Accountant by Day

The garden is full of greenery now. Mostly the peas and tomato which are really flourishing. The tomato just started to put out fruits in the last week, so we are looking forward to eating fresh tomatoes soon. Taking photos with the Kindle Fire is a little tricky! Unfortunately, many of our leafy greens have already flowered because of the heat. Or they’ve been nibbled on by insects.

My role at our accounting firm is definitely “generalist.” I have worked on audits, tax returns, helped out on the bookkeeping side, worked with our mergers and acquisitions team, helped lead training sessions, and everything in between. We also have other people at our firm who specialize (mostly on the tax side), and can provide some more robust assistance when new tax topics come up. However, for the most part, our firm really values have staff stay generalists, rather than specializing.

I have super cheap rent. My roommates generally go to bed around the same time I do, get up at the same time I do, so keeping each other awake is usually not an issue. They perform the all-important function of letting my dog out to pee and feeding her when I have to work late. But I keep running into little conflicts with them that leave me feeling like I must move immediately.

During the month of October, I would like to invite you to join in celebrating the 1st anniversary of AccountantByDay.com.

During the month of October, I will be holding a giveaway each week. Every Monday (10th, 17th, 24th and 31st) I will announce the winner from the prior week. As of right now, I will be giving away $150 $200 over the month! This includes a $25 prize sponsored by RetireBy40, $25 sponsored by Write and Get Paid and $25 sponsored by Maximizing Money. So if you want to sponsor a prize, it’s never too late (until the 31st!), just send me an email at admin@accountantbyday.com.

To Enter:

As of February 2013, my student loan is 100% paid off! For the last few months I have been making $1,000 payments towards the loan, so hopefully I will now be able to put this money to good use in other ways. Goals for using extra money freed up from loan payoff: Increase emergency fund/savings to goal amount (10 - 12k. Need to pick a number.) Pay off mortgage at a faster rate, in order to get rid of PMI ASAP.

Happy new year everyone! A bit late, but first I was traveling home from a wedding, and since then I’ve been all over the place counting inventory. Luckily I only had to fly three times this week - one of my colleagues had to fly 6 times! I will be flying out next week for my first audit of the year, and then busy season will officially be in full swing.

In the weeks leading up to election day, we were inundated with mailers about voting early. Also, even more mail about how I should vote to reduce to wage gap between men and women. So, we voted at our early voting station a couple of weekends ago. We spotted for coffee on the way and arrived mid-morning. We were the only ones in the room, where about 5 or 6 voting machines were set up.

I just braved the blizzard in New England last week to count inventory, and now that I’m home in the sunny south it’s all cold and wintery here too! One more week in the office, and then busy season will be in full swing. We have new first years starting with us this week, who I think are great additions to our team. I think that 2014 is going to be an exciting year.

Happy tax day everyone! A time for me to celebrate getting everything done last week, so there were no stressful surprises today! Actually, I filed most of the extensions for my clients back in March, so last week was just a couple clients who wanted a return by 4⁄15. Sad about the bombing of the Boston Marathon today - such a loved tradition, to be marred by this act of terror.

I’m taking on the challenge of trying to help a family member get better at managing their money. I love the money-management part, less so the emotional dramas that can come along with money and family. The Characters in the Money Drama My parents, hosts to family member in need. A short history. My parents were immigrants to the US. At age 45 (my dad) and 35 (my mom), they used what savings they had to move to the US with my siblings and I.