Personal Finance for PhDs
213 episodes - English - Latest episode: 13 days ago - ★★★★★ - 46 ratingsAs a PhD (in training), you face unique money challenges that stem from your low stipend/salary during your years of graduate school and postdoc training. Listen here for the hard-won financial wisdom of your fellow graduate students, postdocs, and PhDs with Real Jobs. From budgeting and frugality to investing and debt repayment, this podcast is your higher education in personal finance.
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Episodes
How to Cultivate a Personal Brand to Land Your Next Job or Launch Your Business
February 08, 2021 05:00 - 45 minutes - 85.6 MBIn this episode, Emily interviews Dr. Gertrude 'Gee' Nonterah on why and how PhDs and even graduate students should develop a personal brand. Strategically using LinkedIn and Twitter can play a big role in attracting opportunities, including catching the eyes of job recruiters. Gee developed a personal brand that helped her transition from her postdoc position into freelance writing and teaching at a community college. Gee and Emily discuss time management when you are getting a side busines...
This Two-Time International Graduate Student Gives Excellent Advice to Her Prospective Peers
February 01, 2021 05:00 - 47 minutes - 43.4 MBIn this episode, Emily interviews Josephine Shikongo-Asino, a second-year PhD student at Oklahoma State University from Namibia. This is Josephine's second stint as an international graduate student in the US, having completed a Fulbright fellowship about ten years ago. She has great advice for prospective and rising international graduate students in the US about the financial transition into graduate school. Josephine and Emily discuss funding models, the importance of saving and debt redu...
Turn Your Largest Liability into Your Largest Asset with House Hacking
January 25, 2021 09:00 - 55 minutes - 105 MBIn this episode, Emily and her guest, Sam Hogan, explain how house hacking can benefit graduate students and early-career PhDs. House hacking is when you purchase a property, live in it, and rent out part of it. While not possible in every housing market, house hacking is within reach for many graduate students and certainly postdocs and PhD with Real Jobs. In the first part of the episode, Emily teaches some of the most salient concepts from The House Hacking Strategy by Craig Curelop. She ...
Knowing Your Worth in an Environment that Devalues Your Work
January 18, 2021 09:00 - 39 minutes - 35.8 MBIn this episode, Emily interviews Sam McDonald, a fifth-year PhD student in informatics at the University of California at Irvine. Sam received the NSF GRFP, completed a lucrative internship at a tech company, has won multiple smaller grants and fellowships, and taught classes for additional income. Upon observing this, some of her peers questioned why she was still applying for awards. Even more light was shone on this issue when her department compiled a list of all the grad students' inco...
What Happens When Personal Finance Education Becomes Your Hobby
January 11, 2021 09:00 - 47 minutes - 89.8 MBIn this episode, Emily interviews Laura Frater, a first-year PhD student at the University of California at Davis. Laura grew up in a low-income family in Scotland and first came to the US a few years ago for a master's degree. She went from having "zero financial literacy" at that time to being highly engaged with her finances now, and even considers personal finance education to be her hobby! Laura details the top seven tips for financial success that she has implemented over the last few ...
What Your University Isn't Telling You About Your Income Tax
January 04, 2021 14:40 - 24 minutes - 34.4 MBIn this episode, Emily lists six things that your university isn't telling you about your income tax. Point 1 is on why and how this lack of communication manifests. Point 2 is on what your Form 1098-T, if you even receive one, is not telling you. Points 3 through 5 are on the extra steps that grad students, postdocs, and postbacs on fellowships or training grants need to take but are rarely instructed on or even warned about. Finally, point 6 is on the tax pitfalls that anyone under age 24 ...
Catching Up with Prior Guests: 2020 Edition
December 21, 2020 09:00 - 27 minutes - 25.6 MBEmily published the first episode of this podcast in July 2018. This is the one hundred and seventh episode, and over the last two and a half years, the podcast has featured 94 unique voices in addition to Emily’s. The last episode in 2020 catches up with the guests from Seasons 1 through 3. The guests were invited to submit short audio updates on how their lives and careers have evolved since the time of their interview. The question with which all the interviews are concluded now, "What is...
How to Solve the Problem of Irregular Expenses
December 14, 2020 06:00 - 18 minutes - 26 MBIn this episode, Emily tells the story of starting to use the strategy that completely revolutionized her budget when she was a grad student. She teaches this strategy in almost all of the seminars she gives for universities, and it never fails to generate a high level of interest and follow-up questions. The strategy is called targeted savings, and it is a solution to the problem of irregular expenses. Irregular expenses are any expenses that occur less frequently than monthly that are diff...
How to Set Yourself Up for a Successful Career and Financial Life Post-PhD
December 07, 2020 09:00 - 47 minutes - 88.5 MBIn this episode, Emily interviews Dr. Jennifer Polk, a career coach specializing in PhDs whose brand is From PhD to Life. Emily and Jen explore the damage that graduate school and academia often does to PhDs' financial lives, in terms of both dollars and money mindset. They answer the question, "What can a graduate student or PhD do to mitigate academia's financial damage?" from both a financial and career perspective, starting in grad school and extending several years post-PhD. Jen conclud...
How to Handle Your Student Loans During Grad School and Following
November 30, 2020 09:00 - 35 minutes - 32.8 MBIn this episode, Emily interviews Meagan Landress, a Certified Student Loan Professional who works with Student Loan Planner, about how a grad student or PhD should best handle their federal student loans. Meagan outlines the financial profiles of someone who should use an income-driven repayment plan to pursue forgiveness, including Public Service Loan Forgiveness, vs. someone who should consider refinancing. She answers the questions: Should a graduate student pay down their student loans ...
How to Curb Your Impulse to Keep Up with the Joneses
November 23, 2020 09:00 - 35 minutes - 67.1 MBIn this episode, Emily interviews Dr. Joy Lere, a licensed clinical psychologist and behavioral finance consultant on the danger of "keeping up with the Joneses." Joy explains how emotionally unsatisfying and financially damaging trying to keep up with the Joneses is and that contentment can only come from within yourself. PhDs anticipating future income jumps would do well to put off lifestyle inflation for a least a few years after their salaries increase, which will give them more career ...
How to Identify and Change the Money Mindset You Developed in Academia
November 16, 2020 09:00 - 35 minutes - 32.6 MBIn this episode, Emily interviews Dr. Chris Cornthwaite of Roostervane. Chris and Emily share the money mindsets that they have observed among PhDs and academics, including believing money and wealth to be evil, scarcity, relating time to income, and anchoring. They discuss how to identify and change your own money mindset. Chris shares how his money mindset has evolved from his youth idolizing poverty through his underpaid grad student years and now into his employment and entrepreneurial j...
Working Before Starting a PhD: The Financial and Career Advantages
November 09, 2020 09:00 - 36 minutes - 67.7 MBIn this episode, Emily interviews Diandra from That Science Couple, a PhD student in nutrition at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. Diandra went straight from undergrad into a funded master's program, then worked for six years before starting a PhD program. She lists the career and financial advantages to working before embarking on a PhD—and the disadvantages. Diandra and her husband are currently pursing SlowFI (Slow Financial Independence) while she is in her PhD program, and she gi...
Why and How to Increase Your Retirement Account Contribution Room
November 02, 2020 06:00 - 19 minutes - 27.8 MBIn this episode, Emily presents why and how you should increase your retirement account contribution room. She gives a compelling compound interest example calculation that illustrates why you should start investing early in your career and reviews the types of tax-advantaged retirement accounts you might have access to and why you should use them if you can. If you would like to increase your available contribution room in tax-advantaged retirement accounts and you are self-employed, the la...
This Grad Student Travels for Free by Churning Credit Cards
October 26, 2020 08:00 - 28 minutes - 26 MBIn this episode, Emily interviews Julie Chang, a graduate student at Stanford University. Julie's partner and parents live on the East Coast and she has family abroad, so during grad school she has pursued a specific credit card rewards strategy known as churning to help her travel hack. She has regularly flown domestically and internationally for several years almost exclusively using points and miles instead of cash. Julie details how she manages her churning strategy, including how she me...
A Lucrative Summer Internship Enabled This PhD Student to Max Out Her IRA
October 19, 2020 08:00 - 30 minutes - 56.4 MBIn this episode, Emily interviews an anonymous member of the Personal Finance for PhDs Community and alum of The Wealthy PhD. Anonymous did a summer internship at Google Research, which helped her evaluate whether she wants to pursue a career in academia or industry and set her up well for an industry career. The internship also paid her in three months approximately what she makes in an entire year on her grad student stipend. Anonymous shares her tips for applying to Google's summer intern...
This PhD Student's Intricate Budgeting System Uses Cash Symbolically
October 12, 2020 08:00 - 36 minutes - 33.2 MBIn this episode, Emily interviews Alicia Jones, a PhD student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the creator of the YouTube channel Alicia Does Adulting. Alicia explains in detail her intricate budgeting system, which involves creating a zero-based budget every two weeks, allocating cold hard cash into envelopes, contributing to her debt avalanche, and funding her targeted savings accounts. She uses this budget to keep her intimately connected with her spending decisions a...
Why and How to Start a Coaching Side Hustle as a Grad Student, Academic, or Researcher
October 05, 2020 08:00 - 35 minutes - 66.2 MBIn this episode, Emily interviews Cheryl Lau, a PhD student and branding and content coach serving graduate students, academics, and researchers. Cheryl assists her clients with their service-based side hustles, and our interview today is on why and how to start a coaching business on the side of your PhD training or full-time job. Cheryl identifies two mindset shifts that new coaches might need to make before they dive into their businesses and the first three steps they should take. Cheryl...
This PhD's Message for University Housing Is "Work with Us, Not Against Us"
September 28, 2020 08:00 - 37 minutes - 34.9 MBIn this episode, Emily interviews Dr. Travis Seifman, a postdoc at the University of Tokyo. During graduate school, Travis lived in university housing at multiple universities, but chiefly two campuses of the University of California. While the housing was subsidized and convenient to arrange, Travis noted a few downsides and annoyances. Travis and Emily discuss the differences between university housing and private housing and wonder how best to allocate this scarce resource. Travis propose...
Fully Joint and Fully Separate Finances in Marriage: Perspectives from Two PhDs
September 21, 2020 08:00 - 43 minutes - 80.6 MBIn this episode, Emily discusses marital finances with Dr. Michelle Roley-Roberts, an assistant professor at Creighton University. Emily and her husband keep fully joint finances, whereas Michelle and her husband keep fully separate finances. They detail their respective systems, list the advantages of each approach, consider how the legal realities line up or not with their preferred conceptions, and consider whether they would ever change their methods. They touch on IRS filing statuses, s...
This Postdoc from a Low-Income Family Evolved Her Financial Attitudes and Practices During Her PhD Training
September 14, 2020 08:00 - 51 minutes - 47.3 MBIn this episode, Emily interviews Dr. Fushcia Hoover, a postdoc at the National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center. Fushcia grew up in a low-income family and graduated from college in 2009. Unable to find full-time work, she accelerated her plans to pursue graduate school, ultimately earning a PhD from Purdue University and winning an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship. Fuschia's background imparted her with certain financial attitudes and skills that influenced her financial journey throug...
This New PhD's Salary Tripled But Her Scarcity Mindset Lingered
September 07, 2020 08:00 - 42 minutes - 80 MBIn this episode, Emily interviews Dr. Samantha Snively, a PhD in literature who recently transitioned to a non-academic job at the University of California at Davis. Samantha tells the story of her financial and logistical transition out of graduate school with an emphasis on the unexpected emotions that arose upon receiving a much higher and steadier income. Samantha and Emily also discuss how to shed the scarcity mindset imparted by academia and the distinction between lifestyle inflation ...
Best Practices in Side Hustling During Graduate School
August 31, 2020 08:00 - 38 minutes - 34.9 MBIn this episode, Emily interviews Lourdes Bobbio and Meryem Ok, two PhD students who work on this podcast as virtual assistants. Today's conversation is all about side hustling! Lourdes and Meryem each give their perspectives on why and how they started side hustling, how they manage their time, and how they handle their self-employment income with respect to taxes and budgeting. Throughout the interview, you'll get a behind-the-scenes perspective on how this podcast is produced. The end of ...
How a Freelancing Career Can Take You from Academia to Affluence
August 24, 2020 08:00 - 32 minutes - 59.9 MBIn this episode, Emily interviews Courtney Danyel of Academia to Affluence. Courtney became a successful freelance writer after leaving her PhD program in anthropology and moving to one of her field sites. She now teaches other academics how to launch freelancing careers through her course, Endless Freelance Income. In this interview, Courtney gives us her #1 piece of advice for new freelancers, which all academics need to take to heart! She also outlines the simple steps it takes to get you...
This Fulbright Fellow Supplements Her Stipend with Prior Savings
August 17, 2020 08:00 - 36 minutes - 33.8 MBIn this episode, Emily interviews Dr. Caitlin Kirby, a graduate student at Michigan State University and former Fulbright fellow in Germany. Caitlin has been greatly financially challenged on the Fulbright, namely by: 1) the large amount of money needed to move and settle into her new city and university, 2) the high cost of housing relative to the stipend, and 3) the additional expense of bringing her husband with her. Caitlin and the majority of her peers are supplementing their Fulbright ...
How This Entering PhD Student Has Set Himself Up for Financial Success in Graduate School
August 10, 2020 08:00 - 40 minutes - 75.6 MBIn this episode, Emily interviews George Walters-Marrah, a rising first-year PhD student in biophysics at Stanford. In the last year, as George has been applying to and preparing to attend graduate school, he's been on a financial journey as well. We walk chronologically through the financial steps he's taken this year, from applying for fellowships last fall to taking a personal finance course this past spring to drafting a budget this summer for how he plans to use his stipend in Palo Alto...
This PhD Candidate Paid for Her Wedding with Her Research Side Hustle
August 03, 2020 05:00 - 40 minutes - 36.7 MBIn this episode, Emily interviews Rebecca Brenner Graham about side hustling to pay for her wedding while a PhD candidate in history at American University. In addition to working on her own dissertation and serving as a teaching assistant, Rebecca used her skills as a history researcher in a self-employment position assisting an economics professor at another university. Rebecca had to quickly learn how to manage her time and energy well across all her different professional roles and her p...
This Muslim Graduate Student Found Halal Investing and Now Teaches It to Her Family and Friends
July 27, 2020 05:00 - 25 minutes - 47.6 MBIn this episode, Emily interviews Joumana Altallal, a Muslim graduate student at the University of Michigan. Joumana began investigating personal finance in the summer before she started graduate school to prepare to manage her stipend. In just her first year on a stipend, she has saved a full emergency fund, established credit, and funded a Roth IRA. Joumana shares what she's learned about Halal investing, a strain of socially responsible investing for Muslims that has become much more acce...
How This PhD Student's Budgeting Practice Enabled a Hawaiian Vacation
July 20, 2020 05:00 - 46 minutes - 42.9 MBIn this episode, Emily interviews Sean from Authentically Average, a fourth-year PhD student at a university in Houston, TX. Sean and his wife have very intentionally set up their budget to reflect their values, and now live and die by their budget. Their top three budget priorities are retirement savings, tithing, and travel. Sean's budget helps him say "no" to certain areas of spending or opportunities for spending so that he can say "yes" to his travel aspirations. Sean describes a wellne...
How to Negotiate as a Graduate Student or PhD in Industry and Academia
July 13, 2020 05:00 - 35 minutes - 66.1 MBIn this episode, Emily interviews Dr. Abby Rainer, a PhD in organizational communication and Lean Six Sigma Black Belt. Abby's dissertation focused on women in STEM careers negotiating their first jobs, and the expertise she brings to our interview is from her education, her research, and her personal experience. We discuss the correct way to frame your negotiation and why that's challenging for some PhDs; the importance of considering all aspect of your offer, not just your salary; the simi...
How This Grad Student Navigated a Broken Engagement in a High Cost-of-Living City
July 06, 2020 05:00 - 30 minutes - 27.9 MBIn this episode, Emily interviews Tina Del Carpio, a third-year PhD student at the University of California at Los Angeles in ecology and evolutionary biology. Tina chose their PhD program in Los Angeles in no small part because their fiance's career was tied to the city. However, when they moved in with him and started planning the wedding, cracks began to form in the relationship. When they broke up, Tina had to figure out how to extricate themself from their shared apartment and yours-min...
How This Grad Student Fellow Invests for Retirement and Pays Quarterly Estimated Tax
June 29, 2020 05:00 - 30 minutes - 57.1 MBIn this episode, Emily interviews Lucy Capano, a rising fourth-year PhD student at Washington University in St. Louis. Since she started her graduate program, Lucy has been funded by a non-W-2 fellowship and training grant, which has affected her financial practices of retirement investing and paying income tax. Lucy and Emily discuss what changed for 2020 to permit fellowship recipients like Lucy to use an IRA and how Lucy handles calculating, saving for, and paying quarterly estimated tax ...
This PhD Got a Late Start Financially But Is on Track to Retire Early
June 22, 2020 05:00 - 44 minutes - 40.9 MBIn this episode, Emily interview Dr. Sean Sanders, Director and Senior Editor for Custom Publishing for the journal Science and Program Director for Outreach. Sean came to the US for a postdoc position with little savings. Living in the DC area on a postdoc salary was financially challenging; he didn’t start to make real progress with his finances until he left his postdoc for an industry job, which more than doubled his salary. Sean and Emily discuss the strategies he has used to build weal...
Learn from This Professor's Nightmarish Home Ownership Journey
June 15, 2020 05:00 - 36 minutes - 68.2 MBIn this episode, Emily interviews Dr. Kevin Jennings, a professor of Criminal Justice and Criminology at Georgia Southern University in Savannah, Georgia. Kevin and his wife bought a home in Savannah shortly after he started his position, and the house has proven to be a money pit. Kevin catalogues all that has gone wrong with the house, what he wishes he would have known as a first-time home buyer, and the lessons he's learned the hard way. He also gives excellent insight into the academic ...
How Work Experience Outside Academia Can Bolster Your Academic and Non-Academic Career
June 08, 2020 05:00 - 40 minutes - 36.7 MBIn this episode, Emily interviews Dr. Gillian Hayes, the Vice Provost for Graduate Studies and Dean of the Graduate Division at UC Irvine. Throughout her career as a computer scientist, Gillian has moved back and forth between roles in academia and industry; she argues that the division between the two is more porous than is commonly perceived inside academia and should become even more so for PhDs. Gillian consulted and completed internships as a PhD student and engaged in an even broader r...
This Postdoc Has a System for Debt Repayment That You Can Follow as Well
June 01, 2020 05:00 - 44 minutes - 83.8 MBIn this episode, Emily interviews Dr. Suba Narasimhan, a postdoctoral fellow at Emory University. Suba and her husband each brought debt into their marriage, and once they both had full incomes, they decided to tackle it together. Suba presents a step-by-step plan for anyone at the start of a debt repayment journey. Emily and Suba discuss in detail how to handle credit card debt, including whether to pay credit cards off with student loans or 0% interest promotional credit cards. Suba doesn'...
The Necessity of Both Economic Justice Advocacy and Personal Financial Responsibility
May 25, 2020 05:00 - 42 minutes - 38.6 MBIn this episode, Emily interviews Dr. Ian Gutierrez, a PhD in clinical psychology and former union leader at the University of Connecticut. While in graduate school, Ian served on the bargaining committee for the newly formed graduate student union, and viewed a higher income as the solution to his personal finance challenges. During his internship year, despite earning about what he had as a graduate student, Ian challenged himself to live within his means and pay down his previously accumu...
The Financial Hurdles of Moving to the US as a Postdoc
May 18, 2020 05:00 - 35 minutes - 32.4 MBIn this episode, Emily interviews Dr. Louise Lassalle, a postdoc at the Lawrence Livermore National Lab in Berkeley, CA. Louise recounts the hurdles in the process of her move from France to the US for her postdoc. We discuss short-term hurdles; e.g., being approved for a rental, establishing credit, and the cost of moving; medium-term hurdles; e.g., choosing a health insurance plan, adjusting to the cost of living, and paying tax; and long-term hurdles, e.g., the cost of applying for a gree...
This PhD Entrepreneur Advocates for Universal Basic Income (Part 2)
May 11, 2020 05:00 - 35 minutes - 66.9 MBIn this episode, Emily interviews Dr. Jim Pugh, the founder of ShareProgress and co-host of the Basic Income Podcast. Jim defines universal basic income and outlines how it would alleviate poverty and other social ills, including results from research and real-life experiments with basic income. He describes the possible avenues by which universal basic income could be funded and whether it would replace our existing social safety nets. Jim and Emily speculate about how universal basic incom...
This PhD Entrepreneur Advocates for Universal Basic Income (Part 1)
May 04, 2020 05:00 - 30 minutes - 57.5 MBIn this episode, Emily interviews Dr. Jim Pugh, the founder of ShareProgress and co-host of the Basic Income Podcast. Jim earned a PhD in computer science and subsequently worked for the Democratic National Convention and other progressive groups. He always aspired to start a business, and his post-PhD work experience inspired him to found ShareProgress, a software product and consulting service. Jim describes the evolution of his business, which now brings him sufficient income to support h...
How to Qualify for a Mortgage as a Graduate Student or PhD, Even with Non-W-2 Fellowship Income
April 27, 2020 05:00 - 33 minutes - 30.7 MBIn this episode, Emily interviews her brother, Sam Hogan, a mortgage originator with Prime Lending who specializes in PhDs and PhD students, particularly those receiving fellowship income. Sam relays what it takes to qualify for a mortgage in terms of credit score, income, and debt load, including the special way deferred student loans play into the calculation. He details the unusual strategies he has learned over the past year of working with PhD clients to help them get approved for mortg...
The Financial and Career Opportunities Available to National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellows
April 20, 2020 05:00 - 38 minutes - 71.7 MBIn this episode, Emily interviews Kelsey Wood, a National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellow who now teaches others how to write competitive applications for the Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP). They discuss the decisions that new fellows have to make regarding when to start receiving the funding and the internship opportunities available. Kelsey also issues a warning regarding paying quarterly estimated tax and gives great insights from her course for GRFP applica...
How and When Will I Receive My Stimulus Check?
April 16, 2020 05:00 - 5 minutes - 8.33 MBIn this episode, Emily explains how and when the stimulus checks from the CARES Act will be sent to qualifying individuals. She points to new IRS tools to help you track your payment and ensure that your payment arrives in a timely fashion. A minority of citizens and residents may need to submit their 2019 tax returns or other information prior to receiving their checks.
How a Book Inspired This PhD's Financial Turnaround
April 13, 2020 05:00 - 35 minutes - 32.6 MBIn this episode, Emily interviews Dr. Amanda, a tenure-track professor at a small college in the midwest. At the start graduate school, Amanda was disengaged from her finances and considered grad school to be a financial continuation of undergrad. She had resigned herself to being a "poor graduate student" until she read Ramit Sethi's book, I Will Teach You to Be Rich. Slowly, the financial messages in that book replaced the limiting beliefs she had absorbed from academia. Amanda took small ...
This PhD Student Buys Her Time Back by Living Car-Free
April 06, 2020 05:00 - 33 minutes - 63.4 MBIn this episode, Emily interviews Alina Christenbury, a first-year PhD student in computer science at the University of Delaware. Alina doesn't own a car, preferring to bicycle for her daily commute to her university and around town as much as possible. She relies on her roommate, sister, and other friends for occasional rides to the grocery store, bus stop, or hometown, but also uses ridesharing apps and dreams of owning a portable bicycle. While living car-free certainly helps keep Alina's...
Combatting Climate Change with Your Finances, Individually and Collectively
March 30, 2020 05:00 - 40 minutes - 37.3 MBIn this episode, Emily interviews Jewel Tomasula, a graduate student at Georgetown University in biology, specifically ecology and evolutionary biology. Jewel participates in climate change collective action through the Sunrise Movement, through 500 Women Scientists, and at her university. Emily and Jewel discuss how people can combat climate change as individuals and collectively through the lens of personal finance, covering frugal and environmental strategies, socially responsible investi...
Our Lives and Finances Under Social Distancing: A Self-Employed PhD and a Grad Student
March 29, 2020 01:22 - 55 minutes - 105 MBIn this episode, Emily and Lourdes discuss their lives and finances during the coronavirus pandemic. Emily is balancing running her business with caring for her two small children (while her husband also works full-time), and Lourdes is adjusting to working on her PhD remotely and virtually never interacting with other people face-to-face.
This Grad Student Didn’t Let a $1,000 Per Month Stipend Stop Her from Investing
March 23, 2020 05:00 - 45 minutes - 84.7 MBIn this episode, Emily interviews Dr. Rachel Blackburn, an assistant professor at Columbus State University. Rachel’s PhD stipend at Kansas State University was approximately $1,000 per month and her rent claimed half of that, but she resolved to do more than scrape by financially. Emily and Rachel discuss in detail how Rachel optimized her pay rate in her side hustles, generated extra income through credit card churning, and travel hacked her personal and professional trips. By combining th...
Learn From This Poor Kid-Turned-PhD Student's Different Perspective on Frugality and Debt (Part 2)
March 16, 2020 05:00 - 27 minutes - 24.8 MBIn this episode, Emily interview ZW Taylor (Zach), a PhD student in Educational Leadership and Policy at the University of Texas at Austin. As a child, Zach identified as a "poor kid" and never thought higher education was for him. His upbringing and winding path through community college and his bachelor's and master's degrees taught him lessons about money that he has carried into his life as a PhD student - for better and for worse. In this second half of the conversation, Zach gives deta...
Learn From This Poor Kid-Turned-PhD Student's Different Perspective on Frugality and Debt (Part 1)
March 09, 2020 05:00 - 34 minutes - 31.3 MBIn this episode, Emily interview ZW Taylor (Zach), a PhD student in Educational Leadership and Policy at the University of Texas at Austin. As a child, Zach identified as a "poor kid" and never thought higher education was for him. His upbringing and winding path through community college and his bachelor's and master's degrees taught him lessons about money that he has carried into his life as a PhD student - for better and for worse. In this first half of the conversation, Zach shares the ...