How Lawyers Can Be Better With Money

Rho Thomas is an attorney, and a financial coach. She believes that true wealth is having control of your time and boy is she right about that. She helps lawyers master their money to create freedom and choice in their lives. And she hosts the WealthyESQue Podcast where she shares strategies each week for lawyers to improve money mindset, and manage their money to achieve true wealth.

Here are a few questions we asked Rho…

Can you just explain to us a little bit about your journey?

I practiced law for seven years as a trademark lawyer. And my journey to being a financial coach started with my own personal financial journey. So about five years ago, my husband and I realized that we had over $670,000 of debt, that included our mortgage, a car loan, and then the rest was our student loans. It all came up because we had our first child, and the firm that I practiced at offered a reduced hours policy where I could have done a percentage of the billable hours, say 70% of the billable hours requirement for 70% of my salary. And so I was like, oh, maybe I’ll take advantage of this. And then we looked at the finances and saw those numbers. And thought – I won’t be doing that. So we started on this journey to learning more about managing our debt. Because to that point, we had been doing what we thought we were supposed to do… we paid our credit cards in full every month, we were saving a little bit, we were maxing out our retirement accounts, but we had not done anything (as far as the student loans go), we were just paying the minimum that the government tells you to pay.

You talk about being intentional with money. Can you explain a little bit more what that means specifically, and how you do it?

For me it means making decisions about what you’re doing with your money. Making conscious decisions, because everything that we do is a decision. But deciding I want to spend this amount on this type of thing, I want to put this amount toward my savings or this amount toward my debt. What I find often happens with lawyers is we are spending money and we have no idea where it’s going, right? We’re just spending, we’re swiping, we’re doing the DoorDash and Uber Eats, or other takeout and going to restaurants and buying different things. Amazon is a big one. But we are not being intentional or conscious about the decisions that we’re making around how much we’re spending. We are just spending.

Are you seeing a change in spending habits at all with any of your clients since the pandemic hit?

I definitely have seen a change, especially as it relates to things like clothing where people have been, staying home, and doing things more virtually. It’s like, “oh, maybe I didn’t need to refresh my wardrobe as often as I was.” However, we are seeing an uptick in the Amazon purchases and takeout frequency. Because they’re home and it’s like, “oh, let me see what’s going on at Amazon. Oh, this looks really cool. Let me buy it right now. Yeah, because I don’t feel like cooking again.”

What would you say should be the first step that somebody would take to reduce debt?

I think the first step is looking at the numbers because so often, we feel so overwhelmed by the debt, but we don’t know how much it actually is. So look at the numbers and see what you actually owe to home. Maybe make a list and you can then organize them in priority. I like to use the Debt Snowball Method, which is where you pay your debts off from the smallest balance to largest balance,

We also spoke about the need to spend money, and not deprive yourself completely from having fun. We talked about ways to start budgeting, Rho shared her free budget spreadsheet with us here: FREE BUDGETING SPREADSHEET

If you would like to work one-on-one with Rho to begin your journey to better spending with intention and work toward being debt free, you can schedule a consultation at rhothomas.com/call.

You can reach Rho via her website HERE, OR listen to her podcast WealthyESQue, OR through any of her social networks:

Facebook

Instagram

Here are a few other free resources for you to try out…

Replace The Rat Race With A Bold, Thriving Law Business

With 16 years in a solo law practice, Sharon Christie discovered that the secret to thriving instead of merely surviving lies in the ability to land great clients…consistently. Sharon cracked the marketing code — catapulting her law practice clientele from ZERO to HUNDREDS in under 9 months — and now reveals her proven 3 step formula to other female lawyers who are ready to replace the rat race with a bold, thriving law business.

Part of her 3 step formula in action is frequent lecturing to professional and community groups, including NAMI Metropolitan Baltimore, the Brain Injury Association of Maryland, the Lupus Foundation, Let’s Talk Sarcoidosis and the Sinai Return to Work Program, and authoring books for her law practice clients such as the 2 books on Social Security Disability benefits, The Unofficial Guide to Social Security Disability Benefits and Can You Win Your Social Security Disability Case?: The Blueprint You Need to Get Social Security Disability.

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