This has probably been covered elsewhere so apologies in advance.

I'm interested to know what people intend to do in the first few months after you submit. I started my PhD at 21 with no savings. I'm planning by the end to have saved enough to support me for around 2-3 months after I submit, or in case I go over schedule. I can't see me being able to save much more than that but it's not going to leave me much time. I'm planning to submit next October, so far I'm on track to do so and my supervisor has said that he will make sure I do. I am sure I won't walk straight into an academic job or a postdoc, even though I would love to and will apply during my final year. So what do I do? Start applying for non-academic jobs during the last couple of months and hope and pray somebody decides to take me on immediately after I submit? (I would then try and find time to prepare for my viva/ write/apply for academic jobs while I was working- tough call, I know).

I'm going to have this conversation with my sup soon I think, but I'd like to know how other people are planning to do it.

Well, maybe it's a bit early for me to plan ahead, but when I finish I will just continue with my job (I work FT at a permanent job) and at the same time I will look for an academic job at the near-by university, which will be really difficult to find...

ooh this is what I'm not sure about either. My funding runs out in october. I'm still not sure at all whether I'll submit then, but hopefully before xmas. I have no job lined up. We have savings, but I don't really want to squander them. I think I will have to get a min wage job e.g. call centre work for a few months. Hopefully they'll do this no tax under 10k thing which should help out (unless they tax over 10k at 50% or something)

I'm planing to reply ur thread !

and done ! Just joke !

Many of my friends have gone over (not saying you will!) and are now working part-time jobs in shops or the like as they continue to write up. They're applying for academic posts but it's not a quick process, so I think they'll be doing basic work until they can land something post-viva. Those who did secure a post-doc or industry job went straight in; one flew out a week after her viva, the other wrote up in the evenings around his new job - tough but he did it and has now submitted. If nothing else having a job lined up certainly adds to your motivation for finishing.

I'm starting a new course come September so will scrape by trying to write up until then. If I finish writing before I'll try and get casual work at my department or something minimum wage in town for the last of the summer.

I have my viva in a couple of weeks time and will be moving to a new city to start my post doc about 2 weeks after my viva. That's my plan!

I started applying for academic jobs about 6 months before submitting, and have had a handful of interviews and 2 job offers (both for post doc's although I did apply for lecturing posts as well). My thought was that if I didn't get an academic job by the time I had my viva I would beg for teaching, marking, etc to keep me at my current institution long enough to find a more stable position. Plan B would have been to work in a bar/ restaurant and write a up articles from my thesis until I found something in academia.

Luckily for me I have found my perfect position and so the other options weren't needed.

Either way though, I'd recommend that you start applying before you submit even if it means preparing for your viva whilst working/ applying for jobs, etc.

If I don't get a job, I have a plan....

Go on Britain's Got Talent with my Flamin' Amazin' Aeroplanes' Act. This consists of rapidly turning every page of my thesis into a paper plane, setting them on fire and chucking them at my Vice Chancellor, who is pinned to a spinning target board. I'll obviously win it and then go on to form a highly successful circus for all of the unemployed PhD students. Aside from the Flamin' Amazin' Aeroplane's Act, we'll have the Underwater Laptops Act, Crashin' Hard Drives, Transcription Tricks and an act involving SPSS and Matlab - I'm still working out how to make that one look exciting to everyone though. So, yeah, not worried...

Hmm, sod my course plans, I'm running away to join Walminski's circus!
I actually went to circus school as a child, so am a dab hand at plate spinning and the rolling globe (aka, walking on a giant ball), certainly better at it than science anyway.

Can I join the cicus... please!!?? I have no circus skills unlike Teek, but reckon I'd make a mighty fine lion tamer!! I am one with the animals, much like Dr Doolittle (the original who lived in a giant snail, not Eddie Murphy). (robin) (there were no lion icons for me to use, so here's a robin.

I think it's always good to hear people talking about things like this. There is a girl in my department writing up in her fourth year. I know the money she's living off (inheritance not funding) runs out soon but she won't even talk about jobs and hasn't applied for anything. But she also tells me that she thinks going to careers days etc is a waste of time and that I don't need to be thinking about jobs in my second year! Personally given how few jobs there are out there I think I need to be giving myself the best chance possible so I try to do as much as I can to help me learn about options and make me more employable. However, my discipline is in a fairly terrible state from a funding point of view so there really are no jobs - people are being made redundant and departments are closing in fact - so I intend to get as much experience of school teaching as possible in the next year so that I can get a school job when I finish, or if necessary part-time during my writing up.