Money is a crucial aspect of academia, yet discussions often revolve around research funding rather than personal financial well-being. Isabelle Kohler shares her journey from financial uncertainty to financial confidence and offers practical advice to help early-career researchers take control of their financial future.

Money is a topic that often comes up in academia: budget needed to perform experiments, grant proposals written to obtain funding to hire people to do research, repair costs for instruments, etc. These days the focus on money has greatly increased due to the budget cuts announced by the government in the Netherlands. But there’s one aspect related to money that is often not mentioned – the financial situation of early-career researchers.

When I was a PhD student, my focus was solely on research. The salary I was getting as a PhD student in Switzerland was just enough to afford living on my own, but not sufficient to consider putting a lot into my savings account. I was also young, living according to the ‘carpe diem’ principle. I didn’t feel concerned about what would happen to me 5 or 10 years down the road – let alone 30 years later! I didn’t have a clear idea about how I was building my pension during my PhD, nor whether I would have any financial rights if I would find myself unemployed after my PhD. I recall a painful situation where I had to cancel surfing holidays in France because I had to pay a significant sum of money due to taxes.