Frame

I find this hauntingly beautiful.

The Whimsical Reposter,
TWS

Retirement Planning

The quote above exemplifies one of my favorite concepts: working smarter over working harder.

And so I present to you:

Allie J's 5 Step Guide on How to Retire Before Age 35

1. Step one: configure how much you spend on a monthly basis:

Rent/house payment and bills: $800
Food and things like deodorant and Draino: $200
Gas & insurance/car stuff: $150
Misc clothes & gifts: $60
Total: $1,210

2. Annualize step #1 (e.g. multiply by 12)
Round up to the nearest thousand to encompass the S that you can't plan for.
1,120 * 12 = 14,520
$15,000 = this needs to be your yearly income to live comfortably.

3. Find an acceptable rate of return in a mutual fund. Let's say a nice, even 10%. Divide the number you found in step #2 by this percentage.
15,000/.1 = 150,000
This is the amount that you need to invest in said mutual fund.

4. Figure out a feasible spend/save ratio. For example, if your paycheck is $1,200 every two weeks, you can probably save $1,000 every month (based on the number we found in step 1). This leads to a total savings of $12,000 a year.

5. Divide step  3 by step 4.
150,000/12,000 = 12.5
Add that number to your current age.
12.5 + 22 = 34.5
That's the age you can retire.

Argument #1: "Retiring young means that you'll forfeit company benefits like a 401(k) and IRA plan and SSA benefits and so on and so forth."
These plans are designed to provide retirees with a steady stream of unearned income. My plan does just that without a stupid age requirement! Also, you'll probably save money on taxes since you'll be in a lower bracket than you would be if you kept working. Win.

Argument #2: "You're not contributing to society in a meaningful way when you get out of the workforce prematurely."
I whole-heartedly disagree. For you see, your time not at work could be spent to do more useful things. You could grocery shop. And play in the yard. And drink coffee while reading a book on your porch on a random Wednesday morning. You could join the 2 pm Zumba class at your apartment complex and actually work out with others at a reasonable hour!  My plan is all about life enrichment not societal detriment.
I am in favor of working hard, BUT: I am not in favor of working when you don't have to.

Argument #3: "You give up other company benefits like health insurance and other coverage."
I'm kind of counting on Obama's healthcare reform act to pass, so by the time you retire, you'll be able to go out and afford your own.

Argument #4: "What if the market does poorly and you don't earn your expected return on the invested income?"
First, invest wisely. Choose investments that do okay even when the market sucks (like food, electricity, etc) and state and local government bonds. These have lower returns, but they're less risky (and the bonds are tax-exempt income for the most part).
Secondly, get a part time job to supplement. Chances are that after 6 months (or 2 weeks, if you're me) of being unemployed will begin to drive you mad. So getting a 10-25 hour/week job will help you keep your sanity and money in your pocket!

Argument #5: "It's not FAIR that you get to retire young and I can't because of x, y and z! Retiring that young is selfish!"
Talk to your spouse, plan ahead, and you can very well do what you like.

Argument #6: (and this is my favorite one) "It's not Biblical to only work part-time."

Really? You're going to play the God card?

My plan is not about working less because I'm lazy. It's about working less because you planned and worked smarter in the front end. I doubt God would frown upon using your brains, being healthier, and spending more time with your family. Also, you'd probably have more time and energy to be more active in church ministries.

SO BOOYAH.

Mike and I fully intend to follow (some variation of) this plan and retire young working only part time.
I don't want to be one of these people that work and work and work full time like they're "supposed to" and then when I'm fifty-five or sixty-five or however old the retirement age will be then, recline on my fat ass on all my gobs of money and be like, "What now?"

Estate planning is actually difficult for people with no kids because they have all this money and no where to put it, which means they spent so much time working when they really didn't need to.

TIME.

After busy season was over, I got to choose whether to turn my overtime into cash or leave. My dad said he would've chosen leave all the way, but I decided to go half-and-half because I'm saving up for stuff.
Looking back, I should have chosen all leave. The deposit of money into my bank account did not bring me joy. It wasn't material enough to make a difference, really.
But getting to sleep in and enjoy the warm sunshine on my back laying outside by the pool at noon on a Tuesday? That would have made me happy.

I have finally learned that TIME > MONEY.

So I go forth, ye breadwinners, and retire!

We're happy free confused and lonely in the best way,
TWS

22; Taylor Swift

Ring

Is there anything more ephemerally glorious and satisfying than emptying a bottle of conditioner in the shower, pulling back the curtain, tossing that container across the room and having it land perfectly in the trashcan?
No muss, no fuss.

Nothing but net.

No, I don't think there is.

I'm talkin' 'bout John, Damien, and dat boy Jrue,
TWS

Bruised Bananas

Accounting seems like a profession void of color and creativity.

The education also presents a stark contrast.
You know, like in 7th grade life science:
"Color the mandible of the lobster blue. Color the abdomen yellow."
And then you had a fantastically colored crustacean to hang on the fridge?

Oh, how I wish accounting continuing education was colorable.
"Circle the at-risk loss limitations in pink. Color the situation in which the §454 election would be beneficial."

It just doesn't work. Accounting is unfortunately a colorless world.
It's actually startling when I page through a file and come across a document from a color printer.
It's like woah.

At work, we have "work in process" lists. It's basically a list of all the clients you're assigned to do and what you're working on at the moment. Needless to say, during busy season, it is very handy to keep up with and look at all the S you have going on.

That why my document is saved on my desktop as "s".
(or "s.xlsx", if you will)

But now that it's no longer busy season, it's like:

But I do have about eight projects that I occasionally update. And because I spend a lot of the day looking at other spreadsheets, I've taken it upon my self to color my "s" spreadsheet as rainbow bright and psychedelically as Lisa Frank stationery.

Yeah. You know what I'm talking about.

And that's about as far as I can go with creativity in the tax profession. If you're too creative with tax, you go to jail. Or get very, very fined, and then your reputation and license to practice is toilet-worthy.

At the GSCPA meeting yesterday, there was a presentation on how to build a CPA firm's visibility and reputation in the community. So then at our staff meeting, we decided to take and implement a few suggestions from the presentation on updating our website and writing a few press releases. Because my passions were once journalism, then chiropractic, and then accounting, I volunteered to write the blurbs for the press releases.
And then I popped my own back in my chair.

We also decided that to be "memorable", we'll need a short and sweet tagline for our firm describing what we do. I took it upon myself to come up with 5 taglines to share at the next meeting.

While coming up with these tag lines for our firm and writing a stunning press release on myself as the "new" hire, I felt like I was working more in creative than a compliance profession.

And I thought, "My job (and hair cut) is finally like Mad Men!"

 

 

And I'm even wearing pink today.

Generic potato chips have more flavor,
TWS

Zaboomafoo

This is a post about a time when I once wrote a post.

Yesterday, I published a post. I really did. It was about audio books and how much better they are than reading normal books (or Kindles).

*dodges hardback copy of Gone With the Wind being thrown at head by Beth*

It was a good post, but because Blogspot decided to be ever so brilliant and delete the works of artists (me), there is no record that this post ever existed.
But of course it existed because I just told you it did.
And I only write true stories.
And this is one of them.

Another true story is that I went to St. Mary's this weekend.
But before that happened, I got a hair cut!
WITH BANGS.

Yep.

This isn't a video. It's just a picture.

But if it were a video, you would see footage of me asking Mike to commandeer that ship in the background with me, Mike saying no, and then me telling Mike that I would give him $500 if he got in the water, Mike saying he can't swim, and so on and so forth because that's what spending a weekend with me is like.

The question "What is there to do in your town?" doesn't really depend on the town; it depends on the person. I mean, sure, there aren't beaches everywhere, but the movies?
I mean, come on.
Who really goes to movies anymore? One day, I'm going to write a post to list 35 better things to do with $8.50, which is the approximate price of a movie.

Price up, quantity demanded down.
But if there are substitutes available (those would be my 35 things), then the demand is elastic and there may be a left shift in the demand curve.

I would apologize for the frequent outbursts of CPA exam knowledge, but that's just who I am now. And someday I will e-mail you back, and blog more, and sew more, and mail that letter, and take out the trash, but for right now, I just really need to go take a shower.

Spell check,
TWS

Media

Roger Sterling: "Jane wanted a baby but I thought, why do that to somebody?"
Roger Sterling = new hero.

I was watching BlimeyCow on Youtube this weekend, and he said that it's okay to be an introvert.
Like- I really needed to hear that.
Because sometimes I'm really good at not saying anything.

Here is a list of other things about me:

- I can do a solid imitation of Creed's "With Arms Wide Open".
- I am really good at cash flow statements.
- I can throw a decent spiral.
- I am phenomenal at choosing the wrong way to go in video games (even in racing games; true story)
- I am good at merging onto highways.
- I'm really good about turning off the lights when I leave a room.

I know. Total ego boosters.

Let's delay our misery,
TWS

Save Tonight; Eagle Eye Cherry