Interview part 2 – planning ahead for your mortarboard and bricks-and-mortar

What gives you the chance to have life on your terms?   To call your own shots?  What lets you sleep at night?

According to Scott Pape, Barefoot Investor, the answer is savings.  For PhD students with limited money, the first part of good financial management is saving your money and staying out of debt.

“HECS is unavoidable, but the last thing you want is to graduate with huge amounts of debt just from your living expenses.  If you can live within your means, that’s the ultimate goal,” he says.

The second thing to remember is that the financial race is only with yourself.

“I believe anyone who’s 27 or 28, in their early 30s, and who’s just starting out financially shouldn’t fall for the trap of trying to get to the finish line too quickly.  Slow and steady really does win the race.

“Don’t try keep up with the Jones’s, because over the next 4 or 5 years, the Jones’s will probably come a cropper.  The global financial crisis has changed the game.”

So what can students do now to plan for their future?

“You’ve got three big assets in life.  Your ultimate assets are your education, your knowledge and your motivation.  The second asset is your home, generally, and the third is your superannuation.  If you’re in your late 20s or 30s, the first thing you want to do is work towards buying your first home.”

If that’s your intention, Scott’s advice is to start a savings program while you’re still studying, and afterward, and get in training for a mortgage.

“Don’t go out and buy a house wondering how you’re going meet a mortgage repayment.  I think we’ve been encouraged by government leaders, bankers, and even our parents to hock ourselves into huge amounts of debt.  When you’re in that situation, you can become enslaved to your possessions, and that’s not a good place to be.

“The Australian Government gives out first home-buyer grants of $21,000 – $28,000 and I think that’s going to end badly for a lot of young people.  Over committing to a property is probably the worst thing you can do.”

Scott explains how the global financial crisis impacts on young people trying to get into the property market.

“We’ve just seen the G20 leaders pumping trillions of dollars into the economy.  Generally what happens when you print more money is that the cost of things goes up.  In my view, we’ll see inflation going up over the next two years, and if inflation goes up, interest rates go up.

“This is going to happen right at a time when the Government is handing out these grants to first home buyers.  At the moment, we’ve got 30-year, generation low interest rates.  But they’re not going to stay low forever and a lot of people could get themselves into serious trouble.

“Because of the Government policies we’ve seen, I also believe that housing is extremely over valued in Australia.   I think it’s a great idea for everyone to own their own home, I just believe you should be starting a savings program.

“The Government’s First Home Saver Account is an absolutely cracking thing to do.  The banks will give you a pretty high interest rate, and the Government will contribute $700 or $800 to help you get into your first home.  You’ll get a good return on your money.  More young people should get behind it.

“Real estate agents say the most important thing in property is location, location, location, but really, the most important thing with property is safety, safety, safety.”

Related articles:

• Ex situ – Money: Safety shoes and the Barefoot Investor #1: making the best of being broke but brainy

Dr Beth Fulton is ecosystem modeller and principal research fellow with the CSIRO.  At work, she travels regularly, supervises three graduate students and oversees a team of 15 scientists; in 2007, she was Prime Minister’s Life Scientist of the Year.  At home, she’s a mum of three, devoted party-goer, and occasional sweeper of floors.

Science Hub is delighted to talk to Dr Fulton about finding a work-life balance and thank her for the generosity with which she’s shared her experience.

“At some point, you’re going end up being accused of being away too much, even if you’re not away as much as you could be.

“With my family, being quite open has worked.  You need to be as open about how many things you say ‘no’ to, as how many things you say ‘yes’ to, so they understand that you are making sacrifices for them.

“Then you have a set of almost unimpeachable rules – that regardless of what the opportunity is, you still say ‘no’ [in order to prioritise the family].

“In our household, the rule is that I’m always home for birthdays.  And it’s unbreakable.  Regardless of what meeting they want me to go to, or whom I’m to talk to, that rule never gets broken and it’s something my family can depend on then.

“The other side of it is to get them interested in what I’m doing, and to help them see the value of it, so that it doesn’t become a competition.

“Then they can get as excited and as interested about things as you are.  You’ll find for different parts of your family that there will be different ways of doing that.

“My daughter and I email quite regularly, even when I’m in town.  She and I will have an email conversation quite separate to the ones we have verbally, whereas my son actually gets interested in where I’m going.

“He wants me to find things for him, and find things out while I’m away.  And with my youngest child, before I go, we actually draw out on the globe where I’m going and how long that’s going to be.  And so you engage in different ways for each member of the family.

“It’s that combination of communicating, being flexible, being clear, but also having things that they can depend on.

“When I’m at home, I try to read them a story.  We have a conversation about what they’ve done.  You make it the quality of time that you’re spending together, rather than necessarily the length.

“I’ve been quite lucky in that my partner’s a stay-at-home Dad.  I don’t think I could have done as much without him there to help me out, so that’s a tricky thing.

“And  it’s not easy, you let some things slide.  So, don’t worry about sweeping the hall every week.”

Related articles:

• Skills – Supervision: Dr Beth Fulton on being a mentor
• Pavlov’s Epilogue: Dr Beth Fulton and her advice to young scientists
• Skills – Communication: Advocacy, objectivity and talking to your grandmother
• Skills – Negotiating the Workplace: Dr Beth Fulton on being a female scientist of international renown
• Fiat Lux: Big picture science through a watery lens
• Fiat Lux: Significant women of science series

Professor Barry Marshall, co-discover of the Helicobacter pylori bacterium responsible for stomach ulcers, sees scientifically trained mothers as an unappreciated part of the scientific workforce.

“There’s an untapped reservoir of woman with PhDs who have started their families and are trying to get back into the workface part-time,” he says.

Since winning the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 2005, his entrepreneurial talents in biotechnology have flourished, and he is now developing a H. pylori platform technology under the auspices of Ondek, his new company.

“If we have 10 scientists at the bench, we would probably employ another 10 who would be in sales and marketing, drug registrations, and all the business aspects relating to the technology.  Good PhDs don’t have to spend the rest of their life at the bench,” says Professor Marshall.

“These people are very, very valuable to me for developing business plans, doing applications and intelligence work on patents, to collaborate on contracts and so on.

“… I think this is the kind of opportunity [scientific mums] would love.  That’s where I would expect to find very, very good untapped resources.”

In science, and most industries, it is usually mothers who leave the workforce to become primary care-givers when they begin their families.

It can be difficult for women who have invested so much in educating themselves to leave satisfying, successful careers, and for scientific mums especially, the decision can be hard.

In the forefront of their minds is the realisation that while they are raising their children, male colleagues and women without children are advancing professionally and leaving them behind. Ongoing concerns about their prospects for re-entering the workforce and juggling their new, combined responsibilities of family, children and a professional job also factor.

In part, these concerns are based on the little acknowledged inflexibility of the scientific workplace.

Finding part-time, casual, contract or time-share work in professional science is difficult.  Employees with these types of arrangements often either negotiate these conditions individually with sympathetic employers, or are engaged in a terminating project for which funds have become limited.

A win-win situation for parents and for the scientific industry itself would be to create employment with more flexibility.  Part-time or contract work would allow parents to balance family and work, keep up-to-date with advances in their field, and maintain an income stream.  It would mean experienced, highly skilled employees would remain in the workplace to maximise Australia’s investment in the scientists it has trained.

For Dr Mums considering a return to work, telecommuting could even be an option, with excellent communication skills being the first requirement.

“Being literate and being able to write independently is very, very important,” says Professor Marshall of the off-bench roles he envisages for scientifically trained mothers, and other science graduates considering work in the biotechnology industry.

“If you are a good communicator with excellent writing skills, and a bit of common sense, then there are already opportunities out there.”

Are you a scientific mum, or dad, and away from science until your children grow up?  Would you like to return to scientific work part-time?  Are you a potential employer who would consider hiring a scientific mum or dad to work part-time?  Click here to take our survey.

Part 1: making the best of being broke but brainy

“Young people who invest in their education almost feel like they can’t sit at the big people’s table at Christmas time.  They don’t own property.  They’re just starting out.  But their friends, who may have dropped out of school at year 10 to be tradies, own three houses at the same time their student mates are still struggling to pay the bond.”

Sounds familiar doesn’t it?  Anyone who’s taken the plunge into a PhD knows the drill – more study, a scholarship valued below the poverty line, four years without superannuation contributions and the feeling that you’re dropping behind financially.  It’s frustrating, to say the least.  Scientists are supposed to be important to the Clever Country, and this is what we have to do?

The Barefoot Investor, better known as Scott Pape and the man educating GenY about finance, gave Science Hub an exclusive interview on matters monetary.  While his last foray into the lab was a year 8 experiment with Bunsen burners, he holds the scientific world in high regard.

“The most interesting people I know don’t have all the status symbols around them.  They don’t feel they need them.  If you’re doing a PhD, you’re an interesting person anyway.  You’re doing really interesting work.  That would be the first thing to remember.”

In part one of our interview, the Barefoot Investor encourages us to make the best of our situation as PhD students – learn early about good financial management, and appreciate the value of money when you’re earning very little of it.

“Personal finance is 20% knowledge and 80% behaviour.  So while you’re struggling and only just getting through – living off $10 pot and parma nights – you’re setting in place financial behaviours that will last you a life time.

“You have to understand that education is an investment, not just in a career, but in you as a person.  Although you need more money – I suppose we all could – you’re surviving.   When you become a high income earner, you’ll look back on your student days and know that you don’t need the materialistic trophies around you.”

“And appreciate just how good things are,” Pape continues.  “If you’re feeling down in the dumps, go to www.kiva.org.  Loan $25 to a struggling entrepreneur in the developing world.  She’ll pay you back at $3 a month and you’ll see your money being used to build a business that supports a whole family, and therefore a whole community.  It puts the little money you have back into perspective.”

The second piece of advice Pape offers is to learn how to manage your money.  He speaks from personal experience.

“I’ve been a stock broker and company director.  I’ve met lawyers and doctors, scientists and dentists, who don’t have a cracker to put together at 30 or 40.  They just don’t have any money.  But I’ve also met cleaners who live comfortably and have a really good life.

“Income doesn’t equal wealth.  It’s about being smart with your money and the sooner you learn how to manage it, the greater the compounding of that knowledge.  You just have to set in force a plan that will get you to your main goal, whatever that may be.”

Next month, in our part two of our interview, Scott gives us the practical advice needed to be more financially secure, even as PhD students.

Related articles:

• Ex situ – Money: Safety shoes and the Barefoot Investor #2: planning ahead for your mortar board and bricks-and-mortar

Part 1: making the best of being broke but brainy

“Young people who invest in their education almost feel like they can’t sit at the big people’s table at Christmas time.  They don’t own property.  They’re just starting out.  But their friends, who may have dropped out of school at year 10 to be tradies, own three houses at the same time their student mates are still struggling to pay the bond.”

Sounds familiar doesn’t it?  Anyone who’s taken the plunge into a PhD knows the drill – more study, a scholarship valued below the poverty line, four years without superannuation contributions and the feeling that you’re dropping behind financially.  It’s frustrating, to say the least.  Scientists are supposed to be important to the Clever Country, and this is what we have to do?

The Barefoot Investor, better known as Scott Pape and the man educating GenY about finance, gave Science Hub an exclusive interview on matters monetary.  While his last foray into the lab was a year 8 experiment with Bunsen burners, he holds the scientific world in high regard.

“The most interesting people I know don’t have all the status symbols around them.  They don’t feel they need them.  If you’re doing a PhD, you’re an interesting person anyway.  You’re doing really interesting work.  That would be the first thing to remember.”

In part one of our interview, the Barefoot Investor encourages us to make the best of our situation as PhD students – learn early about good financial management, and appreciate the value of money when you’re earning very little of it.

“Personal finance is 20% knowledge and 80% behaviour.  So while you’re struggling and only just getting through – living off $10 pot and parma nights – you’re setting in place financial behaviours that will last you a life time.

“You have to understand that education is an investment, not just in a career, but in you as a person.  Although you need more money – I suppose we all could – you’re surviving.   When you become a high income earner, you’ll look back on your student days and know that you don’t need the materialistic trophies around you.”

“And appreciate just how good things are,” Pape continues.  “If you’re feeling down in the dumps, go to www.kiva.org.  Loan $25 to a struggling entrepreneur in the developing world.  She’ll pay you back at $3 a month and you’ll see your money being used to build a business that supports a whole family, and therefore a whole community.  It puts the little money you have back into perspective.”

The second piece of advice Pape offers is to learn how to manage your money.  He speaks from personal experience.

“I’ve been a stock broker and company director.  I’ve met lawyers and doctors, scientists and dentists, who don’t have a cracker to put together at 30 or 40.  They just don’t have any money.  But I’ve also met cleaners who live comfortably and have a really good life.

“Income doesn’t equal wealth.  It’s about being smart with your money and the sooner you learn how to manage it, the greater the compounding of that knowledge.  You just have to set in force a plan that will get you to your main goal, whatever that may be.”

Next month, in our part two of our interview, Scott gives us the practical advice needed to be more financially secure, even as PhD students.

Related articles:

• Ex situ – Money: Safety shoes and the Barefoot Investor #2: planning ahead for your mortar board and bricks-and-mortar

Under the Australian Taxation Office’s superannuation rulings, you may be eligible for co-contributions from the Government to any personal, after-tax superannuation contribution you make.

Various conditions apply, and we encourage you to look more closely at the scheme’s details here.

Please note: Science Hub takes no responsibility for any financial decisions you make based on this information.

What gives you the chance to have life on your terms?   To call your own shots?  What lets you sleep at night?

According to Scott Pape, Barefoot Investor, the answer is savings.  For PhD students with limited money, the first part of good financial management is saving your money and staying out of debt.

This article will be available in full next month.  Come back, sign-up and read it then.  Thanks!

Related articles:

• Ex situ – Money: Money advice for students

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