Since there have been posings about cost of living etc I though it would be interesting to see which people would prefer - salary or PhD studentship

at the mo, my stipend £19k, tax free :-) its quite high for a stipend I think, but most goes on travelling to my uni and I work with an industrial partner, so a lot goes on travelling to them. But it would mean that to earn the equivalent in salary i.e. once tax, NI, student loan etc had been taken into account I'd have to be earning at least £25k to be taking home the same amount. I also get about £3k tax free from teaching and other work, which would be taxed.

So I will probably be worse off after my PhD unless I can get a well paid job. When you consider that graduates are starting on £28k in london, most of the London research jobs (that require MSc, PhD and experience) are only paying about £24! - v annoying.

I feel totally shafted now, I've been on £12k the whole way through!

my hubby was on £12k. I think I get so much cos I'm a ESRC CASE in london, so I get an extra £2k for being CASE and another £2k for being in London. But unfortunately, the travel into london costs £6k per year :-(

I was getting just over 5 grand from an external organisation, but it's now gone the way of the dodo thanks to the "economic climate", so I'll take what I can - anyone wanna buy a kidney?!

I'd definitely go for the first option. And with reference to Dowhatnow - blimey, don't sell a kidney. You have 2 in case one fails - just like with lungs and fallopian tubes. I've always said that if I was going to sell an organ, if things really got that bad, I'd sell a 3rd of my liver due to its regenerative properties. Having said that, with the advent of xenotransplantation and stem cell technology, it looks like we'll be priced out of the market.

teek - me too! :-(

whats the 4 hours for?
love satchi

The point is (and most of you have got it) is that you need to be on over £20k to be better off working which is close to the average salary. PhD studentships are actually very generous as they are tax and NI free plus you aren't paying pension contribution. A £14k stipend is worth just over £20K in gross salary so if you get that plus some hourly teaching (of which the first £6500 is tax free) you are MUCH better off than many graduate starting salaries.

All of these options sound like a dream to me! Including those saying they have been on 12k a year. I would be rich on that! I get the equivalent of 6k per year over here! Plus many people get no funding at all. I think we should just be happy for what we have. Doing a PhD is a choice and a privilege that many in society do not have.

Maybe its just my field, maybe I should do another PhD :p