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– For everyone worried about looking like a nerd in a suit, here's a picture of my friend Kristin from Fashion Style Beauty looking nothing but h-o-t in an H&M suit (worn verrrrry casually, obviously).
– Above the Law reports on a judge who reprimands women for showing elbows. (So I guess short-sleeved suits are out?)
– SheFinds tells us we've been wearing bobby pins the wrong way (guilty as charged!).
– Ask a Manager ponders how to stop a coworker from chatting when you're busy (here's the Corporette discussion on the chatty coworker dilemma).
– The Daily Muse tells you how to score a perfect mentor.
– POPSUGAR Smart Living talks to some stay-at-home dads about their breadwinner wives to see how they really feel; meanwhile The Little Pink Book looks at some very successful women who had kids before careers. And if you haven't seen it: HuffPost reprints a 1962 letter from a professor to a grad school applicant, wondering why a married woman would possibly want a grad school degree.
– Lifehacker profiles three people with a plan to pay off six figures of debt.
– Inc. rounds up eight ways to be smarter.
Did we miss anything? Add 'em here, or send them to news@corporette.com. Thank you!
Hollis
Question for the hive – is a cowl neck sweater flattering on every body type, or is it meant for a certain type of body? I am pear-shaped with a small bust, and just figuring out what looks right for me. Thanks.
Lyssa
I don’t know that it’s flattering on every body type (I think that large busted women probably have trouble with some styles), but, as someone with your body type, I think that they are generally very flattering on me – really helps to balance out the disparity between my top and bottom.
Jennifer
I suck at fashion, so take my advice with a grain of salt, especially if everyone else disagrees, but it seems like a cowl neck would balance your proportions nicely and give you more of an hourglass look. I’m the opposite (lumpy apple shape) and have found that the one cowl neck sweater I have works okay only because it’s long and very heavy yarn, so it makes me look a bit straighter and minimizes the lumps. Otherwise it would just make me look awkwardly top-heavy.
Lawl
I read the Lifehacker article hoping to get some ideas on paying down my own six figure debt (2011 grad). What a worthless article (also depressing). Basically all of these people are content with taking 30 years to pay their debt off, and are going to rely on “coming into money” or “business taking off.” Good luck with that. Anyone here with that kind of debt who is successfully paying it down/has paid it down (before you were 100??) I have a job currently but only making $55k/year (in an area with very low cost of living). Paying about $1500/month towards loans currently.
Anonymous
My sister and BIL did it. But she joined the military (as an officer) to offset the cost of their loans. They never bought a new car until recently (6 yrs after law school), they waited to have children until their loans were paid off, and they didn’t buy a house (they rent and she gets BAH from the military). They had almost 200K in debt and now they are debt-free. But check out No More Harvard Debt. The guy got out of 90K of debt in one year. Obviously he had a higher salary, but he lived very frugally. Personally I’m in 85K of student loan debt and I just pay what I have to right now, and I’ll pay more as I’m older. Getting married and having a dual income will help eventually (obviously not my main motivation for marriage). I live frugally, don’t have a gym membership or any extras, etc…
Merabella
I don’t have near as much debt as all that, but my debt to income ratio was pretty high. What I did was basically implement Dave Ramsey’s debt snowball idea. I started out with the debt that carried the lowest amount – and pushed to pay that off, then I took what I was spending monthly on that debt and put it towards the next highest debt – all the while paying the minimums. If I got extra money – bonuses, birthday money, 2nd job paycheck, whatever, I put it towards that lower loan first to get me closer to paying it off completely.
I should be finished with all my debt (car, credit cards, student loans, etc) by the middle of next year. It isn’t fun, and I’ve been living frugally, but knowing that I don’t carry that debt anymore has been kind of thrilling in a nerdy way – when I see that number getting lower it takes a lot of the pressure off.
Merabella
Also, something that I saw here, and I have been implementing for myself as well:
When your minimum payment for something is say $170, trying to pay $200/month instead really chips away at that debt. Any little bit counts.
Cornellian
I always add 10% to the minimums, too!
I also am a big nerd about running numbers on debt and compound interest and how I’m doing. It makes me twitchy about the stock market and riskier investments, though, even though I’m 26 and should have a healthy risk appetite.
Lol
I was lucky to score a midlaw job but with NYC rent and a $3k/month loan payment that articles has me laughing and crying. Retirement, what’s retirement?
A
Agreed on the article being useless, but it did get me thinking about how much I pay towards my loans… at just under $1500/month… I really can afford to throw more cash at it, but am prioritizing emergency funds still (for now) but really would like to balance paying down debt/having cash on hand in case of emergency.
Cornellian
Also, what is that woman talking about? How is paying $300 a month on a 55K salary in a low cost of living area onerous?!
Lawl
Also, what is that woman talking about? How is paying $300 a month on a 55K salary in a low cost of living area onerous?!
Jenna Rink
Seriously. The idea of paying 6% of my salary towards student loans sounds like heaven!
Anonymous
I paid off $160k of law school debt in a little over 2 years, through a combination of big law salary and being seriously frugal (no cable, no heat, no shopping, no eating out, etc.). I paid $5k per month on my student loans and also made additional lump sum payments whenever I got a bonus, tax refund or other unexpected cash inflow.
Cornellian
Do you, by chance, live in Houston?
Anonymous
I was also disappointed by the LifeHacker article. What’s with the dentist only putting 10% of her salary towards loans for the first few years? She should’ve been putting more than that with the salary she was making, even in a HCOL area.
Lyssa
Hey Kat, I think that the idea behind the plans to pay off debt would make an excellent jumping off point for a “tales from the wallet” post. I’d love to hear 1) what people’s plans are, and (more importantly) 2) how those plans played out from people who have paid off their loans.
Right now, we’re just paying what we can and planning to put bonuses towards knocking out big chunks. I wish that we were more intentional about it, though. My husband would really like to keep more in savings than raiding our savings to pay loans, and I’m kind of the opposite.
Kat G
agreed – I’ll try to schedule it soon. Good discussion.
Lyssa
Awesome!
@Cornellian below – I’ll share my “what hasn’t worked” story. I figured that I would get a big law job right out of law school, live the same frugal way that we had been living and put everything on the loans, and have them paid off in a year. (I also anticipated about $50K in debt, but it wound up being more like $70.) This seemed reasonable at the time (excellent grades), but then the crash happened. I wound up with a clerkship, which was great in a lot of ways, but not so much financially, then I’ve sort of jumped around at sporadic-earnings jobs. I’ve only just now (4 years out) landed a job with a decent, steady salary.
I had also planned to put off having kids until the loans were paid off, but after a while, just couldn’t wait any longer. So, now, I’m earning decent money, my husband’s home with the baby, and we are doing what we can, but I really don’t want to worry about them anymore and sort of find myself just accepting them.
Cornellian
Maybe people can respond here.
1. My plan in college was to only go to a grad school that I could afford on the average salary coming out (not the rare 160K BigLaw job). So I ignored admissions schools ranked 5-14 and went to UT Austin (#16??) for about 35% the cost total each year. That was definitely a key part of my plan.
My plan now is to knock out my grad loans, which are a bit higher than undergrad, but at a much higher rate (undergrad class of 2005-9 got screwed on interest rates, hard, but even more so at the graduate level). Then I want to build a 6-month slush fund in low-ish risk investments. Simultaneously, I’m maxing 401K (no matching) and Roth IRA (22K/year), or trying to. If the market peaks (i’m bullish about it right now, but less certain than I was a month ago), I might invest more in paying down my low-interest loans instead of investing.
2. I’ve paid off a whole bunch, so I’m going to answer this one even though I’m not debt-free. I know it’s late for a lot of people on this blog, but I think the things that made my plan work were: critically thinking about my salary and earnings potential BEFORE I took on a bunch of debt, and living super frugally. I’d like to spend some more money on personal upkeep, but it seems like smart professional women burn a LOT of money on manicures, pedicures, massages, highlights, haircuts every 8 weeks, waxing, etc. I try to think about what I really think is fair to demand of a professional, appearance-wise (neatness, modesty, well-fitting clothing, groomed) and not do more than that if I don’t want to/don’t have the money to. Once I feel a bit more financially stable, though, I think I’d like to go on a ~2K shopping trip and keep up a more flattering haircut.
JBB
Did anyone read that Popsugar article about stay-at-home dads? I really respect their decisions to be at home parents, but the second guy kind of came off like kids who go to daycare / nanny are not going to turn out as good as kids with an at-home parent. I prefer thinking that my working husband and my working self are not ruining our kiddo. All I need is more working mom guilt – thanks Popsugar article second guy.
V
Maybe think of it as a calculus of:
right for his child
right for him (maybe someone else would have not had the issues he mentioned)
right for spouse
right for them as a couple
actually do-able (NC not NYC)
Different inputs; different answers.
anne-on
I totally read that as ‘oh great, now men are joining in the mommy wars’. Sorry SAHD, my kid in day care is doing awesome. Plus, at day care he gets to do all the enriching stuff I wouldn’t be able to if I was home with him due to having to cook meals/clean/run errands/take care of the house. Heck, I want to go to day care and get to color/play/nap/cook/make music all day during some of my work weeks.
anon
A blogger whose writing I enjoy (peonies and polaroids) recently wrote this, which both resonated and had me giggling –
” hope I don’t need to say this, but the internet is stupid so I’m going to say it anyway; I loved my babies and I loved being a mother but I also loved working and I couldn’t and can’t see a single reason to feel guilty about that. Maybe if I was leaving my kids alone with a couple of milk bottles tied upside down to the bars of their cot, like hamster water bottles, I’d have felt guilty. “
Anonymous
Yes, and I had the same reaction (I actually stopped reading the rest of his story). I just wish everyone would stop thinking that what is right for them and their family is the choice everyone should be making and passing judgment on those who can’t/don’t make the same choice.
Now, for those who need a laugh at someone else’s expense…I’m sitting here with wet pants because I forgot to attach the bottle to my pump before I turned it on. Clearly multitasking is not working for me today and I should go home early. #workingmomfail
ABC
Hahahhahahahaha, that did make me laugh. I can only imagine your horror. Crazy things happen to all of us, today was your day. I hope you did take the opportunity to go home early!