Hi, I'm in the SE on the same sort of grant and share a flat with my boyfriend at £695pm which we split equally. Basically I pay £600 pm into our joint account to cover rent, food and bills etc and the rest goes on books, travel (mainly), conferences, clothes etc and a tiny bit of saving. He earns much more than me so everything else eg going out and holidays etc is mainly covered by him. You may find your bills etc are lower in a shared house, plus I commute into the university so have petrol costs to consider. As well as trying rightmove and the like, contact your university as they should have a list of available property. Hope that helps. Good luck!

Your really mustn't think you've done something wrong although I know from experience that the obvious thing is to blame yourself. But a relationship isn't what someone say it is, it's what actually goes on between two people. You judged it in those terms and that's right and normal. He's using the excuse that you split (then to all intensive purposes other than the terminology got back together) to justify the terrible way he's treating you now. I am so sorry that you've had to suffer his bizarre behaviour to such a terrible end. My (very short-lived) marriage ended when my husband had an affair while I was in my final year as an undergrad. I know it's not the same as where you are now but at the time I thought I would never be able to go back to the place we'd lived and get on with my life and finish my degree, but in the end I did it to prove that I was stronger than anything he could do to me. I even stayed in the same city for my MA, watched him lose what he had there and move away but got on with my own life, and now here I am doing the PhD, living with a new partner and making the best of my life, in spite of the lingering trust issues that any hurt like this leaves with you (forever?). I know your situation isn't the same, but my advice would be that you have to prove that you are better than this man, so go on and get your PhD and prove that however badly he's knocked you back, you can get back up and make something great of your life without him.

It does seem illogical then, doesn't it? Unfortunately most of the people in banks doing this sort of thing aren't trained to think things through, only to go with the box ticking approach. Therein lies the advantage of using a broker I'd have thought. My planned way of getting round things is to use income I have on paper other than my stipend: my parents bought a house which I lived in when I was an undergrad with some tenants but in my name, giving me official income from the tenants in there which almost matches my stipend, even though I don't actually get that money. I don't know how much better a position that would leave us in but I think it has to look more reliable than the PhD income! Glad to see things are looking more hopeful for you!

I understand your frustration. We want to buy too (although we're probably going to wait a bit longer - I want to see a proper sign that prices are going to go up as they still haven't fallen enough to be affordable in comparison to salaries) but at least my partner is in a permanent job. However, I have to say I do understand the change of attitude in the mortgage business: PhD stipends are short term with no guaranteed income at the end and a mortgage will always be taken out for longer than the time you will have a stipend for. Admittedly no job is secure at the moment but the principle is one I can understand. It will take time for that to change, but one of the things that will change it is a definite sign of the market reaching the bottom and going up, rather than the uncertain is it/isn't it that's going on at the moment. Good luck though.

Great news! Makes me want to get on and get my upgrade done too!

It may be embarrassing to talk about but IBS is very common and people will understand if you feel you have to tell them. One other way is to say you have 'a stomach infection' or something non-specific from which people will understand that you need to be near a bathroom a lot. Have you tried Bio-Acidophilus or similar? They're not cheap but you can get them from a health food shop and they have revolutionized many people's lives who have IBS. Also certain foods will usually make things worse, even with the clear links to stress, so might be worth going on to a restrictive diet then reintroducing foods slowly. I don't get your symptoms but used to suffer extreme stomach pain from IBS and couldn't really move around when it was bad. For me cutting out starchy carbs, rich foods and alcohol for a while made a difference, and now I only get infrequent attacks which I can usually control. Good luck - it's a horrible condition but there is lots that can be done for it so I hope you find a solution soon.

Congratulations - wish I were in your positions as I can see loads of advantages to taking maternity leave during my PhD but it's just not the right time for us in lots of other ways. I think this is all good advice. Whilst I'm sure you'l be fine, from experience of friends I would definitely wait until 12 weeks to tell him. That's not too long to deal with the drop in productivity - he'll probably just think it's a slow patch - but if he actually asks or you go fainting in his office or something you might think differently! I would have all your facts to hand when you tell him to make it look as positive as possible, and give some thought to timings, where you want to have got to by the time you leave to have the baby, how long you'll be off, and how you'll juggle your time once you do come back to work. The more you look like you've got all aspects of it under control the better! Good luck. :-)

Well done - great to hear you passed. :-)

Megabus has been mentioned but there's also megatrain which you may find does all or part of your journey at lower fares.

I'd count it - if you were in an office job the menial tasks fit into the day in the same way as important project work would, for example. I just think in terms of a working day though - I work 9-6 in which time I do admin stuff, email, even travelling time, as well as 'real work'. The important thing for me though is that I'm getting stuff done - if I need to do more then I start working evenings and weekends. That's only really if I've lost time during the normal week for some reason (a bad unproductive day, or a day when I've fitted in non-work stuff like doing the shopping or seeing a friend) and have pressing deadlines. I try to think of all PhD stuff as work and the rest of my life as non-work, and divide them like I would a job.

I have to have an end of year report in by tomorrow, up to 4 pages long. I'm a first year and all we've been told in rather vague terms is:
Your statement "should indicate the present state of your research (such as details of papers or chapters written, and any external presentations at conferences, etc.), what training you have undertaken, what you are proposing to do next, and when you expect to complete your research and submit your thesis".
My second supervisor told me it was just a box ticking exercise and to get it all done in a brief business manner. I got on and answered all the bits and sent a draft to my primary supervisor a couple of days ago, figuring it was pretty much done. She's just sent it back with lots of things to change including most of the section on my plans for upgrade (which will be after the summer sometime). Particularly she's emphasized that I have to get down a secure methodology - one of the problematic areas I've just started thinking about since I think it has to change from my original proposal - whereas my second supervisor said not to worry about that at the moment as I was really panicking about trying to get it done for this report. All my primary sup has implied is that I just need to get on with it (I work on literature so it's all much more vague than many disciplines) which is totally unhelpful.

What I'd been told was just mainly box ticking by one person has turned into a major undertaking which I can't get done by tomorrow!

I'm really concerned and wondered if anyone could give me any suggestions about how I should be looking at this end of year report. My work's fine and I thought I was on top of everything, but now it seems there are major gaps in what I should have done by the time of submitting this report. :-(

Right, I called them and they said that a grant doesn't count, only taxable income counts. What a relief! :-)

I'm really worried about this now! Although my stipend is my only income personally, I own a house on my parents' behalf which puts my income on paper well above the threshold, although neither the stipend or the rent does so separately. I've just trawled the websites (SLC and student loan repayment) and found only one reference:

'The repayment of loans is repaid through the tax system, and only begins after the student has left higher education and is earning over £15,000'.

I think I may ring them up as - if I should be repaying - I don't want to have it build up any further as I'd already owe 9 months back payments.

Eueu, as far as I can tell you are dealing with a whole load of different insecurities, some of which I find a bit odd, but that's not really the point if it's bothering you and you're hoping for support here. What I can say though is that I was 21 when I started my PhD and that's never bothered me in the slightest. Age has nothing to do with numbers, nor does the number correlate necessarily with experience or ability. I find it very hard to understand people who believe that you can only relate to other people your own age, and surround themselves with their age group. It's also quite unusual in more intellectual/intelligent circles, although more normal at school and among undergraduates I think. Since I was about 16 my friends have been both much older and much younger than me, and as an undergraduate I had friends among the staff, postgrads and undergrads and no one behaved any differently towards me because of my age. As a PhD student I think it unlikely that anyone knows how old I am - why would it matter? If you're having trouble joining in the camaraderie between older postgrads and profs then I think it must have more to do with your insecurities/attitude than it does with your age. Oddly though, your 'feeling old' seems to be the opposite of this, but has the same answer: you're only as old or young as you tell yourself you are.

2000 a day for a couple of weeks I'd say is perfectly achievable, if exhausting, if you're just writing up notes. To push it up to 3000 I think you need to separate your working day (which is obviously going to a pretty long one for the next 8 days!) into three sections of 1000 words, making sure you take proper breaks and get as much sleep as possible each night. Good luck - I don't envy you!!