What Matters More-- My Loan Balance or My Sanity? Forum

[sparty99]

I don't care if everyone thinks about debt. They should. These people have 100 to 200k in debt and are talking about leaving after 7 months or after just starting a new job. Please. They won't be happy with $100 to $200k in debt and a $70,000 salary having to forgoe/delay marriage, kids, buying a house, and prolonging their working career and being a slave to their debt. Some people recommend government jobs for 10 years. These people if they think long term can be out in 1 to 2. I need not waste my time explaining the emotional stress of having $100 to $200k of debt. There have been plenty of studies on this topic. Anyone can doing anything for a year. These people are trying to quit after 7 months? Big law is not even that serious. What is possibly the worst thing that can happen in Big Law? They fire you? Oh, well. You hated the job anyway. They just have this very short-sighted view of things. They should probably stop caring their phones with them every place they went. Go to the gym. Seek professional health. Big law is not that serious and they can work 1 to 2 years and get this done. They have created a big hole for themselves and Big law is the way out. Be out of debt in 12 months to 2 years or 10 years. The choice is easy.

For the sake of adopting the most charitable view of your position as possible, is your advice basically to coast in BL and treat it as a 9-5 job until you can pay off debt or get fired?

I also just don't get this position. I have over 200k in debt. I'm in biglaw now and know that I hate it so much I will never pay it off here. I'm planning to transition to government or a lower paying job, and I'm not stressed whatsoever about the debt. That's the whole point of IBR - to be able to take / survive in a lower paying job. So long as I save for the tax bomb (which, combined with minimum payments for the 18 years I have left, will STILL be less than if I'd paid off all my loans outright), there are literally no consequences to having debt. The loan payments are just another monthly bill, and a low one at that (I clerked before biglaw, so have experience with how low/manageable the payments are. I was still able to add a lot to savings during that time). So long as you have government and not private loans, any stress over the debt is more in the abstract than anything.

Same. Lots of debt but sleep like a baby due to IBR and have purchased a nice house and a car. And just because you wouldn't yourself marry or marry someone with manageable debt doesn't mean others wouldn't. Someone saying they are delaying marriage due to debt made manageable through IBR should be a deal breaker anyway -- sounds like they put finances above all else.

Anyway, see how people are built differently, Sparty? I could start talking about how those people in the study with emotional stress from debt are silly because I'm fine living with my debt and barely think of it. Just as you seem to think people who find big law life (which many studies have also shown causes misery/emotional stress for some) completely untenable are silly.

Out of curiosity: where do you come down on the Osaka controversy? I'm betting you think she should just do the press conferences even though they exacerbate her depression and anxiety because she gets paid a lot.

So you are just going to continue making payments for the next 25 years and let the debt balloon and then pay a big tax penalty and there is also uncertainty w/ that. You can be debt free in 1 to 2 years and use what you are paying to the government to do other stuff. IBR is a scam that just makes you in debt longer.

Happy to pay the premium to not be miserable for another year.

You speak from the perspective of someone who has never began dreading the beginning of each day from each evening before. I do all the stuff I need and want to just fine right now, so doing other stuff with the money just isn't as attractive to me as not being drenched with misery 24/7. Again, for you, it's wealth to the exclusion of everything else. Not so for me.

If someone told you you had to go to prison for two years (while guaranteeing your safety and future earning potential, just to make things constant) and at the end you might get $300,000 extra would you go? If not, then you know how I feel.

I really am kind of concerned that people would keep themselves in situations that physically and mentally harm them just to quickly pay off debt that isn't foreclosing them from doing other things.

Obama finished paying his loans when he was mid-40s and he turned out fine (I admit that's an extreme example but I couldn't resist.)

To Uncle Sam: please take the extra money if it means I get to feel normal right now instead of in a few years. I give it to you freely. Please scam me with IBR.

Everything you said is hyperbole and melodramatic and does not merit a response.

[Anonymous User]

Sure, there are a lot of reasons to stay, if someone feels they can and it's not going to mess with their physical and mental health. I'm not saying there's no reason to stay or that staying is a terrible idea. I'm just saying it's not something anyone can decide for another person, and it's also fair to pull the plug to prioritize mental health.

But I also think that leaving biglaw doesn't automatically translate to "being poor with a lot of debt and no way to pay it off." The OP is considering going to a lower-paying job that they liked - they're not going to be destitute, living in a van down by the river. If they're in a market-paying biglaw job now, and looking at approximately a 1/3 pay cut, they're still going to be making 6 figures. Anyone who thinks that this means they're going to be so poor that it's going to affect their mental health has been making biglaw money too long to have reasonable perspective on the matter.

At minimum, New Job would pay $120k. It's possible that number might be a little higher, but I'm preparing for the worst case scenario. That's plenty for me to live on and I'd still be making payments, I just live in an expensive city and would not be able to throw gobs of money at my loans like I can at my market-paying Biglaw job, so my repayment runway would be a lot longer. Maybe not even the full IBR period, just longer.

And I already know I like the people at this firm and that they have a much more reasonable work/life balance, as much as I hate to use the term, because I've seen how they treated me as a contractor and how they treated the other associates.

It's fascinating to get different perspectives on this, even if some are less nuanced. I just don't think that extra 1/3 is worth it, to ME specifically, to struggle with mental health as much as I have been. I didn't ask for these chemical imbalances in my body, but they're here now, and medication can only do so much. I can't be popping Xanax to get through every day, and I can't turn to alcohol to forget about it, as much as it might feel good short-term. So if I'm not going to be the pillar the breaks, the environment has to change.

I grew up poor. I can budget just fine, my car is paid off, and I live frugally in general. My belief is that it'll be manageable.

[Anonymous User]

Opted for hyperbole to see if that could get through to your one track mind, Sparty.

[nixy]

It's also great to see legitimate mental health issues dismissed as melodrama and hyperbole. Lots of awareness and empathy there.

[Anonymous User]

I'm a senior associate. I can tell you that you'll never make it at your firm if you can't check out, release, and enjoy your life on a regular basis. This is a bit of the pot calling the kettle black because I'm often miserable at work, and I often find myself thinking about shit when I should be having fun, but I've gotten a lot better about it over the years, and it's helped a ton for enjoyment of life. Put in your 40 hours, and check the fuck out. Don't work on weekends. Don't cancel plans. Turn your phone and computer off.
And don't give in to shitty bosses. If they don't like it, they'll go fuck with someone else. I adopted this attitude in like year 4, and it made biglaw much better (though, again, I could do even better with it).

At the end of the day, chances are that no one you work with and no client you work for will remember you in 10 years.

[Anonymous User]

I'm a senior associate. I can tell you that you'll never make it at your firm if you can't check out, release, and enjoy your life on a regular basis. This is a bit of the pot calling the kettle black because I'm often miserable at work, and I often find myself thinking about shit when I should be having fun, but I've gotten a lot better about it over the years, and it's helped a ton for enjoyment of life. Put in your 40 hours, and check the fuck out. Don't work on weekends. Don't cancel plans. Turn your phone and computer off.
And don't give in to shitty bosses. If they don't like it, they'll go fuck with someone else. I adopted this attitude in like year 4, and it made biglaw much better (though, again, I could do even better with it).

At the end of the day, chances are that no one you work with and no client you work for will remember you in 10 years.

I assume you're in lit? I don't see this working in corporate.

[Anonymous User]

I'm a senior associate. I can tell you that you'll never make it at your firm if you can't check out, release, and enjoy your life on a regular basis. This is a bit of the pot calling the kettle black because I'm often miserable at work, and I often find myself thinking about shit when I should be having fun, but I've gotten a lot better about it over the years, and it's helped a ton for enjoyment of life. Put in your 40 hours, and check the fuck out. Don't work on weekends. Don't cancel plans. Turn your phone and computer off.
And don't give in to shitty bosses. If they don't like it, they'll go fuck with someone else. I adopted this attitude in like year 4, and it made biglaw much better (though, again, I could do even better with it).

At the end of the day, chances are that no one you work with and no client you work for will remember you in 10 years.

I truly wish I had the steady workflow to let me do this, but a lot of weeks I end up begging for work so I can even get close to billing 40 hours. I get told not to worry about it when I ask, but then I'm told "no one gets fired for not making hours the FIRST year." I'm still trying to work off the deficit from onboarding, so no breaks or vacations for me. And we're hiring more people, so the future doesn't look better in terms of getting busier.

Point is, if work pops up on the weekend or at night or whenever, I basically can't say no or it's my head later. I don't want to stay in this job, but I also want to choose when I leave as opposed to getting The Talk, if that makes sense.

[Anonymous User]

I'm a senior associate. I can tell you that you'll never make it at your firm if you can't check out, release, and enjoy your life on a regular basis. This is a bit of the pot calling the kettle black because I'm often miserable at work, and I often find myself thinking about shit when I should be having fun, but I've gotten a lot better about it over the years, and it's helped a ton for enjoyment of life. Put in your 40 hours, and check the fuck out. Don't work on weekends. Don't cancel plans. Turn your phone and computer off.
And don't give in to shitty bosses. If they don't like it, they'll go fuck with someone else. I adopted this attitude in like year 4, and it made biglaw much better (though, again, I could do even better with it).

At the end of the day, chances are that no one you work with and no client you work for will remember you in 10 years.

Hm as another poster noted, this approach definitely wouldn't fly for a corporate junior. And none of the senior associates I work with at my office could pull this off either. I personally know a corporate first year at a pretty well regarded firm who checked out for a weekend and didn't respond to any work emails/calls, and she was fired within a month (and was explicitly told in her exit interview that this incident was the main issue that precipitated the firing). There was no second chance, even though she hadn't even finished her first year at the firm. From my understanding, there wasn't an imminent signing/closing, but the senior on her deal was trying to follow up with her over the weekend on a fire drill related to a project she had done. But this was during the heart of covid, so maybe that played a role.

[Anonymous User]

I'm a senior associate. I can tell you that you'll never make it at your firm if you can't check out, release, and enjoy your life on a regular basis. This is a bit of the pot calling the kettle black because I'm often miserable at work, and I often find myself thinking about shit when I should be having fun, but I've gotten a lot better about it over the years, and it's helped a ton for enjoyment of life. Put in your 40 hours, and check the fuck out. Don't work on weekends. Don't cancel plans. Turn your phone and computer off.
And don't give in to shitty bosses. If they don't like it, they'll go fuck with someone else. I adopted this attitude in like year 4, and it made biglaw much better (though, again, I could do even better with it).

At the end of the day, chances are that no one you work with and no client you work for will remember you in 10 years.

Hm as another poster noted, this approach definitely wouldn't fly for a corporate junior. And none of the senior associates I work with at my office could pull this off either. I personally know a corporate first year at a pretty well regarded firm who checked out for a weekend and didn't respond to any work emails/calls, and she was fired within a month (and was explicitly told in her exit interview that this incident was the main issue that precipitated the firing). There was no second chance, even though she hadn't even finished her first year at the firm. From my understanding, there wasn't an imminent signing/closing, but the senior on her deal was trying to follow up with her over the weekend on a fire drill related to a project she had done. But this was during the heart of covid, so maybe that played a role.

I think some of us (me at least, I suppose I can only speak for myself) just feel like life is too short for this kind of lifestyle. This is obviously an extreme example, as I don't know anyone who was fired their first year, but the expectation of being on call 24/7, of subordinating your family, your mental health, your friends, your hobbies/interests to your job at all times just isn't a sustainable way to live for me. I literally wouldn't do it for any amount of money.

And the choice, if you have a large loan balance, is not between staying in biglaw and living this way, or "being poor." It's between living this way and handling your loans in a manner other than paying them down as fast as possible. In effect, this means that a comfortable middle class existence is attainable upon leaving biglaw with a lot of loans (particularly if you haven't refinanced. I admit that privately held loans are a different beast). People in this very thread have explained how they've done exactly that.

Sparty's entire problem is an inability to see the obvious, i.e., that this is an intensely subjective choice. It's not that his position is entirely off base, as others have pointed out, it's that insisting (over and over again) that it's the sole and universal solution for every person in biglaw with student loans is pretty myopic.

There isn't an objectively correct answer here, as is the case for basically every personal finance decision.