Because the Graduate Student Needs Some Underpants: Five Strange Tales of Surviving my Last Year of Graduate School (not on Top Ramen)

Introduction

Graduate school is tough, and not for the mental challenges it presented. As it turns out, the intellectual component of it only took up about 20% of my brain space. So what occupied 80% of my brain space? Money, actually. More specifically, how to get the minimum calories to stay alive on my tragic graduate school stipend.

I had some very unique challenges entering graduate school. For starters, I was fortunate enough to get a full ride scholarship to a Tier-1 Research University. Unfortunately, while its research was Tier-1, its funding package was not. Unlike generous Ivy League universities, or other wealthier universities, even with a full ride, we were not covered during summers we did not work. We could only start teaching summers if we got to doctoral candidacy, a process which took at least two years, if not more. To add salt to the wound, we had to pay a mysterious “facility fee” of $300 each quarter. That might not seem like a lot to you, but for comparison, my starting salary was ~$1500 (before tax deduction, after deduction, it was more like $1200 take home). This $100 a month fee was 8% of my disposable income. Yes, I was living on $10,800 a year in Seattle, before rent. (my salary did go up to ~$26,000 take home in my last year)

Get another job, and quit being a lazy whiner, you say?

Well, I was an international student. I was not legally allowed to take another job outside of campus. My full ride came with the clause that I was being paid as a part-timer working 20 hours a week. If I wanted to go over these hours, I had to fill out a mountain of paper work to work a campus job. Also, I did a cost-benefit analysis. While I could take another job on campus, the time this second job took would basically prolong my time in graduate school. Other US citizen colleagues who took second jobs to pay their bills took at least one year longer than I did to graduate. Some have yet to graduate in more than seven years as they continue working their second jobs.

Spend less money, then, you spendthrift?

I have probably read every single article out there about “miraculous” ways to save money, e.g. not eating out, or how your Starbucks habit was costing you a fortune. Guess what? I was already doing all those things. I lived on ~$35 a week, cooking most of my meals, and allowing myself one meal (under $10) out a week. I was raised by penny-pinching grandparents, who lived through the Japanese Occupation. They taught me a thing or two about being frugal.

The first three years of graduate school involved just endless financial discipline – never exceeding my meager weekly budget in the expensive city of Seattle, always setting aside 30% of my monthly stipend for the lean summer months.

In December 2014, a semi-disastrous event led to new opportunities. My trusty brick-heavy White Macbook started croaking – not a good sign. My fellow graduate students talked about working on Chromebooks (cost around $200), and I briefly considered making the switch from Apple systems back to PCs. I could afford that with my meager savings, but the thought of going from a reliable (and fast) system to a slow, virus-infested system was a bitter pill.

At this time, that was when I chanced upon a mailer from Chase Bank. Open a new Chase Freedom credit card, spend $500, and get $200 back. Was there really free money? I decided to give it a shot. I signed up for that credit card, charged $800 on it for a refurbished Macbook Air, and one month later, I got reimbursed $200. I did get a new Macbook Air for under $600 out of pocket (I used a shopping portal to get extra cashback for my Apple purchase).

This little event actually opened the door to a world of travel-hacking and deal-hacking. The last 1.5 years of my graduate school career actually improved tremendously. I stopped counting the number of eggs I could afford to eat in a week. Instead, I was flying around the US with a companion for less than the cost of a Greyhound, stuffing my face at airport lounge (free food!), or grabbing a week’s worth of snacks on the Amex Seahawks Party boat.

Amex Centurion Lounge in Seatac Airport

My favorite kind of food - free food!