My 10 Streams of Income as a PhD Student - How I Earn €50,000 and tripled my PhD Stipend

A Dublin PhD student lays out how she reached roughly €53,000–€54,000 in annual income by stacking a tax-free PhD stipend with paid teaching work, a required industry internship, prize money, a part-time role running a speech-and-drama school, and a growing content business that includes YouTube, Instagram, affiliate links, sponsorships, and paid Notion templates. The headline takeaway is less “how to get rich” and more how multiple modest streams—each constrained by visa rules, teaching-hour caps, and time limits—can combine into a level of earnings that materially changes what’s possible during doctoral study.

Her PhD funding starts with a tax-free scholarship of €18,500 per year (about €1,500 per month). In practice, that figure drops when an internship replaces stipend payments: this year she was paid for eight months, and the internship lasted four months. She quantifies the internship income as €11,846.16 (from a €35,000 industry placement total) and notes that stipend income didn’t run during the placement. She also describes the financial pressure of living in Dublin amid a housing crisis, citing typical rent ranges of about €1,600 for a one-bedroom and around €2,000 for a two-bedroom near her university; she and her boyfriend rent a two-bedroom house with rent plus bills around €1,000 per month.

To supplement the stipend, she earns through university teaching. She distinguishes demonstration hours (assisting in classes, answering questions, some grading/invigilation) from TAing (more administrative work). Demonstrators are paid roughly €18-something per hour, while TAs are close to €27 per hour. She reports doing demonstration work for two classes per term across two terms, totaling about 9 hours per week over 24 weeks, for €3,764.70 this year. She adds prize money from competitions, including the Huawei seeds for the future program, which awarded her a €5,000 scholarship after online training and a group project, plus €100 from a startup competition during her internship—€5,100 total in this category.

Those academic-related streams bring her close to the €50,000 mark when combined with her other major source: a not-for-profit speech-and-drama school she co-directs/sole directs after the previous owner passed away. She doesn’t claim ownership, but she reports earning €5,395.50 from the school this year, with teaching generating most of the revenue and administrative work often not paid to her. She estimates she spends about 20–30 hours per week on the school, mainly evenings and weekends, and says the flexibility helps her balance PhD demands.

Content creation then fills out the rest. She’s in the YouTube Partner program (1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch hours), monetized for about 18 months, and reports steady ad and membership income around €250 per month, with year-to-date totals of €2,232.82 in ads and about €300 from channel memberships. Sponsorships and affiliates are grouped because she avoids disclosing company-by-company amounts; she says affiliates and sponsorships total about €4,500 so far this year and expects growth next year. Her Notion templates—sold as productivity resources tied to her brand—have generated €1,800 so far, with a new template release expected soon.

Finally, she stresses the trade-offs: she works roughly 70–80 hours per week across all commitments, hasn’t had more than three consecutive days off since last June, and has needed counseling (about €60/week). The income is real, but so are the costs—time, stress, and health—making the overall message a cautionary blueprint rather than a lifestyle pitch.