Just a 46-year-old mom of 2 in Northern California. My kids are Monkey Monkey(MM) and Drama Llama (DL). I am married to Monkey Hubby (MH). I have a few random thing to blab about today. First I looked at the budget for october and we were pretty square on. I was a tiny bit over in a few areas, but just a few dollars here and there mostly. Groceries we were over by $60. We still have issues in that area. $560 for groceries when $500 is our average. I am not sure why all this trying to save on groceries has pushed our bill higher except we tend to stock up a lot more on stuff on sale. Hopefully we will see the resulting decline in purchases in future months. I know we spent about $30 to host a get-together in our home AND that I had wanted to make eyeball cookies and try a new granola recipe and dh came home grumbling how I blew the budget out of the water. All he had to do was call me at work and say "this is too expensive." I would have figured something else out. Oh well - now he knows. Oh but we were under budget for gas by $60 so all is well. Even out!
I also saw an interesting - good and frankly scary - that 75% of the nation's CPAs were due to retire in the next 10 years. OMG!!!!! I work in a CPA firm, and I know everyone assumes I am pretty rich as a result, but frankly CPA firms are the bottom of the barrel. They used to get you because you had to work for a CPA firm for 2 years to get your license. The work is great, very interesting, you learn A LOT, BUT overall when I graduated you were expected to work 80-hour weeks for about $30k. When you could go get a $60k job easy out of school. So I did it just for the CPA designation. But shortly thereafter that law was changed, no longer needed, and as a result starting pay has about doubled the last few years. They just can not recruit people to save their soul. & the whole getting a CPA thing is now 10 times easier as well, but still we are not recruiting enough talent for whatever reason.
So I have been in a pretty sweet spot in a way. I have job security like you wouldn't believe, recruiters banging down my door, AND my pay has doubled in just a few years. OVerall I feel like my boss pays me just enough to make a few k more than the new grads, but I also sympathize that his operating costs have about doubled in the process - hehe. But it is downright frightening to think what a shortage there will be when the baby boomers retire. Wow. I don't want to go back to those 80-hour weeks, for sure... But maybe enough power to work how and when I Want all the same - there will be even more begging and pleading for people like me. Man, I hit the jackpot when I picked a career I guess. Who knew. Most of this paradign shift happened when I was in college. I remember the Big 5 frims were like the elite of the elite and you had to be the BEST to get in and get your $30k/year - LOL. Now they just grovel at your feet - they'll take anyone.
Finally, I bought a *new* car in March. What was that - 7 months ago???? 8??? So today I get a note in the mail that they underestimated the cars registration fees and I owe them $60. In fact, it says "we are trying to register your car but we are short $60." LOL. Are they serious? I just re-registered my car a couple of weeks back. I peak at my original registration and they indeed pay $218 when they registered it (8 months ago by the way - none of this "we are trying to register it and can't without your money" crap). & they indeed charge me $160 on my contract. I pulled out the contract because I believed that there was some wording on the contract that it was an estimate, but I Was thinking there has to be a time limit on that. Come on. So I pulled out the contract and well it says nothing of the sort about it being an estimate or you may owe the difference. It's a final bill of sale and they picked the price. Whoever rung it up screwed up, but oh well. I can't believe their nerve. Good luck!
I then called my parents and chatted with them because I didn't want a lien against my car for $60 or anything. But they assured me the car people were shady bastards. I decided to ignore it. If I get another note dh can tell them that we don't intent to pay it - he is good at that stuff. Seriously though, I paid them $15k for a car and now they are coming after me for $60? Boohooo I feel bad for them - not. & honestly if I got the notice 6 months ago I probably would have paid it without a blink. But the whole waiting 7 months thing is just too much. They were assured they wouldn't get any money out of me as soon as they said "you need to pay us so we can register your car." What utter and total BS. I Call them on it. Scare tactics I guess.
I hold car dealers right up there with credit card companies. I will deal with them when I Can get a good deal, but I will hate every minute of it. They are the worst of the worst. Blah. So you know, not that this is the worst incident ever, but I already have so many issues with car dealers - LOL. Just somethng more to gripe about.
CPAs & Shady Car Dealers
November 2nd, 2006 at 03:10 pm
November 2nd, 2006 at 03:31 pm 1162481485
November 2nd, 2006 at 05:00 pm 1162486807
November 2nd, 2006 at 05:35 pm 1162488954
That is the other thing, my college degree hardly cost me a thing. Accountants historically have not been paid like attorneys and doctors, even though from the outside they have that perception. But the way the industry is going, it is turning out to be a highly profitable career overall and very low cost to get in. You don't have to go to grad school.
I would recommend going in the old way and getting your CPA firm experience. I did it just for the license and fell in love with the work and so I stay though I know I can go get some super high-stress CFO job and make a ton if I really wanted to. At the CPA firm I am at now I am just an extremely glorified bookkeeper who gets to work on many clients and get paid twice as much as a bookkeeper. I like the low stress. BUT the older generation does not take the new CPA designation seriously. I have a coworker who just met the requirements but does not really know anything about accounting. Since he is the first on the "new path" my boss's wife called him "CPA Light." LOL. BEcause he has not had to complete all the steps that us old timers did - hehe. He was really insulted, but you can't take seriously that he has a CPA designation next to his name. HE lacks much knowledge in the field. If you do it, do it right, and you will be rewarded.
& if you don't like it you will fail. I hope you like accounting - people who come in just for the money - MANY - don't make it. But if you think you would enjoy it on some level - which you won't even know perhaps until you try - Go for it!!!!
November 2nd, 2006 at 05:49 pm 1162489776
No, I don't mind at all how I do it, but I do want to "do it right". Working for a firm sounds like a great idea. I already love numbers, and am constantly tweaking my budget. I don't know how much of that will translate into joy for the job though. Perhaps you can help shed some light on that?
In your opinion, what kind of person do you think would be ideal for the type of job that you are doing?
November 2nd, 2006 at 07:00 pm 1162494027
November 2nd, 2006 at 07:42 pm 1162496560
November 2nd, 2006 at 10:54 pm 1162508091
November 3rd, 2006 at 01:44 am 1162518277
I'm not sure why we're playing hop-scotch between our blogs, but I do think I fit the profile of someone who would enjoy this type of work. And though I'm not seeing dollar signs per se, I certainly would hope they pay well enough.