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[quote=Anonymous]We've been in this boat for about a decade or so now -- I'll tell you what we do.  I don't try to keep track of his income or a budget.  We spend basically like we would if we were on a dual fed income or a little better, with a few major, life-changing exceptions:

1) we don't worry about the timing of things, or worry about the margins.  (Like -- can we afford to get the car fixed this month, or do we need to hold it until next month?  We just get it fixed).  We're not worrying about things like -- can both kids do soccer and baseball, or do we need to make them pick one.  I'm not couponing.

2) if there's something we really, really want to do, we just are going to do it.  Not like fly around the world -- but if we want to stay at a marriot over thanksgiving, we'll do that.

But in general, we don't live like rich people, and so the money is more than enough to cover both (1) and (2), allow us to save lots, and allow us to max out our 401ks and 529s.

I don't think that law firm life is like it used to be -- partners burn out or get cut.  Don't plan on the money being an endless spigot.  If it gets turned off, you probably won't regret letting your kids play soccer or taking decent vacations, but you might regret spending $5K on a purse, or $100K on a car.  That's the metric we use.

Also, the first year is really rough, depending on how the firm does it.  If you need a buy-in, that makes it worse.  You are paying significant taxes on money that you haven't seen yet -- so if you can avoid major expenses the first year, avoid those expenses.  By next spring, your liquidity will be significantly improved.  But how bad that first year is depends significantly on how your particular firm does it -- they are all different.
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