Personal Finance of a PhD Student
The worst side of aiming to doctorate is the insecurity of funding. In a seminar of the doctoral school of Vaasa, we were encouraged to start to save. The dissertation is only the start if you're going to stay in academia and you should prepare for that, check for e.g. the Professor is In . The blog convinced me to buy the book and that was a money well spend. The unknown future, photo credits: Jan Gustafsson . However, another strategy that I apply, is simply saving when I receive salary. I have automated a part of that saving by purchasing two different index funds in three parts. That is 9 - 10 % of my net wage. However, that is far from enough because in addition to preparing for possible period of funding I doubt the pension system that we have in Finland. And yes, my salary is not very high at the moment (and the taxation in Finland is high)! Thus, the amount that I automatically save is too small. Given the current situation in the markets...