Fiscal Fitness

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.

The gold standard toward which I aim, as a disciple of YMOYL ("Your Money or Your Life," by Joe Dominguez & Vicki Robbins) is "F.I.," financial independence, the point at which you can live off your investment earnings (plus any Social Security that you qualify for, once you reach retirement age). That generally takes retirement savings (a.k.a. investment capital) of 12 to 15 times earnings...so that someone who earned 50,000 a year would need to have 600-750K in order to consider retiring.

So a useful year-end metric is not just to look at percentage earnings, but at how much money your money earned. That actually matters more than the percent. If that number looks like income that you could live off of (or could live off of supplemented by the social security you can expect to get), you have a sense of how close to F.I. you are.

I sat down and did that calculation. This past year, my investments (basically my retirement accounts) earned me about $5000. Not hardly enough to live on, but it's a start.

but I'm about to drag myself out to the two Christmas Eve parties I've been invited to.

I've spent most of the past two days reading "Your Money Ratios," analyzing my annual expenses, and thinking about refinancing, and the Scroogey part of me would be perfectly content to stay here doing that.

But I am forcing myself into a bit of congeniality, and even went and bought some small gifts for some of the neighbors and handed them out and did a little visiting this afternoon. Good for maintaining good relationships with the neighbors, which I value.

Tomorrow, I *will* have the day to myself, and I'm planning on *finally* putting this place in some decent order to give myself a little feeling of peace and refuge when I arrive home. At the moment, I have to put blinders on to get that.

I'm Jewish, so this holiday doesn't mean anything to me, and my focus is really on getting organized and motivated for the new year.

And maybe I'll treat myself to a movie tomorrow afternoon. We used to do that when we were kids sometimes on Christmas Day. Anyone know anything decent that's playing?

Last year, my mortgage company (Wells Fargo) called me and offered me an easy refinance...no appraisal, no cost (though I'm not sure what that means...I'll have to look at the documents I have from last year to be clear). Last year, even though I was approved for the loan, I didn't go through with it, because I was employed only part-time and still collecting unemployment, and I was worried that somehow things would come back to "bite" me.

Now that I'm employed full-time again, it makes sense to think about refinancing with the rates so low. So I googled "mortgage refinance calculator," pulled one up, filled it out, and, as typically happens with these, got a list of potential lenders to call me rather than an actual printout of an estimate.

I talked to two of them today. Seems like I can go from a 30-year mortgage with 24 years remaining at 5.875% to a 20-year mortgage at 3.75%, AND lower my monthly payment by about $50. Sweet.

And, of course, if I keep on paying the same amount, I lower the payoff date to about 17 years, which brings me to full retirement age (not that I plan to retire then, but I want to be ABLE to, debt free).

So I'm going to do it. Now I need to figure out who to do it with. I have two phone quotes (both of which agreed that I can get the 20 year 3.75% rate; one also offered a 15-year, 3.5% loan, but that takes my payment a little bit higher than I'd like it).

If I stay in the house, I'll save about $24,000 in interest over the life of the loan (less any points or closing costs, which still leaves savings of over $20,000). Even if I decide to move and even if there are points or closing costs, it would be worth it in just a year or two.

I know that with both of the lenders that I spoke to today, there'd be an appraisal to get. Don't yet have the details on other closing costs.

Now I need to contact Wells Fargo and get their rate and see if it is comparable, and weigh whatever that is against avoiding the hassle of getting another appraisal.

This is my first house and I've never refinanced before. Any words of wisdom on things I should look at for as I navigate this process?

Here's a summary. First the pictures, then the words; first the past four years and then the current one.


A look at the past four years shows that both my assets and my debts climbed (with the exception of the year when the recession hit, when my assets fell). On this balance sheet graph, which gives a sense of overall context. the debts line actually looks relatively stable, but the actual amount of debt increase was significant and scary. That comes through better on the income statement graph below.

The debt ratio, by the way, is total debt relative to total assets, and shows an increase for the first four years of the period. Currently it is at about 25%, down from a high of close to 40%. My goal for the next year is to bring this down below 20%, ideally to 18%.



On this graph, you can see that, for most of the time during this period, my expenses outpaced my income, due to a 2.5 year period of unemployment combined with unusual, large expenses.

No amount of emergency fund planning that I might have done prior to this period would have been sufficient, and the financial planning literature I've read tends to significantly underestimate emergency needs as people, pets, homes, and durable goods age. Of course, I haven't read much financial planning stuff the past two years as I've been focused on finishing the CPA. The literature that I'm familiar with is from before the recession and overestimates expected retirement returns and underestimates expenses. I'm hoping that the recent literature is more realistic. (Not unduly pessimistic--realistic.)

The profit margin is net income (income less expenses) divided by income; here I just include "operating" income, i.e., salary, unemployment, and gifts, but not the investment income that accrues in my retirement accounts. As you can see, I had losses rather than income for most of the period.

As for the past year, you can note a turn-around on both graphs. This reflects a "bad" (sad) reason and a good one. The big increase in my assets is because my mother died and I had a bit of an inheritance; the recent increase in net income is because I worked a full tax season (lots of hours) back last winter and because I landed a full-time job with benefits this fall.

Hopefully the next time I do a five-year assessment, I'll be able to show annual profits (ideally, 10% for this next year and 15-20% thereafter) and a big reduction in debt.

I drafted my 2012 goals--you'll see them in the sidebar.

The debt monster really ran amok in 2011 as I continued to run into emergency situations that were just not in the budget for a person surviving on unemployment, but now that I am employed, the extinction of the debt is in sight. As soon as I received my first full paycheck, I sat down and spent a day and budgeted and planned.

If I were paying off the debt based on my salary alone, it would take me 3-4 years, just as it did at the start of my career, when I got into debt the first time. I do expect to receive money from my mother's estate next year, however, and that will allow me to short-cut the process and pay off the debt all at once, as well as use the balance to establish the car and roof replacement and emergency funds I should have been building all this time had circumstances allowed.

Once the debt is paid off, I will increase my retirement contributions and think about other savings goals.

It is so nice to be able to plan again against a background of relative certainty compared to the planning with life-in-limbo that I've done since 2009.

Teddy, my last remaining pet of the three I had two years ago, was diagnosed with chronic renal failure after I came back from my weekend away at Thanksgiving. He's now on subcutaneous fluids twice daily, and hopefully can have 6-12 more months. He's only 10, and I thought I'd have him longer than that. Poor Teddy Bear.

I read an article recently about how much better pet insurance is now than it was a decade ago. Too late for Teddy, but has anyone had some good experiences with it? Something to look into before the *next* pet.

The past 2.5 years have had so many ups & downs, with a long bout of un/under-employment, two pet final illnesses and my mother's final illness, that I just gave up the ghost on trying to plan ahead, and I racked up a lot more credit card debt than I am comfortable with paying for veterinarian bills, some major plumbing & other house and car repairs, and travel between my east coast home and my mother's west coast home.

I've been at the new job three weeks, and today I logged in to the payroll company and got a sneak peek at my next paycheck, which will actually be direct deposited on Wednesday. Because I'm salaried, each of my future paychecks will be the same (except that health insurance contributions are likely to go up come January, and the Social Security tax withholding is scheduled to go back up to 6.2% from its current 4.2%.

Knowing what I'm making, what I own, what I owe, and what I expect to inherit when we close out and distribute the assets from my mother's trust next summer allowed me to actually make some reasonable plans for the first time in a long time.

The first year will be tight, because I have a lot of debt payment going on. Nonetheless, I'm contributing 5% of my pay to retirement because it feels so good to be able to contribute again after not having been able to for 2.5 years!

When the trust distributes next summer, I will be able to pay off the balance of the debt, and increase my retirement savings. I'm also going to take a chunk of the expected distribution to put away for a new car and roof replacement, both things I expect that I may have to do within the next 3-5 years. Plus I'll also leave some of it accessible in a taxable account as an emergency fund in case I become unemployed again. Anything that's left after that I'll probably put towards retirement.

I also downloaded a preview of the tax package that I use at home (TaxAct) and ran the numbers on this years' anticipated taxes. This year, I'm in the 15% tax bracket and next year I go back to the 25% bracket, so I need to think about whether there's anything that, given that fact, it would be advantageous to do this year rather than next (maybe a second pair of glasses, since I definitely was way over 7.5% on Schedule A for medical expenses, given the fact that I paid my own insurance for 11 out of the 12 months this year.

What a massive relief to know that there is light at the end of the debt tunnel. I've been hoping and praying that this would happen, but now is the first time that I actually can begin to *expect* that the nightmare of debt will end.

I started my new job on Nov. 1. The first day was quiet, as half the firm was off at a continuing education seminar. I spent the first couple of hours filling out paperwork and reading over the details of benefits information (health insurance--I'll save over $300 a month from what I was paying on my own, plus there's $0 copay for doctor visits and only a $500 deductible; and there's a SIMPLE IRA with a 3% company match). Then the two partners who were there took me out to lunch, so we got to know each other a bit better. I was pleased to find out that they are dog people, too. In the afternoon, I started working on my QuickBooks ProAdvisor Certification--there's a 16 hour CPE course (which takes more than twice that long to complete if you're relatively new to QB, as I am). Most of the rest of the first week was spend on this certification course, with one of the partners throwing little assignments at me for an hour or so each day. Next week, I learn the billing system, as that will become my responsibility. So far, so good--I am enjoying things so far, but definitely have to get used to being away from home for 9 or more consecutive hours a day. As a professor, I worked that much, but was able to do lots at home, so wasn't away from home that much. And even last tax season, when I was working about 65 hours a week, it was at two firms, one of which was near my house, so that I'd come home for lunch and dinner. The new firm is 15 miles away, so these days I go home for dinner, but come tax season, I won't. At least there's a refrigerator and microwave at work (though no sink in this "kitchen.")

Once I have my first paycheck in hand and verify my take home pay, I'll have to start putting together a plan to get myself out of debt. It will be such a relief to finally start turning that debt around!

I can check off (most) of my Goal #1 for 2011--in fact, I've made good progress on all four of my yearly goals!

I finally landed a salaried job with benefits at a small CPA firm that will allow me to finish the CPA license requirements, although I won't have the necessary 400 audit/assurance hours by year's end. I expect to be able to apply for my license next summer.

I'm very excited about the job--it seems a great fit, as it starts out at a junior level, which is appropriate for me as a career changer, but there's a lot of potential for moving up at a good pace, which fits my 20 years of professional experience in another business (I was a professor in an unrelated field.) It's that potential for moving up which I had lost with my last career which led me to change careers in the first place.

The job is also mostly tax with some audit, and that fits my interests as well. I'm very happy to have landed at a small firm, where you do more of a variety of tasks, than at a large one, where you specialize more.

As an entry level job, the position comes with a salary that is about $15K less than I once made, but also considerably more than I made while combining unemployment compensation with part-time income. This will allow me to stop going into debt and start getting out. I need to make a plan for getting out of debt and saving for both short-term goals (my car is a 1998 with 150K miles so I expect to have to replace it within a few years) and retirement.

First, however, I am going to go get myself new glasses, pay for minor roof repairs to be done before winter comes, and buy myself a second business suit in preparation for my first month at the job.

Question for you: Are there expenditures you make that you consider more as an "investment" than an expense?

I'm not talking traditional investments here, but things that you purchase that you believe will have the effect of saving you money in the long term.

I've made three such purchases in the past six months, and two other purchases from the past 3 years come to mind as well:


1. A new wool comforter. If I can stay warm at night, I can keep the house temperature cooler and save money on heating bills. My old down comforter actually kept me warm, but about 6 years ago, I was first diagnosed with asthma, and last year, I landed in the ER because of it, to the tune of $1500, currently the deductible on my health insurance. I had previously poo-pooed the idea that the down was making my allergies worse, but this year, the effect when I put the down comforter on my bed was striking and notable, requiring the use of my inhaler several nights in a row (normally, only exercise induces an attack). So the comforter went into storage and I researched replacements online. Wool appears warm, breathable, and dust-mite resistant, as well as natural, so I purchased a comforter made out of wool.

2. A Vita-Mix: If you haven't heard of these, these are basically blenders on steroids, and highly touted by many in the raw foods community. While I'm not raw, I do try to eat minimally processed whole foods as much as possible to cut down my grocery bills in the short term and my doctor's bills in the long term. I haven't owned this long enough to calculate the monthly grocery savings yet, but I am using it multiple times a day and eating more fruits and veggies than ever, which can only be good for my health. Today I ran out of soy milk and at first was tempted to go to the grocery store....then realized I still had a cup of raw almonds, so instead, using the Vita-Mix and a "nut-mylk bag," I made myself a quart of almond milk that will do for cereal and coffee for a few days...saving me a grocery store trip, which means saving money because I *know* I wouldn't just buy soy milk while I was there! Plus now instead of buying pre-minced garlic and prechopped onions, I'm buying them whole and chopping my own.

3. A Nu-Wave counter-top oven. Yes, I'm a kitchen-gadget queen. But I've never had good luck making meats in the traditional oven. Baked veggies and the yearly turkey, yes, but until now, I've only had good luck making chicken on the stove top in some kind of sauce, usually marsala or cacciatore...and most of the chicken I've bought has been in the form of boneless skinless chicken breasts. Now every week I'm buying a whole frying chicken (better size for one person thann a roasting bird) and making it in this baby....then using the drippings and carcass to make my own broth. This machine will also cook meat straight from frozen, and chicken breasts are done fast--15 minutes if thawed, 25 i frozen--so there goes one of my excuses for buying something out. I buy a big bag of turkey burgers from BJ's and keep those in the freezer for quick meals that save me from going to BK's!

4. Not a new purchase, but an old one that I hadn't used for a couple of years that I recently put into action again: my Food Saver. The bags are a bit pricey, but Ball Mason jars are reusable, and if you spend a few bucks extra for a jar sealer attachment, you can buy in bulk and have the food last longer--a good solution for someone who is single like me who cannot take advantage of buy-in-bulk deals without a long-lasting storage solution.

5. My rice cooker--this was the first kitchen gadget I bought with the intent of using it to cook more, and it definitely has helped. A "fuzzy logic" cooker with multiple functions can be used for much beyond basic grains! Mine has a soup and a slow cook function and will even bake bread! I love being able to dump my ingredients, press a button, go out for a walk and come home to a cooked meal! This is faster than a slow cooker but can act similarly, plus because it vents moisture, things will brown in it that won't brown in a slow cooker. Right now the teflon on the inner pan has begun to wear out, and I'm going to have to replace this....I'm considering a gadget by Fagor that has a pressure cooking function as well (unfortunately Panasonic does not seem to sell replacement liner pans).

So what purchases have you made recently with the intent of saving yourself money in the long term?

I see that I haven't written an entry here since New Years, so here's the quick update of my year to date:

January: Spent a lot of time with a close friend whose grandson died on the 24th.

February-April: Busy season; worked two jobs, 30-35 hours each--loved one job, hated the other. But neither morphed into anything more after tax-season; I still work occasionally and part-time at the job I love, but the firm is too small for that job to become more than it is. I get good experience, learn a lot, and can say that I am employed, plus earn a little money--all good. On the sad side, I lost my cat, Phoebe, the one I'd had since kittenhood, to kidney disease.

May: Went out to Los Angeles for two weeks to visit my mom; she was able to leave the house (in wheelchair) for excursions to places like the Farmer's Market; we videotaped a 3-hour oral history with her. When I returned from the trip, one of my clients had died and I was hired by his son to assist him with his executor duties. (Poor guy--he lost his mother in the middle of May and his father two weeks later.)

June: The first half I was busy helping my client with the executor work, plus arranging for my sidewalk to be replaced (it had been torn up in September with a sewer pipe replacement). I had a talk with my Mom on June 15, the day they were starting the work, and she seemed fine. The next morning, though, I get frantic text messages from my sister that my mom is in the ER. She is hospitalized for 8 days--I monitor the situation from afar. She is released on Friday the 24th and calls me on Sunday the 26th to ask me to fly out--she needs extra assistance now that she is home, hopefully for just a couple of weeks. I fly out on Monday. She improves for the first week I am there.

July: My mom continues to improve through July 3--a day during which she spent much of her time sitting in the wheelchair at the computer making stock transactions. July 4 she is tired and spends most of the day in bed. July 5 she is extremely week and we end up having to call the paramedics again. She lands in Intensive Care for five days and then back on the regular floor for five days. I was able to be with her 14 or so hours a day. During this time, after the treatment options that she was willing to try failed, my mom made the decision to go home on hospice. She was transfusion-dependent and this meant turning off the transfusions. She came home on Friday the 15th and died on Tuesday the 19th. I spent 3 more weeks in L.A. dealing with her executor stuff and being there as a support for my sister.

August: I returned home. I still had executor work to do for my client for the first week, and then two of the staff in my office were on vacation, so there was work for me the second week. But I haven't worked since last Monday. My birthday was last week so I took a day off with a friend to drive down the river; then Hurricane Irene was distracting with preparations for a few days. I was fortunate to escape damage-free, but my friend had water in the basement and a big tree fall on her garage. I am giving myself a couple of days to clean up and organize and then hit the ground running in terms of job hunting after Labor Day.

It's been two years of transitioning--two years since I left full-time employment in my previous career, two years since my wonderful Henry Hound was diagnosed with cancer, two years since my mom's diagnosis. The part-time employment has been wonderful in affording me flexibility as well as experience during this time, but now I desperately need a full-time job with benefits. I was so good for over 15 years about avoiding unnecessary debt; now I have over 10K on credit cards to pay off so I can get my financial house back in order.

I'll be back here more as my attention focuses more on that goal.

What I'd Change
1. I'd have a bit tighter rein over my spending. I'm not cutting back as much as I should given my part-time employed circumstance. There are a few expenses I regret, but most of them I don't...for many of them, I feel like I've been making investments in my future (spending about $500 on CPE units, spending about $200 on nutritional supplements and $100 on exercise equipment/gym fees/videotapes).

So I'm already on to
What I Would NOT Change
1. Money and time spent on my beloved Henry, even though the cancer beat us in the end.
2. Money spent on CPA review classes....got me through all the exams the first time around and saved on future exam fees (I think it's about 20% who pass all four on the first try)
3. For the most part, money and time spent on my health, though there are months I paid for the gym and didn't go.

What I'll Change in the Future
1. More focus on debt reduction. The past 18 months or so have been hard. I've been unemployed or part-time employed; my long-term relationship broke up; I lost my beloved dog to cancer; my mother is seriously ill and spent five months in a nursing home and while she's home and stable now, she does have a terminal illness; and my best friend's grandson has been dying of cancer...the last month we knew it was getting close to the end and I spent almost every evening with her so she wouldn't have to be alone with her thoughts; he finally passed last Monday. Because of all the hardship, I've fallen into debt whereas before I had none and needless to say, I haven't saved anything either. I need to focus on getting out of that debt...the credit card debt will be gone this year one way or another although some of that may be by transferring the debt to five-year loans I can take out at a low rate by borrowing against my retirement savings. Better five years at 5% that can be paid off early without penalty than 10% or more on credit cards.
2. I'm praying that my mom stays stable this year, both because I love her and want her around and because I really need to focus on completing my CPA license and getting a salaried job. It actually gave me leeway to be with her that I was only employed part-time last year. This year I really need to finish the license requirements (which means finding an auditing job after tax season) and find a salaried job one way or the other....so far I've only applied to CPA firm jobs and haven't tried for corporate jobs.

Goals & Results for 2010

Goal: 1. Finish the CPA exam and the EA exam. Find a real self-supporting accounting job. Results: CPA exam--passed! EA part 1, passed. Working part time at a CPA firm and for 4th quarter at a doctor's office too. But no job that is full-time and self-supporting yet.

Goal: 2. Continue regular exercise with an eye towards weight loss. I walked 285 fitness miles in 2009...hoping to increase this to 365 in 2010. Also need to add in strength training at least twice weekly. Results: Walked 205 miles (didn't walk during two crisis months with Henry & my mom). No real strength training effort.

Goal: 3. I will focus on eating fewer prepared foods and smaller portions with an eye to both losing weight and trimming my food budget. Results: I made progress here--switched to Dr Fuhrman's "Eat for Life" plan in mid-Sept and have lost 19 pounds since Jan. 1 of 2010. I'll have to check how this affected the food budget...I don't really think it is down substantially.

Goal: 4. Do my own "happiness project" to combat the depressive tendencies that come with long-term unemployment and dealing with two dear family members facing terminal illness. Results: I made sporadic efforts and have at least avoided outright depression--mostly because I have been working part-time all year, much better for my mental health than total unemployment. Also a friend of mine whose grandson is dying of cancer and I partnered to form a strong mutual support network and check in on each other regularly, especially when one of us knows that the other is dealing with a rough patch, and this helps.

Low points of 2010: Henry's death; mom's landing in the hospital and then nursing home and realizing how serious her illness was.

High points of 2010: Landing the part-time job at the CPA firm; passing the last of the four CPA exams.

Goals for 2011 are the same but the plans and strategies are different.

One of the things that I appreciate about David Bach is that he usually offers his latest book for free for one day each book release. Today's the day. His latest book is "Debt Free for Life." Go to http://www.walletpop.com/david-bach to get your copy.

I haven't read it but I have appreciated his advice in the past.

Still no word on the ideal full-time job I interviewed for Nov. 10. About two weeks ago I sent an email and learned that the person who was hiring me had been having health problems and gotten behind on the interviews. He sent me a very complimentary email, which was nice. Then about a week ago, he sent a two word email, "still interviewing." So I haven't closed the books on that opportunity but definitely as time goes by I get more discouraged about it.

I did get some reassuring news from my part-time CPA firm job in case this full-time opportunity doesn't work out...they'll be able to use me part-time, though with a lack of office space, it'll probably mean working 5-9 pm weekdays and all day on weekends for about 36 hours/week. Definitely better than nothing and I'll be doing a lot more corporate returns this year rather than individual, which is the kind of experience I need to make me a better candidate for the regional firm jobs I've been applying for.

I've been working part-time as a temp receptionist/office manager at a small (one-doctor) medical office. That job ends Dec. 30. The doctor is interviewing now for permanent replacements. While it's not a job I'd be interested in permanently, it still is disconcerting when sometimes she has me make interview calls to prospective job candidates.

At least it's been good for learning a bit more about health insurance and billing. I have to deal with that on two fronts now--I'm dealing with my mom's long-term care and catastrophic major medical insurances over her nursing home stay and subsequent home health care aide use, plus I'm right at the point where I need to buy an individual policy for myself.

I've been on COBRA since Sept 1, 2009. For 2009, with the 65% federal subsidy, I paid $164.50/month. In 2010, it went up to $189/month. As of December 1, I ran through the federal subsidy, so I had to pay the full amount, which was $540 for this month. On January 1, it goes up to $604.50/month, and then I'm off COBRA on March 1 but could buy an individual policy with the same firm with no pre-existing medical condition clauses, but I think that'd be about $700/month.

Not something that I can afford on my mix of unemployment and part-time temp income--that'd be over a quarter of my take-home, and nearly as much as my mortgage.

So I'm trying to get new health insurance in place by Jan 1. I'll be comparing plans this weekend and making phone calls during business days next week. I'm suspecting at this point that I'll end up with an HDHP/HSA combination and probably about a $300/month premium. I'll post the details of my decision process once I decide.

I also decided to take out a substantial loan from my 403b plan to help pay down my credit card debt which has mounted substantially from zero to 14K during my 16 months of unemployment coupled with Henry's cancer and major capital repair expenses (about $3600 on plumbing and $3300 for car repairs during this interval...car has a relatively new engine (about 8 years) compared to age of the body (13 years) and things that are going wrong are just natural aging, e.g., replaced tires after 60K miles, replaced clutch mechanism after 125K, so I figure I'm justified in trying to avoid car payments until I get to the point where I have a salaried job and can save in advance to buy a new car). Between the loan and a substantial gift from my mother I'll be able to take most of that debt off of credit cards at 9.99% and leave myself with about $8000 in loan debt at 5.05%. There's still about $6000 in additional loan money that I could take if the car breaks down and I need to buy a cheap replacement before I find a real salaried job.

Progress, but certainly slower than I'd like!

I post rarely these days, so this is a catch-up post since July.

Life is calmer these days than it was early in the year, thank goodness. 2010 has definitely been a personal crisis year with Henry's dying and my mother's illness, but things have settled down for the moment.

I'm still on unemployment and still working part-time. I got cut way back on hours at the CPA firm for 4th quarter but found a temp job working as office manager in a doctor's office to fill in the gap until tax season. I've had some interviews at firms I'd really like to work for but haven't yet landed the salaried job with benefits that I crave. There are so many people with more experience than me out on the market that I lose out on the experience front. But at least this year I'm getting interviews--I wasn't last year. I'm crossing my fingers that if worst comes to worst I'll be back at the CPA firm that I've been at since April 1, and working more on corporate taxes this year, which is *exactly* the kind of experience that I'll need to get the kind of job I want. It's not a sure thing since office space is tight and the boss has another part-timer who he hired on after me who has nine years of experience...but if they can make the office space work I have a pretty good shot at having the job I need this tax season to get the job I want in a year or so, so I'm being optimistic.

The biggest thing since July is that I've actually made some progress for once on my weight loss goal. The last time I made any progress here was in 2008, when I joined Weight Watchers and lost 25 pounds in 3 months...and then slowly gained back nearly 20 of it during the intervening time. I turned 50 in August and that lit a fire under me to make a serious effort to lose the weight before menopause hits and makes it harder.

I had read Joel Fuhrman's "Eat for Life" about 5 years ago and thought it too extreme, but that's the plan I've ended up using. His advice is to have a pound of raw greens, a pound of cooked greens, any other assorted veggies you want, 3 or 4 pieces of fruit, a cup of beans, and a cup of whole grains a day--and that's 90% of what you eat. I doubt I get quite that many greens, but I have increased my intake of them significantly, mostly by becoming a fan of the "green smoothie." I have one or two of those a day. I ate a lot of salads in the summer, and now with winter it's more veggie-bean soups--and by upping my intake of vegetables and fruit significantly and limiting my grain intake to a cup a day, I've lost 14 pounds since mid-September, bringing me to my lowest weight in about 5 years. There's still a lot to lose (about another 50 pounds) but I'm finally making progress.

Where I'm not making progress is on cutting the debt. My income is currently about 50% of what it was when I had a full-time professional job, and that combined with this years' health crises with Henry and my mom put me into credit card debt for the first time in 15 years. Then in September I had a water pipe burst (about a $3000 repair), and various assorted larger expenses--this month it's going to be tires (on Subarus you have to replace all four at once so that's about $400 to get tires that will last the remaining life of the car--I hope to eek another 5 years out of it and get it to 200K miles), plus I need new eyeglasses before tax season again, and that will be another $200 to $400. As Gilda Radner playing Roseann Rosanadanna said, "It's always something."

But all things considered, I'm on an upswing emotionally relative to the beginning of the year and I hope to savor this period of relative calm for quite a while until the next crisis.

(That's Henry in the picture. His six-month yahrzeit is Nov 30)

I haven't blogged here in ages, but I thought I'd update.

Those of you who know me from my earlier posts (most active about 3 years ago) know that I have spent a lot of time and money on behalf of my beloved basset hound, Henry. Henry developed cancer just about a year ago, and during the past year I got myself back into debt trying to save him. It didn't work--I had to have my beloved baby put to sleep on May 30--but I bought him about six months, during four of which he felt really good, acting years younger. I have no regrets about the debt. But it will be a while before I adopt another dog. I'll do some fostering and other work for basset hound rescue in the meantime, though.

My mother has also been diagnosed with a life-threatening illness this year. She spent five months in a nursing home and only just returned home, where she needs a home health aide much of the time. I've had two visits out to see her and that has also cost some money, time and grief.

On the positive front, I'm making good progress on my career goals. I've now passed all four CPA exams and have completed about 20% of the experience requirement (one year of full-time work) working at a CPA firm. I still need a full-time permanent job, but I'm happy with where I am. Good thing, too--I turn 50 in a month, and making the career change successfully was a goal I set for myself when I turned 40. I'm not 100% to where I wanted to be, but I'm 90% there and feel fairly confident that I'll be where I wanted to be (full-time regular staff accountant position) during the year that I am 50.

I had also set some health goals this year, and could make better progress on those. The triple whammy stress of two family illnesses and being unemployed for much of the year definitely worked against me here! But I've lost a couple of pounds and maintained my walking schedule up until the last month of Henry's life, and am getting ready to get back to more of a focus on fitness now.

Every "decade" year of my adult life (20, 30, 40, 50) has had a major life crisis, but in each case, the crisis has been over by my actual birthday. I'm hoping that I'm done with crises for the year and can go back to focusing on more ordinary life goals--getting the full-time job I want, keeping fit and happy, and getting out of debt yet again.