Fiscal Fitness

A year ago today (as it turns out--this was not planned), I wrote an entry here about planning for debt reduction. While my intentions were good, I didn't make the kind of progress that I had planned. I did reduce debt over the first part of the year, but then increased it back to its starting point (and a little bit beyond). In the end, I more moved debt around than reduced it. I *did* reduce my mortgage by $4,000 (more than double the reduction that would have occurred if I were still plodding along with my original mortgage, and over a thousand ahead of where the refinance would have had me if I had not added in additional payments), so that part is good. But the non-mortgage debt, I ended up mostly moving around, from being mostly on 0% credit card balance transfers, which I kept on moving around from card to card as the 0% rate expired (kicking in a balance transfer fee of 2-4%) to being more on loans...first a personal loan and then a HELOC. The debt increased a bit with some personal investments I made in my health and my career. At the moment, the total is about 35K. I just want to use this post to lay out some targets for reducing this. If I were just following the loan amortization schedules, this would be a several year project, but I can do it in three years. Overall acccording to the amortization schedules, I'd be paying about $400 a month on the non-mortgage debt; in actuality, I pay about a thousand, so Target #1 is getting the non-mortgage debt to 30K by mid-year and to 25K by year end. Mortgage debt at year end should be down to 65K, so that's a total of 90K total debt by the end of 2016. I can cut the non-mortgage debt in half during 2017 and get the mortgage debt down to 61K, for a 2017 ending debt balance of 73.5K. Then in 2018 I can pay off the rest of the non-mortgage debt and get the mortgage down to 56K total debt. At that point I can really accelerate the mortgage payoff to have the mortgage paid off by sometime in 2025, two years before I reach full retirement age. Then I can funnel that money to a final push to accumulate two years' worth of cash for living expenses to have in my accounts before I retire sometime between 2027 and 2030.

One of the things about financial planning is that it is never done--one always has to revisit it as one's personal circumstances and the economy change. But one doesn't achieve one's goals if one doesn't plan for them, so planning is hardly fruitless.

I'll revisit my debt progress...hopefully a decline, even though I am planning some additional long-delayed household expenses this year...as the year progresses.

I finally had a chance to tally my 2015 spending.

Back when I first joined this site in 2006 (!), I was an avid user of YNAB and tracked spending regularly, but once I left my regular job to embark on my career change in 2009 and first my dog and then my mother in short order became seriously ill, regular tracking (and regular filing and sorting and decluttering at home) all went out the window, so now I content myself with an annual review based on the useful year end summaries provided by my financial institutions.

My overall spending is up by about 6K compared with last year--which is fine given that my earned income is several times higher this year, since I was unemployed for 8 months last year.

Rather than looking at things microscopically, I will report here in terms of the categories developed by Senator Elizabeth Warren and her daughter Amelia Warren Tyagi in their 2006 book All your Worth: The Ultimate Lifetime Money Plan.

They suggest three macro-level categories for spending: Needs, Wants, and Saving/ Debt Repayment, and recommend that 50% of spending go to needs (e.g., mortgage, groceries, transportation, utilities, healthcare, insurance), 30% go for Wants (discretionary spending) and 20% go to Saving & Debt Repayment.

My spending this year is fairly close to these targets: 47% Needs, 34% Wants, and 18% Savings.

Needs 47% of my expenditures were for Needs. Nearly half of this was house-related (mortgage, insurance, taxes, repairs & maintenance), and another 21% was health related. The health expenses are down from last year, though. I took on a hundred-dollar-a-month prescription that makes a big difference in my quality of life, but I no longer have to pay all of my health insurance expenses out of pocket. Groceries are always a struggle for me to cut, at 17% of the needs category (8% of total). Transportation and expenses for my two cats round out this category.

Wants 34% of my expenses were for Wants. Other than not having to pay for my own health insurance now that I am fully employed, this is the biggest change in my spending. Basically, I spent 5K less on health insurance and 5K more on fun and recreation, including joining a premium gym (which I use a lot more than the el-cheapo gym I used to belong to), eating out, taking three short vacations, going to the movies and the theater, and buying books. As my best year of income ever, perhaps I went a little bit overboard here (since I am above the 30% mark), but not too drastically so. In particular, I want to cut down on the Dining Out, for health as well as budgetary reasons. And I will not buy subscriptions to two theatres next year but will be a little choosier on which plays I attend (4 instead of 7). One big expense in this area, which I will probably be reimbursed for, is that on December 31, I enrolled in a CFP program (before the fees went up by $500 on January 1). Actually eliminating that one expense alone brings the total down below 30%. I will be taking online classes for the next 10 months and will take the certification exam sometime between November 2016 and July 2017.

Savings & Debt Reduction Finally, 18% of my money out was for Savings and Debt Reduction. I reduced my mortgage balance by nearly 4K and added about 12K to my retirement accounts and HSA (this number is higher than the last entry because of the HSA contributions). The other personal debt was more moved around than paid down. It started the year mostly on credit cards, as I spent about 4 years transferring debt from one 0% balance transfer offer to another, moved to a personal loan mid-year, and finally to a HELOC by year end. This next year will be another big debt reduction push. It currently looks as though I will pay the non-mortgage debt off by mid-way through 2017, at which point, I will further accelerate mortgage payments so that my house is paid off by the time I reach 65.

So, all in all, even though I felt quite un-frugal in some areas this year (definitely NOT in a mood for penny pinching after having done so for the past decade!), I kept my spending in reasonable check. I expect next year to be similar, although next year's discretionary spending will be less for eating out and the theatre and more for hiring some help with decluttering, home organization, and cleaning.

In Sum The last time I did an annual spending re-cap was in 2011, and I see that my spending percentages have not really changed that much--there's less on expenses related to the house and health and pets percentage-wise, but my overall priorities seem about the same.

This entry is mostly nonfinancial, tho I will note that I decreased debt by $7,630 and added $7,975 to my retirement accounts during the year, so over 15K total to the good.

I've gone ahead and updated my side panel for my 2016 goals--fewer than in previous years, with the hopes that I'll make even more progress on each.

Here are my goals/results for 2015.

Goal Domain/Result
Job Performance: Completed 1 of the CFP classes, gained familiarity with the top 40 clients, improved efficiency, and earned a raise mid-year.

Organization: very little progress at home, made a start at office organization. I did improve my financial organization by moving my non-mortgage debt from credit card balance transfers to loans (first a personal loan and then a HELOC at a better rate, which I used to partially but not totally pay off the personal loan, and partially for some capital improvements). This will be a big area of focus for 2016 now that I have one year at my new job under my belt. Making big improvements here will enable improvements in other areas in future years.

Health: Joined a gym mid-year and have gone 2-3 times a week pretty consistently since; kept my weight fairly steady; and got my chronic bronchitis under control by going on FloVent. But I am suffering from fairly severe fatigue and need to work on improved sleep/decreased fatigue in 2016, as well as keeping up with the gym and decent nutrition.

Social/Recreational: Took 3 short vacations (first since 2011), saw half a dozen plays and about two dozen films, participated moderately actively with my congregation--but did not manage to entertain at all. I'll get organized in 2016 and make having people over a goal in 2017.

Professional development: Went to about two dozen Board meetings and/or networking events, joined a new professional organization, wrote one entry on my professional blog.

All in all, not a bad year, even if I fell short of my ambitions. But better to aim higher and fall short than to aim too low and not perform up to my best.

Yesterday was my one year anniversary at my new job. So far, so good! Absolutely loving what I do--which is not to say that it is a low-stress job. In fact, we are coming up on the highest-stress time of year for me. I am now the tax planner at a financial advisory firm and year-end is when you can do the most (and most good, hopefully), so it will be a busy few weeks for me. Then things continue busy until after April 15, but not nearly as busy as in a CPA firm!

Since I knew year end would be stressful, I took a weekend in October and went to a bed and breakfast again. Very enjoyable. (Patientsaver, if you read this, this is the one that I had mentioned to you via email.) I was really in the mood to mostly sit and read and write (and take a few walks), but I did force myself out on one sight-seeing expedition: to the Museum at Bethel Woods, which commemorates the Woodstock Festival (which was actually held in Bethel, NY, not Woodstock). I bought a mood ring as a memento--had one back in the 60s, too.

In other happenings: I've now been going to the gym regularly for 5 months. I definitely feel better and look a *little* better, but weight loss progress is slow--about a pound a month. And it's not something I'm going to stress myself out going into busy season. The gym has a holiday deal, which I will go in on: give them an extra $25 next week and weigh in, then weigh in again the first week of January. Maintain your weight or lose over the holidays and you get your $25 back. But gain and your money goes into the pot to be split between the top male and the top female loser (in terms of body fat percent). Who couldn't use a little extra incentive to keep on track over the holidays?

And I took out a HELOC (home equity line of credit) last month on my 10 month anniversary of buying my home. I had some work done on my roof, and in the spring, I need some professional landscaping to restore the area damaged by digging to repair a broken sewer pipe a couple of years ago and to repaint my house, but mostly I am using it to pay down the personal loan I took out earlier this year, since the HELOC is at a better rate. I still will have about 23K in debt to get rid of in the next year & a half before I do any interior cosmetic changes (the kitchen and bath both really could use a refresh), but it's nice to have a bit more liquidity there should I need it.

I'm hoping to feel enough ahead of the game next week to be able to take off the day before and after Thanksgiving (as well as Thanksgiving itself, of course) to give myself some uninterupted time at home to work on decluttering and home organization. That is the goal for the year that I have made the least progress on, and I'd like to keep the needle moving on all five fronts. After that, I'll be working through to year end, with Christmas and New Year's Days off, and half-days on the eves of those two holidays.

In 2015, virtually all my time off was in the second half of the year--I had one sick day in February, and I took off the day after Memorial Day, but all the rest of my time off was July or after. Next year, I'll try to balance it a bit more evenly throughout the year, leaving time again for a one-week vacation in the summer. Next year will probably be to Los Angeles, my hometown, as it is four years ago on Thanksgiving since I saw my sister, who has been having a bit of a rough time herself, so she has not been traveling either.

Certain classes of "Expenses" are also "Investments," not in the traditional sense, but in oneself.

There are a few key categories of these self investments: one's "human capital" or job skills/performance; one's relationships; and one's health. And one invests in these not just with money but with time.

Looking at my sidebar goals, there are two that have been lagging the others--taking better care of myself and getting my house in order.

I want to make progress on both of these by year-end.

I'm starting with health. Or, I should say, I started with it back the end of June. I joined a gym and also an online nutritional coaching program.

That gym I really liked, even though it was more expensive than my previous Gold's Gym membership ($75/month vs $19/month). It was worth it, though, for the first two months. The classes I were taking were the "Lite Intense" classes, which tended to be smaller than the regular classes at the gym (maximum class size in any case is 10). And all the trainers are certified, and the gym uses a heart-rate monitoring system to motivate students and make sure they are working out appropriately--every student wears a heart rate monitor and one's heart rate is displayed on a tv screen.

Then in mid-August the trainer that I was working with went back to college, and the gym decided that, since the "Lite Intense" classes were less popular, that they would stop offering them (at least at the times of day I could go...they still have one such class each weekday at 10 a.m.). They still had classes, but "Intense" ones, and the class sizes were longer, and the exercises were harder. And although the instructors were VERY good at modifying the exercises for me and my fitness level, I still found myself doing a lot of social comparison and negative self-talk and coming out of class depressed at my performance--even though my heart rate showed I was working harder. I have a degree in psychology; I understand this; but I still do this. And it was seriously undermining my enthusiasm for going to the gym.

So I began to look for another gym, and I found one--but at another step up in price. But, not only do they have the advantages of the other gym that made it so appealing--certified instructors, heart rate monitoring on a tv screen, but the membership that I am going to go for involves "Semi-Private" classes, maximum class size four, which is just right. Private training is too expensive and when you DO private training, the trainer ends up standing around a lot while you put in the reps; with semi-private, you get personal attention and the trainer stands around a lot less as they go from person to person. When there are only four people and sometimes they are doing different routines, there's much less opportunity for the social comparison/negative self-talk trap that I fall into. And they also have a larger group class called "Foundations," which is for people who are just starting out, to get you READY for the intense classes, which they also offer. I went to this class on Saturday and it is a good fit--I am NOT the heavest, slowest, and oldest person in the class :^). They also have body fat/lean body mass percentage testing with an impedence monitor every six weeks so you can see if you are getting results. They also have a monthly social gathering outside the gym and encourage the gym members to be a community. I already know more names of members there after one week than I did after two months at the first gym.

I know myself, I know that I have spent hundreds on exercise equipment and DVDs, and I know that what works for me are classes where I can get personal attention. If I cancel the online nutritional coaching (which is good, but I find that I am not making the time to participate), my net health expense outlay for each month will be the same. Also the gym is having a weight loss challenge starting the beginning of October leading up to Thanksgiving, so that should motivate me to start putting some of the good nutritional habits and principles I've learned more in to practice. My weight has crept up a bit in the new job as I am sitting at my computer so much....it will be 15 pounds down to where I was last year (not that that is all I would like to lose, but that is my target for by the end of the year).

I've only been at the job eight months, but the boss likes to keep everything on the same schedule for everyone, and July/August is a slow time for the business and most vacations are in August, so July for salary review it was. The boss said that they made the "right choice" in hiring me, that my strong points and my weak points are just as he anticipated when hiring me, with the weak point being getting me integrated into the Team, who have worked together for several years...I am the only new person in a group of 5, the last of whom joined about a decade ago. And I tend to be self-sufficient and reluctant to ask for help, and the rest of the Team hasn't really gone out of their way to get me up to speed, so it's something to work on on both sides. But generally, he is pleased with my progress, said that he hopes I finish my career with the company, and that he regards me as the firm's greatest "untapped asset," so all that is good. And I have a $2,500/year salary increase as of August 1. All in all, a good result.

Just looking at my balance sheet today compared to six months ago (11/30/2014). Overall I have a nearly 25K net increase, of which half is in retirement savings (and that increase is pretty evenly divided between new contributions and capital appreciation).

Of the other half, 5,000 is a net decrease in debt (which has been transferred from credit card balance transfers to a personal consolidation loan) and the rest is an increase in savings (some ready cash and the rest in my HSA).

Nice to see progress and especially to feel like it is progress that will continue, rather than a few steps forward and a few steps back. Of course, we'll see if there is any big market correction this year, but at least for the factors under my control, I am feeling positive.

Also, for those of you who have seen me on here for a long time, yesterday was the five year anniversary of Henry's passing. Hard to believe it has been five years. I always told him his middle name was "Retirement," since during the 4 years I had him I ended up putting the amount that I otherwise would have put towards retirement towards medical expenses for him--but he was well worth it for the love and purpose he gave me during some pretty tough years.

I was struck yesterday by the comments I received about my debt consolidation loan, with people uniformly concerned about the interest rate.

10.9% is, indeed, the *nominal* rate, but that doesn't mean that it is the *effective* rate--the rate that I will actually pay. *That* depends on how quickly I pay the loan off--and I won't take the full 5 years.

In fact, this morning, I worked out on paper a plan by which I can have the loan paid off in *2* years. If I pay the loan off in two years, under my plan, I will pay $2,509 in interest rather than the $6,085 in interest under the full amortization schedule. That works out to an effective annual interest rate of 6.96% per year for two years, for an unsecured loan. And *that's* not bad.

For those of you who were worried about my slowing down contributions to retirement--I'll contribute less than I would have without any personal debt, but a heck of a lot more than I have contributed for the past six years of underemployment. Counting the 3% employer match, I'll have 12,000 added to my retirement contributions this year and 15,000 next year. I have a SIMPLE plan, so the maximum contribution for 2015 is 12,500 + 3,000 catch-up contribution for being over 50, so a total of 15,500. (2016's total allowable SIMPLE contribution will probably be 16.5K). So while I'm not quite at the maximum retirement contribution allowable, I'm most of the way there, and in two years, when the loan is paid off, I'll definitely be at the max.

Also, the debt is there--it's a sunk cost that needs to be repaid in any case. I could punish myself by denying myself some pleasures in order to try to maximize my retirement contributions, but the only CERTAIN time one has is the present, and I'm not the type to unnecessarily restrict myself today for a tomorrow that may never come. Planning and reasonable retirement contributions given income, yes, but tightening my belt now, when I am earning 50% more than I ever have in my life? Absolutely not. I'm on good track to have a million in my retirement fund by the time I turn 65, and I'll probably retire when I hit 1.25 million, which I anticipate happening when I am 68--just beyond my Social Security Full Retirement Age of 67. But just in case I don't make it there--I'm going to enjoy my life as much as possible while I can!

I think it is important to think about WHAT you are buying when you take out a loan. You are not just buying the use of money (with the interest rate as the purchase price). You are also buying time and flexibility and the peace of mind that comes with having a clear pay-off date. I certainly haven't had the peace of mind while transferring debt from 0% balance transfer deal to 0% balance transfer deal. And while I'll pay approximately twice the amount to the bank under the terms of this loan than I would if I continued the balance transfer approach, I'll also buy myself that precious peace of mind--plus flexibility if the worst should happen and I lose this job or have a major home repair expense.

Is that peace of mind and flexibility worth it to me? It certainly is, or I wouldn't have chosen this approach.

Rules of thumb, like minimizing or avoiding debt, are well and good, but they are a starting point, not an ending point. If someone is financially unsophisticated, yes, encourage them to avoid debt--but keep in mind that taking on debt should be a calculated risk. If the person is unlikely to be able to pay that debt off, then the first tack should be cutting expenses. But if the person has the wherewithall to pay the debt off, then one should consider the psychological benefits that one is purchasing with the debt and ask the person whether they are willing to pay for that peace of mind and flexibility.

Debt is also leverage, folks, and what one buys with money is not just material objects but psychological qualities too.

Confession here: I fell off the debt reduction horse during the past few crazy, unstable years. My net worth has grown, but whereas I was out of debt in 2009, I accumulated, at a peak, 30K of non-mortgage debt (currently $25,667). For the first time in years, my income is stable and no family crises loom, so it's time to get back in the saddle. First step was getting back to posting income and expenses with YNAB, which I used to do. Nice upgrades to the program during the past 5 years since I last used it. Second step was consolidating the credit card debt with a personal loan-20k, 5 years, 10.9%. I'm tired of juggling 0% balance transfers. And it won't take me 5 years to pay...but I have flexibility with a longer term, just in case. And step 3 was to temporarily cut my retirement savings to 3% in order to add $420 a month to emergency savings. I've been living with too small a buffer, which is why the debt accrued. Increase the buffer, pay down the debt, max out retirement savings once I have more liquidity...and hopefully not only keep the job but eventually get a raise. My net worth is currently 27K higher than it was 6 months ago when I started the job, and hopefully the market and luck are with me and I'll do at least as well in the second six months. Overall debt to equity is currently 20.7%. Aiming to get it lower still.

While the first two months at work were about mastering software and physical systems (like the phone and alarm systems) as well as preparing year-end tax projections, the second two months expanded my work into the financial planning domain with calculation of annual trust distribution amounts (many trusts distribute for prior year within the first 65 days of the following year) and preparation of my first retirement and educational funding projections and my first client meetings. This next month, until April 15, it's back to tax--this time reviewing client returns rather than preparing them.

Looking at my goals for the year (see the sidebar), I see that I've done pretty well at #1 and #5, adequately at #3 and #4, and a mediocre job at #2.

As far as the job related goals (1 & 5) go, I'm happy with how much I've learned, even though I've put studying for the CFP exam on hold for the moment. There has been too much to learn to deal with particular client issues and questions, like 401K to Roth conversion or whether the exercised stock options were showing up properly on the tax return (they weren't, fault of the broker who didn't calculate basis correctly), or looking ahead to optimal social security claiming strategy for a married couple. But all of this is what I'll need to know and learning it on an as-I-go basis will make the formal classes, when I do complete them, that much easier.

And while it's been a cold winter and I've spent most nights huddling under the covers with my kitties, I am on two boards (one for my congregation and one for the local chapter of a professional organization), and participating in activities of those groups means that I'm out one or two evenings a week most weeks, which satisfies both goals 4 & 5. There's also a recorder group that I play with monthly, and I've become friendly with another person who has an odd mix of professional backgrounds (she's a lawyer & former philosphy professor with an interest in bioethics) and the combination has made her more successful in her career than the success she was able to achieve with either career taken separately (which is what I'm hoping for for myself).

I haven't been exercising--too cold--but I did walk to work once this week and hope to make that an almost daily practice as the weather allows. That one time felt really good. As I regain some very basic fitness, I'll try to build on it by getting back to the gym again.

Also with regard to goal #3, I've been consistent at meditating thanks to an app called Insight Timer. I don't meditate for long periods--more like 5 minutes a day rather than the 20 I aim for--but I am very consistent at the moment, thanks to the "gold stars" the app gives you for each 10 consecutive and 100 total days completed.

With regard to #2, getting my house in order, one aspect of that is satisfactory. I have reduced my debt by about 7.5K and increased my assets by 12K since I started work, 19.5K to the positive. This is because I have been paying about half of my earnings to either increased savings or increased credit card payments.

Four months in to this, though, I am beginning to feel a little bit pinched. I make my payments right after each paycheck comes in, so that there is almost never more than $200 in my checking account. Spring is here, and I'd like to hire someone to clear out the yard, have my hair professionally colored, and go away for a weekend after the end of tax season.

Feeling just a wee bit more secure in my job, I've decided to handle my debt in a different way than I have been. For the past few years, as the debt accrued due to the combination of un- and under-employment plus additional expenses due to playing "pet hospice" for three beloved pets, I've been transfering debt from 0% credit card offer to 0% credit card offer, sometimes paying one off, but then needing to do another balance transfer when another pet hospitalization arose. Now, as soon as I get my tax refund, I'll pay down a little bit more on the credit cards and then take out a consolidation loan. I'll take it out for 4 years but hope to pay it off in 3. This will allow me about $400/month more in my budget, which I can use for current spending and to add to the emergency fund, which is down to $825.

It's time to get out of the "deprivation"/"I don't deserve this" mindset and allow myself some room for current spending as well as paying off old debts from the past and saving for retirement in the future.

So I've done an ok job at getting my financial house in order, but the PHYSICAL house itself is a mess--I've been too cold or tired evenings and weekends to work on it. I'm hoping to get a much better handle decluttering in the next six weeks!

I've drafted my tax return. I would have completed it, but I'm having problems installing the state module, so I need to wait for tech support to get back to me.

My income will be changing a lot between 2014 and 2015, so I wanted to figure out how to get the most benefit by saving, while also continuing to whack away furiously at my accumulated non-mortgage debt.

This will be the last year that I can get a deduction for putting money into a traditional IRA (for singles, the ability to deduct money put into a traditional IRA phases out between 60K & 70K this year). So I played around with my tax software to figure out the optimal amount to contribute--the amount where my total refund will be just about equal to the contribution. I figured that out back in January and have been putting aside money from each paycheck to make the contribution (which has meant paying less on my credit card debt). As soon as I've got my software glitch figured out, I'll make the IRA deposit, file my return, and then use the refund to pay more off on credit cards. If all goes according to plan, I'll have managed to lower my nonmortgage debt by about 10K by sometime in March by a combination of using my required minimum distribution from my inherited IRA and the refund, plus some regular payments.

After this, I'll continue to pay off the debt at about $1000 a month. A lot of this debt is on credit card balance transfers (12 to 18 month) at 0%; but two of those expire in June, by which time I figure my total non-mortgage debt will be about 18K. At that point, I'll need to determine whether I'm going to look for another balance transfer or possibly find a low-interest loan. I'm thinking about taking out a 36 month loan (of course, depends on the interest rate). If there's no penalty for early pay-off, I can then think about whether I want to keep paying at a thousand a month, or whether I want to halve that and start saving $500 a month to build my emergency fund back up.

In any case, getting the debt down by 10K after I get the refund will feel really good. I had no non-mortgage debt back in 2008 and 2009, and I'd like to get back to that place as soon as is feasibly possible, while also working on my other goals (paying for the certification program I am in, rebuilding emergency savings, having a little money to do things like hire a personal trainer for a couple of months and go on vacation for a week, now that I once again earn enough that those are reasonable things to consider).

Balance. It's all about balancing goals over time.

The past five years were financially a struggle, as I was either under- or un-employed, and I lost my mother and three pets during that time. I went from a position of having no debt except the mortgage to having nearly (gulp!) $30,000 of non-mortgage debt (most of it on 0% or very low interest loans, but STILL...

Finally with my new job, I can whittle away at this. Or, actually, carve this year and whittle over the next few. This year, for the last time (I also did this last year), I took the RMD (required minimum distribution) from my inherited IRA and used it to pay off some of that debt. Plus about half of my January pay is going to debt reduction. I won't be able to keep that pace up all year, but by month's end, the non-mortgage debt will be under $24K, and I aim to halve that by year end, while also contributing 10% of pay to my retirement. At year end, I'll re-consider my plan for paying off the rest of that while also increasing savings.

Meanwhile, I did re-finance my house during that time to a shorter term and lower interest, so I feel confident that I'll have the house paid off before I retire.

I thought I had updated this blog before now, but I think I wrote a long post that somehow got "eaten" before it was posted, and I didn't have the time or energy to write again at that time. This post, I have learned better and I am drafting it in Word and cut & pasting it into a blog posting.

So, I am now two months into my new job. It's gone quickly. Up until now, I have been focused on doing tax projections for people's 2014 tax returns. Before year-end, the projections were done with a mind to any last-minute year-end tax planning we could do; then the past two weeks have been focused on ensuring that clients' estimated tax payments are sufficient to meet the "safe harbors" to avoid penalities.

Now I'll be switching to focus more on estates and trusts, then back to taxes when we put out "tax packages" to clients' accountants with their investment earnings reported.

There's been (and continues to be) a steep learning curve, as my predecessor didn't document things as well as he might have, but I feel like otherwise there is good support at work and like I am fitting in as part of the team.

It's nice to be able to save again for retirement. For the past few years, I have been taking from my inherited IRA accounts (when you inherit an IRA, you have to take required minimum distributions just as the original owner would have). Ideally, one takes the RMD, pays the tax, and puts it into a Roth, losing nothing in terms of retirement savings, but for the past 2 years, I have been taking my RMD (and then some) and using it to supplement my low wage income. I've also accumulated an uncomfortable amount of non-mortgage debt, so this year, once again, I'm taking my RMD, using it to reduce a portion of the debt load, but from now on, I expect to go back to using the RMD to put into a Roth. It will take somewhere between 12 to 18 months to pay off the debt I've accumulated, depending on how much of my current income I can put towards that goal. I also have some home repairs that need doing, and I need to pay for another certification program, so I'll see just how quickly I can pay the debt down. But in general, I figure I can live frugally on 50% of my take-home, so that leaves me the other 50% for debt repayment, retirement and other savings, and extraordinary expenses. For now, I'm putting just 10% for retirement, but after the debt gets paid, I'll up that substantially. I might also look, later this year, into getting a home equity loan to pay for that new roof and some other work on the house--that has the advantage of adding to tax deductions. While I don't like debt, I'm also not averse to using it as leverage when I'm in the position to be able to pay the debt off quickly.

By 9 a.m. this morning, I had chosen a fork in the road. At 8:10, I received an email from the recruiter telling me that the accounting firm wanted an answer by close of business today. I then sent an email to the President of the financial planning firm, telling him that I had to make a decision today. He responded by 8:20 with an email including the offer letter, telling me that he'd dropped the hard copy into the mail on his way in to work this morning. The offer is at a salary that is fully 50% higher than the accounting firm offered, with full benefits, and the job starts next Monday. With that salary (at a level that I was thinking it might take me another 4-5 years to attain), the decision was literally "no contest." I called the Principal of the accounting firm to tell him, with regrets, that I was turning down his offer and why, and then the Recruiter, who worked very hard on my behalf to get me the accounting firm offer, so I feel badly that she gets nothing for her efforts on my behalf in the end (I will send her a Harry & David type gift). So, before 9 o'clock this morning, the decision was made and I set off on the new path. Today was mostly reveling in happiness and sending thank-yous; tomorrow I will figure out more clearly what I need to get done before I start work and work on that list.

After a very long transition from academic to accountant, I am hoping that last week marks the end of one phase and the beginning of the next. Fingers crossed, knocking on wood, finding a lucky rabbit's foot, and all that, because I thought three years ago that I had reached the "holy Grail" of the full-time job with benefits, but that one turned out to last only three months. So I'm not going to believe that this really IS a turning point for at least half a year into this.

Just in case you have not previously encounted my blog, my brief backstory is that I once was an untenured college professor and ten years ago, I decided to become an accountant instead. I finally attained my CPA earlier this year, after five years spent on schooling and exams and another five years spent gaining experience at part-time and temporary/contract jobs.

Now it looks as though I'll have two offers--one of them is just an oral offer, though, so I'm waiting for the actual offer letter, which I expect to get tomorrow, that will state details such as salary, benefits, and starting date.

One of the job offers is at a smallish (15 permanent staff) full-service CPA firm 22 miles from home. This would be a contract-to-hire job, with the owner indicating a very high probability that it would turn permanent after tax season. I'd be in the corporate tax area, with some individual tax, and would have the opportunity to work on reviews, compilations, and audits during the non-tax season part of the year. 51 hours a week during tax season (mandatory Saturday mornings), 29 hours a week over the summer (Fridays off), and 40 hours a week the rest of the year. A couple of years of this type of experience and I would feel that I had the necessary background to consider opening my own firm, which is not yet the case (nor do I really anticipate wanting to open my own firm--it might be another story if I were 10 years younger). This is the type of job I've have been focused on getting for the past two years.

The other job offer is rather different, and is in line with what I planned when I originally set out on my new path a decade ago. My background is in psychology, and I used to do research on self-defeating behavior. So when I thought about switching careers, I remembered my own lack of financial smarts during my 20s and first thought about becoming a financial planner, since CFPs are interested in both aspects of people's psychology (their goals, their risk tolerance) as well as in their finances. But then I looked into CFP programs and found out that most graduates landed in sales jobs for firms like Ameriprise. Becoming a salesperson and working on commission really did not appeal to me, so that's the point at which I decided to get my CPA instead and become a tax accountant and "back door" into also offering planning services.

The second offer is to actually BE a CPA/Financial Planner for a small, fee-based financial planning firm targeting high net-worth taxpayers, primarily doctors, lawyers, and executives. In this role, I'd spend about 50% of my time on tax planning, and I'd also learn about retirement, education, estate, and risk planning and get my CFP along the way. I wouldn't actually be doing returns, however. But what's really neat about this job is that they *like* the fact that I have the psychology background. While I've been focused on applying for tax accountant jobs, I've considered my PhD my "dirty little secret" and it doesn't appear on my resume...you have to google my name or scroll down to the bottom of my Linked In profile to find out about it. But while I DO love the tax work, I ALSO love psychology as much as I ever did, so there's an additional excitement about this job for me.

The planning job feels like the risky but potentially higher reward choice (risky since I haven't done much of the planning before), while the accounting firm feels like the safer choice.

I still have yet to get the offer letter in hand from the planning firm, but I expect based on our conversation that the planning job would pay at least as much as the accounting firm job, would start six weeks earlier (this month rather than Jan. 5), benefits could apply from the beginning (depending on whatever waiting period is included in their plan rules), and also, it's basically an 8-5 job (with a one-hour lunch) that is located precisely ONE MILE from my house--I'd be walking except on days when the weather is extreme in one way or another.

So you can probably tell that I'm leaning towards the CFP job, pending seeing the actual offer in hand.

But recalling my previous experience getting hired for a "permanent" job with benefits and getting let go 3 months later when they lost their biggest client, I am trying to keep my excitement in check.

Hopefully this is the start of a new phase in both my career and for my personal finances, where my balance sheet continues to improve as the markets have done well and our local real estate market is rebounding, but where I have now amassed some personal loan debt, most at low or zero percent rate, but personal rather than mortgage loan debt nonetheless, enough that it will probably take a couple of years to pay off to get myself back to the state of my only debt being mortgage debt that I was in five years ago when I left teaching.

Some interesting things to know if you are one of the people who, like me, is buying their own insurance from the healthcare exchanges and receiving an advance subsidy from the government to help pay for it:

1. If you received a subsidy this year that was directly paid to your insurance company, you MUST have your return filed by April 15th. No extensions--not even if you are missing crucial information like K-1s from partnerships etc. Your preparer will have to make a good faith estimate, note the number under question in a statement attached to the return, and file an amended return if needed. The IRS needs the return in order to calculate whether you received too much subsidy and need to return the advance payments, or whether you received too little and get a refund.

2. This January (or actually, for 2015, February 2) and every year henceforward, you (EVERYONE, not just people buying care off the exchanges) will receive a new tax information form to be brought to your return preparer with information about your health insurance. Most of these forms are numbered 1095 with a letter indicating whether the insurance was purchased through your employer or from other sources. Your preparer cannot file your tax return until you have your information form, so tax season will be delayed and abbreviated this season. Expect very harried tax preparers especially as tax season progresses. Also because of the additional work required to reconcile the information, potentially up to an additional hour per return, especially if your insurance changed during the year or if you had a coverage gap during the year, expect tax return costs to go up this year. On the other hand, you are much more likely to be able to avoid or minimize penalties if you are using a qualified tax preparer--and especially if you have a tax planning meeting before year end--so the value provided in return for the fee only increases. But if you are focused only on the cost, it will probably go up more than usual this year.

3. If your income changed during the year in any substantial way from the way you estimated it last year when signing up on the exchange, you should have gone on to healthcare.gov or your state exchange and updated your information during the year. Especially if your income went up substantially, you could lose the subsidy and have to repay it--even if your modified AGI was just one dollar over the limit for your filing status.

4. If you chose to remain uninsured this year, you will owe a penalty. The MINIMUM penalties rates are relatively low this year (the $95 Single minimum penalty number has been much bandied about) and will rise steeply over the course of the next two years, but if your income was a middle class income and you went uninsured, your penalty could be quite steep--up to 1% of income this year (going up to 2.5% by 2016), and capped for this year at $9800 (the national average price of a bronze plan for a family). Some taxpayers are going to be in for a nasty surprise.

5. Now here is something that I heard from a trustworthy source but which I find a little bit unbelievable, so take this with a grain of salt until I can find the IRS Regulation that governs it or else get my 2015 software installed and see it for myself: according to the lawyer who taught our update class, if you owe a penalty and have a balance due on your tax return, as opposed to a refund, you will not be assessed an extra payment for the penalty--they will be taking the penalty payments from tax refunds and will just wait until you have a tax refund year and take the money then. Again, I need to see this in writing before I believe it. UPDATE: Apparently, it's better to say that you WILL be assessed the penalty but they won't go after you if you fail to pay it and have a balance due. They'll just wait until you do have a tax refund year and grab the penalty then. Interest and penalties will continue to accrue until the penalty is paid. I still need to find the discussion of this in the Regs--I do like to be able to cite my sources.

6. The subsidies are now under Supreme Court challenge for those of us who receive the subsidy from Healthcare.gov, as opposed to from a state exchange. The Supreme Court on Friday accepted the King v. Burwell case, which challenges the legitimacy of subsidies received from the federal as opposed to the state exchange, since the governing law refers to "State" subsidies. Two different Circuit Courts decided differently on this issue, hence the Supreme Court acceptance of the challenge. TBD by June-yet another way the Right is trying to make the Affordable Care Act go away. Two-thirds of people would lose their subsidies if the word "State" is interpreted in the narrow rather than in the broad sense, making insurance unaffordable for them and effectively undermining the law.

The other thing I have been obsessed with this summer, besides long term care insurance and job hunting (expecting more interviews after the 10/15 tax extenstion deadline....things have been a little quiet on that front for the past couple of weeks, as prospective employers are busy) is learning about functional/integrative medicine.

My interest is the result of serendipity. Earlier this summer, I started attending the twice-monthly networking events offered by a local small business marketing professional, since I am hoping to work for a small business servicing other small businesses. The very first meeting I attended included the business director for a chiropracter who was offering a free talk that night on thyroid issues.

My thyroid tests have always come back as normal, but both my sister and mother are (were) on Synthroid, and I've long known that loss of the outer third of one's eyebrows is a signal of thyroid issues, and I have that, so I decided to go to the talk, where I learned that the thyroid affects everything else in your body since every cell has thyroid hormone receptors. At the end of the talk, the doctor offered a two-visit assessment for $100 that he normally charged $450 for, so I decided to see what my results would be.

The blood tests that he ordered were different than the thyroid test ordered by my doctor, which I learned is typical. Most doctors just assess TSH and T3/T4 levels, but ignore the thyroid antibodies. My results came back indicating normal (but relatively low) thyroid levels, but an elevation in one of the antibodies, suggestive of Hashimoto's thyroiditis, an autoimmune disorder where your immune system destroys your thyoid.

When I talked about the results with my sister, she said that her doctor said that it wasn't worth testing her for Hashi's, since her thyroid levels were low anyways, and the treatment would be the same. I have since learned that this is the conventional medical approach: wait until a disorder becomes severe enough that the patient develops symptoms, then give them drugs. If the drugs cause other symptoms, then use other drugs to combat those new symptoms.

While I can't currently afford the chiropracter's program (he suggested a six-month program of additional testing, dietary changes, supplements, etc), I got enough information from him to begin reading and making changes on my own.

The most important thing I learned is that Hashi's is reversible, if caught before the thyroid has been destroyed by the autoimmune reaction. The conventional medicine approach completely ignores this possibility--very distressing! Most patients never learn that their thyroid is in danger until it is too late and the thyroid has been destroyed, because conventional medicine focuses so much on symtoms and not causes, and considers things "normal" until they are acutely out of whack.

I learned from the chiropracter that most people with Hashi's have "leaky gut" syndrome and should go on a gluten-free diet, so I put myself on that immediately. I also am gradually working to greatly reduce all grains, and am considering, at least temporarily, eliminating grains and legumes, following the suggestions of the Autoimmune Paleo diet. I also learned that low stomach acid tends to be associated with these conditions and to make the problem worse, so I started taking betaine pills with high-protein meals.

I also learned that a vegan diet generally does not work well for people trying to reverse autoimmune disease.

This is distressing because I have been basically vegan (vegan at home, vegetarian away from home) for over two years now.

But I became vegan in order to address some annoying health problems (a big increase in my seasonal allergies and asthma starting three years ago), and the vegan diet has not resolved those problems.

I also found out from the tests that the chiropracter ordered that my ferritin (iron store) levels were quite low, at the bottom of the normal spectrum, and, distressingly, significantly lower than the last time they were tested. I have noticed for the past couple of years that my late-afternoon fatigue has been more severe, and that I don't feel as well-rested upon waking as I used to, and low ferritin levels are the likely cause of this.

I've also read enough now in the functional/integrative medicine literature to see that issues like leaky gut, ferritin levels, vitamin D levels, stomach acid levels, and symptoms, including asthma symptoms, can all be tied together, and the root cause starts with getting your gut in order, since the majority of your immune system is actually housed in your gut.

So deciding to abandon my vegan diet (especially after having been at least somewhat vocal in support of it on facebook) is causing me a great deal of cognitive dissonance, but is something I've decided to do at least temporarily. I've started by beginning to eat fish for the past month, and am contemplating whether or not to add in other meat sources as well. I also have been taking increased iron supplements, and before I decide whether or not to make further dietary changes, I'm having myself tested again for the thyroid antibodies and iron levels. I'm hoping that 6-8 weeks of being gluten free and taking increased supplements will be enough to show some positive changes on those indicators. If not, I'll consider making more "meaty" changes--though the idea of "bone broths" and particularly the organ meats that are suggested in some of these protocols turn my stomach. I don't think I'll ever go as far as to eat organ meat or make my own bone broth. But a weekly grass-fed steak I am willing to consider. In the meantime, I have fingers crossed that the changes I've made to date will show some beneficial effect.

Long Term Care Insurance

My big financial accomplishment for the year (part of my getting organized goal) has been to enroll in a long-term care insurance policy. This was something that took a couple of months to accomplish.

I started with research, first on the internet, and then reading a couple of books. Then I went to einsurance and asked to contact brokers for these policies. No sooner had I pressed "return" on my request than my phone rang!

I ended up getting estimates from half a dozen different brokers, and sitting through join.me sessions with three of them. This was worth the time for me since I learned something different from each new broker.

The most important factor in my decision was choosing the company. You want a company that is highly rated by the various raters (Moody's, S&P, AM Best, & Fitch), since you won't be using the policy for a decade or two or three. Then I learned about the difference between "mutual" insurance companies and the others: "Mutual" companies are owned by their shareholders (like credit unions) and thus have much less of a history of rate increases. So I ended up going with Mass Mutual. Once I had made that decision, I have a friend locally who works for them, so I decided to give her my business rather than one of the on-line brokers, even though some of those were quite helpful.

Having chosen a company, I then had to decide the daily benefit rate, the term that the policy would cover me for, and the inflation rider. Some companies have other options that you can pay riders for as well, for example, having a monthly rather than daily benefit, which gives you a little more flexibility in your spending if you use the policy. I ended up choosing a $250 daily benefit, a two-year term, and a 3% rider. The first two of those were based on average cost/use statistics for non-Alzheimers patients (people with Alzheimers tend to be in facilities longer, but there is no history of this in my family) as well as knowing the terminal health histories of my parents and grandparents. The 3% rider was based on cost--it ended up costing me just slightly more than 50% of the total premium! Back when my mother bought her policy in the early 1990s, 5% riders were affordable, but these days, they cost signficantly more than the cost of the policy itself.

While from a personal perspective (since I am currently unemployed), this was not an optimal time to buy a policy, buying one now made sense to me for a number of reasons: the older one gets, the worse one's health tends to be and the harder it can be to get a policy, so I might as well get one while I am relatively healthy; also, for each year one waits, the cost increases 3-4% based on your age. Also, this is a time of turmoil and change in the industry: several former key players such as Prudential have pulled out (they service their current policyholders but will not sell new policies), and most of the companies are changing from equal rates for men and women to a gender-segregated system, where it costs significantly more for women to buy policies than men because women use more of the care. I had the time to do the research now, and while I don't have the money from my current earnings, I do have an inherited IRA with a required minimum distribution that is more than the policy cost, and I think that my mother would approve of my using the money for this purpose.

Also, since I currently pay for my own health insurance and have a mortgage, I itemize on my taxes and have recently been able to take a deduction for medical expenses. This expense will count towards that as long as my income is still relatively low. Once I earn more and if I ever again have employer-provided insurance, I probably won't be able to deduct this, but at least then I'll be in better financial circumstances overall.

In recent years, I've seen my mother and several friends/acquaintences as well as clients end up in assisted living facilities or with home health care workers, and this has probably made me more attuned to this issue than most people my age (54).

At any rate, another item on my "getting organized list" taken care of. I also found a friend to be my durable power of attorney for healthcare, and before years' end, I hope to get the POAs for health and medical as well as a will set up.

The year to date has been reasonably productive. I still haven't attained the BIG goal (finding a salaried job), but I have attained some of the smaller goals on my list. I am at long last a CPA (ten years after starting down the career change path), and I had a reasonably productive tax season, both in terms of productivity and earnings.

I decided to give myself a couple of months after tax season ended to focus on other goals.

First, the fur-kid update. I had to put Teddy down on Jan. 6, shortly after my last blog post. He had gotten so weak that he would walk up 5 steps, his strength would give out, and he'd slither back down the stairs. He had tremendous will to live and might have kept going for another month, but I was afraid he would hurt himself and believed that there would be only increasing distress, so I called in the home euthanasia vet and he passed peacefully, ending my 5 year "hospice" stage (losing my mother and 3 pets during that time).

It was so lonely in the house after he passed (first time in 20 years with no pets) that within two days I had taken on two senior foster cats who had lost their owners. They are both still here--and at least one of them will become permanent.

I have made major inroads on the decluttering front. The storage room is largely cleared except there are still boxes of papers to go thru, weed out, and file the remaining ones properly. But the room itself is usable fir the first time in 3 years. And the rest of the house has been decluttered too, so I can now have guests over for the first time in years. I still have to call the haulers to get rid of some furniture I am parting with that I can't move by myself, and the electric co, who will remove and give me $35 for my old freezer plus remove unused old freon A/Cs for free. That should be done later this week, and the paper sorting I will tackle a couple of hours a day over the summer. I hate temperatures over 80 so I hide inside all summer anyhow.

I haven't worked since 4/15, but I have regularly been attending some professional networking events and completing lots of CPE that is required to maintain my license.

Starting now, I am ramping up the job hunt efforts. The permanent jobs in the smaller tax-focused firms I have targeted don't really open up much until the fall, although there is one listing now that I am excited to apply to, and hopefully I can get some temp work in between. I have unemployment that I can draw until mid-October, plus additional savings from tax season, so hopefully I won't have to take too much from my inherited funds to get me through.

I remain optimistic about my future prospects for the moment, and have been enjoying the additional time to focus on personal issues after the past few crazy years. And I'm looking forward to seeing two friends whom I haven't seen in a while during the next month and driving up to visit a friend who owns a cabin on Schroon Lake in the Adirondacks some time over the summer. That will be my first trip out of town in 3 years!

When one door closes, another opens.

2013 was my transitional year, a year during which some doors closed.

2014 thus is to be my year of new beginnings, I hope.

Two big doors closed, or mostly so, during 2013.

The first had to do with my career. I started the year having been at a temp job for 7 months, hoping that it would turn permanent, which would have provided a nice salary and benefits and reasonably good job security and interesting enough work. This was not to be.

But ultimately I realized that this was a silver lining: while the job was interesting enough, it wasn't one I was passionate about, and also, working at a foundry greatly exacerbated my asthma.

By year's end I left the company and found a tax season position at a CPA firm. Although I had interviewed for four permanent jobs, I didn't land any of those, losing out in each case to someone coming directly from a CPA firm and with a bit more experience in public. I'm hoping that, with one more busy season under my belt and the CPA and EA in hand (EA arrived in December and I expect the CPA to be final in January) and a CPA firm back atop my resume, that I'll finally get the permanent job I seek.

And a job in public accounting, especially working with individuals and small businesses, will give me more of a chance to use what I know about psychology in my accounting career and thus will be more personally satisfying.

The second door that is closing in the near future is the door on my dear Teddy cat's life. He was diagnosed over two years ago as being in Stage Four kidney failure and given a prognosis then of 6 months to a year. He was started on a medication a few months in that greatly improved his condition, but he developed antibodies to that this past summer and had to be taken off of it. He stayed stable through the summer (when he was spending lots of time outdoors), but as the weather cooled, he began to fade. He has been going downhill quite rapidly since Thanksgiving and is now in the phase where every day I ask myself: is he eating? can I get him to purr? is he suffering? and I expect to lose him in the next week or so....there are no overt signs that he is suffering but his purrs are getting quite rare.

When he passes, this ends a nearly five year "hospice" period that started in August 2009 when my Henry Hound was diagnosed with cancer. I lost Henry in 2010, my mother in 2011, my Phoebe cat in 2012, and Teddy any day now.

It will be a relief to have this dark period of continual losses behind me.

Other than trips out to California during my mother's illness and passing and one long weekend back in 2011 to attend a family wedding, I have done no traveling in that period beyond a couple of daytrips each year that took me maybe 75 miles from home.

So after Teddy passes, I'll look forward to being able to do a little traveling again, and later in the year, after busy season, I'll start another "fur family," most likely with a pair of bonded cats. (Another basset hound, while much desired, is not practical at this point and will have to wait.

So, two doors pretty much closed in 2013, but in 2014 I hope to open the door to a full-time job with benefits and a new fur family and the chance to travel and expand my perspective, which has gotten overly narrowed due to all the crises on the home front.

Despite my poor kitty's imminent demise, I start this year feeling more optimistic and hopeful than I have in years.

I see that it has been nearly a year since I last posted, and I'm glad to see many familiar "faces" still here.

So here are the high (and low) lights of the past year.

1. On the job/career front: Making progress, but I am still seeking the "Holy Grail" of the full-time salaried job with benefits. Back in April, around the one-year mark at my temp job, I was told that it would not become permanent. Job-hunting time in my field peaks in Sept-Nov, so I had not applied for any jobs last year at this time in the hopes that the temp job would become permanent. Of course, I was disappointed not to get the permanent position, but I'm fine with it now. After some soul-searching, I realized that the private-company job, while intellectually challenging, doesn't give me any client interaction. The only interaction I have is with other team members, and that is actually pretty limited--maybe one meeting a week and one group lunch a month, and often less than that. I want the opportunity not only for the increased social stimulation, but for the chance to make use of my psychology background.

So now I am job-hunting again, looking to get back to a smallish public accounting firm (2-6 partners). I had two interviews with one firm back in July & August, but lost out to someone with more experience. Now I have two interviews with two different firms coming up this week.

I have also completed the CPA requirements (curtesy of Pennsylvania's changing a law which eliminated the requirement for one particular type of experience (audit) that I just couldn't get because all my accounting experience is in tax. So I will be sending in my license application later this week.

I have also gotten a decent grasp of business taxes and have passed the two hardest (of three) Enrolled Agent exams, so I expect to add that certification later this year, too.

2. I hired a personal trainer for 5 sessions in September & October to help me get started on getting back into shape. I'll pay for more sessions once I land the "Holy Grail" job, but at least I'm going to the gym again now. The job I've been at disrupted my old regular exercise routine, and I'm hoping this fall both to find a new job and along with it, start a new routine that gets me out & exercising first thing in the morning. I bought one of those "sunrise" alarm clocks and that is helping get me out of bed earlier as our sunrises occur later and later. I've also meditated fairly regularly (the free "Insight Timer" kindle app has been a great help) and I've been pretty consistent with a vegetarian/vegan diet, but I haven't worked hard enough at it to lose any weight.

3. I've had a decent enough social life, mostly with my congregation and secondarily with the vegetarian pot luck club that I joined a year ago. A friend came to visit for a long weekend over the summer, and I had one day-trip ride with friends along the Delaware River on my birthday, but otherwise, my free time has been at home, where I have spent loads of time sitting in the backyard, reading and studying, with my cat, Teddy. Teddy was diagnosed nearly two years ago with chronic renal failure, and back in April 2012, he was put on a medication that greatly helped his condition. He developed antibodies to that medication in May and was taken off of it June 1st. At that point I kind of expected that he would go rapidly downhill again and that I would lose him over the summer, but it's been a much slower process than I thought, so he is still with me. We celebrated 10 years together just this week. I still don't know if he'll make it to the new year, but now I at least think that's within the scope of possibility. Spending most of my free time with him has meant, however, that I don't do any traveling. I've had the "new" car over a year now and the furthest I've driven it has been about 70 miles away.

4. For the rest of the year, other than getting a new job and getting settled with that, I am hoping to finally turn my attention to getting my house in some order. I am praying that I am able to take two weeks between finishing at my temp job and starting the new gig, whatever that turns out to be. During the past year, I had 4-day weekends for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years, and 3 day weekends for Easter, Memorial Day, Independence Day, and Labor Day, and that's IT for time off--except for 2 sick days and 2 home repair days (which was time off I didn't get paid for--no personal time off on a temp gig). Saturdays are eaten up with commitments--vet appointments for Teddy, a 4 hour Enrolled Agent review class, and my personal training appointments, and Sundays are when I get to do laundry, go grocery shopping, clean and cook and do any extra socializing. That's just not enough time for me to keep things as neat as I'd like. Once upon a time, I was really pretty organized, but during the past 4 years of frequent job changes and helping three beloved pets and my mother through their final months, my ability to keep on top of my home life just vanished. Simply not enough time. I'm hoping to be able to manage enough time off within the next two months to make my home feel a comfortable place that I would like to invite people over to again. At the moment, it's not. So that, along with getting a job and getting back in shape, is on the top of my agenda for the rest of the year.

If you look at my goals for the past 3 years over on the sidebar, you'll see that I've just been repeating the same themes (essentially since I left my old career in 2009). I'm hoping to move on to the next stage with some of these by 2014.

This post is directly inspired by Patient Saver's post, "How well do you reinvent yourself?," where she lists the jobs she's held during her career, and invites us to do the same.

This is fun to think back on! Here's my list, with selective commentary.

Elementary School. First paying job: dog sitter for the neighbor's dog while they were away on vacation. I'll always remember my 10th birthday--I went in to feed the dog that morning and she had pooped several times all over the kitchen. I ran home crying to my dad for help and he gently told me that this was what I was getting paid for and doing the job that needed to be done was part of growing up. I think he probably helped me but he certainly made me do my share!

Junior High/High School
-Street Musician, in front of LACMA (Los Angeles County Museum of Art). There was a huge plaza in front of LACMA at the time with a lively street festival culture. My friend Susan and I would play duets, and--as two young teens (we were about 14/15 at the time)--we earned a decent amount of money doing this each Sunday.
-Babysitter
-ESL (English as a Second Language) Tutor. My dad was an ESL teacher (as well as an elementary school teacher) and a few of his students hired me for extra help to prepare for the TOEFL exam.
-(Volunteer) lab assistant in oncology research lab. I had to wash/autoclave glassware, but they also taught me to count blood cells, inject mice, etc, plus do some data collection.
-Volunteer orchestral musician for theatre arts and performances; solo performer at monthly musical salons.

College
-Cashier, Gift Store, Xmas rush
-Research Director, Student Educational Policy Commission. Probably the highlight was doing research with the assistance and supervision of the university registrar documenting the number of students getting C- grades, who would lose credit for classes which they took Pass/Not Pass (which they would get credit for had they taken it for a grade) and getting to present this in front of the Faculty Senate. They did vote to change the policy at the time, but I just checked and see that they have since changed it back.
-Clerical Assistant, Documentation Associates, Information Services Inc (DAISI)
-Copy Editor, Psychology of Women Quarterly. The editor actually asked my mother (who had indexed one of her books) if she would do this, and my mother suggested that she try me. She gave me a copyediting test, and I ended up doing this for two years, working for the editor, communicating both with faculty authors across the world and with the publisher.
-Research Assistant, Psychology Department.
-Statistical Analyst. I discovered in the process of working as a research assistant that many clinical psychology grad students were statistics-phobic, so during my senior year, I had a small business consulting to clinical psych grad students and running their statistical analyses. They had to interpret the data; I just crunched the numbers.

Grad School
-Research Assistant
-Co-Author of several book chapters
-Teaching Assistant
-Survey Coordinator
-Babysitter (for some extra bucks)

Professional Life, Career One
-Instructor/Assistant Professor/Associate Professor of Psychology
-Free-lance Author of Test Banks and Instructors' Manuals for psychology textbooks
-(Volunteer) flutist. Got to be in the orchestra for the college chorale's performance of the Bach Magnificat (the other orchestra musicians were professionals from the Albany Symphony), Velveteen Rabbit at a local theater)
-Volunteer Income Tax Assistant

Then I left college teaching because I was stuck in a rut where my career wasn't showing any upward trajectory (and I never got tenure). I spent the last 3 years of my teaching career taking the courses for the accounting major, and as soon as I left teaching, I spent a few months preparing for, and passing, the CPA exam.


Professional Life, Career Two
-Tax Return Preparer (started at H & R Block; have worked at four small CPA firms since then).
-(Volunteer) Cashier, local arts center
-Bookkeeper
-Medical Office Receptionist (filled in for two months the end of one year while the accounting firm didn't have enough work for me
-cat sitter (again, during slack periods during my career change).
-Staff Tax Accountant (both at a CPA firm and currently as a temp (hopefully -to-hire) at a multinational manufacturing company.

In my last blog post, I wrote about the new car that I ordered, which will arrive sometime between the 15th and the 28th. It's a new 2012 Impreza, which have been hard to find to test drive. The last batch of the 2012s are on their way to dealers (mine's one of those), and they're beginning to accept orders for 2013s, which arrive in about 8 weeks.

I had hoped, by virtue of moving my car purchase up from the fall (typically lowest prices) to August, to be able to avoid more car repairs, but this was not to be. On Sunday, the temperature started spiking in my old car. I turned the A/C off and the temp went back down. Then on Monday, the same thing happened, and turning off the A/C didn't help. I popped the hood and found it needed more coolant, which I added. Things were fine Tuesday morning, but Tuesday at lunch, it began to overheat again, and again the coolant reservoir was drained. I got the car home without it overheating by adding more coolant and driving it with the heater turned on high. Then this morning, I drove it to the dealer where I am buying the new car and asked their service department to take a look.

When I described what had happened, the service manager said that it could be the head gasket, which would cost $1700-$1900, so I was antsy until he called with a diagnosis at lunchtime. Then he said it was the thermostat, so I had that replaced for $270.

But on the way home (5 miles), the temperature started spiking again! When the car cooled down, I checked the reservoir, and again it was empty.

The dealer has said they would give me $1200 for the car on trade-in. I feel like I've given them their chance....they could have told me this morning that it was the head gasket and I would have had to decide what to do. For now, I've decided that I'm not driving the car anywhere but back to the dealer when the new car arrives. I've rented a car (another pretty penny) to drive until the new one arrives, hopefully soon. I can't stand the anxiety of driving an overheating car anymore and I don't want to spend $2000 to repair a car that they will give me $1200 for on trade-in (which, by the way, is $200 more than anyone else offered me for it).

What would you do in this situation?

If I could get an Impreza other than the one I ordered immediately, I would, but most of the ones within 50 miles are "on order." There's a manual model, same color, same trim level, as the one I ordered, at the dealer I'm working with, but I had really decided to go with an automatic this time (both because of the better mileage and because I now live on a steep hill and parallel parking with a manual transmission when you have to back up on a hill is a bear....I do it but there are nights where I am too tired and either end up leaving my car parked too far from the curb, or I have to call the neighbor outside to move their car up so I won't hit it, or I have to park far away.

I ordered a birthday present for myself today--a new car! The only more costly thing I've purchased is my house. (Well, my education cost more, in toto, but I was basically a scholarship student, so most of the money for my education didn't come out of my own pocket.)

I never really expected to buy a brand-new car, and certainly have never done so before. Each car that I've owned I've bought used, and and coincidentally, each has had a 14-year lifespan: the 1978 Volvo, purchased with nearly 100K at age 10 that I got rid of in 1992 due to too much rust; the 1988 Toyota Corolla All-Trac Station Wagon that I bought at about 4 years old with 70K that the insurance company totaled for me in 2002 after I was hit by a soccer mom who was paying more attention to her son in the back seat than the highway she was pulling out onto; and now the 1998 Subaru Forester, also bought at age 4 with 47K, that I am getting rid of because it has already cost me twice its remaining value in repairs this year, and I know of at least $1000 more worth of repairs that need to be done. I love the car, and would keep it, but it also so happens that we are beginning to close out my mom's estate and I have enough of a windfall to pay for it in full.

If all my cars last 14 years, this time I'll take the first four relatively repair-free years for myself, and try to make the car last 14 years--which will bring me about to retirement age by the time this one expires. Of course, I lose more on the depreciation--but that's just accounting lingo for spreading the cost over time to match with use, and if I keep the car, the greater bite on depreciation really doesn't make any difference--it would only matter if I were leasing it or planning to sell in just a couple of years.

I thought about replacing the old Forester with a new used one--I could get a 2010 used Forester for the same price as a new 2012 Impreza--but after thoroughly investing not only the cost of purchase but the cost of ownership, I found that the Impreza is about 20% cheaper all around--fuel, insurance, maintenance and repairs as well as initial cost, so that swayed my decision.

My Forester has had so many repairs since the beginning of the year that I've reserved it purely for going to work and doing the weekly grocery shopping. With a new car, I'll look forward to taking a road trip sometime this fall. A friend owns a cabin in the Adirondacks that she is always inviting me to, and this year, after all the stresses of the past few years (the career change with long bouts of unemployment, and losing my mom and two of my three pets), I'd really love to take another weekend away (I went to a family wedding near Boston last September, and that was my first vacation in years...I'd so love another short one this year).

My birthday comes in 3 weeks, and the car should be here between the 15th and the 28th, so hopefully by my birthday, and if not, very shortly thereafter!

During my two-month job search (February & March), I applied for 32 jobs, had 8 interviews, and netted two jobs, both of which I took--sequentially. (So my hit rate is 25% both for applications getting interviews and for interviews getting jobs....though there were 6 rejections before either acceptance).

The first job that I took was an end-of-tax-season position at a small CPA firm. The firm owner got my name from the business internship director at the college where I got my accounting degree, and contacted me, unexpectedly. Like me, she is a career changer who went back to study accounting in her 40s and passed the CPA exam just before her 50th birthday, so it was a good match, and I enjoyed the 3 weeks that I worked there very much--despite the long tax-season hours.

That job would actually have lasted at a part-time level for several more months, and possibly beyond, save for another opportunity arising, this one through Accountemps. I've gotten my first corporate tax job, and started right on Wednesday,the day after tax season ended. The work is very different than what I'm used to but seems interesting. And working in a corporate cubicle environment is quite a change! I took a $5/hour pay cut from what I was getting at the small CPA firm to take this, which hurts--but that job would have become part-time after tax season, and the long-term potential was unclear, and while I was learning some new things, it was mostly consolidating knowledge I already had. This job, if I do well at it, could be a temp-to-hire job at a fairly large and reputable industrial company where, if things work out, I could be working not only full-time but be back to earning near or above my old salary from academia in a fairly short period of time. And if it doesn't work out, at least I'll have gotten more exposure to corporate tax, which will make me more likely to be hired by a regional CPA firm or in another corporate job, so it is more helpful to my resume in any case. We'll see how things work out!

Two month status report: two months ago, I was suddenly and unexpectedly laid off from my new (3 month) dream job.

The first month after getting laid off, I got right back out, meeting with a staffing manager at a local accounting-oriented staffing firm within days and applying for jobs, but I did so a little willy-nilly.

During February, I had five interviews, three in the third week of the month. I got three rejections on the following Monday, and that really felt like a sucker-punch to the gut, as much as the original lay-off had been, probably because my coping resources had already been drained by the layoff.

It took me a little bit to get my footing again. I took a week to focus on studying for the new Registered Tax Return Preparer exam (which I took and passed....still waiting for the IRS to finish its tax compliance check before they issue my certification).

I also decided that it was time to strategize.

I decided to get a professional resume upgrade, and I spent one phone session with a career coach who specializes in coaching accountants. I'm also going to work on my interview skills and go back to my college alumni center and have a mock interview taped, in case it is the interview that is holding me back.

It's been extremely frustrating having tax season go by without doing more than a few free tax returns for friends and family. The very first thing I did, the morning after the lay-off, was to look at Craigslist for ads for tax season help--which were all placed the first week in January, and all filled by the end of the month, when I was laid off. But I figured that, with a month to go, some firms might be feeling some pressure, so I placed an ad in Craigslist advertising my availability for last minute help. So far, I haven't gotten a response from that. I also leveraged the ad by finding a local group of accountants that meets monthly and arranging to attend their meeting, with a copy of my Craigslist ad and my business cards near the sign-in. Still no takers, but a couple of people did take my cards, so I'll be curious to see if that strategy garners any calls.

When I got home from that meeting, there was a message waiting from another accountant--one who knows one of my professors who knows about the lay-off. I went in Thursday for an interview, got hired (for a dollar more per hour than my last job), went in Friday to join the office pizza lunch and meet the staff and explore the new-to-me tax package by doing my own return on it.

The job is part-time, so if I get any response from the ad, I might be able to do that as well.

For the next three weeks, I'm going to focus on doing taxes, plus work on preparing my interview answers, and I'll schedule that mock interview.

I'm also preparing a list of desirable employers. Most major metropolitan areas have a local business journal, and business journals produce a "book of lists" which lists each of the major players in an employment category. I've subscribed to my local business journal for a couple of years and have their book of lists, and I also special ordered the Philly book of lists in accounting. Many of the firms are in Center City, which is an unrealistic commute because of traffic, but about 10 of the firms are north of Philly and about an hour away from me, which is commutable (not that I *want* an hour each way commute, but I would accept one at this point).

I've also been planning for some informational interviews right after tax season.

I've decided that I am really two jobs away from the job that I want--first I need a job that will expand my skills and experience a bit, then with more experience and a more polished resume and interview, hopefully I will start landing jobs.

In the meantime, I have part-time work for the next three weeks and possibly beyond. My new employer also changed careers--worked as a computer analyst, then had 4 kids and was a stay-at-home mom for several years, then went back to school in accounting in her 40s (as did I) and passed the CPA exam shortly before her 50th birthday (as did I). She got her experience working for a firm for several years and then bought into the firm, and eventually bought her old boss out, and acquired another practice as well. Even if the job doesn't pan out to be long-term or more than full-time, I am very hopeful that I have found a mentor.

I was laid off, very unexpectedly, a month ago from my
"dream job" when they lost one of their biggest clients. A corporation probably would have kept the younger, cheaper, but also less experienced employee (that would be me, in this case) and have let the older (69), costlier, more experienced employee go, but this firm was more in the nature of a family firm.

So I get to revise my 2012 goals back to "get a job" again. Sigh. That's been my #1 annual goal since 2009. This territory is just way too familiar.

But I'm tackling it with gusto.

A couple of differences between now and 2009:

First, the economy. We're on an upswing now, rather than still reeling from the blow. It's slow, but the market is definitely different.

Second, my personal circumstances. Other than job-hunting and gaining such experience as I could, the other dominant theme of the past 3 years for me was dealing with family illness. Unfortunately, my beloved Henry Hound, my Phoebe Kitty, and my Mom all passed during the 14 months from May 2010 to July 2011. I still have Teddy Cat, and he, unfortunately, is chronically ill, too, but he's hanging in there so far. He was diagnosed with Chronic Renal Failure just after Thanksgiving. We've gotten used to the new routine of sub-Q fluids and meds twice daily, I've found online sources for his supplies that are half the cost of getting them from the vet, and he seems stable for now. But much of what was holding me back from pursuing the job market more vigorously was that it was actually very helpful to be working part-time during the past two years. It gave me a lot more flexibility in terms of being with first Henry, then my Mom.

Third, the fact that I have accrued some experience, albeit not yet enough to be really competitive. But when I left teaching back in May 2009, I had no practical experience in accounting other than my participation in the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance program.

Over the course of the past 2.5 years, I had jobs with first H & R Block, then two small CPA firms, plus a temp Office Manager job that kept me employed part-time most of the time. Then that job that I just lost was three months of full-time work that focused more on business accounting & taxes and less on personal taxes, so I did learn a tremendous amount. I may still be below the critical threshold for getting the job I really want, but I *am* awfully close.

In the month since I was laid off, I submitted nearly two dozen job applications. I've had 5 job interviews (3 this past week) plus another phone screen that didn't lead to an interview.

One of the jobs that I interviewed for this week would be another "dream job" situation; the other two would have their advantages, and I'd take any of them if offered.

Hopefully an offer will be in the offing soon.

Around the beginning of the year, I decided to refinance my house. I did look around at rates and found that I could get as low as 3.75% for a 20-year mortgages, but I actually ended up with a 4% loan, staying with my current mortgage company (and bank), Wells Fargo. They waived all the closing costs so it was actually cheaper this way.

So I cut my rate from 5.875% to 4%, and I cut my loan term from 24 years remaining on a 30-year mortgage to a 20-year mortgage, and I *still* will save about $50/month on the payment--pretty sweet.

I'll start putting that extra $50/month into retirement after I get my other debt closed out. No, I won't put it into the mortgage because I want to be more diversified.

**************************
This weekend was a quiet one (most are). It snowed yesterday, so I stayed in and spent much of the day reading. Today I spent reviewing my notes from a year ago on doing S-Corp returns. Now that I'm actually DOING them, things make more sense.

I also did a fair amount of cooking over the weekend...trying to make sure that I have food prepared for the coming week, because I'm very unlikely to cook mid-week. Yesterday, I made a nice tofu-veggie stirfry that I served over Kashi pilaf for lunch, and turkey burgers for dinner. Today, I roasted a butternut squash and cooked up a pound of swiss chard and made baked apples (plus had one of the turkey burgers) for lunch, and made a big pot of "stuffed cabbage soup" (similar ingredients to stuffed cabbage., just in soup form) for dinner.

We've finally turned the corner on mornings getting light earlier (though still it's well after 7 before the sun is really out), and it's staying light til after 5. The dark is really making me feel sleepy early this year, and I'm just not productive once it's dark. I'm looking forward to having more light soon.

So here's my annual spending recap, with a comparison to Dave Ramsey's recommendations (rounded...he gives ranges). I'll note that my record-keeping was not as precise this year as I normally make it; I just summarized data from the Mint.com data aggregator about my spending and then put it into an Excel spreadsheet to graph it. This means that many entries are inexact--for example, a purchase at Costco might have been coded as groceries but was really half household goods. But the way life was this year, this approximation is "good enough for government work," as my Dad would have said.

First, I'll note that spending exceeded income by about $3000, the balance going to credit card debt. A no-no, but this was an extraordinary year--the "triple whammy" of negative life events.

So a comparison: my mortgage spending looks great by the recommendations, but then there's the "Other Home," which included about $1800 of needed home repairs (water heater and sidewalk replacement). Still, even that total is 32% compared to his 30%, so not bad.

My food and medical are both 5% above his recommendations. The medical is because I paid my own health insurance for 11 months out of this year. The food is always a struggle for me.

My utilities are within his recommended range of 5-10%, even though the #s aren't comparable here (I was making his ranges add up to 100%). My transportation costs are actually a bit lower.

He has 10% to charity and I have 9% to Pets (and maybe there's another 1% to Basset Hound rescue....Pets *are* my charity, I guess).

And of course, he has 10% to savings, which I didn't manage this past year, but now that I'm a working girl again, I'm well on track towards being able to meet that for 2012 and beyond.

One thing that I need to do at some point is to rebalance my retirement portfolio. I have some money in an inherited IRA from my mother, and there's way too much cash in there to generate good growth (though I definitely won't liquidate all the cash--I'll leave enough in there to provide some liquidity in case of an emergency....my ultimate goal is to have 6 months' worth of living expenses in an emergency fund in cash outside of retirement accounts and a years' worth of living expenses in short-term bonds, CDs, and cash equivalents inside the retirement account just in case. But the amount of cash I currently have in retirement is more than that, so in the near future, I need to invest some of that, probably in an intermediate bond fund.

There is a cool tool that is useful in rebalancing that I discovered a couple of years ago. It is called "Financial Engines," and it was developed by Economics Nobel Prize winner Bill Sharpe, and they work with many of the big retirement plan companies and big corporations to provide advice, based on Monte Carlo similations, to employees. Now I'm not saying it's a perfect tool--it IS a bit of work initially to get set up, and there are things that it won't ask about...see

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jan2002/tc200... for a good review...but it does a pretty good job of keeping up with how your account balances are changing IF you are not adding to them, and it provides easy access to research on various funds. This is a product that is typically offered free to employees of Fortune 500 companies as an employee benefit, or individuals can buy plans for themselves starting at $39/year, but you can get a free account at http://www.terrysavage.com--click the blue financial engines button . Once you sign up and input your data and goals, they'll mail you quarterly reports with a scorecard saying how likely their simulations say you are to reach your retirement goals. Anyways, I find it useful for taking a look at my accounts, and so I pass the information on to those of you who may find it useful as well.