This ship is sinking...

So, yesterday my friend S emailed me a link to a recently published NYT article about law school, debt, and the job market. Here is the link if you are interested: Law School is a rip-off. It is an interesting article for sure. I have to be honest....I get a sinking feeling in my gut whenever I hear someone mention they want to go to law school. I would try to talk anyone out of going, or wish them the very best if they didn't want to listen to reason.  I know it is sort of taboo to talk about money, but anyone who knows me knows that I talk about it all the time. The conversations take this basic format:

Friend : "Hey Ashley, you want to go out to dinner/bar/movie?"
Me: "Eh, I can't do anything until payday"

But really, I can't do anything on payday, or after payday, or anytime in the next 10-25 years. It's sad. Sometimes I get so tired of making excuses why I can't do anything that I just don't return phone calls/texts. I am utterly blown away by most of my coworkers, folks who go out to lunch every single day, who regularly go to happy hour, and don't pay anything towards their loans. I hear them on the phone, telling the loan officers they just don't have anything to give them....

So, am I just a sucker because I make an effort to pay down my loans? Get this: I have a significant amount of both federal and private loans, all of which are in repayment. I have been paying down my private loans at a 30 year rate. That means I will be 60 something years old when I finish paying it off. I just consolidated my Federal loans (except for the Perkins, since as a PD I qualify for loan cancellation on that one, which was 14K to begin with). I have been making monthly payments on my private loans since the Fall of 2007. It is now January 2011, and as of this month's payment, I will have paid down all of the accrued interest and will finally start paying down principal. 3 fucking years. Thousands of dollars down the drain. Interest accruing every second of every day.

tick. tock. cha-ching.

I am not married. I have a mortgage. I pay for my own existence. Alone. With my crappy public defender salary. I hoard whatever money I can. I have a savings account. I have an IRA. I have a state retirement plan. I am trying the best I can. My mom helps me out a lot. She paid for the new battery for my car. She gives me $40 from time to time. Once, she paid off the entirely of one of my loans. But, she doesn't have a job. She is still living off whatever money my dad left her when he died. That money is a finite sum and has to last her the rest of her life. I don't come from a family with money. I come from a single parent without a job. No one is going to bail me out if I can't do this myself.

I guess I should be happy I have a job? Ignore the fact that even though I am making more money than before I went to law school,  I am 100 times worse off financially? I am happy I bought a house 9 years ago, before law school was ever on my radar. I couldn't buy one now. Hell, my mortgage payment is beans next to my student loan payment.

eh. So there is my sob story. My current life revolves around the money I don't have. This job search I am on stems from more than a desire to do something different.

obviously....

This is what people look like while studying for the bar.