5 Secrets You Didn’t Know About Personal Finance
By Joshua Holt • January 09, 2020 •Careers, Law School, Issues, Balancing Private and Professional Life
If you’re like me, you spent the holidays trying to stay warm, avoiding your phone, and curled up under a blanket watching a few lawyer movies, thankful that you’ve somehow avoided getting staffed on one of those must-close-by-December-31st deals. But now it’s the new year and you’re thinking that you need to “control your money, so it doesn’t control you.” You’ve mastered the basic principles of creating a budget, avoiding credit card debt, and keeping a close eye on your decreasing student loan balance. But what else can you do to master your money and build wealth and security? Here…
How to Get A Handle on Student Loans
By Joshua Holt • October 14, 2019 •Careers, Firms and the Private Sector, Nonprofits and the Public Interest, Issues, Balancing Private and Professional Life, Other Issues
It's that time of the year again. Fall is in the air and thousands of newly-minted lawyers across the country are walking into their first jobs after having passed the bar exam (we hope!). While the flush of starting a career is a lot of fun, there's usually a monster hiding in the background that many lawyers would prefer to avoid: staggering student loan debt. Luckily, paying off your student loans is a problem that you're well-equipped to handle, assuming you decide to take a proactive approach rather than burying your head in the sand. Get your arms around your…
10 Habits of Wealthy Lawyers
By Joshua Holt • February 25, 2018 •Careers, Legal Academia, Law School, Pre-Law, Issues, Other Issues, Features, Myths & Truths
Setting yourself up for financial success isn’t about making one good decision. If willpower were all it took to get rich, we’d all have a million dollars by 3 pm and on a flight to a tropical island by 7 pm. Unfortunately (or fortunately really), building wealth is about changing behaviors through developing new habits. And just like any habit you’ve ever changed, it’s not something that happens overnight. You’ll have to build these habits over time. Here are my top 10 habits of financially successful people. Habit 1: Paradigm Shift People that are successful with money believe that money…
Don’t Be An Investing Clown
By Joshua Holt • February 10, 2018 •Careers, Firms and the Private Sector, Issues, Other Issues, Features, Myths & Truths
The stock market just finished a great year. For every dollar invested on January 1, 2017, in an index fund tracking the S&P 500, the market returned a whopping 19.42% in appreciation by the end of the year. That’s not even taking into consideration the dividends paid. If you add in those, the index investor saw a return of 21.83% on each dollar invested (less fees, which of course should be kept to a minimum). Those are exciting numbers. What does a 21.83% return get you? Well, it doubles your money every 3.3 years for a start. You could get…