Total Savings/Net Worth Forum

[Anonymous User]

Frugal NYC biglawyer anon here, responding to some questions given interest:

- Yes, live in "outer" borough as you say, but there is more to NYC than manhattan and gentrified Brooklyn or LIC. Live with roomie and my portion of monthly rent has been $950-1180 over the years. 40-45 min subway ride to places I want to chill or to midtown office. I disregard advice about living close to the office as a 1st year because I worked late everyday anyway so by the time I went home it was a expensed 25 min uber ride. Sure, it was stressful sometimes in my morning commute, so be aware of tradeoffs.

- I went inhouse somewhere near end of 2nd year. Don't want to give more specifics but the pay was similar. There is no free lunch though and for that kind of pay, its not a 40 hour job. More like 55-60 but at least my weekends are generally free and I don't need to be on-call the same way as big-law. There are tradeoffs and if I could go back I probably would have stayed longer in biglaw (and picked a different practice area as a summer associate). But alas, my goals now are to get paid, and then figure out what's next, luckily all before I turn 35.

- Looking to leave the HCOL market because I've gotten a taste of other places because of Covid lockdowns and man is QOL way better outside NYC, if you discount all the cool stuff there is to do in NYC (which I haven't been able to properly do in a full year). Way more bang for your buck in terms of housing outside, and I'm ok with less cool stuff at this point...especially if it means I can slow down and do something less intense.

-ETA: Oh the math. So I had about $40k when I started biglaw like I said. I checked my spreadsheet and have about $190k paper gains since Sep 2017. I've contributed about $120k-$150k yr (which includes a modest $50k inheritance spread out around my first year of big law).

[Anonymous User]

$700k net worth 3 years in is not realistic even for somebody who graduated debt free and lives on $30k a year. You need inheritance and/or crypto or GME luck to be at that number.

A realistic goal for a BL associate with $0 net worth at graduation and no family money in the pipeline is something like the following.

End of year 1 - $100k
End of year 2 - $250k
End of year 3 - $450k
End of year 4 - $700k
End of year 5 -$1 million

[Anonymous User]

$700k net worth 3 years in is not realistic even for somebody who graduated debt free and lives on $30k a year. You need inheritance and/or crypto or GME luck to be at that number.

A realistic goal for a BL associate with $0 net worth at graduation and no family money in the pipeline is something like the following.

End of year 1 - $100k
End of year 2 - $250k
End of year 3 - $450k
End of year 4 - $700k
End of year 5 -$1 million

You're wrong, since I'm not lying. I'm logged in now so here are the figures from my spreadsheet. Lets go.

Start date: September 2017
Start Amount: $34,606
End date: Feb 13, 2021
Total time: 3.456 years
Total Contributed in Brokerage/Retirements: $495,392
Total Holdings: $669,265 See note below
Net Profit (Unrealized): $173,873
Monthly Return (average): $4,137
Annualized Return: $49,638.58
Monthly Contribution (average): $11,786
Cumulative % Return: 35.10%
Avg 12 month Return: 7.52%

Total Contributed in Brokerage/Retirements: $495,392 (as % of gross income)
2017: $78,585 (note started with $34,606)
2018: $127,591 (65%) - This is high because I invested an extra $30k not part of my income (i.e. inheritence)
2019: $127,400 (58%)
2020: $144,725 (58%)
2021 YTD: $17,092

Year end net worth:
2017: ~$85,000 (has some issues with mint)
2018: $193,875
2019: $386,070
2020: $669,067
2021 YTD: $719,647

Return per year - 173,873
2017: $6,415 (8.16%)
2018: -18,716 (-8.80%)
2019: $64,795 (20.17%)
2020: $88,831 (16.74%)
2021 YTD: $32,547 (5.11%)

Current Networth: $719,647
Total Domestic stock - $437,443
Total International - $178,940
Total Stock: $616,383
Cash: $103,264

Note The total contributed/final networth number don't tie because I have $51,882 of my $103,264 in cash in my brokerage accounts. Those are technically not currently invested but counted in the "contributed amount" - That skews some of the return %s, since it drags down the profits even though not invested. The other $50,382 of the cash amount is not included in the "contributed" amount since they are sitting in my bank checking accounts.

ETA: Final Note
I've ONLY ever invested in indexfunds. Never cyrpto, or individual stocks, so didn't get any wallstreet bets type lucks in my returns. I did mess around with timing during covid but I think it's a wash because i missed out on some good returns March-May, which balanced out with some more aggressive movements in the following months.

ETA: Takeaway:

I think the lesson is that if you can minimize the big costs (essentially housing) and investing the rest, you'll be in a good position. I think the goal should be able to contribute 50% of your gross income. That's ~40% for taxes and ~10% for living expenses if you can keep that in ~25k range. I was fortunate with the small inheritence amount (I rechecked and it was $60k btw, spread out over the years and not $50k) letting me go above the 50% savings goal. ALSO INVEST EARLY. It's way harder to get to the first $100k than the $1mm, compounding really speeds things up in a bull market especially.

[Anonymous User]

$700k net worth 3 years in is not realistic even for somebody who graduated debt free and lives on $30k a year. You need inheritance and/or crypto or GME luck to be at that number.

A realistic goal for a BL associate with $0 net worth at graduation and no family money in the pipeline is something like the following.

End of year 1 - $100k
End of year 2 - $250k
End of year 3 - $450k
End of year 4 - $700k
End of year 5 -$1 million

Not the same anon as the poster above me, but I can provide some #s.

6th-year biglaw associate here, has always been living in VHCOL, no spouse, no kids. Graduated with 100k debt that took me 3 years to pay off (in January 2018).

NW in January 2018: 85k (I contributed to retirement accounts while paying off debt asap.)
January 2019: 200k
January 2020: 390k
mid-February 2021: 780k

These #s all came from my biglaw salary, no inheritance, no crypto--just index funds. Saving 700k in 3 years is doable.

[Anonymous User]

NY biglaw associate, c/o 2017. Net worth is approximately $150K (all in index funds) that includes about $100K in student loans remaining. Honestly some of the net worth numbers here for folks about my seniority that are north of $500K depress me lol, y'all got it figured out I'm still out here struggling.

[Anonymous User]

$700k net worth 3 years in is not realistic even for somebody who graduated debt free and lives on $30k a year. You need inheritance and/or crypto or GME luck to be at that number.

A realistic goal for a BL associate with $0 net worth at graduation and no family money in the pipeline is something like the following.

End of year 1 - $100k
End of year 2 - $250k
End of year 3 - $450k
End of year 4 - $700k
End of year 5 -$1 million

Not the same anon as the poster above me, but I can provide some #s.

6th-year biglaw associate here, has always been living in VHCOL, no spouse, no kids. Graduated with 100k debt that took me 3 years to pay off (in January 2018).

NW in January 2018: 85k (I contributed to retirement accounts while paying off debt asap.)
January 2019: 200k
January 2020: 390k
mid-February 2021: 780k

These #s all came from my biglaw salary, no inheritance, no crypto--just index funds. Saving 700k in 3 years is doable.

To state the obvious, it is doable as a midlevel. As others have noted, it’s not doable as a junior. In any event, this thread is a really interesting read. Thanks to everyone who has posted so far

[spyke123]

$700k net worth 3 years in is not realistic even for somebody who graduated debt free and lives on $30k a year. You need inheritance and/or crypto or GME luck to be at that number.

A realistic goal for a BL associate with $0 net worth at graduation and no family money in the pipeline is something like the following.

End of year 1 - $100k
End of year 2 - $250k
End of year 3 - $450k
End of year 4 - $700k
End of year 5 -$1 million

Not the same anon as the poster above me, but I can provide some #s.

6th-year biglaw associate here, has always been living in VHCOL, no spouse, no kids. Graduated with 100k debt that took me 3 years to pay off (in January 2018).

NW in January 2018: 85k (I contributed to retirement accounts while paying off debt asap.)
January 2019: 200k
January 2020: 390k
mid-February 2021: 780k

These #s all came from my biglaw salary, no inheritance, no crypto--just index funds. Saving 700k in 3 years is doable.

How did your NW increase by almost 400k in one year (20 to 21) I am just not getting all these numbers lol...

For this thread to be more informative, people need to distinguish between amount invested and return on investments. There are some crazy return % baked into all these NW.

[Sackboy]

This thread was never meant to be informative lol. It was meant for people to brag about their NW.

[Anonymous User]

$700k net worth 3 years in is not realistic even for somebody who graduated debt free and lives on $30k a year. You need inheritance and/or crypto or GME luck to be at that number.

A realistic goal for a BL associate with $0 net worth at graduation and no family money in the pipeline is something like the following.

End of year 1 - $100k
End of year 2 - $250k
End of year 3 - $450k
End of year 4 - $700k
End of year 5 -$1 million

Not the same anon as the poster above me, but I can provide some #s.

6th-year biglaw associate here, has always been living in VHCOL, no spouse, no kids. Graduated with 100k debt that took me 3 years to pay off (in January 2018).

NW in January 2018: 85k (I contributed to retirement accounts while paying off debt asap.)
January 2019: 200k
January 2020: 390k
mid-February 2021: 780k

These #s all came from my biglaw salary, no inheritance, no crypto--just index funds. Saving 700k in 3 years is doable.

How did your NW increase by almost 400k in one year (20 to 21) I am just not getting all these numbers lol...

For this thread to be more informative, people need to distinguish between amount invested and return on investments. There are some crazy return % baked into all these NW.

-Lowering expenses by moving back home with parents (temporarily).
-2020 was not a typical year with respect to investing due to the quick V dip and slow recovery. Investing when funds were on discount was helpful to the huge gain; Biden-vaccine optimism has also been helpful with respect to gain.

[Anonymous User]

$700k net worth 3 years in is not realistic even for somebody who graduated debt free and lives on $30k a year. You need inheritance and/or crypto or GME luck to be at that number.

A realistic goal for a BL associate with $0 net worth at graduation and no family money in the pipeline is something like the following.

End of year 1 - $100k
End of year 2 - $250k
End of year 3 - $450k
End of year 4 - $700k
End of year 5 -$1 million

You're wrong, since I'm not lying. I'm logged in now so here are the figures from my spreadsheet. Lets go.

Start date: September 2017
Start Amount: $34,606
End date: Feb 13, 2021
Total time: 3.456 years
Total Contributed in Brokerage/Retirements: $495,392
Total Holdings: $669,265 See note below
Net Profit (Unrealized): $173,873
Monthly Return (average): $4,137
Annualized Return: $49,638.58
Monthly Contribution (average): $11,786
Cumulative % Return: 35.10%
Avg 12 month Return: 7.52%

Total Contributed in Brokerage/Retirements: $495,392 (as % of gross income)
2017: $78,585 (note started with $34,606)
2018: $127,591 (65%) - This is high because I invested an extra $30k not part of my income (i.e. inheritence)
2019: $127,400 (58%)
2020: $144,725 (58%)
2021 YTD: $17,092

Year end net worth:
2017: ~$85,000 (has some issues with mint)
2018: $193,875
2019: $386,070
2020: $669,067
2021 YTD: $719,647

Return per year - 173,873
2017: $6,415 (8.16%)
2018: -18,716 (-8.80%)
2019: $64,795 (20.17%)
2020: $88,831 (16.74%)
2021 YTD: $32,547 (5.11%)

Current Networth: $719,647
Total Domestic stock - $437,443
Total International - $178,940
Total Stock: $616,383
Cash: $103,264

Note The total contributed/final networth number don't tie because I have $51,882 of my $103,264 in cash in my brokerage accounts. Those are technically not currently invested but counted in the "contributed amount" - That skews some of the return %s, since it drags down the profits even though not invested. The other $50,382 of the cash amount is not included in the "contributed" amount since they are sitting in my bank checking accounts.

ETA: Final Note
I've ONLY ever invested in indexfunds. Never cyrpto, or individual stocks, so didn't get any wallstreet bets type lucks in my returns. I did mess around with timing during covid but I think it's a wash because i missed out on some good returns March-May, which balanced out with some more aggressive movements in the following months.

ETA: Takeaway:

I think the lesson is that if you can minimize the big costs (essentially housing) and investing the rest, you'll be in a good position. I think the goal should be able to contribute 50% of your gross income. That's ~40% for taxes and ~10% for living expenses if you can keep that in ~25k range. I was fortunate with the small inheritence amount (I rechecked and it was $60k btw, spread out over the years and not $50k) letting me go above the 50% savings goal. ALSO INVEST EARLY. It's way harder to get to the first $100k than the $1mm, compounding really speeds things up in a bull market especially.

My dude you started with $40k and had $50k in family money. I believe your numbers and think they are realistic in your situation but that’s not the situation I was referencing. For an incoming 1st year with net worth of $0 and no cash on hand, $700k after 3 years is not possible absent investing luck or Wachtell salary. $500-550 is possible though which is roughly your rate of wealth accrual. In any event, congrats on your results.

[Anonymous User]

$400k in net worth growth is very possible for a 5/6th year. At that point you might already have $700k in the market and your take home is north of $200k.

First years, the key is to save as much as possible from the onset to build up a strong passive income stream. It will be a slog for the first year or two but by late mid-level your net worth will take off. It is easy to become a millionaire by 33 in biglaw, if you keep your job for 6-7 years.

[ggqkhwaofnpoyqpmis]

This post is making me look like a looser... so I guess I’m not going to share

[Anonymous User]

Total Net Worth: 4K, single, NYC
Federal Student Loans: 103K (haven't touched these since March)
401K: 47K
Emergency Fund: 30K
Other Savings: 30K (currently in a money market account - just opened a brokerage account and am planning to invest in index funds)

Second year associate, I pay 2500 in rent (30K a year) and spent another ~20K on top of rent last year. Just broke even and hit positive net worth on my last paycheck.

[AllpainNogain]

Interesting thread. I'm not an attorney, but the responses are super biglaw-heavy. It seems that biglaw is a reliable path to the upper middle class, but not a great way to become "properly" rich. Most other youngish lawyers probably have very sad balance sheets.
One [biglaw associate] with minimal debt and strong saving/investing inclinations could easily be worth $1-2 million after 6-10 years of practice. I guess rainmaking shareholders could be worth high 7 figures and maybe low 8 figures if they continue the same saving/investing habits, but that would be in their 60s and 70s.
Law looks like a lot of work for the money!

What is a realistic median profit/partner figure for V100 shareholders?

With all due respect, what do you want to prove? Reading from your previous posts, i guess you're a T50 law school dropout. Are you now trying to justify your situation by nagging the personal finance status of big law attorneys?

Not at all! Actually, I had been weighing the sense of reapplying to better schools (I have no law school academic record) with a higher GRE/LSAT and wanted to figure out if the time and financial investment would be worth the stress and opportunity cost. I was only ever interested in biglaw-level legal work and earning potential. If the incremental savings/investments from 8 years of big law would [only] be an extra $1-2 million, then I'm probably better off sitting on my current resources and having a lower stress career. I don't mean to shit on biglaw at all!

[AllpainNogain]

Interesting thread. I'm not an attorney, but the responses are super biglaw-heavy. It seems that biglaw is a reliable path to the upper middle class, but not a great way to become "properly" rich. Most other youngish lawyers probably have very sad balance sheets.
One [biglaw associate] with minimal debt and strong saving/investing inclinations could easily be worth $1-2 million after 6-10 years of practice. I guess rainmaking shareholders could be worth high 7 figures and maybe low 8 figures if they continue the same saving/investing habits, but that would be in their 60s and 70s.
Law looks like a lot of work for the money!

What is a realistic median profit/partner figure for V100 shareholders?

The bolded is probably pretty fair, but if you know of great ways to become "properly" rich, especially those that involve less work than big law, I'd love to hear them.

Well, theoretically, the investment banking to buy side (PE/HF) pipeline has better ROI (lower education barriers) and a much higher upside. However, the entry point onto this path is quite narrow compared to that for big law. Obviously, FAANG SWE is a better career for someone who is STEM/quant-oriented from an ROI and upside vantage point. That said, both of these trajectories require very different skill sets than biglaw. For the average liberal arts graduate, T14 to biglaw is probably the surest path to wealth that I know of, especially if said graduate has a minimal debt load.

[AllpainNogain]

Interesting thread. I'm not an attorney, but the responses are super biglaw-heavy. It seems that biglaw is a reliable path to the upper middle class, but not a great way to become "properly" rich. Most other youngish lawyers probably have very sad balance sheets.
One [biglaw associate] with minimal debt and strong saving/investing inclinations could easily be worth $1-2 million after 6-10 years of practice. I guess rainmaking shareholders could be worth high 7 figures and maybe low 8 figures if they continue the same saving/investing habits, but that would be in their 60s and 70s.
Law looks like a lot of work for the money!

What is a realistic median profit/partner figure for V100 shareholders?

$1.1mm invested a year for 20 years at 8% return is $55mm. This generation of big-law partners with $2-4mm PPP are going to be worth close to $100mm at retirement. Still would not choose that lifestyle but it's definitely starting to become closer to properly rich status.

Theoretically, that could be true, but how many top rainmaking partners are actually socking away over $1 million/year after taxes? Most of these folks probably have families and upward trending lifestyle inflation that make this goal difficult. Not to mention that a relatively small percentage of biglaw shareholders are even making that "average" $2-4mm comp per year! How many biglaw equity partners are actually worth $50-100 million at retirement? What do do folks see in your firms?

[Anonymous User]

Unless people do a really good job at hiding their wealth, I see biglaw partners in the Bay Area driving Tesla and living in $5-10 mil. houses, but nothing screams 50-100 mil. NW.

If they inherited the golden handcuffs from being a biglaw associate for 7+ years, I don't see how they suddenly became a huge saver once they made partners. I'd imagine their inflated lifestyle continued on and they needed to make more money to support that lifestyle that is forever growing.

[Anonymous User]

PPP hasn't been above $2-4mm for the past 20 years so today's partners aren't going to be that rich. Assuming $3mm average pay over the next 20 years (probably safe given PPP is rising every year), after tax income in NYC would be $1.55mm if filing married (partnership tax is different but idk how it works for partners).

So $400k/yr after tax spending money to keep $1.1mm saved. Most likely own apartments/houses at that point so rent isn't a cost and mortgage payments are largely equity but the property taxes they pay would come out of that $400k which could be significant.

[rnen22]

Total Net Worth: 1M, single, Midwest
Federal Student Loans: 0K

I graduated law school unemployed last year, and basically Yolo'd my life savings into meme stocks. It worked out and I am in boring ETFs now. I have a job lined up now (finally) but am toying with just moving abroad and trying something new. After being rejected from so many jobs with excellent grades, it's tough to see much worth in myself, even if I have one now. Jealous of you big law folks.

[Anonymous User]

Class of 2016, BL, Major Market, ~$700K NW:

+$55K in investments (stocks/crypto)
+$50K in retirement funds (401K)
+$340K in Cash (mainly in savings accounts) - apparently this is irresponsible. Idea is to save to buy RE investments.
+$250k in Home Equity

No student loans.

[jsnow212]

Class of 2016, BL, Major Market, ~$700K NW:

+$55K in investments (stocks/crypto)
+$50K in retirement funds (401K)
+$340K in Cash (mainly in savings accounts) - apparently this is irresponsible. Idea is to save to buy RE investments.
+$250k in Home Equity

No student loans.

Not "apparently." It's badly inefficient from a personal finance perspective. You can conservatively buy $1m+ worth of real estate with your cash alone, excluding all the home equity you can take out to do the same.

Not trying to tell you what to do with your money, but some of y'all on this thread just need to a just give your money to a financial advisor with these NW breakdowns.

[Anonymous User]

$700k net worth 3 years in is not realistic even for somebody who graduated debt free and lives on $30k a year. You need inheritance and/or crypto or GME luck to be at that number.

A realistic goal for a BL associate with $0 net worth at graduation and no family money in the pipeline is something like the following.

End of year 1 - $100k
End of year 2 - $250k
End of year 3 - $450k
End of year 4 - $700k
End of year 5 -$1 million

You're wrong, since I'm not lying. I'm logged in now so here are the figures from my spreadsheet. Lets go.

Start date: September 2017
Start Amount: $34,606
End date: Feb 13, 2021
Total time: 3.456 years
Total Contributed in Brokerage/Retirements: $495,392
Total Holdings: $669,265 See note below
Net Profit (Unrealized): $173,873
Monthly Return (average): $4,137
Annualized Return: $49,638.58
Monthly Contribution (average): $11,786
Cumulative % Return: 35.10%
Avg 12 month Return: 7.52%

Total Contributed in Brokerage/Retirements: $495,392 (as % of gross income)
2017: $78,585 (note started with $34,606)
2018: $127,591 (65%) - This is high because I invested an extra $30k not part of my income (i.e. inheritence)
2019: $127,400 (58%)
2020: $144,725 (58%)
2021 YTD: $17,092

Year end net worth:
2017: ~$85,000 (has some issues with mint)
2018: $193,875
2019: $386,070
2020: $669,067
2021 YTD: $719,647

Return per year - 173,873
2017: $6,415 (8.16%)
2018: -18,716 (-8.80%)
2019: $64,795 (20.17%)
2020: $88,831 (16.74%)
2021 YTD: $32,547 (5.11%)

Current Networth: $719,647
Total Domestic stock - $437,443
Total International - $178,940
Total Stock: $616,383
Cash: $103,264

Note The total contributed/final networth number don't tie because I have $51,882 of my $103,264 in cash in my brokerage accounts. Those are technically not currently invested but counted in the "contributed amount" - That skews some of the return %s, since it drags down the profits even though not invested. The other $50,382 of the cash amount is not included in the "contributed" amount since they are sitting in my bank checking accounts.

ETA: Final Note
I've ONLY ever invested in indexfunds. Never cyrpto, or individual stocks, so didn't get any wallstreet bets type lucks in my returns. I did mess around with timing during covid but I think it's a wash because i missed out on some good returns March-May, which balanced out with some more aggressive movements in the following months.

ETA: Takeaway:

I think the lesson is that if you can minimize the big costs (essentially housing) and investing the rest, you'll be in a good position. I think the goal should be able to contribute 50% of your gross income. That's ~40% for taxes and ~10% for living expenses if you can keep that in ~25k range. I was fortunate with the small inheritence amount (I rechecked and it was $60k btw, spread out over the years and not $50k) letting me go above the 50% savings goal. ALSO INVEST EARLY. It's way harder to get to the first $100k than the $1mm, compounding really speeds things up in a bull market especially.

Really impressive and I believe you, but two things I don’t understand.
How did you contribute 78k in your stub year? Even with a 34k start, that meant you contributed 40k+, which is not possible after taxes.

You went from 386k to 670k in one year. How? You contributed 145k and made 89k in investment returns. That’s still like $50k short.

[Anonymous User]

Really impressive and I believe you, but two things I don’t understand.
How did you contribute 78k in your stub year? Even with a 34k start, that meant you contributed 40k+, which is not possible after taxes.

True, likely some of the inheritance that was noted in the post. Maybe 20k. And given that 2017 401k max was 18k (pre-tax), that sounds about right.

You went from 386k to 670k in one year. How? You contributed 145k and made 89k in investment returns. That’s still like $50k short.

As noted in the post, total NW includes cash in checking account(s), which wouldn't be picked up in the contributed amount (only picks up cash if held in brokerage accounts).

[Anonymous User]

6th year big law associate in Chicago, net worth of ~$800k. All investments are in index funds; no individual stocks, crypto or real estate. Spending averaged ~$50k/year. Breakdown below:

End of 2015 (stub year, graduated with ~$165k in student loans): -$140k
End of 2016: -$53k
End of 2017: $50k
End of 2018: $161k
End of 2019: $382k
End of 2020: $696k
February 2021: $800k

Bonuses pay out at the beginning of the year (which accounts for much of the increase from end of 2021 to now).

[Anonymous User]

Class of 2016, Chicago. 695k Net Worth.

End of 2016: 60k
End of 2017: 131k
End of 2018: 245k
End of 2019: 408k
End of 2020: 640k
Now: 695k

Leaving big law soon for in-house position and hoping to leave law altogether once I hit $1.5m net worth.