How fast can you REALLY pay your loans? Forum

[ymmv]

It's pretty easy to spend 2k a month on food and booze. Go out drinking one night every week, and buy 1-2 bottles of wine ($100), go out to a nice dinner one night every week with your girlfriend ($100). Get take out for dinner twice a week ($80). Get lunch out 4 times a week ($50). Buy groceries once a week ($200). That's $530/week, or about $2100/month.

Charles Shaw wine - $2.50/bottle at the Trader Joe's in Foggy Bottom, brah

You can't get a good pinot noir under 15. Under 20 is hard.

No wai. There was some study that popped up in the lounge saying price and enjoyment of wine are pretty strongly negatively correlated in blind taste tests.

There's a minimum quality floor though. Sure, it might be silly to pay $150 for something that is not going to taste better than a $25 bottle, but there is definitely a tangible difference between a Santa Margherita and a box of Franzia.

[jd20132013]

Is there any reason you couldn't abuse seamless to be your dinner every night?

[09042014]

Is there any reason you couldn't abuse seamless to be your dinner every night?

I'm not sure if DC seamless is a thing. I can get 35 reimbursed but the culture doesn't really embrace it as an every day thing. I've ordered in like 4 times in 7 months, and that seems high. People just leave before 7 and work from home if they have to.

not sure if this is firm specific or DC specific.

[Hipster but Athletic]

How rich are you that establishing a business, drafting notes, conducting interviews, and risking going through recovery steps is worth getting effectively a 5% fixed rate 15 year bond? I'd think you'd need economies if scale, bro.

[exitoptions]

Is there any reason you couldn't abuse seamless to be your dinner every night?

I'm not sure if DC seamless is a thing. I can get 35 reimbursed but the culture doesn't really embrace it as an every day thing. I've ordered in like 4 times in 7 months, and that seems high. People just leave before 7 and work from home if they have to.

not sure if this is firm specific or DC specific.

In NYC biglaw it's pretty much accepted that you will eat dinner at the office 4 nights a week. The firms have a rule that you have to be there until 7 or 8 to order, but that means people just show up at 10 - 10:30. I was the "weird" one for wanted to get home for dinner with the SO. So you can easily avoid paying for meals, but I imagine your relationships with real people take a hit.

[jd20132013]

Is there any reason you couldn't abuse seamless to be your dinner every night?

I'm not sure if DC seamless is a thing. I can get 35 reimbursed but the culture doesn't really embrace it as an every day thing. I've ordered in like 4 times in 7 months, and that seems high. People just leave before 7 and work from home if they have to.

not sure if this is firm specific or DC specific.

seemed like people tended to leave before dinner at my DC biglaw but I didn't feel a strong anti-seamless vibe. who knows though. would be interested in hearing other DC perspectives

[FloridaCoastalorbust]

It's pretty easy to spend 2k a month on food and booze. Go out drinking one night every week, and buy 1-2 bottles of wine ($100), go out to a nice dinner one night every week with your girlfriend ($100). Get take out for dinner twice a week ($80). Get lunch out 4 times a week ($50). Buy groceries once a week ($200). That's $530/week, or about $2100/month.

Charles Shaw wine - $2.50/bottle at the Trader Joe's in Foggy Bottom, brah

You can't get a good pinot noir under 15. Under 20 is hard.

The cab/merlot for $2.50 is comparable to Menage a Trois, which is a great standard house red

[09042014]

It's pretty easy to spend 2k a month on food and booze. Go out drinking one night every week, and buy 1-2 bottles of wine ($100), go out to a nice dinner one night every week with your girlfriend ($100). Get take out for dinner twice a week ($80). Get lunch out 4 times a week ($50). Buy groceries once a week ($200). That's $530/week, or about $2100/month.

Charles Shaw wine - $2.50/bottle at the Trader Joe's in Foggy Bottom, brah

You can't get a good pinot noir under 15. Under 20 is hard.

The cab/merlot for $2.50 is comparable to Menage a Trois, which is a great standard house red

I like black box merlot it's 17 bucks for 3 liters and since it's box wine it doesn't go bad after a day. Haven't tried their Pinot.

[XxSpyKEx]

There's a minimum quality floor though. Sure, it might be silly to pay $150 for something that is not going to taste better than a $25 bottle, but there is definitely a tangible difference between a Santa Margherita and a box of Franzia.

Tour de Franzia FTW!

[Anonymous User]

$3k /month on food, drinks, entertainment, and random spending, on top of a $2050 /month apartment (including utilities) is a little outrageous. I mean it sounds like a pretty awesome lifestyle (and I wouldn't blame you for living it), but isn't definitely not the bare essentials I want to pay my loans down/save money attitude. I lived in DC, and you can make live okay (without roommates) for around $25k /year, especially if you're willing to live in the suburbs. You can live really well for roughly $3k /month, or $36k /year. Even in the latter scenario, you'd have $62k /year that you could either invest or throw into your loans. Even factoring in a nice vacation and some other lavish expenses, you could easily have $50k /year leftover.

You cannot live "pretty well" on 3k a month if you work in big law. And I sincerely doubt you can do it period. Rents anywhere near a metro are 1500 minimum. And driving from anywhere where rents are lower than 2k takes forever. And then you'll have to pay 300 a month to park downtown.

If you can't manage to spend less than $2050 /month on rent (including utilities) then you probably don't understand how the internet works lol. Living in DC is NOT that expensive. You can find places for as low as $1100-1200 /month including utilities near a metro station in the nearby burbs. You can find a decent studio for around $1500 including utilities in a safe part of DC near a metro, which is still a whopping $550 /month cheaper than your estimate.

Long story short... I wouldn't take any financial advice from Desert Fox.

+1. Seriously, I made it on around $25k /year while I was clerking in DC by living in Alexandria. A co-clerk was living in a studio right downtown for $1900 /month (including utilities), and I know she was easily spending less than $36k /year on cost of living.

It's pretty easy to spend 2k a month on food and booze. Go out drinking one night every week, and buy 1-2 bottles of wine ($100), go out to a nice dinner one night every week with your girlfriend ($100). Get take out for dinner twice a week ($80). Get lunch out 4 times a week ($50). Buy groceries once a week ($200). That's $530/week, or about $2100/month.

Now, throw in random shit like flying places for weddings and vacations, christmas presents, birthdays, pet care, going to concerts, going to the movies, buying that (playstation 4, tv, sofa, suit, pair of shoes) you want, etc... You may very well end up at another $1000/month.

If you live somewhere where you have to drive to work, you can toss in another $400/month in car payments, insurance, maintenance, and gas.

Then, throw in $1600/month in rent and $400/month in bills and utilities. In this scenario, you're spending $5500/month, and could afford to toss about $1200 into your loans and $1200 into building a rainy day fund.

This lifestyle is certainly not frugal ... but it's not that out of the ordinary, especially if you are living in an expensive city and in a relationship..

Dood, you could easily spend $30k /month if you had the means to do it. But the OP wasn't asking about how quickly he can pay off his loans while living an extravagant lifestyle. He was asking how quickly he can realistically pay off his loans living low-maintenance lifestyle. I don't think these baller lifestyles is what he had in mind. IMO, if I were in biglaw and had a ton of debt, I would probably live as frugally as possible for the first few years while trying to wipe out my debt. That way, if I decided the lifestyle wasn't for me or got shitcanned, it really wouldn't be a big deal to move onto something else that has a much lower salary than biglaw.

[worldtraveler]

I think the point is that we all know there are things you could do to save money, but realistically hardly anyone is going to do them.

[09042014]

1100. 1500. When was the last time you priced dc. Five years ago?

[Anonymous User]

1100. 1500. When was the last time you priced dc. Five years ago?

2012... So a little under two years ago. Here's a 2013 guide to DC apartment rent rates: http://dc.about.com/od/rentals/a/Washin ... -Rates.htm :

Washington DC Apartment Rental Rates
Neighborhood Effeciency One Bedroom Two Bedroom
Adams Morgan $1130-1840 $1210-2185 $1435-3700
Cleveland Park $1250-1900 $1650-2400 $1730-3200
Columbia Heights $1175-1875 $1575-2170 $1875-3050
Dupont Circle $1600-2100 $2400-2900 $3800
Foggy Bottom $1550-1725 $2200-2400 $3000-4150
Glover Park $1130-1250 $1455-1821 $1940-2680
Mount Vernon Square $1380-1970 $1350-2475 $1750-3220
Tenleytown $1250-1730 $1550-2195 $2200-3300
Suburban Communities
Alexandria $950-2020 $1010-1790 $1350-2620
Arlington $1300-1750 $1560-2140 $1905-3395
Bethesda/Chevy Chase $1075-2065 $1265-2570 $1360-3295
Rockville $1070-1220 $1160-1650 $1205-2150
Silver Spring $900-1525 $955-1690 $1190-2220

I think these prices are pretty spot on with the prices I saw when I was looking. Utilities were generally included in most of the units I saw (the only exception was that some places required you to pay electric, which is like $30-50 /month). Check out paddmapper.com . There's definitely reasonable apartments within walking distance of the silver spring metro for around $1200 /month (including utilities), which is about a 20 minute train ride into downtown. Just because you spend $2050 /month on an apartment doesn't mean that you need to.

I think the point is that we all know there are things you could do to save money, but realistically hardly anyone is going to do them.

Well, OP's question was how quickly he could repay his loans. If the assumption is that he's going to spend every dollar he makes living a models and bottles lifestyle, then the answer is that he can never repay his loans. I think the better response to his question is twofold: (1) how quickly he can repay his loans living very frugally and (2) how quickly he can repay his loans living modestly. IMO, DF's estimates are WAY above (2). Like I said in my previous post, I don't think blowing $5-6k /month makes a ton of sense when you're just starting out in biglaw. I think it makes a lot more sense to live frugally the first couple years, aggressively pay down your student loans, and see whether working in biglaw is something that's going to be viable more long term. If you find yourself absolutely miserable or you get canned after a couple years, you'll be in a lot better of a place in life if you hadn't wasted $5-6k /month. On the other hand, if, after the first couple years, you find that you enjoy the biglaw lifestyle (most people don't) and that it's going to be sustainable for you, then you can start spending more money.

[worldtraveler]

1100. 1500. When was the last time you priced dc. Five years ago?

I pay 940 for a 1 bedroom and I'm in the ghetto. I don't think most people will go that route.

[hdunlop]

I like black box merlot it's 17 bucks for 3 liters and since it's box wine it doesn't go bad after a day. Haven't tried their Pinot.

I hate to say it but you're not wrong that it's tough to get a great Pinot for much less than $20, though you can get decent ones at $12-15. We buy most of our bottles 12 at a time on the days the local wine shop does 20% off for mixed cases, which helps a lot.

I really dig the Bota Boxes. The idea of upmarket box wine is a godsend.

[09042014]

I like black box merlot it's 17 bucks for 3 liters and since it's box wine it doesn't go bad after a day. Haven't tried their Pinot.

I hate to say it but you're not wrong that it's tough to get a great Pinot for much less than $20, though you can get decent ones at $12-15. We buy most of our bottles 12 at a time on the days the local wine shop does 20% off for mixed cases, which helps a lot.

I really dig the Bota Boxes. The idea of upmarket box wine is a godsend.

I'll check out Bota Boxes. Any recommendations for decent pinot noir in teh 12-15 dollar range. I sorta like Greg Norman Estates. The Mark West everyone recommends is bad IMO.

[daleearnhardt123]

OP here

This thread has taken a number of interesting turns and actually yielded some interesting information. As an aside to DesertFox: When I said I like to "go out and drink occasionally" i didn't mean to imply I have a strip club addiction or something. I don't need to spend 2-3k a month on food/my social life.

[09042014]

OP here

This thread has taken a number of interesting turns and actually yielded some interesting information. As an aside to DesertFox: When I said I like to "go out and drink occasionally" i didn't mean to imply I have a strip club addiction or something. I don't need to spend 2-3k a month on food/my social life.

It doesn't take a raging strip club addiction to spend 2k a month on food, drink, and entertainment.

400 for groceries
300 for take out
300 for lunch at work
80 bucks for a NATs game
5x 50 = 250 for dinner at a restaurant
25 bucks for a movie x2
120 - 1 date to the Kenedy center

That gets you 1500 right there and you are only eating out 1 time a week and doing 1 entertainment thing a week. Add dating, happy hours, weekend trips to NYC or back home, weddings, video games, taxis home to teh surburbs because you are too drunk, etc. etc. and 2000 isn't not unreasonable. And it's not a models and bottles lifestyle.

Everyone is right, you could live on 38k a year post tax, but you'd have to be very very diligent. That's entry level fed gov bitchwork takehome pay.

[hdunlop]

Sadly I don't, we just packed our book of wine favorites and my memory for that stuff isn't the best. A few years back drank a ton of Pinot Evil which sells by the 3L box at I think $20-25, it's serviceable but not great. These days I'm obsessed with Bordeaux blends and the local wine store has a decent amount of them <$15. There are some misses along with the hits, but overall I dig it.

Kennedy Center, if you're under 30, which obviously isn't everyone, has a great program for $20 seats to most stuff called MyTix. Of course it's alot of Thursday shows which isn't helpful for biglaw.

Overall I can see how you get to $1500 easily, it's a convenience thing, but it's not like you can't relatively easily not.

[Old Gregg]

OP here

This thread has taken a number of interesting turns and actually yielded some interesting information. As an aside to DesertFox: When I said I like to "go out and drink occasionally" i didn't mean to imply I have a strip club addiction or something. I don't need to spend 2-3k a month on food/my social life.

It doesn't take a raging strip club addiction to spend 2k a month on food, drink, and entertainment.

400 for groceries
300 for take out
300 for lunch at work
80 bucks for a NATs game
250 for dinner at a restaurant
25 bucks for a movie x2
120 - 1 date to the Kenedy center

That gets you 1500 right there and you are only eating out 1 time a week and doing 1 entertainment thing a week. Add dating, happy hours, weekend trips to NYC or back home, weddings, video games, taxis home to teh surburbs because you are too drunk, etc. etc. and 2000 isn't not unreasonable. And it's not a models and bottles lifestyle.

Everyone is right, you could live on 38k a year post tax, but you'd have to be very very diligent. That's entry level fed gov bitchwork takehome pay.

You should probably mention that you don't pay rent.

Also, 400$ on groceries is absurd, especially with the amount of money you're spending on eating out.

[El Pollito]

Also, 400$ on groceries is absurd, especially with the amount of money you're spending on eating out.

(has never seen DF)

[Old Gregg]

Also, 400$ on groceries is absurd, especially with the amount of money you're spending on eating out.

(has never seen DF)

Actually, I have, but I didn't want to go straight to pointing out that he should probably be eating less.

[beepboopbeep]

OP here

This thread has taken a number of interesting turns and actually yielded some interesting information. As an aside to DesertFox: When I said I like to "go out and drink occasionally" i didn't mean to imply I have a strip club addiction or something. I don't need to spend 2-3k a month on food/my social life.

It doesn't take a raging strip club addiction to spend 2k a month on food, drink, and entertainment.

400 for groceries
300 for take out
300 for lunch at work
80 bucks for a NATs game
250 for dinner at a restaurant
25 bucks for a movie x2
120 - 1 date to the Kenedy center

That gets you 1500 right there and you are only eating out 1 time a week and doing 1 entertainment thing a week. Add dating, happy hours, weekend trips to NYC or back home, weddings, video games, taxis home to teh surburbs because you are too drunk, etc. etc. and 2000 isn't not unreasonable. And it's not a models and bottles lifestyle.

Everyone is right, you could live on 38k a year post tax, but you'd have to be very very diligent. That's entry level fed gov bitchwork takehome pay.

I know there's a lot more pressure to eat out and such given the office time required of biglaw, but as someone who made well under 30k takehome before law school... jeez. Even then I was saving and buying shit I wanted way more than was necessary. Didn't feel like I was living like a monk or anything. I guess your frame of reference changes if everyone you know is spending up a storm like this.

[09042014]

Also, 400$ on groceries is absurd, especially with the amount of money you're spending on eating out.

(has never seen DF)

Actually, I have, but I didn't want to go straight to pointing out that he should probably be eating less.

I'm in a 7 year bulking phase.

[A. Nony Mouse]

OP here

This thread has taken a number of interesting turns and actually yielded some interesting information. As an aside to DesertFox: When I said I like to "go out and drink occasionally" i didn't mean to imply I have a strip club addiction or something. I don't need to spend 2-3k a month on food/my social life.

It doesn't take a raging strip club addiction to spend 2k a month on food, drink, and entertainment.

400 for groceries
300 for take out
300 for lunch at work
80 bucks for a NATs game
250 for dinner at a restaurant
25 bucks for a movie x2
120 - 1 date to the Kenedy center

That gets you 1500 right there and you are only eating out 1 time a week and doing 1 entertainment thing a week. Add dating, happy hours, weekend trips to NYC or back home, weddings, video games, taxis home to teh surburbs because you are too drunk, etc. etc. and 2000 isn't not unreasonable. And it's not a models and bottles lifestyle.

Everyone is right, you could live on 38k a year post tax, but you'd have to be very very diligent. That's entry level fed gov bitchwork takehome pay.

I mean, I get that once you're in biglaw it's harder to maintain the economies of a law student/college student/whatever. But I don't understand why on earth eating out means "$250 for dinner." I know DC's expensive, but even for 2 people, you have to be able to find good places to eat that are way cheaper than that. And are you really going to the Kennedy Center once a week?