Accountant by Day

I met my congressman yesterday, thanks to a friend who excitedly dragged me along to meet him. I’m glad that she did. This August 28th marked the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech. Congressman John Lewis was the youngest speaker that day, and the only one of those speakers still alive today. I’ve learned most of that from the congressman’s new graphic novel “March” which tells the story of how he went from being the son of a farmer to being involved in a world-changing political movement.

Seven months of mortgage payments down, 353 to go! Well, hopefully not so many payments as all that! But still, a long ways to go: Outstanding principal balance = $131,960.78 September Payment: $1,000.00 Principal: 216.99 Interest: 413.06 Escrow: 369.95 August Payment: $1,000.00 Principal: 216.32 Interest: 413.73 Escrow: 369.95 July Payment: $1,000.00 Principal: 215.64 Interest: 414.41 Escrow: 369.95 The principal portion creeps up by a few cents each month. Once my student loan is paid off (balance is at $5,515 today), I will start paying an additional lump to the principal balance on the mortgage each month.

Well I had a couple of goals for August: Hit 160 billable hours at work Get grocery spending to $200 or below Save some cash towards a down payment on a house How did it go? Billable Hours Well it was looking like I wasn’t going to hit the billable hours target, but then the last two days I worked til past 8pm, and just barely hit 160. I am ready for a vacation!

I forgot how stressful auditing can be for me. There is so much that I don’t know about, and so much that I can do wrong. The key, I think, is to ask questions. The issue for me is that I get the impression that my manager/senior doesn’t expect me to have questions on something, so I think I can figure it out myself. I realized over the last two weeks, that the reasons audits are so much more stressful for me than tax returns are because there is much less of a filter between myself and the client.

Dear Readers, Can anybody answer a very pressing environmental question for me? We buy lovely, delicious grind-your-own peanut butter from Whole Foods. Whole Foods provides little plastic containers for said, delicious peanut butter. Recyclable containers. And, the city of Atlanta thoughtfully dropped off brand-new recycling bins on our street last week. However, I know that while the container is recyclable, it is not acceptable to recycle things covered in the last remnants of peanut butter.

Earlier this month I wrote a post about some basic differences between working for a regional accounting firm and a Big 4 accounting firm (Deloitte, KPMG, PWC or Ernst & Young). I discussed the differences in sizes, clients, and length of engagement. This is part two in a series to help future CPAs get an idea of some differences between the two types of firms, and hopefully help you decide where to direct your efforts during the accounting recruiting season.

I have written about the topic of Big 4 accounting firms vs smaller, regional accounting firms before. However, now that I have a little more work experience, I thought I’d post an updated discussion on my thoughts. This post is part 1 in a series of posts regarding the differences between working for a Big 4 firm and a regional firm. The big question for most accounting students when applying for jobs in public accounting is whether they should go to a Big 4 firm (Deloitte, KPMG, PWC, and Ernst & Young) or if they should take a job with a smaller, local firm.

This week was “Bike to Work Week” in Atlanta, and today was specifically “Bike to Work Day.” So I made the first leg of my first commute to work on my bike! It’s a pretty good way to start off the morning, and it’s nice getting in early. The first leg of my journey is about one mile of uphill, so I was pretty out of breath as I was nearing the end of this stretch.

I’m hoping that this time next year, I can look back on a story similar to Bucksome Boomer’s with my subscribers jumping to over 300 from something… far less than that! What I can celebrate now is that my Alexa ranking dropped below 1,000,000 in the last couple of weeks (right now, it’s just under 700,000!). Also, my net worth is finally positive! I will still have the student loans at the end of next year, and maybe the year after, but they will be gone soon after that!

I am been very quiet on the blog over the past few months - a lot of that is due to business, but most of it is because everytime I want to share things about my life - getting a new dog, talking about where I went on vacation, I get worried that somehow, someone from work will stumble across it, and it will be such a unique piece of information (combined with that fact that I’m clearly an accountant) that they’ll immediately think “Wait I have a co-worker who just spent two weeks in Spain!