Tell me about your Chirstmas Bonus
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}
Anonymous
I'd be mad too! On the positive side, you have a good base salary! |
Anonymous
I'm sorry, PP. I wish you well. |
Anonymous
To the lawyers on here - save save save that bonus. I made it 9 years and just found out that I won't make partner. I've lived like a monk and own a townhouse free and clear and paid off my loans. I'm actually looking forward to what comes next in my life. |
Anonymous
Saving it is impossible for all the lawyers who have high student loans. I hear so many people balk at the high salaries that biglaw attorneys are paid, but when you come out of law with $200,000 in debt, that money goes fast and the bonuses only make a small dent. |
Anonymous
|
PP here with the "small" bonus in biglaw. DW and I save around 90k per year (have a kid in daycare, which is like a second mortgage). We are late 30s and are closing in on 600k NW. God willing, we will be at or just over a million in our early 40s. Bought a house that wasn't cheap by any means - in Silver Spring, although we could have afforded Bethesda.
I always figure I could get canned at any moment and try to plan accordingly. When we hit 1.5 million, I honestly may drop this law stuff and go do something fairly low-stress. Something that allows me to pay the bills and continue to put at least a little bit away for retirement and kid's (or kids') college. |
Anonymous
| $600 fed bonus. I will try not to spend it all in one place, but it is better than nothing. DH is still waiting on his Biglaw bonus and he should come $100k+. |
Anonymous
This makes no sense. Live like you make $60k, put the rest on the loans, and the loans are paid off in 5 years. Then the next five years do the same on the mortgage. |
Anonymous
| Sometimes we get a $10-25 Giant gift card, not always. Holiday party is typically potluck, though to be honest I love potlucks. There are several different nationalities represented in our department so that means I get to have Jamaican, Ethiopian, Thai, soul food, etc. |
Anonymous
| My target for annual bonus is 15%, which would be around $20k. Not sure where it'll land this year. I'm probably quitting in January so trying to determine whether I'll still be eliglble for the bonus (it's not paid out until March). Early signs say yes but I am trying to do some due diligence. |
Anonymous
this may or may not be good advice, depending on the interest rate on the debt. I have 55k in law school loans left at 3.5% and owe ~400k on my house at 4%. I invest all extra money in index funds, as I think I will end up having returns greater than 4%. (having said that, if the student loan debt is in the six figures, I could see just wanting to get it paid off regardless of interest rate) |
Anonymous
So the rest of us schlocks are not blessed. Sucks to be us. |
Anonymous
Plus a million. I hate people talking about being blessed with wealth. |
Anonymous
|
My husband's bonus (not holiday - part of his compensation) was less than 1/4 of its usual amount this year. Sigh. We use that bonus to help pay for college tuition for our daughter, but we will still be able to make it work. My husband's company had a so-so year; there are employees in some offices who didn't get any bonus at all, so we can't complain too much. We also received $20 towards our Thanksgiving turkey.
Other cost-cutting measures for his company: The holiday party is scaled back and is just for employees - no spouse or SO this year. At my company, holiday events in the Operating Units are not going to be reimbursed this year (many memos to that effect), so everything is going to be very low-key. I expect our bonuses (paid in March) to be cut way back and annual raises to be very minimal, if anything. Senior executives at our "not-for-profit" will still make their millions, of course. |
Anonymous
The point was that the salary and the bonuses for people in biglaw with large loans is not saved. It's put towards the loans. You leave after five years with nothing but the loans paid off. Very few people work in biglaw for 10 years, which is what your scenario above assumes. |
Anonymous
Thanks. Fortunately, we are much better off than many, so we are going to be okay. My wife makes about 5% less than I do, so we can cover the mortgage and the basic expenses. We have 6 months of full expenses in liquid savings, and from a previous time like this, when I was out of work for 6 months, I was able to shop more intelligently and did all the cooking and it only cost about 1/4 of our emergency savings for that six months. I'll go back into house-husband mode if I don't find a job within the next 6 weeks. Fortunately, I've been a contractor at my agency for over 24 years and have a lot of skills that are important for the agency. I have had one interview and have another tomorrow from internal leads and I doubt I'll be unemployed for more than about 6-8 weeks at the longest. We can handle that pretty easily. I only shared this to help those who are complaining about small bonuses put their situations into perspective, but there are probably many who will never grok that. Happy holidays to all. |