fenway wrote:OP should have condensed all this bullshit to come back towards his principal proposal--that you won't (necessarily) be accruing bank rolls and flippin straight cash homey while blowing coke off blonde strippers in your estranged wife's Escalade. If one was willing to take it easy and live on the light side (and why not, you'll be working all the time anyways) so one could pay off loans/invest some paper, the numbers OP proposed might seem to be a little gloom-i-fied. If you act like a f*cking moron with your money, you will not be a baller. If you are a baller with your money, you won't act like a f*cking moron. It's pretty damn hard to fuck up your finances when you are getting paid space money. lower the pretentious expectations for a few years, drag out college life a little longer-shits more fun than getting some Bro-pad on your own where you can (almost) bring cute girls back but then theyll ask why you have a heart shaped bed and then they leave and you are left thinking,...."BECAUSE ITS SEXY".
I shed no tears for your hypothetical sad story. Manage a college budget for 3-5 yrs. You'd be out of debt, and up the ranks on the partner chain. Also, we are all fucking hamsters running in balls, don't try to make that a distinction solely for Big Law
To be out of debt in five years, you must have had scholarships, big ones, throughout your academic career. Otw you're going to have to pay like $3-$3.5k a month in student loans on a four or five year plan, which is impossible given that you'll make $7k after taxes. I'm not sure what your "housing" situation is, if you go this route - you'll have $0 savings by the age of 30, which is not a bright idea. You don't want to be in a rush to pay off your student loan debt and be worth very little at the age of 30 - you want to have a relatively decent nest egg to compound over 25 years from ages 30-55, if you try to live like a peasant with the goal of ridding student loan debt, without accumulating some kinda nest egg, you'll forfeit compound interest, your only friend in the wealth-accumulation process. And trust me - in this "income" profession, NOT "wealth" profession that is the legal profession - the ONLY friend you'll have in most scenarios in your professional career is compound interest, and the corollary element there - time. I'm far from gloom and doom with my estimate that you'll only spend $1k a month on "lifestyle" outside of your home expenses and student loans.
In a more normal scenario, where you pay off loans in 10 years, You're going to make $5k a month after tax and student loans in big law. You can do the $1k a month rental, $1k a month in all other expenses, and somehow max out on $3k a month savings for a $36k a year savings, that's living like a bum for a long, long, time.
I'll applaud your ability to do that if you can for a long time while you're making money. I'm just informing you that there's a ginormous prospect that you'll either 1) get married by the time you're a 5th year associate, or 2) get a child or two, and all your savings plans will be derailed, alongwith your plans to "live like you're in college."
You could alternatively plan to be single and without kids until your mid 30s, you'll still not save enough for whatever the hell you want to do in the face of inflation.
Frankly, lawyer salaries are going to have to keep up with inflation, I just don't see how an overinflated asset can keep up with inflation over the medium term. The overinflated asset is the legal wages, and inflation hasn't even set in yet, all I'll say is g'luck to you guys entering law - save up, and keep your job - and do well in school I guess. I cannot imagine a scenario where you can make it out there without big law. Mid law/small law seems like a fatal scenario in the face of $150-200k student loans, and mid-law/small-law is exactly what 30% of the entire pool of t14 students face, probably more.