Living frugally as a student - question for the MT folks

Its all relative, how much nice of a place does 100 get you? You are talking on the scale of an extra 1k for the rest of your school. Thats not much. If its a substantial upgrade go for it.

Way hotter women, nicer apartment, etc. I think it's worth it. I've been freaking out about money lately, so I wanted to see if I'm being unreasonable

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Please, do not take out a bar study loan.

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I did that. But I also came out in 2011 and it took me 6 months to find a job.

That was the easy loan to pay off

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My bar study was $12k @ 13.25%

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shite is criminal. I get stressed out even thinking about it

The goal is to live on $2k/month post grad and pay off the loans as quickly as possible.

$100/mo seems paltry, but what if you were saving it rather than spending it, or didn't have to borrow the extra $1K? Whazzup w/bar study loans? If you sit for the summer exam in July, you've got maybe two months of expenses to cover between graduation & the exam. And if results are back in October, you can work while waiting to find out if you pass.

Three months of work (at anything) is a better life experience and financial choice than borrowing $$ and doing little/nothing. My better half shuffled commercial paper (glorified clerk) at the Whitney bank between graduation & passing the bar (part time during bar review & studying, FT after exam while waiting for results)...why would you not start working as a temp paralegal or similar paraprofessional for the interim?

+1 for military loan repayment. great program.

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My bar study was $12k @ 13.25%

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Good god. I think I took out 7.5k but the rate was almost half that.

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I also came out in 2011. Signed a year lease on a great penthouse apartment in the Lower Garden District and promptly found a job... in Shreveport. It was pretty baller to have a weekend place in NOLA but I'm not quite sure it was worth it.

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Whoops!

I had just started dating a girl and shacked up in her bed room for most of that period. Spent some time at my Dad's in Mississippi. I paid her back this past March when I married her.

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Three months of work (at anything) is a better life experience and financial choice than borrowing $$ and doing little/nothing. My better half shuffled commercial paper (glorified clerk) at the Whitney bank between graduation & passing the bar (part time during bar review & studying, FT after exam while waiting for results)...why would you not start working as a temp paralegal or similar paraprofessional for the interim?

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Didn't have the option of working. LLM program starts soon. Otherwise I definitely would have. Hopefully your wife is bringing in the big bucks now

More power to you. I don't have time to use my nice shite, but by God I want nice shite

I can't really answer your original quesiton, but

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monthly total expenses (including this place will be around $1100-$1200). That includes everything. Car note, utilities, apartment, food, and some spending money.

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I'd say that's incredibly good. A nice place to live, plus all that other stuff and you're still around 1200...man. That's actually really impressive. You must eat dirt cheap.

Buy in bulk from sams club: fruits, veggies, and meats. Comes out to like $200/month in food and extremely healthy. I also eat the same thing daily; I realize a lot of people can't do that

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yes I would be too if I was 100k in debt

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It's all relative. $100k for a BA/JD/LLM really isn't that bad. Not ideal for sure. Even if I come out making $60k (low end), I'll like be working in a state with no income tax and a very lost COL. If the military doesn't pan out, I could easily kill $100k in loans within 5 years.