Evolving Personal Finance » career
Why We Aren’t Contributing to Our New 401(k)
Kyle’s new postdoc position comes with a benefit neither of us have ever had before – access to a 401(k). (Okay, it’s a 403(b) because it’s through our university, but I’m going to call it 401(k) in this post.) However, we have (mostly) decided not to set up contributions to it. I’ll tell you our reasoning and then you can let me know if we’re missing anything and should change our decision. Accounts Prioritization Up to this … Read entire article »
Filed under: career, retirement, savings
A New Appreciation for Living Below Our Means
Kyle and I are coming up on our first big financial transitions – something I’ve anticipated since the founding of this blog. I always thought that our post-PhD lives would offer an opportunity for lifestyle inflation, but instead I’m grateful that we live sufficiently below our means to absorb an income cut. This week, I have a new appreciation for our budgeting system and how clearly it delineates between wants and needs. On top of … Read entire article »
Filed under: budgeting, career, savings, targeted savings, transitions
Grad School vs. Blogging vs. Career vs. Money
It’s finally time to give you all a life update! As I’ve hinted a few times recently, there have been some big changes in our plans. Grad School Last week, my advisor made the official announcement that he is moving to another university at the end of the summer. He first alerted us to the possibility back in January, so I’ve had a few months to assimilate the news. At that time, he and I discussed it … Read entire article »
Filed under: blogging, career, grad school, income, savings
Why Harvey Mudd College Tops the Payscale ROI Rankings
… and why prospective college students should ignore the rankings. Payscale.com comes out with a yearly ranked list of the colleges that produce the highest-paid graduates. My and Kyle’s alma mater, Harvey Mudd College, has topped the list (some permutations of it, anyway) for the past few years. And while I love that Mudd gets nationwide press coverage every time the new rankings come out, I don’t recommend that prospective college students use them to choose … Read entire article »
Filed under: career, college, grad school, income
Incentivized Viral Advertising
A few weeks ago, one of my (remote) Facebook friends who has a PhD linked to a training program for data scientists. As you know, I’m incredibly undecided about what my first post-PhD job will be, so I’m always kind of on the lookout for ideas for how to leverage my PhD. I checked out the link and it actually sounded like a really great deal. The training program is new this year and is a … Read entire article »
Filed under: career
Internships and Other ‘Experiences’
It’s no secret that we’re in a slowly improving but still tough job market right now. Those of you with PhDs (in progress) are probably being constantly inundated with doom and gloom about how there are virtually no academic jobs opening up and PhDs have difficulty being hired to do anything else, either – so our fancy degrees don’t exempt us from the troubles of the national economy. There is a rising awareness of how valuable … Read entire article »
Filed under: career, grad school
What Would You Do If Money Were No Object?
Last week I was asked to respond to this question through free writing: What would you do if money were no object? This was in the context of developing a mission statement, which I’m doing in the professional development course I just started. Other questions related to leaving a legacy and so forth, so my mind was primed to think about the long-term impact of my work. My answers surprised me a bit. They related to … Read entire article »
Filed under: career
Solving Our Two-Body Problem in 30 Seconds
We’ve had two small developments in the graduating/finding jobs front of our lives since my last update that are having a major impact on our two-body problem! New Information 1. In a meeting this week with my advisor, he stated that it is his goal for me to graduate this summer and I told him “I’m on board with that.” Of course, this doesn’t mean that I will graduate next summer because it’s up to me/my work as … Read entire article »
Filed under: career
When Plans Change
I have a personal update for you today! It’s about how our protracted time to graduation has affected our plans, careers, and finances. I though we had some timelines and plans down, and then they were shot to heck, and now the picture is re-coming into focus. Grad School I’ve mentioned in my weekly wrap-ups here that for the past several weeks Kyle has been working around the clock on writing his dissertation. We were hoping that … Read entire article »
Filed under: career, cars, goals, marriage, personal, savings, spending, transitions
Would You Take a Break from Working?
As Kyle is drawing closer to graduating, he’s facing a job transition. His advisor has offered for him to stay in his current lab as a temporary measure until he finds a postdoctoral position at another university. Academic labs seem fairly flexible in when personnel come and go so between a flexible end date in his current lab and a flexible start date in his next lab, Kyle could choose to go basically immediately from … Read entire article »
Filed under: career
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