Real financial advice for real scientists
Follow your passion. Choose a job you love and you’ll never work a day in your life. Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not. These and other tidbits of wisdom are slapped on cards, posters, and Pinterest images around the world. They’re poured out…
Last week I wrote an epic post entitled Five Reasons Why Blogging Is A Terrible Side Hustle Idea. It garnered a lot of attention because I shed some light on some of the lesser-touted aspects of blogging. I still stick by my guns; I think blogging is probably a terrible side hustle for a…
Hey! You! Do you want to make hundreds of thousands of dollars while staying at home in your footie PJs? No one even has to know about those holes covering your nether bits! If so, then try my five-minute guide to blogging! Have you ever read any advertisements like this? I’ll be honest; I…
One of my biggest financial struggles is overcoming a low salary. I was still earning $32k two years after getting my M.S. – I actually got paid more per hour while I was still in grad school! And I’ll be honest; now that I’m self-employed for the time being, it still isn’t much higher….
A stuffed capercaillie sits mounted high on the wall in my old wildlife classroom. It used to distract me all the time; I’d picture it coming alive and taking flight across the room in a flurry of feathers and bird poop. It would have been be quite the sight; capercaillies are halfway in size between…
Have you ever done something that scared you so much you had to refrain from peeing your pants and running away to a foreign country? That was me a year ago when I was a starting freelance writer! In January 2016 I officially started as a part-time freelance writer, working for myself. It scared the…
I just lost my job. Or, rather, I didn’t get my job back that I was hopefully being re-hired for. It’s a bit confusing, but that’s the point of the story: jobs for young people just starting out in the career world are confusing and not secure. Last summer, I was hired on with the…
Being in debt sucks. Being in debt and making peanuts for a salary and knowing all the steps you need to take to be financially secure (like contributing $5,500/year to a Roth IRA or having a fully-funded emergency fund) yet being unable to take them is a special kind of hell. Sometimes Saving Money…
How secure do you think your job is? Are you sure? What would you do if you went in to work one day and found out you’re out of a job by next week? That actually happened to me last week. I lost my job! After struggling to find good employment for nearly two…
Have you ever thought back on some of the hare-brained money-making ideas you had as a kid? Did you ever sit in the sun on a hot day, staring at strangers and hoping they’d buy your reconstituted lemonade? Or woefully wander the neighborhood, offering to rake leaves? Whatever happened to those jobs? What did…
