How much money from your stipend do you save each month? How and why?

[smaturin]

i have lived on $1300/month for two years. it sucks but it's manageable. the first thing to cut is the $100 for eating out and having a life. sad, but true. next is to see if there's any tuition's remission or small scholarship you can get to cover your $700/semester fees. third is to apply for summer funding to do research abroad or to apply for TAships in the summer. in my own program, we can scrape together anywhere from $1000 to $4500 extra each year in summer funds. now, you actually need to spend that money on researching, but you can sublet your apartment while you're gone and end up saving a bit of money overall.

see if it's possible to bundle your phone and your internet together to bring the cost down. $60 is a cheap bill in the world of smartphones and an expensive bill in the world of pay-as-you-go cheapy flip phones. if you really feel the strain month to month, consider downgrading your phone to a very basic necessity.

also, plenty of grad students work without telling their advisors. i know social science and humanities students that tutor people in foreign languages, that pick up freelance journalism or museum work, that work at the gap, that train people in martial arts or running or swimming or yoga. just don't tell your professors that you're doing this. it's an open secret that students work other jobs, and they won't be mad that you're making extra money, they'll be mad that you're spending time on something other than school, but if it's only 2-3 hours a week (at $20/hr for tutoring gigs, for example) then you should be fine.

Thanks for the reply. I appreciate it.

I can't cut out the money for living life. Or otherwise put, I could do it, but the result would be a person too unhappy with life to get anything out of school. If I can't have a beer and a burger once or twice a month, or order up some Thai food when I'm working hard through the night, I might as well go back to the lucrative job I formerly held. I'd rather have to take out small loans than live a totally austere life. This is not to say that I eat out every week, or spend $30 at the bar every Saturday night. But I firmly believe that to be a successful student you need to be a happy person, and to be a happy person I need to allow myself these little indulgences every so often. Further, meeting up for dinner and/or drinks is among the best ways to socialize with people outside of one's department, so there are other things involved than just enjoying the food and beer.

As for the phone bill, you're correct. I have an old flip phone that can call and text, but can't access the internet. I have no need for a smartphone. My provider won't go any lower on my rate, so maybe I should look into changing providers or getting on a pay-as-you-go type of plan.

I'm also counting on having some type of income in the summer. I hope it will be in the form of an RA-ship in my department, but failing that, I'll work at a running store for $10/hr to get by between semesters.

[StrangeLight]

i understand not cutting the "have a life" budget. i won't do that for myself either. in fact, i probably spend way too much on eating out/drinking/whatever else. so i sympathize and i wouldn't cut that myself, but sometimes, some months, it's gotta take the back seat if the finances demand it. i only suggested this because you said the running budget was non-negotiable, and with rent and utilities pretty inflexible, there wasn't too much else to cut.

when i've used pay-as-you-go plans, i've spent as little as $15/month on my bill, and my phone was either free or $50 or something. now, i didn't have the compulsive texters in my life that i do now, so the number would be different, but it would still be way cheaper than what you pay for your flip phone.

income in the summer helps a lot. if you don't spend summers abroad doing field work, then a part-time job is awesome for freeing up your budget a bit and very common in fields where people stay in their uni towns rather than go abroad during time off.

[ktel]

We had a similar budget discussion in another thread, and there were always the "cut out fun stuff" arguments. This is totally doable for some people, not so doable for me. So much of my social life involves going out for beers or food that it would make hanging out with people difficult for me. Plus a dinner out once in a while is amazing. I just had the yummiest cheesiest gnocchi. I also have the lucky situation where if I can't afford going out for dinner this month, my boyfriend can afford to take me.

[long_time_lurker]

smaturin, try Boost Mobile. I got it in August and it's been great. You can do unlimited web for 35 cents a day if you want (so at most 10.85 a month) and calls/texts are only 10 cents a minute/per text. I used to have the AT&T Go Phone which was only about $9 a month but having the web is a nice upgrade.

I also am with you in regard to giving yourself rewards. The Premack principle works very well!

To everyone who responded to my post, thanks. I'm actually getting a new boiler this weekend, so hopefully that will help. It will probably be a few years until the big culprit, the windows, can be done. As runonsentence mentioned, these are huge up front costs and since I don't own the house outright (I am a next of kin) my hands are somewhat tied. Also, we're only talking about 3 months a year, so while it's tough, it could be worse if I were in Boston or something.

[eco_env]

I have about $1600 to spend per month. I'll do anything to avoid loans- I live in an ancient, cheap apartment, I don't own a car, I buy (mostly) the cheapest options at the cheapest grocery store, I arranged to get a discount on gas, and I combine laundry loads as much as possible. But I realized that that lifestyle leaves me with a few hundred dollars extra per month, so I have been indulging a little bit in non-essential, relatively expensive foods. The problem with buying cheap food is that it generally takes longer to prepare, which is eating up a lot of my time.

[janie_complainy]

Good God, people actually manage to SAVE some of their stipend??

Edit: sorry for resurrecting this dead thread... didn't see how old it was.

Edited January 23, 2012 by janie_complainy

[Behavioral]

Good God, people actually manage to SAVE some of their stipend??

Edit: sorry for resurrecting this dead thread... didn't see how old it was.

I didn't think it was possible until I started considering a PhD in business instead of the social sciences. My stipend is nearly double what some of my friends make at other departments in the same school.

[BrokenRecord]

*brushes dust off of thread*

Working while attending graduate school? Why are you all so adverse to taking out federal loans? That is why cost of attendance is put in place for financial aid for a reason, some may need less others may need more. But we aren't talking about shopping sprees we are talking about just existing. Even if you take out $2,000 your payments will only amount to about $50/month IF you are earning a decent income. I can understand living frugally but how is it worth it to work part-time and put less time and effort into your studies or networking so you can get a good job which will pay back that loan PLUS more? It doesn't seem wise, graduate school is stressful enough to worry about compounded with financial factors.

[quicksort]

I agree with BrokenRecord. Additionally, how can you ask someone to cut out the $50-100 fun budget? We need to socialize and indulge, otherwise we are unhappy and end up slacking off in other areas to compensate!

[1Q84]

$300 to food (As an endurance athlete - I need high quality food and lots of it - this is non-negotiable).

$100 to running-related expenses - shoes, race entries

How do people live on this much money?

I read this with some curiosity. Is being an endurance athlete part of your program? No snark, genuinely asking. Because if not, then I can understand why you would have difficult trying to live on a stipend that is probably designed for non-endurance athlete students. The question that you ask becomes more interesting then when you think about priorities.

Again, location aside, $1300 a month sounds really not that bad. I'm assuming of course that your school has adjusted for cost of living... it just sounds, from this one post, that you're loading on a lot of costs that aren't a guarantee to be compatible with graduate school living...

I'm having a really hard time coming to terms with doing an unfunded MA as an international student. I'm not even sure if it's possible without being super independently wealthy.

[prettyuff1]

I'm a single parent raising a child and myself $1600/month. What savings would you be speaking of. we cannot work outside our phd program so I'll be supplementing myself with some student loans to bring myself up to $2500/month. From this I have added expenses like childcare/ school expenses/ child maintenance.

I won't be saving a penny

[BrokenRecord]

I'm a single parent raising a child and myself $1600/month. What savings would you be speaking of. we cannot work outside our phd program so I'll be supplementing myself with some student loans to bring myself up to $2500/month. From this I have added expenses like childcare/ school expenses/ child maintenance.

I won't be saving a penny

My stipend is pretty much the same as yours per month and I have to budget even supporting just myself. But I will say while it may seem impossible to save now, you will not be making this salary forever (especially in your field). Thus, I would suggest if can manage, to get into the habit of paying yourself first-- at least 10% of every paycheck goes into an emergency fund for yourself that can't be touched. With your stipend that is $160 per month or $40 per week. You'll be surprised at how that little nest egg will come in handy.

[ktel]

Being an athlete is expensive. My club dues are $300 alone, and if I want to go to an out of town (or country) tournament the costs go up from there. I am very lucky my parents bankroll this for me.

[splitends]

So, I'm probably the only person on the forum that feels this way, but I just started graduate school and I feel like I'm rolling in money. Admittedly I'm getting on the high end of the stipend spectrum (I have an outside fellowship to supplement what my department gives me), but I'm also living in one of the most expensive parts of the country, so not sure how much that should cancel it out?

Regardless-- I think I'm making slightly more now than my mother made raising two kids when I was growing up. It wasn't fun at the time, but I think the habits of poverty are really making things easy for me now. I felt really financially solid when I went to college and between grants, scholarship, and summer jobs, I was making ~$15K annually (after tuition, etc) which I guess is about equivalent to stingier grad school stipends. I usually ended the year with a few hundred to a few thousand dollars left over. Now that I'm making roughly twice that, I'm saving around half my stipend just because I'm in the habit of spending roughly half what I'm making now.

But I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything. I don't feel like I'm being frugal. I don't make large pots of beans and rice to live off for the week. I eat out regularly (rarely any place expensive, but I spend ~$5 on lunch a few times a week, ~$10 for dinner at least once a week). I go out to bars etc maybe once or twice a month.

I'm guessing that a lot of my savings are due to my rather unusual living situation. I live in a large housing cooperative, that's part of an even larger housing cooperative network, and through the magic of buying in bulk, I spend around $750/month for rent, food (fully stocked kitchen and communal dinners 5 nights/week), utilities, internet, household items (cleaning products, laundry detergent, etc), and free social activities regularly arranged by housemates. But I honestly don't know how much this is a savings compared to just living some place cheaper-- if I were living in the midwest and paying $300/month on renting a room (which is essentially what I have here), wouldn't $450/month be more than enough for food and laundry detergent?

I think I just have a different idea of what is good living. I'm still excited I get to buy name brand shampoo. I prefer my flip phone to a smart phone (I had to work hard to avoid getting a smart phone on my plan the last time I had to replace my phone-- I don't like the idea of having the internet in my pocket, and flip phones are a lot sturdier). I don't drive-- I walk/bike/use my university provided free bus pass to get around. I get access to yoga, pilates, swimming, tai chi, kickboxing, weight room, etc etc through my $10/semester university gym membership. It all feels pretty luxurious to me.

Again, it seems like my stipend is on the generous side, but I'm having a hard time figuring out what single, childless people must do to have a hard time living off of $25-30K a year. $30K puts you around the median U.S. income. It just doesn't sound that bad to me. I think the point made earlier on this forum about things being kind of relative (the guy feeding his family on $200K/year) was pretty dead on.

[imonedaful]

Again, it seems like my stipend is on the generous side, but I'm having a hard time figuring out what single, childless people must do to have a hard time living off of $25-30K a year. $30K puts you around the median U.S. income. It just doesn't sound that bad to me. I think the point made earlier on this forum about things being kind of relative (the guy feeding his family on $200K/year) was pretty dead on.

$30,000 a year for a single person should be easy to live off of. However, most grad stipends are significantly less than that. A lot of PhD programs (in my discipline) are around $10,000-$20,000 for 9 months. On average about $1,600 a month. For masters programs, if you have an assistantship it is even less. A friend of mine only received $800 a month on his masters assistantship and was contractually not allowed to work some place else. I think it would be difficult to live off of only that much money a month.

Living economically should not be hard or make you miserable. But it can be a difficult transition for someone who goes into graduate school from a full time job. You get used to having extra money to play with. Then, all of a sudden, that "extra" money shrinks considerably and you have to reevaluate what exactly you spend your money on.

[prettyuff1]

On 9/4/2012 at 8:59 AM, imonedaful said:

$30,000 a year for a single person should be easy to live off of. However, most grad stipends are significantly less than that. A lot of PhD programs (in my discipline) are around $10,000-$20,000 for 9 months. On average about $1,600 a month. For masters programs, if you have an assistantship it is even less. A friend of mine only received $800 a month on his masters assistantship and was contractually not allowed to work some place else. I think it would be difficult to live off of only that much money a month.

Living economically should not be hard or make you miserable. But it can be a difficult transition for someone who goes into graduate school from a full time job. You get used to having extra money to play with. Then, all of a sudden, that "extra" money shrinks considerably and you have to reevaluate what exactly you spend your money on.

That is waayyy more than what i am getting here and I am contracted not to work. I can probably get around that since I'm raising someone. $30K is a lot for grad stipend and caring for one person. Hell my first job out of my bachelors degree paid aout $2K/month after taxes.

I am frugal and make sure that i don't go over board with spending..I can cook and make what i want so $50/ week on groceries will do me fine

[R Deckard]

Am I the only one that spends $400-500/month on groceries? And I buy everything in bulk.

[verklempt]

I save just out of habit, but also because I'm still working 12 - 24 hours per week. Most people in my program still work, and some full time. I got a rare (for nursing anyway) scholarship/stipend that forbids me to work more than 24 hours per week. I put away about $300/month into the emergency fund and then I try to save other money for travel/fun stuff.

[BrokenRecord]

Am I the only one that spends $400-500/month on groceries? And I buy everything in bulk.

How often do you eat out? That is quite a bit for a single person, but I guess it depends on your location.

[R Deckard]

How often do you eat out? That is quite a bit for a single person, but I guess it depends on your location.

Oh, I just meant on groceries.