Married PhD student... expenses!

[niran305]

Hi all,

 

I will be joining UC-Riverside as a PhD student beginning Fall 14. I am married and will be moving in along with my wife. I am supported by a TA/GSR stipend which will be around 1800 after taxes. My wife won't be working as she will be on a F2 visa. 

 

I am worried whether will my stipend be able to support both of us? 50% of my stipend will be spent on rent. And sharing a house with a roommate isn't an option. 

 

Has anyone of you been in a similar position? I am on the waiting list for on campus family housing which will bring down the rent to 650 per month but that's only after one or two semesters. 

 

Can anyone give me an idea about what my total expenses would be around?

 

Thanks!

[hj2012]

Hey there,

 

You can use the MIT living wage calculator to get a sense of the bare-bones requirements: http://livingwage.mit.edu/

 

My sense is that it would be tough, but doable. Is it not an option for you to be on a J1 visa? That would allow your wife to take an additional job if she chose.

[TakeruK]

I think this will be difficult but possible on $1800/month. I live in a similar area and it was already pretty tough with a stipend of $2400/month (mostly because rent was even higher than yours and also a lot of health insurance costs though). I am on J-1 so once my spouse was able to work, things are much better. 

 

Getting on campus family housing will save you a lot of money. But I agree with the above person--can you ask if you qualify for J-1 status instead? There's still time to do all the paperwork, I think.

 

50% of stipend on rent is not generally considered affordable. Apparently an affordable ratio is like 25% to 30%, so family housing will be a lot closer to that.

 

Assuming that other costs are the same for us as for you, and not including rent or health insurance (as your case might be different than ours), we spend about $1000-$1200 per month on other expenses. About $350-$400 of this is for "unnecessary" things like eating out and doing date-night type things so if money is tight, you can cut this out or reduce it. The main expenses other than rent and health insurance are groceries (about $400/month), electricity+internet+phone ($200/month), and the rest is small amounts for laundry or other random expenses.

 

I didn't include any medical costs here because our costs might not reflect yours but definitely do not ignore them! It can be really expensive in the US. In Canada, for similar treatment/coverage, we would pay probably something like $1500/year but currently it costs us almost $10,000/year here in the US. With the Affordable Care Act, this cost should hopefully go down but we haven't been on it for a year yet so it's not certain what our annual expenses will be. 

Edited May 29, 2014 by TakeruK

[SgtP3pp3r]

I agree on talking to the people managing your program to try and get your status changed to J1. 

 

But if that isn't an option then, if your wife is earning a wage in your home country, it might be best for you to consider rooming with someone until the housing option clears, or at least for the first couple of months while you determine whether or not it's economically feasible. 

 

I will be in a somewhat similar position, except the maintenance fee on my scholarship is a lot lower (1300). Then again, the apartment rent is also cheaper. My wife won't join me until later on, she's still finishing up her studies here in our country. 

 

In my case, i've never lived in the US (or even ever been there!) so all the info I have on the cost of living derives of recommendation and university websites

[bsharpe269]

Something else worth considering would be trying to find another couple to share a 2 bedroom place with.

 

Your wife could consider looking into nanny positions. There are some nanny websites that I have had great success finding babysitting jobs with. Feel free to message me if you want them.

[niran305]

Thanks a lot guys! I will definitely contact my department and see whether are there any other options like a J-1. Hope this family housing thing works soon

[Ron_21]

Hi Niran305,

 

              Please help me out with this question. I am in a similar situation. Was your PhD funding enough to convince the Visa people that you can support your wife? I don't have any significant financial assets in India. To support my wife, PhD funding is all I have.

 

Thanks. 

[jujubea]

Hi Niran305,

 

              Please help me out with this question. I am in a similar situation. Was your PhD funding enough to convince the Visa people that you can support your wife? I don't have any significant financial assets in India. To support my wife, PhD funding is all I have.

 

Thanks. 

 

U.S. visa officers use published federal poverty standards to determine whether an applicant can use a certain amount of money to support their family in the U.S., of however many individuals.

Here are the 2014 guidelines: http://aspe.hhs.gov/poverty/14poverty.cfm

They are ridiculously low, and $30k would be enough to support a family of FIVE according to those guidelines.

 

If the officer refuses you for not having "enough funds" to support your family, yet your stipend or wage would be above those guidelines, you can appeal your visa rejection (only if the refusal was ONLY on those grounds).

 

Source: http://www.state.gov/m/a/dir/regs/fam/09fam/index.htm

[Crucial BBQ]

 

Here are the 2014 guidelines: http://aspe.hhs.gov/poverty/14poverty.cfm

They are ridiculously low, and $30k would be enough to support a family of FIVE according to those guidelines.

 

 

 

I am not sure that these figures are for living wages.  I think they are just the numbers that are used to determine if a family can be considered in poverty or not and are used to help determine the financial need from Federal and/or State programs (free lunch, food stamps, Section 8, and so on).

[Crucial BBQ]

Hi all,

 

I will be joining UC-Riverside as a PhD student beginning Fall 14. I am married and will be moving in along with my wife. I am supported by a TA/GSR stipend which will be around 1800 after taxes. My wife won't be working as she will be on a F2 visa. 

 

I am worried whether will my stipend be able to support both of us? 50% of my stipend will be spent on rent. And sharing a house with a roommate isn't an option. 

 

Has anyone of you been in a similar position? I am on the waiting list for on campus family housing which will bring down the rent to 650 per month but that's only after one or two semesters. 

 

Can anyone give me an idea about what my total expenses would be around?

 

Thanks!

The majority of my family lives in or near Riverside, CA.  $1800/month for two people is going to be cutting it rather close.  

[geo86]

Hello guys! Me too I have same problem. I will be a MSc student with a TA assistantship position. I intend to bring my wife to the US on a J visa but the school tells me that I have to show an extra amount of $7000 in order to show that I can support my wife. My question is, how is it possible (either with a fellowship award or with my TA position or with anything else) to persuade the US consular and the school in order to issue the j2 visa to my wife?  

[Cookie]

I'm going to be blunt to you guys, but a graduate student's stipend is to support only that one person with modest living expenses. No, it shouldn't be enough for you to support your wife, your kid(s), your family back home etc. 
So the answer is automatically "it would be very difficult".

[TakeruK]

I'm going to be blunt to you guys, but a graduate student's stipend is to support only that one person with modest living expenses. No, it shouldn't be enough for you to support your wife, your kid(s), your family back home etc. 

So the answer is automatically "it would be very difficult".

 

Not always, I received many stipend offers that would be enough for a single graduate student to live very well and even buy homes, or for a graduate student to support a partner on very modest living conditions (if this was not the case, then no J-2s will ever be issued). Of course, these very modest living conditions are usually not ideal and this is why J-2s are allowed to gain work authorization so that the couple can have better living conditions. The minimum income condition for J-2s is to ensure that foreign students are able to bring in their family and support them without relying on government aid, not that the graduate student family is actually expected to live off the grad student stipend only.

[geo86]

My actual problem is how to persuade the consular for the j2 visa issuance as well as if there is any possible fellowship I can apply for. Does anyone know something?

[MidwesternAloha]

I'm going to be blunt to you guys, but a graduate student's stipend is to support only that one person with modest living expenses. No, it shouldn't be enough for you to support your wife, your kid(s), your family back home etc. 

So the answer is automatically "it would be very difficult".

Living expenses do not double when you get married, in fact (you can even double check me if you don't believe me) they rarely go up by more than 30% of the cost of single living. So yes, graduate stipend are often sufficient to support a family and sometimes equate the sum of two individuals working full time for minimum wage. It can be done.

[geo86]

@Midwesternaloha : Super!But how do I tell this to the consular and the school?

[MidwesternAloha]

@Midwesternaloha : Super!But how do I tell this to the consular and the school?

Well, what I meant was that if you do the math, the average PhD stipend is somewhere in the ballpark of two people working for minimum wage. I'm not sure that stipends are negotiable, someone else may have better advice for that than me.

[geo86]

I'll be more than happy to hear from anyone who can share a piece of advice..