Sarah.ccz

I help you become overly educated & financially responsible in your 20s
🌱grad school • student finance
🎓PhD Psych student
📍Toronto
contactsarahccz@gmail.com

01/03/2026

The past year as a MA/PhD1 student 👩‍🎓📝

I don’t think academia is the kindest place for everyone, so when obstacles emerge, it’s your family, friends & colleagues that catch you. I’m grateful for those that supported me this past year.

I was reminded of what my friend once told me, which got me through the hard times: “God will only give you as much as you can handle.“

If you weren’t ready, the opportunities and challenges wouldn’t come.

You are right where you need to be. ♥️

Excited to see how I’d deal with new challenges this year.

And if it gets too overwhelming, I could always change my identity and move to Mexico…

Happy New Year everyone! 🎉

Sarah :)

12/31/2025

The holidays look a little different for me this year, since I didn’t fly back to Nova Scotia for Christmas. However, my sister came to spend the break with me.

Aside from stumbling on 2 affordable Michelin starred restaurants (really good!), the past two weeks had mainly been me grading (got 3 papers left! and a few iffy ones iykwim…). But we manage to visit Riverdale Farm on the East side of Toronto on Christmas Eve. My top three are the horses, goats, and ducks.

📍Riverdale Farm
201 Wi******er Street,
Toronto, ON M4X 1B8
Free to visit
Open 9-5pm year round

̇nmylife

12/24/2025

Definitely not the “Sunday meal prep” videos we all see online. Though I’d love to have matching containers with 3 meals prepped for 7 days, that is just not realistic for my routine/diet.

I found that prepping one to two reheatable and easy to grab meals at the start of the week really helps. It also helps that I don’t crave variety (not sure if that’s a good thing or not), so repeated meals are very common.

👉 I usually construct my meals with the structure of having 1 protein, 1 vegetable, and 1 carb/base. Very very simple.

Some current rotations:
▪️Breakfast — quinoa porridge, scrambled eggs
▪️Lunch/Dinner — chilli, bean stew, boiled veggies w/ some protein and rice

(Humm I really do need some variety here don’t I…😂)

12/23/2025

Definitely not the “Sunday meal prep” videos we all see online. Though I’d love to have matching containers with 3 meals prepped for 7 days, that is just not realistic for my routine/diet.

I found that prepping one to two reheatable and easy to grab meals at the start of the week really helps. It also helps that I don’t crave variety (not sure if that’s a good thing or not), so repeated meals are very common.

Some current rotations:
▪️Breakfast — quinoa porridge, scrambled eggs
▪️Lunch/Dinner — chilli, bean stew, boiled veggies w/ some protein and rice

(Humm I really do need some variety here don’t I…😂)

12/21/2025

Everything I got for free on my birthday, Toronto edition🥳🎂🎉

I always see these videos pop up on my feed, and I’ve been wanting to do this for like 3 yrs!

Though this time I only went to 5 places (was honestly tired half way through haha… In Chinese I would’ve said 我的戰鬥力很弱), I did make a spreadsheet of a list of freebies I found in Toronto, Canada 👇

Comment ✨“birthday” ✨if you want the list! Lmk if I missed anything in the comments and I’ll add it to the list :)

1. Tim Horton’s free breakfast sandwich
👉 need app

2. Sephora mini birthday gift set
👉 need app

3. Starbucks free drink of any size
👉 need app (and make at least 1 purchase on the app within the year)

4. Papa John’s free dessert
👉 need an account (reward shows up on your account the day of)

5. Insomnia cookies free delux cookie
👉 need an account (I signed up the day of and it still worked!)

12/03/2025

What I spend this month as a 20 something grad student living in Toronto on a student budget 💰💸

I don’t have a dedicated “sinking fund” for expected big purchases, like laser hair removal.

So when I spend more than my TA income, like this month, the funds come from my general savings account, where I put any leftovers from the previous month.

11/29/2025

Let’s budget my paycheque as a Toronto grad student with a monthly TA income of about $2.2k.

I usually do a lump sum investment of anything left over at the end of the semester, but I want to challenge myself this school year to intentionally put aside $100 each month for my TFSA.

I think building the habit of investing regularly, even when little is invested ($100 is 4.5% of my monthly income) is an important habit to have.

Next year, I want to make sure I max out my TFSA contribution for that year ($7,000), which would average about $583/month.

However, I think the more realistic way that I’ll reach that goal is to get a part-time job, where the income from the part-time job would go directly into my TFSA.

More on that when I talk about my money goals for the next year!

11/28/2025

In all seriousness though, I’ve always approach these issues with the benefit of the doubt and believe in their student’s best intentions.

Because life happens. And things get overwhelming. We all need a bit of grace sometimes.

Moreover, these things do happen, and it’s also important for the teaching team to recognize that.

(Disclaimer — these aren’t actual student emails, but the content is about the same, even those who forgot to edit the ChatGPT prompts…)

relateable studentmemes universityproblems gradschoolproblems finals midterm

11/23/2025

Some reflections on how I dealt with “feeling financially behind” as a grad student.

Address

Yorkville, ON

Website

https://linktr.ee/sarah.ccz

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