(Continued from Part I)
2. How to avoid (still) being broke by the time you're 60
It doesn't mean that you can't have some of the good things in life--although it does mean you can't have all of them right away. If you have been waiting patiently for a new car, or better coffee, go ahead and enjoy them. Just don't develop a lot of expensive habits or indulge in them too often. Being underpaid for so many years can even work to your advantage: Years of tight spending have probably taught you a few things about living cheaply--but well. You probably don't even have time for too many indulgences, anyway.
Sounds great! Where do I sign up? Oh, right, 4 years in college, 6-7 years in grad school, 2-3 more as a postdoc.
The quote above is from an article called Personal Finance: Young Scientists Need Firm Plan to Make Up for a Late Start by Ken Robinson, Science 313, 5972, 1454-1457 (2006). You can read the full text here.
This Ken Robinson guy is a lawyer and a "certified financial planner™". He writes books and runs a financial counseling business from Cleveland, Ohio (website). There is nothing groundbreaking in terms of the actual advice in the article, most of it is common sense. Financial planning is good for you, you're going to need something to live off when you're old and useless, so don't blow all your money on cocaine and hookers now — the basic stuff applicable to anybody. It's all true and financial planners keep droning about it all the time.
What's more interesting is a direct look at the financial situation of a scientist. Presumably, a scientist in Academia — judging by the mention of the "obligations of an academic career" and $60,000/year salary used in an example. Here is another great quote:
After a postdoc, you're used to living on a smaller income. All you have to do is keep doing what you're used to doing with a few modest and occasional indulgences added to your lifestyle. "If you start from the get-go, you will never miss that money," says financial planner Rob Reed of Reed Financial Planning in Columbus, Ohio. So start saving now while you're still accustomed to having far less.
Wow, thanks, Rob, that's awesome! Not.
A late start can hardly be blamed for everything. Whoever decides to get any education beyond high school is going to have a later start. Making the decision in favor of education, one might expect it to be worth the time and trouble. Including financially. Nobody is really saying that money is everything. But it ain't nothing either.
It does not quite work that way with science and the academic career path. It might not be a problem for some. For the others — the advice to "enjoy the coffee" is much closer to an insult, than a solution.
CONTINUE READING: PART III
comments for this post
I've been a student of science for over 10 years. Most of that time I worked in academic research labs. The last and the longest time – in the laboratory of Dr. 
Well, seeing as the Western world appears to be fucked in the entire department of 'children having the same wealth and lifestyle as their parents', I fully expect to be working until the day I die or have a debilitating illness which will cause me to kill myself. True, not always as a chemist. In my 60s and 70s, I see myself as more of a specialty grocery store or cafe owner. On the plus side, technology is advancing pretty rapidly, and the internet together with all the other cool gadgets of the future should make working into your late 70s bearable.
Also, if you're smart, you can take advantage of the falling birthrates throughout the entire world (first and third world, but there might not be much of a difference between the two soon) by convincing somebody to have as many children with you as possible now. I suppose 5 will be enough. They'll provide financial support and happiness in the twilight years. And your fellow octogenarians with 1.2 children will be envious.
Kids vs. parents is an extremely fascinating subject in itself right now. In the United States, you've got the parents, who spent their whole lives in a rat race for the elusive American dream, working their asses off on the job day in and day out, going shopping on the weekends, and having little time for anything else. But then the kids come along and (surprise, surprise) fail to see the point of all that, and don't want that kind of lifestyle. They realize they have to work in order to live, but are not interested in living to work. They (or we, I could say) have been labeled "spoiled", "entitled", "trophy kids" — and Corporate America, for one, is pissing its pants already.
The world keeps changing, that's for sure. And I'd say that using your brain has become more worthwhile than ever before. None of the previous generations have had this kind of access to information on anything and everything, along with the ability to communicate so easily. That's a pretty big advantage.