[CAN] New grad student plan for next 2 years

[borealisotn]

Hello Mustachians! I hope I could get some face punches and hopefully some help on minimizing my opportunity cost while I embark on a short stint back at school. I learned about MMM lots of years ago but unfortunately I never actually followed the principles when I got a real job.

All figures in CAD unless noted

I'm a late 20s Software Developer in Montreal who just quit his 80k/yr job to pursue a master's degree in Computer Science in the same city, starting this September. I will study full time and will have no income apart from my savings and summer internships for the next 2 years. Just so you know, I am an absolute clown and according to YNAB I have spent $16.4k on restaurants and takeout over the past 4 years. Yay.

I have a mortgage on the condo I live in, which I bought in December 2019 for 300k, about 75k down payment. Current balance is 180k. I have done some accelerated payments with family gifts and inheritances along the way. I'm with one of the big 5 banks and I, first time home buyer, agreed to them splitting my mortgage into 3 equal-sized fixed-term "tranches" that renew at different times. The advisor sold this as "diversification" in case there were bad changes to interest rates, but now I realize this just makes it incredibly difficult for me to switch to a different lender etc. My mortgage is a very weird beast and I don't understand it very well, the next tranche will come up for renewal in 2022.

Assets

• 50k on 2 non-registered HISAs
• 8k on TFSA split between Wealthsimple and Questrade
• 2k on RRSP
• 10k USD on company stock plan

Monthly Expenses

• 1500 on mortgage (includes tax payments). I would love to lower this cause I feel I'm getting fleeced!
• 200 on condo fees
• ~600 on food cause I'm an idiot, I'm learning how to reduce this by cooking and losing my addiction to fast food
• 45 on phone
• 75 on 100Mbps internet
• ~300 on medical stuff
• 250 gaming/music/clothes/going out etc

Biggest expense on the horizon is tuition which will be 5k per year.

Plans
I will keep the bulk of the money in the HISAs and withdraw some every month to cover my monthly expenses.
I will be applying for the Quebec student financial aid as I hear that they are quite generous with bursaries, and I could invest any loans I get from them as I can easily pay them back.
I will do my best to get a "prestigious" internship in the US in summer 2022 to recoup some costs.

Anything jump to your mind about what I could be doing better? Tips, tricks, or suggestions? If I could get some ideas on how to tame the mortgage I'd be immensely grateful. Cheers!

[Freedomin5]

Your housing cost is killing your budget. Can you get a roommate? Everything else looks reasonable, and you’re already working on food costs, so that’s good.

For phone and internet, I’d try to see if they offer a student discount or student plan/pricing.

And don’t forget to apply to any and all scholarships as well (including in-house scholarships administered by your university).

[MrThatsDifferent]

How’s your health? All that fast food, generally correlates to weight gain and less overall health. See if you can find a healthier way to eat and look after yourself and you’ll reduce costs by default.

Is there any part time work you can do online? Teaching something? Check out italki dot com. You’ve got about $36k of expenses a year, plus tuition. Shame you couldn’t have kept that job and done your studies part time over a longer timeframe. Otherwise, whatever you can do to reduce your costs, find extra money and finish your program as quickly as possible, if you’re not going to work, would help you.

[borealisotn]

Thanks for the input so far!

Your housing cost is killing your budget. Can you get a roommate? Everything else looks reasonable, and you’re already working on food costs, so that’s good.

For phone and internet, I’d try to see if they offer a student discount or student plan/pricing.

And don’t forget to apply to any and all scholarships as well (including in-house scholarships administered by your university).

The condo is a 1-bedroom, and I wouldn't be comfortable having someone else in the living room, specially now that it's also acting as my work from home office. I will have a phone call with the bank to ask about refinancing some of the portions, as Canadian rates have lowered since I bought the condo, and hopefully I can get a reduction in the biweekly payment.

I'll look into the discounts for the phone and internet bills! I checked the university scholarships but I don't qualify for any of them. Do you know of any websites for scholarship search? I keep finding stuff like "$1000 dollar scholarship for an essay on whatever subject" but I just feel that they look like scams.

How’s your health? All that fast food, generally correlates to weight gain and less overall health. See if you can find a healthier way to eat and look after yourself and you’ll reduce costs by default.

Is there any part time work you can do online? Teaching something? Check out italki dot com. You’ve got about $36k of expenses a year, plus tuition. Shame you couldn’t have kept that job and done your studies part time over a longer timeframe. Otherwise, whatever you can do to reduce your costs, find extra money and finish your program as quickly as possible, if you’re not going to work, would help you.

Admittedly not very good. I'm some 10kg overweight and it's affecting my sleep in a very bad way. I know how to cook and all, it's just that I lean into garbage food for emotional support. I'm really working hard towards it but I definitely feel it's my Achilles' heel. I'm actually happy I left that company, it was also draining me emotionally and I was feeling very stuck. I will look into RAships, maybe tutoring, and also italki. Thanks for the suggestions!

[Freedomin5]

Thanks for the input so far!

Your housing cost is killing your budget. Can you get a roommate? Everything else looks reasonable, and you’re already working on food costs, so that’s good.

For phone and internet, I’d try to see if they offer a student discount or student plan/pricing.

And don’t forget to apply to any and all scholarships as well (including in-house scholarships administered by your university).

The condo is a 1-bedroom, and I wouldn't be comfortable having someone else in the living room, specially now that it's also acting as my work from home office. I will have a phone call with the bank to ask about refinancing some of the portions, as Canadian rates have lowered since I bought the condo, and hopefully I can get a reduction in the biweekly payment.

I'll look into the discounts for the phone and internet bills! I checked the university scholarships but I don't qualify for any of them. Do you know of any websites for scholarship search? I keep finding stuff like "$1000 dollar scholarship for an essay on whatever subject" but I just feel that they look like scams.

I'm assuming you checked specifically for merit scholarships? Though I wonder if you would qualify for need-based scholarships as well since you won't be working during your program.

I just did a quick google search for "Canada scholarships graduate students". Here's the website from the Government of Canada: https://www.canada.ca/en/services/benefits/education/student-aid/scholarships.html

There are other aggregate sites out there, but I'm assuming the Government of Canada will vet and list only official non-scam merit scholarships. It wouldn't hurt to check the other aggregate scholarship sites and apply to any for which you qualify. I mean, think of it this way. Two hours of work could net you $1000. That's like, a rate of $500/hour. Let's say you only get 10% of the scholarships for which you apply. That's still $50/hour.

In addition, $1000 is $1000, and often you can recycle/tweak your essays. If it doesn't cost you anything to apply (e.g., they're not making you pay a $500 application fee for a $1000 scholarship), then there really is no harm. All that you might lose is a couple hours on a weekend or in the evening. You can cobble together quite a few months of living expenses by applying for these "small" scholarships. I read somewhere that a lot of scholarship money isn't disbursed because no one applied because they all thought "it's a scam" or "it's not that much money". That's how I ended up with a $3000 merit scholarship -- I was a solid B student but literally NO ONE applied because they thought it was too much work to spend an hour or two submitting an application.

I also wonder if you can work part-time doing programming. All my CS friends worked part-time for various companies with programming needs or had a paid research assistantship with a professor while completing their undergraduate and graduate studies.

You can decide how luxuriously you want to live. I shared a room with another graduate student when I was in grad school, and because we spent so much time on campus in the library or at our placement sites, we hardly ever saw each other.

[SunnyDays]

Maybe you could rent out your condo (or AirB+B it), and then rent a two bedroom with a roommate for yourself.  Or some other cheaper option, like a studio apartment for just you.

Do you have a bunch of excess stuff you could sell?

[MrThatsDifferent]

Thanks for the input so far!

Your housing cost is killing your budget. Can you get a roommate? Everything else looks reasonable, and you’re already working on food costs, so that’s good.

For phone and internet, I’d try to see if they offer a student discount or student plan/pricing.

And don’t forget to apply to any and all scholarships as well (including in-house scholarships administered by your university).

The condo is a 1-bedroom, and I wouldn't be comfortable having someone else in the living room, specially now that it's also acting as my work from home office. I will have a phone call with the bank to ask about refinancing some of the portions, as Canadian rates have lowered since I bought the condo, and hopefully I can get a reduction in the biweekly payment.

I'll look into the discounts for the phone and internet bills! I checked the university scholarships but I don't qualify for any of them. Do you know of any websites for scholarship search? I keep finding stuff like "$1000 dollar scholarship for an essay on whatever subject" but I just feel that they look like scams.

How’s your health? All that fast food, generally correlates to weight gain and less overall health. See if you can find a healthier way to eat and look after yourself and you’ll reduce costs by default.

Is there any part time work you can do online? Teaching something? Check out italki dot com. You’ve got about $36k of expenses a year, plus tuition. Shame you couldn’t have kept that job and done your studies part time over a longer timeframe. Otherwise, whatever you can do to reduce your costs, find extra money and finish your program as quickly as possible, if you’re not going to work, would help you.

Admittedly not very good. I'm some 10kg overweight and it's affecting my sleep in a very bad way. I know how to cook and all, it's just that I lean into garbage food for emotional support. I'm really working hard towards it but I definitely feel it's my Achilles' heel. I'm actually happy I left that company, it was also draining me emotionally and I was feeling very stuck. I will look into RAships, maybe tutoring, and also italki. Thanks for the suggestions!

If you have the awareness that your emotional state is so badly affected that you’re spending inordinate amounts of money with take out, then perhaps you could consider therapy or counseling. Food isn’t love. Bring your focus back to your health and tackle everything, not just work. All the best.