Agreed. Like me, the other attorney in my group who I know is also frugal and has saved for financial freedom is single and childless. Not that either of us would not want a family -- to the contrary -- but it just seems like most of the attorneys with families have gone down the path of private school, big vacations, big fancy homes plus expensive renovations, luxury cars, etc. We had an associate in another group a few years ago who was vocal (among friends) about aggressively paying down his student loans. So many people were impressed, like that was just a wonder to them. I had finished mine a little ahead of his schedule and privately gave him encouragement. Conversely, a 40-year-old partner, who went straight through school and had been practicing in biglaw for about 12-15 years at the time, mentioned in passing once that she was still working on her law school loans (plus her husband was another biglaw attorney who became GC at a large business).
It just blows my mind that unlike most people who earn far less, biglaw lawyers have this huge opportunity to save a ton of money very quickly. If you play your cards right you can squeeze a decade or more of savings from a normal job by doing biglaw for a few years. And yet so many choose to buy luxury items instead. When I was a junior associate, it was expensive dinners, nice vacations, and lavish weddings. Now it seems that people have moved on to private school for their kids and 30 year mortgage for a bigger house than they need. (Although I'm certain they're justifying the school/mortgage as an investment.)
I graduated in 2011, clerked for a year, and the bonus check at the end of 2013 paid off the last of my loans (plus mostly funded IRA contribs for the next year) (the fact that I held strong and applied almost 100% of my clerkship bonus to the loans helped, admittedly). I don't get why anyone would do anything other than kill that debt as soon as possible. As long as the debt is still there, you have no freedom, and I've found that freedom has emboldened me to make biglaw a heck of a lot less miserable for me than it is for most people.
Very nice. Your career path sounds a lot like mine. I'm c/o 2010 who also clerked, and clerkship bonus really helped knock out my debt. I really, REALLY did not like the biglaw job though, but having a big enough capital base reduced my stress level because I could walk away from the job at any point.
I think an obscuring factor for understanding spending in BigLaw is that lots of people in BigLaw come from money, or at least upper-middle class homes where their parents pay for weddings, maybe took care of college and/or law school, etc. Like, a junior associate here spent three weeks on a yacht in the mediterranean. But it's her COUSIN's yacht, so I don't know how much she's actually coming out of pocket. Not that coming from money means you get a pass on bad financial choices, just a sort of obscuring factor to understanding how much people actually spend.
This is true. One problem is that many junior associates who come from less wealthy families don't realize this and assume it's okay to live a high consumption lifestyle because everyone else is.
Incidentally I once had a buddy tell me about his financial plan for the upcoming year. He was a first year associate making $160k, but had over $300k in student loans, AND he was planning to finance his wedding ($100k+) and engagement ring ($30k+). A few years later he bought a big house in a high COL city with a 30 year mortgage. I really hope he makes partner. Or that he married into money.