Lawyer's savings/NW at age 30
legally_challenged 23 Feb 21 11:30
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The discussion on millennials' spending habits (here: https://www.rollonfriday.com/discussion/typical-millennial-27-years-old…) got me thinking.

How much £ had you saved working as a lawyer by the time you hit 30? Did you spunk it all on drugs and shoes, or did you have a nice stash?

Me? I qualified at 24 and I'm now 31. I have saved around 90K. I've spent a fair amount spent on booze, drugs and trainers. Received no money from mummy and daddy.

Who's next?

At 30 I had £10,000 saved and spunked it all on my flat deposit within a month of turning 30.

most of that was saved in the final year as I went from earning £26k to £31k.

What counts as savings?  Pure current account balance only? Or does it extend to things like pensions, housing equity etc. 
 

You could have someone with £100k savings and no property and someone else with £20k savings and property with £80k deposit and their savings are basically the same. 

Not a lawyer, but a doctor mid-30s. I started on £34k I think it was. I bought my first place at 29 with about £40k saved. Since then I have saved about £90k. I've never made megadollah - last year was £85k ish (and that is with a lot of overtime). 

By about 30 i think I was starting to save money. Was paying the bank £300 odd a month for the LPC loan and student loan by that point was a fair whack, take home wasn't great. 

Started saving a lot more when loans were paid off - early 30s - and started getting better paid jobs. But by that point house prices were through the roof and opportunity to have kids was diminishing so life milestones got pushed back and were more expensive so deposit on a house, SDLT, etc. took up most savings. 

I'll never be rich but by the same token I'm lucky to have what I have. 

I’m in similar territory to OP (and Canadian on the other thread), fairly poor into my late 20s when I qualified, then my income increased and now I have a lot of savings. I suspect those of us who qualified slightly later and worked at paralegal / trainee levels for a few years are better savers as we have had to live frugally for a while. When we qualified we just started saving the extra.

OP, are you on the property ladder? I’m guessing not with that level of savings. In similar territory, what I’m finding is that my investments have huge swings. I typically gain or lose about a week’s net salary every day. I’m now in the phase where I’m starting to de-scale on the risk ahead of buying property as the swings are getting scary. So far they’ve been scary in a good way though.

Had saved up about £50k jointly with my fiancé which we put into a house when I was 28.  So didn’t have much in savings by 30 because it was all in the house.  But then mortgage rates crashed and we had a 2 year tracker so saved up quite quickly again.

God that was a boring post.

very cash poor when 30.  200k equity in house, maybe 10k "equity" in the car. Never more than about £5k in cash - terrifies me now that i had virtually no buffer...    Spaffed most of it on ridiculous engagement ring and extravagant wedding

At 30 I was on £20k but got pay rise to £30k shortly after. 30-36 saved about £100k as my earnings went up 6 fold but cashed it all out for a flat deposit. Started saving again from scratch and have £600k in ISAs at 50 and hoping to run that large till retirement.

I don't run more than £5-6k in cash savings though. Never really made much money on property either, I seem to be better at equities and don't mind the volatility.

Similar experience to others. Not a pot to piss in until I qualified at 26, LPC debt, credit cards and overdraft. Rent being half of my net pay.

From 26 things improved quickly. By 31 all debt paid off except mortgage and student loan, decent bit of equity in the house and £20 in cash savings.

I agree with the post about learning to be frugal as a paralegal. My expenses haven't changed and the surplus cash is saved, so I've gone from saving nothing to putting away about 40% net salary each month. 

No idea as it was nearly 15 years ago now.  I had just bought a flat and a couple of years later started earning six figures and the had a standing order to save £1,000 a month plus would sweep whatever was left at the end of the month into my savings.

fvck knows. I qualified in ‘94(?) at 29 and my then wife had qualified the year before in the City but we won’t have saved much. she was an earn it/spend it type of lass.

At 28 I wasn't even a parablozza. i was on the dole having found it too demoralising. Down to my last £50 and then I got a paper humping job at some fund manager for 2 weeks that paid £500 which was like winning the lottery. Got my first shitty job shortly after that but the experience of being poor stayed with me so I have always put money away.

I would say very similar to the OP.  But a lot went on women and booze.  Was skint up to around age 25 but knocked debauchery after raising the bat for century that year.  Have since steadily accumulated

"What counts as savings?  Pure current account balance only? Or does it extend to things like pensions, housing equity etc"

Let's go with total net worth. 
 

Your 20s and 50s are supposed to be the two decades where it's easiest to save money.

At 30 I wasn't yet on the property ladder having spent a significant amount of my 20s swanning around the world but I'd paid off my student loan and would have had enough for a deposit.

Qualified at 25, now 30. Bought a house three years ago, put a load of money in it but now just about breaking even re: value of the house (my half of the house worth probably around £60k more than mortgage). Have another £65k in savings.

Definitely pissed a lot of cash on booze and going out over the years although a bit more balanced more recently; probably could have saved another £50k on top by now.

Gaff equity is a big thing for a lot of older people but not sure that will be such a thing for the current crop of young pups. The other thing is that people forget what they have spent on the house and what it owes them. I'm not sure doing up /extending a house at London r8s complete with posh tax really makes sense.

What is a trust fund? I grew up in a northern city, rubbish school, didn't get anything from my parents except maybe my drive and my frugalness.

Always felt rich when working, always spent like I was poor. It's just my nature I guess. 

I started Articles on £3,500 p/a...surprise

Made nearly as much in mileage expenses driving around the Crown and County Courts of Southern England to sit behind Counsel.

I think the question is who were u doing Ebitda 😂

30 I’d managed to save enough for the deposit / stamp etc for my first flat. My financial future changed forever when I moved from editorial to sales and then again after a massive break up. I paid off the £40k student loan, bought a bike, didn’t go out, was really strict and saved everything to get on the ladder. Had a little help from my dad with the deposit (inheritance early appaz), took out 2 massive credit cards and drew down the balance in cash etc. 

Ebit I was at SJ Berwin leading a team on stuff like buying an office block with ground floor retail and hospitality for over £100m.  Then I realised that the cash didn't make up for never being able to make plans because I worked for a rogerer who would do stuff like announcing that something was urgent at 5.29pm on a Friday and keeping you in the office until 2am.  Especially galling as it was something he'd sat on for several days that I could easily have dealt with during normal working hours.

After first degree and qualifying masters, I started my first “professional” role earning £19,000 (including London weighting) 

 

I was so proud of myself. This was more than the assistant manager at the bookshop I previously worked in was on

So commercial conveyancing sails , earning 100k at 5 years PQE or thereabouts is very, very punchy 15 years ago. Thank god you never worked in IB that shit happens at 8/9 on a Friday 

It's not punchy at all if it was working for who I think it is. Paralegals that worked for him earned £50k+ with overtime and he was infamous with every recruiter in the City. 

I was lucky enough to not have a very small student debt due to a combination of work, parental help and firm sponsorship for the GDL/LPC. I also got a lucky break in being able to live almost rent free at a friend's before I bought my own property. That, combined with living a fairly frugal lifestyle, got me to where I was.

About £180K in equity in my house, £100K  each in the pensions, very little in cash (similar to K4sper, sploshed a fair bit on engagement ring and wedding).

 

 

Had a flat which I owned outright by then, and was on around 32k a year.  But in that same year, my then serious relationship ended and was left with around £12k of debt by my ex, which I then had to pay off, and that took a while. Cnut. 

Nowt really in cash savings to speak of.

Probably £30-35k worth of equity in house. Ironically furnishing a four-bed house with a wife with expensive tastes is more expensive than a deposit with help to buy and lifetime ISA.

Probably just under £15k worth of debt left to pay off. Will be done in next 2 years. Did the wedding and expensive honeymoon etc pre-Covid, got the garden done.

Putting aside ROF where people are apparently millionaires by 30, I’m happy with that. We both earned fook all until 24. next to peanuts for the next 2 years and then started earning decent money for last few years whilst doing house, wedding etc.  

Ebit it was ten years ago rather than fifteen but I got a £20k pay rise to take the job because of the reputation of the man I was going to work for and he was such a tool I quit before the end of my probation period.

Have a few friends who are bankers and the money they earn in my opinion is not enough to make up for the needless sacrifices they’ve made over the years.  I admire their ability to keep doing a job they genuinely detest in the hope of being able to retire reasonably early. 

At 30 I was alright but didn't have much savings. I'd qualified at 28 so wasn't rolling in cash and was living in an expensive area. Most of my savings came from my 30s onwards where I had better financial control, eventually better earnings and lower expenses. This also coincided with a lot of living overseas with extra allowances.

those IB stories remind me of the IB gimp on deal I worked on once - possibly with Rothschilds - who booked a half day holiday to be sure he would be able to watch the CL final with his m8s and still only got away in time to see the second half in the pub opposite the office

I know it’s a boatload of cash but srsly ...

I had quite a lot of cash by the time I was 30 but not much was savings. I was on my third property and probably had built up about 50k in cash having sold it. That's not really saving. It was between 30 and 35 that things got moving for me - renting and earning tax free cash and making a couple of risky investments that paid off. Could have easily gone very badly wrong as it did for friends / people i know. 

investing in dubai property was self leveraged because you got the interest in the asset having only to pay 5% or 10% down - so if the value went up by 10% you would double your money. Off plan property was more valuable than finished property because of the market in speculation. 

 

I qualified at 30 and had had some semi-decent jobs before my TC, although I made more during my TC than I had at any point before. At qualification, had about £60k in cash and liquid securities, another £10k or so in pensions, no property, and £13k in student loans left.

Lived pretty much like a student until I was 29 to get there, though - made some very dodgy rental choices.

Zero savings at 30. Literally none. I've almost always blown through all my cash. It's only this pandemic that has forced me to save any money as I've not been able to blow on gak, hookers and booze.

I think at 30 I had just gotten rid of my student loan/car debt, if I had positive net worth it was very low and just what was in my pension scheme and savings account (no house or investment assets).

Probably less than £20k total net worth including pension.