Accountant by Day

Police still haven’t apprehended a suspect related to the bombings (that we know of). I’ve heard several people speculate today that the culprit will turn out to be Islamist extremists, but I could see it just as easily being a homegrown crazy. Apparently the bombs were made out of materials that are very easy to acquire and put together into an explosive device. The fact that there were 4 might mean it’s more likely to be an organized terror group, instead of an individual, but this wasn’t anything high-tech.

I have been using Mint.com to budget with since June. It has made a big difference to me, since it is a really awesome way to easily keep track of spending and my budget. My spending habits have definitely improved since I signed up with the budgeting website, but I still struggle with going over my budget fairly frequently due to unexpected expenses. My car is a good example. I last got it serviced a few months ago - it was a big milestone, and cost me about $500.

My first financial goal that I need to meet in 2011 is to build an emergency fund for myself. My plans to buy a house would completely derail this fund, as I would need to use all of my cash, plus cash in my mutual funds, in order to pay closing costs and buy appliances, etc. I recently read this article, about how only a little over half of Americans have more in their emergency funds than the balance of their credit card debt.

Last weekend we enjoyed some really nice weather, and used our free time to finish building and putting the dirt into our raised bed vegetable gardens. We are trying to follow the gardening advice laid out in “Square Foot Gardening” by Mel Bartholomew. Part of that advice is that it is important to have good soil, and the best soil is made up of 1⁄3 peat moss, 1⁄3 vermiculite, and 1⁄3 compost.

After my last post about my renewed focus on building up a more comfortable emergency fund, life proved just why I need one. My roommate called me at work yesterday and let me know that my dog had cut her foot playing in the yard, and that he’d bandaged it up and would take her to the vet if I needed. Now, my dog is fairly accident prone, and she has cut her foot twice before in the year and a half that I’ve had her.

A conversation with a friend of mine got me thinking about how career paths develop, and how we decide what we want to do. My friend was salutatorian of our high school - the student who excelled academically, excelled at sports, and was everyone’s frind. She went to an Ivy League school and majored in environmental studies. Following graduation, she accepted a job at the Department of Energy - which she quickly figured out was not the ideal place for her.

We are going through some changes in our office at the moment, due to a construction project. This involves moving offices multiple times for some of us, and apparently the scheduling is not good enough to be able to give us more than 12 hours advance notice of the need to pack up and move offices. Of course, no one really likes change, especially not mandated at the last second. In all of this, I’ve noticed that a really easy way to make employees feel a little better about the changes is to give them options.

For anyone who has been reading along the last couple of months, it may come as no surprise that I’ve decided to move out of public accounting and into industry. I have less than a week before my last day in public and my first day at the new place. Unfortunately for the firm, in addition to the two manager-level people who left right before busy season, and the one who left at the end of March, we had yet another announce their departure at the same time as mine.

So, being on a “real” audit is definitely messing with my new years resolutions about blogging. I should be able to find a half hour each day to set something down at least, but I tend to blow my free hour/half hour a day on exercising or ironing (for example.) Our first week up in Boston wasn’t too bad. Then the partner showed up and we started working 12 hour days… Luckily the hotel is right next door, so we don’t have a long commute!

When I switched jobs, I decided it was time to be organized. I didn’t have any more excuses–I don’t have to bill time to clients, so it’s okay to take some time each day to be organized. I’m not so busy I’m at the office until 9pm each night, so I can breathe for a minute and keep my to-do list up to date. I found a to-do list method that works very well for me, called the “Bullet Journal.