The Law Student's Simple Guide to Financial Freedom 2.0

By Abundant Advocate

A guide to help law students and attorneys find financial stability so they can slay professional burnout and create meaningful practices.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Alison Kinnear
• Release date: Jan 15, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224052721

Book preview

CHAPTER I

Financial Fakery and You

Get off the treadmill of consumption, replication, and mediocrity.  Begin lifting the weights of creativity, originality, and success. – Ryan Lilly

I get it.  I really do.  There is an endless 24/7 loop of glamour, glitter and coolness enveloping our every interaction with print media, on-line media and various, ever-evolving social media platforms.  While much of the content in the public arena is celebrity-focused (who wore what, who drove what, who ate where, etc.), the content on social media is more narrowly focused on those we have friended or followed.  In other words, the public face is the Kardashian or British royal family, and the private face is the Smiths.  So, absent some serious willpower to disengage from these varied and incessant sources of financial fakery, we must find a way to ignore, or at least, mentally imbue these not-so-subtle messages with a needed dose of reality.  This is the first step to combat the financial plague.

Let’s talk first about the public or celebrity lifestyles peddled to us in shameless fashion. and reported on as news.  Back in the 1980’s, there was a show Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, hosted by Robin Leach.  The show was pure entertainment, highlighting some of the most outlandish purchases made and lifestyles adopted by celebrities and other high-earning individuals like professional sports stars.  What I thought was most entertaining about the show was the pure fantasy of it.  None of the lifestyle badges, fancy cars, vacations or homes, seemed remotely accessible or available to the average person.  And the show did not suggest or otherwise imply that anyone but a celebrity or pro athlete should live that way.  It was merely a window into some other universe.

Contrast that innocent, voyeuristic half-hour show with the omnipresent messaging of today through TV, including news outlets, our phones, social media platforms and so on.  Today, celebrity lifestyles are portrayed as desirable and über accessible to you and me.  It is this element of easy accessibility that distinguishes earlier portrayals of conspicuous consumption as limited to a narrow and very specific segment of income earners, unattainable by the masses. If aired today, Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, would simply be titled Lifestyles.

Chances are, you are not in the same income or socio-economic bracket as the average celebrity, sports figure or royalty.  That means, in a nutshell, you cannot live, i.e., consume in the same manner or at the same rate as these fine folks.  This is not an indictment against you.  It is a fact.  And that is okay.  Once you have acknowledged this reality and accepted this undisputable fact, the rest is easy.  The lifestyles of these societal icons, in fact, are simply unattainable for average Joes, like you and me, contrary to the barrage of messages in media and society telling us otherwise. My current budget does not have room for a $17,000 purse.  Period.  I’m not less successful or worthy because of this.  It’s just a fact.  So, regardless of the magazine spreads and red-carpet excerpts paraded in front of me, I am not in that world, and I can’t begin to emulate the spending habits of this narrow echelon of high earners or financial peril is soon to follow. 

Now, here is an important and often overlooked aspect of consumerism and financial well-being.  Even though I can’t presently spend dollar for dollar like a celebrity, I am secure in knowing that someday I will be able to buy more than one $17,000 purse quite effortlessly, if I wish.  As an attorney, and a member of a dual-income household, my financial strategy can absolutely accommodate such a purchase - SOMEDAY.  The trick is to address the needs in life, notably housing, retirement savings and kids’ education, FIRST.  It requires discipline, focus and planning, which admittedly is more challenging and time-consuming (and frankly, boring) than swiping a credit card.  It helps to approach your financial health in the same way you approach your physical health.  Just as you do not reap the benefits of a solid workout and nutrition plan on day one, it takes time and consistent application of your financial strategy to stay fiscally fit and healthy long-term. 

The private displays of success and grandeur each of us is exposed to on social media, for me, are the harder ones to square.  The constant barrage of new cars and fancy vacations is exhausting.  You never see the downside.  You never see the urgent stuffing of fresh purchases under beds, the hiding of bills or the financial infidelity going on in those homes.  All you see are the highlights, the carefully curated images that the person chooses to post.  Of course, their lives appear picture perfect.  But appearances and reality are not synonymous.  You can crop, edit, airbrush and superimpose a picture to provide the desired image.  So, too, social media allows one to crop, edit, airbrush and superimpose an entire lifestyle for the world.  Nothing says, I’ve made it.  I’m better off than you are! than a picture of a right-hand ring or a beach resort portrait or a luxury car with a big bow on top in the driveway! 

For me, I have two major gripes with the financial fakery being displayed with such frequency and intensity on social media.  First, it is fake!  These images are not telling the truth about the poster’s real-life financial situation and outlook.  I realize some individuals can afford occasional splurges and that is great.  But most of them can’t.  I have personally witnessed enough financial ruin to know this to be true. 

Second, it has no end.  The only way to successfully combat these images is by posting bigger, more potent examples.  The cycle of constant one-upping is never ending and, in the long term, is financially devastating