Welcome to Broke Urban Lawyer

There are tons of "how I got out of debt" blogs out there. It's a whole genre. As a result, I can imagine that many of you are wondering what I could possibly say that's new and fresh. To be honest, I'm kind of wondering that, too. But there's a big void in the debt blogging industry that I think needs to be filled with the stories of people like me.

The idea for this blog came from a conversation I was having with friends recently. I was lamenting that all the debt blogs out there didn't seem relevant to me because they came in two types

• the married couple with either two incomes or one income and one person free to devote full-time efforts to raising goats, cooking from scratch, etc., who live somewhere rural and can often live with extended family
• the single person with a lavish spending lifestyle and a high-paying job who got into debt because of poor money management and plans to get out of it by selling lavish purchases and cutting back on luxuries I could never hope to have afforded in the first place

I was expressing my frustration at the second genre to my friends when I said that those blogs read like "I cashed out my 401K, sold my third car, and cut down to only 2 lattes a day and paid off my $10,000 student loan balance in a year, lol!" I have one car that's 15 years old that I bought used, no 401K, and no latte (or similar) habit. And though I'm not sure I'm ready yet to air the dirty details of exactly how much debt I have, it's way more than $10,000. I went to law school.

The first genre isn't all that useful to me, either, because I'm on my own. My family lives 700 miles away in a different state. I have to earn all of my own income and manage all of my domestic tasks. If I don't do it, it doesn't get done. I live in an apartment with no yard or balcony, so I can't grow produce.

I feel like I'm in between the two types. I'm responsible but cash-strapped like type 1, but I'm single and city-based like type 2. I'm a Broke Urban Lawyer. This blog will be my story. I hope to have a happy ending, consisting of throwing off the shackles of my student loans and building a law practice that supports me and brings me joy. But if I don't, I'll write that, too. I'm going to be keeping it real.

The original title I jokingly proposed to my friends was "Tales of a Broke, Single, Apartment-dwelling, Underpaid, Deeply Indebted Urban Lawyer Trying to Eke out an Existence and Maybe Retire Before Age 100", but I decided that was way too long. Given my blogging track record, I'll probably write 3 posts this week, another 3 next month sometime, 3 next year, and then abandon it for 3 years until I repeat the process. Maybe I'll do better this time.

Future planned posts include a summary of how I got here, where I am, and where I'm going. I may end up with some guest posts in the future, but noting concrete is planned  yet.

Happy Reading!