eligible for, uh, Roth IRA contributions, you know, after that, they can still contribute to Roth IRA, but with many more, uh, convolutions. Um, so graduate school is a very good time to start contributing to Roth IRA. Uh, another reason is also because when you’re in your 20s, you have a lot of years ahead of you, and all the, uh, gain that you have, that, that you have from your contribution in your 20 have much longer time to accumulate, uh, and then when you’re retired, you can withdraw all that tax-free and that such, sound like such a sweet deal to me. Um, I’m, uh, because I’m a computational student, a computational chemist student, chemistry student, I do simulation all the time. So to motivate it myself, I actually plug in the number, um, let’s say pretend that I contribute $200 a month, uh, to my Roth I account. I want to see how much I have when I turn 60. When I see the number, I was like, I was so motivated. Um, yeah. So I, I, if you pretend that you contribute $200 a month, every month in your graduate school, uh, you do that for five years, after graduate school, you end up with about 15,000, and then you wait until 30 years after that, you end up with more than 200,000. It’s, yeah, it’s not life-changing money, uh, but it’s still a big amount. Maybe by the time I turn 60, I have grandchild, child and grandchildren that could contribute to the, their, um, college educations. That’s how I think about it. That how I decided that, um, I want to open a Roth IRA account.

Emily (23:45): I have to disagree with you. I think it is life-changing money. Um, and I, I think you’ll agree with me, like, just the fact of getting started with saving and investing, getting compound interest working for you as, as you said, it’s exponential growth. Like once you, if you’re a math type-minded person, once you see the power of exponential growth in one area and then you realize that your money can do that too, oh my goodness. Um, even if the absolute dollar amounts are not that high, let’s say the year, you know, when you finish graduate school or five years out of graduate school, I do think having those habits in place and the confidence that it gives you, um, that you have some amount of money that you could access if you really, really needed to, and also it’s growing on your behalf and it’ll turn into hundreds of thousands of dollars, um, by the time you retire. Or I’ve done an exercise where just the same as you set it up, if you wait, let’s say two more decades till like you’re 80, 85, it’s a million dollars by then. Like it really, really does make a huge difference, uh, the longer the time you give it to compound. And as you were saying, getting started earlier, um, gets that compounding working on your side. So it’s incredible. I’m so glad that you have, like, chosen to use this tool and that you’re sharing that with us now. One question that I get from other international graduate students is about, “Well, should I use a Roth IRA because I’m not sure if I’m gonna stay in the US long term?” And so I want to know your thoughts about that specifically from your perspective as an international student.

Quinn (25:13): Yeah. So I, I though about that too, because I still don’t know if I will stay in the United States after graduate, considering all those things going on. Uh, but then a great thing is you can still access that money when you’re not in the United States. Um, and here, two thou – 200,000 is not, not as huge as, you know, um, not that big of a deal for many people. Uh, but back. I’m from Vietnam. In Vietnam, 200,000 is so, so, so much money, uh, considered that the living expanse in Vietnam. So that even motivates me more to contribute to my Roth IRA.

Emily (25:49): So you’re seeing it actually as like a geoarbitrage play, like I’m being paid in US dollars, I can invest in index funds, you know, based largely in the US. It can grow at these US rates. I don’t have to pay US taxes on it because it’s a Roth. And then it’s, if you end up leaving the country, well, the upside is the money goes a lot further in the country that you would likely be living in. I actually haven’t heard that argument before, but I really like it.

Quinn (26:12): Yeah. So that’s, that’s how I think about, um, contributing to a Roth IRA as an international s – international student. Yeah, for many of us who have a PhD, um, they can also do a green card application, um, for many programs. So if you end up staying in the country having some money in a retirement account already, uh, when you enter the workforce, it still advance you toward your retirement goal much faster, um, without, if you don’t have that retirement saving.

Emily (26:41): Absolutely. Actually, this brings me to another question I’ve, I’ve discussed with other international students about the green card application process. Is that one of your sinking funds? Like have you started saving money or are you already spending money on that process?

Quinn (26:53): No, I actually haven’t started that process. Um, I kind of put it in the back of my mind for now, uh, because it’s, it’s hard to plan now for the futures and I don’t even know if I want to stay because of the, of the change in the funding for science. Uh, so yeah.

Checking Investment Account Balances

Emily (27:09): Yeah, that makes sense. Okay. Anything else you wanna share about your choice to use a Roth IRA or how you feel about it? Actually, I’ll, I’ll share something and then you can answer as well. But when I was, um, investing during graduate school, and you mentioned using index funds, totally on board with that approach, absolutely. Um, I was investing at a really fun time, which was about from the trough of the great recession, um, in the growth years afterwards. And so it was like a bright spot in my finances to like, you know, every so often check my balance and be like, “Oh, it went up by more than my contributions over the past few months.” Of course, if you check it really, really often, then you’re gonna see volatility, but on the order of, you know, six months or a year or something, generally speaking, during that period of time, it was going up. Um, we’ve had some more volatility in recent years than I was experiencing at that time, so do you find it, like, fun to be watching the balance, like, go up sometimes and down sometimes, or is it like a source of stress? How do you feel about it?

Quinn (28:05): Honestly, the way I deal with it is I just don’t check my account at all. Um, I believe in the compound interest that happened over time that went over a long time. Um, and I also contribute every month, so dollar cost averaging method. Um, so I, I, I just basically just make it as autonomous as possible, uh, and I don’t have to think about it so that I can focus on my work and finishing my PhD. Uh, yeah, so basically I just block out all the noise, just let the market do whatever it wants, because I believe in the cycle and the market, of the market, it move and then it go up and then it go down eventually, it go up over time. Um –

Emily (28:46): Yeah, absolutely. That’s my same approach as well. Um, I check my investment account balances about once per month now because I record my net worth on the first day of every month, so I end up checking it then. So sometimes it’s down, but most of the time it’s gone up by some degree, at least, you know, contributions. So that’s fun. I remember when I was in graduate school and, like, in times when it was kind of volatile, I told myself I would only check the balance if I had heard, like, I listened to news at that time where, like, it would share stock market news or whatever. If I had heard that the market went up by at least 1% that day, then I would check it. And other than that, I wouldn’t check it at all. <laugh> So, like, I only got good news, right?

Quinn (29:25): Yeah, yeah. Yeah, the, the way I think about my Roth IRA is, is a long-term investment account. So as the day-to-day step, I have my budget, uh, I have my rent, everything covered by my budget, uh, and my emergency funds. So I rarely think about my Roth I, I just withdraw money, cont – invest every month, and once in a while, I, I, I remember that I have this investment account and open it up. I just look at the gain and was like, “Oh, that’s amazing.” And then I close it and then I move on. <laugh>

Emily (29:56): If it’s not too frequent, <laugh> it’ll usually be good news. Um, Okay. So when you, um, volunteered to be interviewed on the podcast, you said something in your application like, um, “Whatever life throws at me in the future, I’m confident that I can make it work,” based on your experience with your finances in graduate school. So can you elaborate on why you feel that way?

“Whatever Life Throws at Me in the Future, I’m Confident That I Can Make It Work”

Quinn (30:18): Yeah. So, um, Orange County is a very expensive place to live. Um, I us-, I usually joke with my friend that if I would not go to graduate school here at UCI, I would never be able to afford to live in Orange County, um, because it’s, it’s so, so, so expensive. Um, my stipend is 35,000, um, and I think 35,000 is considered, um, like acutely poverty, acutely low, um, income for one person household, household. Um, and yet I don’t feel like I’m missing, I’m missing out on anything. Um, I’m still having fun, a lot of fun. I still go out, uh, to a restaurant once a week or twice a week. I still have able to afford a cat, a car. Um, so I, yeah, and I, I, I don’t feel like I’m missing out anything at all and I still able to save about 20% of my, uh, income every month. So yeah, I don’t think, I hope that in the future I would not be, um, have, I would not be the, I would not have a, like acutely low income ever again, but, um, but yeah, with this very, very, very small amount of, uh, money to work with every month, I was still, I’m still being, I’m still able to work with it and, um, still having fun with my life and, you know, uh, so I’m, I’m, I think grad school beside what I learned from all the, you know, um, what I get from in academic-wise, I also feel much more confidence about the ability to handle finance, um, here, now or in the future.

Emily (31:52): Mm-hmm. Yeah. I mean, I have to say, I agree with you, you’ve been presented a financial challenge and you’re succeeding within it. Um, so that certainly indicates that, and, and like you said, with your career trajectory, you’re likely, this is likely to be the least amount of money you’ll ever make in your life, right? So absolutely. And, and as you said, a, a high cost of living area. Um, but I think it’s really like the things that you have done, right? You talked about, you know, having a zero based budget, about paying yourself first, about using the sinking funds, like all these strategies that you’ve learned and put in place during graduate school, um, that you’ve done to make it work are, I, feed into that confidence, right? Like you’ve used these strategies, it’s, it’s happening. Like you’re able to save, you’re able to live a balanced life, you have, you know, satisfaction in your, um, in your spending, you can carry those forward. So you’ve like learned those skills and you can still apply them through the rest of your life. It gives me confidence as well that you’re gonna be, you know, feeling financially successful at later stages when you make more money because you have the skills to go with it. Other people who, as I was mentioning earlier, maybe just kind of like fly by the seat of their pants, like they’re not doing much planning or consideration, um, around their finances, just kind of making it. Um, that may be a protective measure, a psychological protective measure because it is pretty depressing like to be paid a stipend level only, but because they’re not developing the skills, um, and mindsets and habits around how to handle the money, I don’t think they could have the same confidence that you do about being able to handle money later in their life. There’s a phrase in the personal finance community, um, you can’t out earn bad spending habits, right? Like no matter how much money you make, guess what? You can spend that much. It is possible. And so at some point, if you want to, um, you know, have a handle on your finances, you need to right size your spending, you know, based on your income and so forth. And that can be a painful process. Um, but you’ve done it, right? You did it as a graduate student and all you need to do is carry those lessons forward. So, um, I absolutely agree with you. I think the confidence is, um, warranted in this case.

Best Financial Advice for Another Early-Career PhD

Emily (33:51): Let’s wrap up with our final question then, the one that I ask all my guests, which is, what is your best financial advice for another early career PhD? And it could be something that we’ve touched on already, or it can be something completely new.

Quinn (34:02): Yeah, my advice for a future graduate student is just, um, to try to make the finance work for you. So I know that not a lot of people, um, like have the same privileges that I have, uh, graduate college without debt or may, they may also have a dependent. A lot of my friend have kid and wife. Um, so they, um, they, they may not be in the same position as I have, so they may not be, may be able to save as much or, um, invest as much, but I hope, I think the, the only advice I have is just to try to make the finance work for you. If you’re able to save more, that’s good, but if you’re able to save less, that’s fine too, because graduate school, um, is not really the time to, to save as much as you can, but it’s more like you try to build a habit of saving and and investing so that it could serve you for, uh, in the next step of your life.

Emily (34:55): Yeah, and I think, um, kind of what you said earlier about automating your finances as much as possible, having systems in place, even if people aren’t able to save, they can still do those things. Like even if you are living paycheck to paycheck, you can still have an awareness of your expenses, you can still have some automations in place. And so, like, you can still go down that learning and self-improvement route, even if overall you do need to spend all of your income because of, you know, your dependents or, you know, the lower stipend or not having subsidized housing or whatever the situation is. Um, so yeah, I think that’s really valuable. Um, Quinn, thank you so much for volunteering to come on the podcast. I’m really just delighted to hear your story.

Quinn (35:37): My pleasure.

Outro

Emily (35:37): 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? We have 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 view transcripts or videos of each episode? We 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. Podcast editing by me and show notes creation by Dr. Jill Hoffman.