Everyone wants more money, but I think that you can live very
comfortably off a certain amount of money.
And to me personally, I'm not interested in getting the most money as fast as
possible and things like that.
I feel pretty comfortable with the salary that I'm making now.
I think, as a teacher, I wasn't making that much anyways to begin with.
So I've always been used to kind of being on a budget and it feels very doable for me.
My name is Chi Baik.
I'm 26 years old.
I make $27,000 a year, and I live in Seattle, Washington.
I'm a Ph.D. student at the University of Washington, and I'm studying special education.
So I decided to take on an extra role as a grader to make some extra
money. It pays about $26 an hour, and I work about ten hours a
week. And basically I'm just grading papers for an undergraduate class.
I was born in Seoul, Korea, but I moved to Silver Spring, Maryland, when I was four years old,
and I grew up there.
When I first decided that I was going to switch to teaching, my parents
weren't thrilled.
But it is something that I knew I wanted to do and it was important to me.
But knowing that, knowing that teachers are not very well compensated, I think
that definitely pushed me to think about higher education even more and pursuing higher
goals.
I've always kind of known I wanted to do higher education, but it definitely was honestly very
difficult teaching during COVID, and I thought that I could use a little break from it.
So I decided to pursue my doctorate earlier than I thought.
Education was always really highly valued in my family.
And also personally, I just like school, kind of a nerd.
Growing up, my family did struggle with money a little bit and they
definitely were savers and we saved a lot.
And seeing that, I think I kind of went the opposite direction of like when
I have my own money, I want to buy myself some things that I want because I didn't necessarily get
everything I wanted as a kid.
It's probably good, but I think when I got older I definitely was like, I'm
earning this money, I deserve to buy myself nice things.
And that kind of shaped how I view money.
I do not like to cook, but because of my budget I've been doing HelloFresh meals
and I know that's a little bit more expensive than me going to the grocery store,
buying my own groceries and cooking.
But because I feel like I don't have that skill set, The HelloFresh meals I think definitely are worth
the money in my budget.
In terms of eating out, I definitely eat out a lot less than I did back home.
I think that life is short and we should enjoy it.
I know that I could be a little bit more responsible with my money, but I do think that I'm not
irresponsible with my money, and I believe in getting myself things that I want
from time to time for sure.
My splurges are definitely like makeup, skincare, nails,
Perfumes is a really big one for me that I probably spend a little bit too much
on.
But it's something that makes me happy and I think it's worth it.
So right now I'm not really saving any of the money that I'm getting.
I do have some credit card debt.
I don't have a car here in Seattle, and that's definitely been a big adjustment for
me. I do try to take the light rail as much as possible, which is like the train system here,
but I've definitely spent a lot more on Ubers and like rideshare
things than I've wanted to.
Therapy is an important expense for me.
I grew up in an environment where I think there was a lot of pressure and that
definitely has affected me.
As I've gotten older, I think I've seen more about how it's affected me.
My dad is a jeweler and my mom has always stayed at home.
And my brother is some sort of business consultant.
I'm close to my family in a traditional
Asian way.
I help my parents with little things like paying traffic bills and stuff online that
they can't do on their own.
If they ever need to call like the electric company or things like that, and they
need help with translation, I help them with that.
Watching how my parents handled money made me careful with
my money. I never really saw them like invest their money or anything like that.
So I don't really know how to do anything like that.
And I do rely heavily on my brother for that sort of advice, and I think he kind of
learned on his own.
I have almost $70,000 saved in my retirement accounts because on
the advice of my brother, mostly.
When I was teaching, I put about 30% of my income into my
retirement, and that was across the four years I was a teacher.
My brother is very, very generous.
It's a very informal agreement.
I owe him probably around $15,000, which is a good sum of
money, but it's kind of under the agreement of when I have that money, I'll pay him back.
I think culturally and the way we grew up, it was always kind of known like you help each
other out.
During the four years of my Ph.D., I do expect to make around the same amount of money.
There are opportunities for me to apply for more funding, but that would require more
work and I feel like my workload is pretty heavy as is, so I think it'll stay the
same. I think when I first graduate I definitely still do want to work with people,
so maybe some sort of director role in a school system.
But eventually I do see myself in academia doing research.
My big picture financial goals once I graduate school would be to
get a decently paying job, start paying my brother back, and start
saving my own money.
You know, my regular savings account and definitely add to my retirement some more too.
I think I will still continue to kind of live the way I'm living
now. Money philosophy wise.
Like still treating myself.
I do hope that I will be responsible once I do start making a little bit more money.
You hear $27,000 and you're like, that's so little money.
But it is very doable and I feel very grateful that I'm making that much.