Blog

One of the maddening things about working in big law was seeing so many of my colleagues squandering the golden opportunity that they had in front of them. There aren’t a ton of situations in which a 25-year old can make six-figures a year right out of school with basically no prior work experience. For the vast majority of new big law associates, that first-year salary might be more money than they’ve made in all of their other previous working years combined.

That’s why it always bothered me when I saw my colleagues renting expensive, luxury apartments and talking about the hip, new, foodie restaurant they hit up over the weekend. It wasn’t the money they spent that bugged me the most. What really bugged me was how normal a lot of them treated their big law salary. To me, earning six figures a year at 26-years old was a huge deal! I’d never even made more than $20,000 in a year. The way I saw it, this money was a blessing. And it wasn’t meant to be squandered.

If you had to ask me what the single most important thing you can do for yourself financially when you finish school, my answer would always be to live like a student. It seems so obvious, and yet, despite being so obvious, very few people actually follow this advice.

I live in a college neighborhood, so I see a lot of college kids when I’m out and about. Sometimes, I like to think about how weird their living situations are compared to your typical middle-class American. Most of these college kids live in rundown houses, usually packing four or more people into a house. It’s not uncommon for people to share rooms or live in tiny bedrooms no bigger than a closet. When I’m out doing deliveries, I’ll sometimes make a delivery to a dorm and am reminded that, for at least a year, most college kids live and sleep in a tiny dorm room with a person they’ve never met before!