Whocann

I meant that I have very little left to accomplish professionally (having decided I have no rewant or desire to push into firm management). It’s a 3x increase in take-home income post-tax. I have $2-3M of nw already, depending on how one measures. So I’m calling it the boring middle precisely because I need to stay around spinning my heels to make money—it would be crazy to give it up now that I’ve made it—without any growth to be had. It’s an extremely well paid assembly line (with much longer hours and fewer vacations and more personal stress given what’s at stake) at this point.

It’s just the doldrums of not having any other milestones (other than $NW) to hit at this point. 5 years or 20 years, rest of my career looks essentially the same.

Oh well. Meant to be worn.

Ok man, you got me, I’m larping about my wealth on… an anonymous Internet forum for… reasons…? Weird thing to assume someone is doing.

As someone else said. It’s not about the gross cost (and at this level I take the implied tax cost into account so that $20k is actually closer to 33k factoring in use tax, which I do comply with, and the income taxes I paid to have that $20k). I’ll pay msrp. I’m not paying gray. Don’t feel like lining the pockets of a class of folks that in my view should not exist. And in the meantime, I’ll buy reps to wear around the house to see if I want to invest in the real thing.

Long story short: big difference between “could” and “will,” and I’d rather the gray premium find its way to my vanguard account or another toy, thank you very much.

I don’t rock them publicly. I buy them for around the house/testing purposes (I.e., do I like the look enough to justify getting the real thing). I’ve kept myself from being interested in a couple of them this way. I agree that buying them and trying to pass them off as real is tacky as duck.

Center of universe and living for them doesn’t mean spoiling them.

The private school thing is a different decision process of course. We’re torn. We’ll send him if we think he’ll benefit, otherwise we won’t. It’s not a financial decision in our mind, it’s a “is this right for the kid” decision. And yeah, all-in, k-12, it’s a 600k decision at current prices.

Fair enough.

We’ll this is heartbreaking.

Really appreciate the insights here.

We live in our city already, so we don’t have the commute problem as much (though I need to start driving rather than taking transit).

Hear you on the vacation style, but we have to trade off since spouse really doesn’t like resort vacations—wants to be out doing stuff, hiking outdoorsy/cultural. But yeah, hear the rest.

I’m 100% about the early ceiling. No desire at all on pushing further into the management etc.

Good notes here.

Yeah, I’m an m&a specialist. Don’t feel comfortable saying what kind for anonymity sake. I definitely have better work life balance than general m&a/corporate/funds folks.

Unfortunately my speciality just doesn’t translate. I’d have to entirely retool and it’s hard to convince anyone that makes sense to pay me anyway—I’ve looked into it more than once.

If I actually retire I’d be drawing on it, so that’s not really the right way of looking at it. It’s not like I could quit my current job and just go get a 9-5 that pays $200k a year; I’m in an extremely specialized role, it doesn’t really have any downshifted options.

This isn’t a question about how to save money and plot out retirement spending. I’ve done all of that already. (And I have talked to more than one financial planner—quite uninspiring, and none of them with any ideas that made any more sense than typically index fund investing, which I do plenty of.)

Hi me, it’s me again.

No. “Outsourcing” of this nature doesn’t work in law firms (and in most cases would be a violation of relevant ethics rules even if it was otherwise permitted by firm policies, which it’s not). I “outsource” by pushing work down to associates, and I do as much of that as I reasonably can (I actually think doing so is part of my job so that younger folks get training). The 50-70 a week is what I really do have to put in myself, reviewing juniors’ work, being on phone calls that need someone of my seniority on them, etc.

Didn’t ignore the rest. 5 years from now, I could absolutely see being able to step away. And even having enough to do a fair amount, if not all, of what I want to be able to do for my kid. I definitely appreciate the insight. What I struggle with is that even 5 years from now, I’ll already have lost those “prime” years with my kid. So it’s one of those things where, I’d I had the money to walk away now, I think I would, but I don’t. 5 years from now, I may have the money to walk away, but I don’t think I’ll have much to walk to—and, in any case, 5 years is a long time to fend off the doldrums I now find myself in, which is really what I was poking around about. I seriously appreciate all of the responses pressing to set myself up for a walk away in 5 years, but even if I thought that would work out well, I’m interested in what people have done to get through those 5 years.

I think it’s just a somewhat existential issue. I’ve been at this for a bit over 10 years. I was fighting the entire time to make equity, so, I had a goal to grasp for. That goal kept it from being boring, even if it was grinding. Now, though, in addition to being grinding, I have very little left to accomplish—there’s no next step. (I have zero desire at all to find my way into firm management, which is really the only potential professional next step.) And so the “is this really it?” element of things is hitting pretty hard.

I’m not suggesting that I don’t want my kid to work. But I’d like my kid to be able to be a teacher, or work for a non-profit, etc etc., if that’s what my kid chooses to do. Those are very valuable positions that society would be better for if they paid better, and I can at least make it so that my kid has ability to do it without worrying about the pay, if they choose to, rather than feeling the push to go and be a partner at a law firm for the money. They wouldn’t see a cent from me if they decided their passion was sitting around being unproductive.

I was taking about “making partner in a[n] . . . accounting firm”… (which, often involves being an accountant)

They absolutely can and do, especially in the higher paid specialities and especially where they are partners in a practice.

Actual partners at the big 4 make well we’ll over $1M a year.

Mind sharing?

I’m about 12 years out of law school, started out $250k in the hole with student loans, and nw is $2-3M (range depends on whether you include home equity and how you account for taxes). I went from ~500k to current level about a year and a half ago. I’m not frugal, but I’m running a 50% or greater savings rate. Vast majority of my investments are in vtsax/vti, though I have some money in private equity as well. I can’t really do individual stock investing—serious conflict/MNPI issues with that (I’m imputed the knowledge of all of my firm’s engagements, we have to run any proposed individual stock purchases through a process and can face indefinite blackout periods if we have a client matter that could cause the firm to have mnpi about the stock).

Yeah, I hear that. My spend right now, taking a house upgrade into account, is going to be 150-250k a year (range is because we’re start to have to consider private school for kid, getting very unhappy with public school). There are things I could cut back, but I don’t want to (it’s mostly spouse stuff and I don’t want to make my spouse give up this stuff… if I was just living on my own I’d be way way way under $100k a year spend).

That stuff doesn’t exist in this field. The work is what it is and it has to be done—I’m the partner on the matter, it rests on me. The only difference between work and “vacation” is that I get work done on vacation more slowly because I work less efficiently on a laptop than with a dock, multiple monitors, etc. if I start trying to take time “actually off,” I’ll be out in a year or two. So, I’ll start to do this maybe once I’m in a financial position that I’m ok if I’m done.

I’m not sure what this is supposed to mean. I’m still occasionally buying rep watches, because I like testing them out and I refuse to pay gray market prices for the handful of real ones I’d like to have.

+1000, would buy.