I think chrisseaton is in the UK - here a lot of people work as researchers on short term contracts and do PhDs at the same time. While not competitive with pri

I think chrisseaton is in the UK - here a lot of people work as researchers on short term contracts and do PhDs at the same time. While not competitive with private sector salaries they didn't use to be too bad - I got married and bought a flat in the 1990s while working as a Research Associate on EU funded projects. NB Traditional PhD studentships did get a pittance, but relatively few people seemed to do these (at least where I worked). Edit: Also I had no student debt, which definitely makes things easier.