Laboratories can be expensive. For anyone considering a rosy future in lab work, you should think carefully first. Follow some steps for watching one’s pocketbook when purchasing lab supplies & equipment, and you could do work with important practical consequences and still control costs.

1) Choose the more theoretical disciplines to begin with. You can have a more thrifty time if you preclude problems by choosing a type of lab that tends to need the cheapest things. Labs that traffic mostly in brainwork and theory have lower equipment costs. Kurt Gödel did important work at the Institute for Advanced Study. A lab can buy an awful lot of chalk, erasers, and yellow foolscap without breaking the bank. You can follow Gödel’s frugality by choosing a lab that does mostly theoretical work.

2) Remember safety. Thrift is no good if it leads to accidents. Lab safety is the highest priority. For example, it’s better to err on the side of replacing your pipettes than face a technician accident.

3) Don’t hesitate to blow the whistle. Assuming you are in a biotechnology laboratory where lab supplies & equipment are necessary, you should keep an eye out for waste without fear of reprisal.

4) Bring your lab to the lab. She is a lovely dog and will raise everyone’s spirits. Try your boss out on a simple fringe benefit like allowing pets a couple of days a week. It will be a good litmus test for what she would say if you ask to buy more elaborate lab supplies & equipment, such as Perkin-Elmer spectrophotometers. Knowing when you are going to get a ’yes’ saves money because it keeps you from wasting time on false starts.

5) Check out the National Institute of Standards and Technology, or NIST. Standardization reduces waste, because there are fewer misunderstandings if everyone knows what they are purchasing. Depending upon your field, you might have some crossover with NIST’s own purchasing choices. NIST will be cagey about saying anything that could be construed as an endorsement. You might be able to figure something by using with process of elimination. Rule out all the brands they did not use.