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How smart money management can reduce law students’ stress
Learning to manage your money whilst in law school can decrease the number of stressors later on in your legal career, according to this legal grad.
Lauren Croft
Paridhi Jain is a legal graduate turned financial educator and the founder of SkilledSmart, a money education company. Speaking recently on the Protégé Podcast, she revealed how law students could better manage their finances — and the benefits of doing so.
Whilst budgeting is important for young professionals to be able to master, Ms Jain said she started teaching other ways to manage money first.
“We don’t teach budgeting straight up to our students. We teach them how to create an automated cash flow system. And that’s what I see working for the vast majority of people. Because it takes the pressure off the laborious spreadsheet exercise, because the truth is some people, a very small percentage of people, will have enough interest and discipline to be able to do the manual budgeting on a very, very regular basis,” she said.
“But for the vast majority of us, the truth is that that may not be the most sustainable way to actually manage our finances and keep on top of it. And so, it’s about not forcing yourself to do something that isn’t sustainable and trying to find systems that are actually supportive for the life that you want to live. So, if you don’t want to be checking and updating a spreadsheet every single week, there are ways to manage your money that are far simpler, far easier and that don’t require you to do that.”
And whilst it may sound like a daunting task for law students with big workloads, Ms Jain maintained that even a little bit of time per week allocated to money management could make a world of difference.
“Our students see a lot of success even just with one hour a week. And that’s what I suggest as a starting point, is if you can even just carve out half an hour to an hour a week in a couple of months, you’re going to see massive amounts of momentum. And that said, one thing to keep in mind is the time investment is greater upfront. So, with money, once you learn the basic skills and you’ve got the system set up, your time investment can reduce over time. It doesn’t need to be something that’s hugely laborious forever,” she explained.
“The other thing, a bit of a mindset shift, that I try to encourage people to think about is you’re spending time on your finances, whether or not you think you are. If you’re not actively carving out the time to manage your money, you are still worrying about money or stressing about money. Whether or not we’re consciously making that intentional decision to take out half an hour to an hour a week to look at our money, chances are you are worrying about it anyway. And if you can do the hard task of making that intentional, then in the long term, you’ll find that the stress and the anxiety that you don’t have to pay that price, will actually be a massive time saver as well.”
Without money concerns, law grads are more likely to take jobs they are passionate about and will enjoy, without worrying about what kind of paycheck is attached to a role.
“I worked in corporate for a little while. And it’s really, really hard to walk away from the paycheck. And I think the more that you can start to build up your asset base through investing, the more you’re just giving yourself freedom of options, because then you’re not so wedded to that paycheck. And you’re like, ‘Hey, I’ve built the financial security to give myself permission to work part-time.’ Or, ‘Take a role that is less stressful, but also pays less.’
“So, it just gives you more flexibility. And I think the one thing, looking back, that I never really fully grasped because I was too young to perhaps at the time, is that you have so much energy when you are in law school and [you’re] younger, and you just assume that that energy was going to last forever and you don’t think it’s ever going to change,” Ms Jain added.
“[But] you want to start thinking about what are the skill sets for my life? Not just law school and law — [things] that are going to set me up really well in the next 10 years. And I think money is one of those things that if you can get your head around it and just have some really core skills, in 10 years when you’re in the middle of your career, and you’ve got so many things coming your way, whether it’s on a family front, or a career front, or a health front, at least that’s something that’s not going to be an added stress for you.”
The transcript of this podcast episode was slightly edited for publishing purposes. To listen to the full conversation with Paridhi Jain, click below:
Lauren Croft
Lauren is a journalist at Lawyers Weekly and graduated with a Bachelor of Journalism from Macleay College. Prior to joining Lawyers Weekly, she worked as a trade journalist for media and travel industry publications and Travel Weekly. Originally born in England, Lauren enjoys trying new bars and restaurants, attending music festivals and travelling. She is also a keen snowboarder and pre-pandemic, spent a season living in a French ski resort.
