Just Fired - What should my next move be?

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ba199
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Joined: Sun Dec 13, 2015 7:34 pm

Just Fired - What should my next move be?

Post by ba199 »

I was delivered the news today and it's obviously a setback in my plans. On top of the job loss, just 10 days ago I emptied most of my bank account to max out my Trad IRA and HSA accounts so now I only have enough cash on hand to cover 1.5 month's expenses. I have an idea of what my plan should be but I'm interested in some input from you more successful folks out there.

Six months ago I left my previous job for a staff accountant position at a CPA firm in a small rural town in the rust belt. It was a lateral move but I needed to get away from my previous boss and I knew I would be able to lower my expenses - $50k/yr salary, Full healthcare with $100/mo into an HSA (starting jan '17). I found a 1br apartment for $325/mo across the street from a county library, 1.4 miles from work, 1 mile from the only grocery store in town - Walmart. I was just as miserable at this new job, if not more. I loathe auditing type work and I worked 70+ hours per week during this tax season. I also have a side job where I am a part time controller for a company 50 miles away. I visit once a week after work and work from home for a total of 5 - 10 hours per week and earn $8k to $10k per year. I also earned $2k this year doing taxes for people on the side.

My expenses are now roughly $1000 per month. I graduated college in 2011 with $40k in debt and I'm not doing great in accumulation at just over 50% savings rate and I've held off on investing thinking valuations are high so I've left $32k in cash sitting in retirement accounts (which is my net worth). I'm 30 years old with a finance degree and 1/2 of the CPA exam passed. I have made plans to purchase a tax prep business in 3 years which I hope could result in 4 months of work could cover a years worth of costs long into the future. If I were "follow my passion" I wouldn't ever even consider accounting. I am not a naturally detail oriented person but the knowledge side of being an accountant does come pretty easy to me.

Would it be worth chasing a higher salary in a big city such as Chicago for a few years then coming back to tend a business (If it's still available)? Should I build off of my side job and try to piece meal part time work together? I think the best thing for me is to not waste time switching to another profession but I don't know. I have nothing to tie me down but I'm a little lost right now.

theanimal
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Re: Just Fired - What should my next move be?

Post by theanimal »

What are your student loans at now? Depending on your goals, you could just pick up another part time job. It seems you already have enough income to cover your expenses with the controller position and doing others taxes. It doesn't sound like a bad outcome, you got forced to leave a job you hated. Now time to improve!

ba199
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Re: Just Fired - What should my next move be?

Post by ba199 »

My student loans are down to $7800 split 50/50 between 1.8% fixed interest and 2.6% fixed so I've decided to leave those hanging to let inflation lower my payback costs.

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Chris
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Re: Just Fired - What should my next move be?

Post by Chris »

ba199 wrote:
Fri Apr 21, 2017 6:40 pm
just 10 days ago I emptied most of my bank account to max out my Trad IRA and HSA accounts so now I only have enough cash on hand to cover 1.5 month's expenses
If that's a 2017 contribution, you can pull that out this year without a penalty.


Do you know what your unemployment income would be if you collected partial unemployment? Most states have some concept of partial unemployment. Might be useful if you want to take time to switch to another profession.

Scott 2
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Re: Just Fired - What should my next move be?

Post by Scott 2 »

What do you want to do? I'd take some time off to consider that more carefully.

Most professions get crappy with seventy hour weeks. Maybe you're ​just trying too hard.

ThisDinosaur
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Re: Just Fired - What should my next move be?

Post by ThisDinosaur »

What is the start up cost for your tax prep business? Is it something you could do from your apartment? Can that side gig be expanded ?

daylen
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Re: Just Fired - What should my next move be?

Post by daylen »

Have you looked into freelancing? There are several websites for it now.

BlueNote
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Re: Just Fired - What should my next move be?

Post by BlueNote »

Do you still want to be a CPA? I am a CPA (in Canada) and getting into the club was the hardest part due to the combination of academics and experience I had to do simultaneously. Then you've got to maintain the certification which is pretty easy in comparison, it's like a trade union that way. If you don't like the detail work , assuming you mean the transactional parts, you can always hire/outsource that to book keepers and juniors but you still need to know what to do. If you want to run a one man shop doing tax work then you know that means rifling through shoe boxes full of receipts and other source documents, organizing them, tabulating them and checking your tabulations, filling out forms and maybe some analysis and value added advisory stuff depending on your clientele. I'd only do tax work if I had someone to process the shoe boxes and do the form filling for me. Personally I work in industry and it's more my bag, the corporation has people to do the mundane crap and I get to do more of the high level stuff. I don't do 70 hour weeks ever, but the odd 55 hour week for quarterlies and year end isn't out of the question.

BlueNote
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Re: Just Fired - What should my next move be?

Post by BlueNote »

In the short term, you need shelter and food, obviously. I'd personally try to make ends meet by taking as much work as I could tolerate, and use the remaining time to find a "real" job. Failing that I'd call on friends and family for support. Nothing wrong with regrouping by living with the parents for a couple of months or something like that.

I've always found that I'm passionate about what I am good at. So finding your passion is , in my experience, all about finding what you are good at. Nobody is born good at accounting, you have to work at it to get good. There is a minimum intelligence threshold and a minimum grit threshold for that profession but it's really mostly grit. It's not like astro-physics or something, most people could probably be a CPA if they put in the work and hours. There are stupid , menial crap jobs that you have to do at the beginning to get designated. As you know the whole system relies on people like you to do this stuff so that people like me don't have to anymore. It's like that for lawyers and other professions too. I'm not defending it, but I am saying that it will eventually end and get a lot better.

ba199
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Re: Just Fired - What should my next move be?

Post by ba199 »

@Chris - it was a 2016 contribution unfortunately. Ideally I'd like to keep it invested. I think my state will disallow unemployment with the amount I make on the side (I claim it through schedule C).

@Scott - It's pretty common in the accounting profession to work that many hours. My employment contract required me to work at least 60 hours a week January - Mid April so I wasn't putting in too much extra effort. I think I would enjoy something more hands on that still requires thinking like carpentry. I avoided the trades out of high school though because I saw my dad's body breaking down at age 50 from a lifetime working as an electrician. If I had found ERE earlier on in life I would've skipped college for an electrician apprenticeship.

@thedinosaur - The start up costs wouldn't be too ridiculous. The software costs around $2500 per year. I have a good computer, laser printer and even a backup computer which I could turn into a server. I could probably figure out professional furniture for an office for a few thousand dollars. Downtown storefront/office rent in the nearby city's suburbs starts around $500. The client base is the real barrier to entry.

@daylen - no I haven't really though I like that idea. I've browsed elance before though I remember accounting jobs being $10/hr or requiring a cpa. Maybe that's changed though and maybe I can find something outside the narrow skillset I'm boxing myself into.

@Bluenote - I have the education and experience side of the CPA done. I just have to complete the test and I currently have 2 of 4 parts passed so the end is near. Plus I have plenty of time to study for the final parts now. I have an odd tolerance for detail oriented work. I can handle rifling through receipts and data entry on tax returns as long as it only lasts a few hours. I think the constant feedback of finishing these tasks holds my attention but when I start getting into 10+ hour corporate tax returns with bookkeeping/transactional items my mind really starts to wander. So really yes I guess it'll take some trudging through to build a business so I can spend most of my time on high level stuff. My side job as a controller is constant high level work looking over bookkeepers' work and creating financial statements. I like doing that.

I'm pretty good at taxes, mainly because I have a good memory. I wouldn't say it's a passion but it's satisfying. Year round tax work is hard to come by unfortunately and at most small firms that means bookkeeping, payroll processing, or grunt audit work in the offseason (all of which I hate) until you're partner. Thanks for your posts. You definitely helped put the profession into better perspective for me. I think I could use more grit.

ThisDinosaur
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Re: Just Fired - What should my next move be?

Post by ThisDinosaur »

ba199 wrote:
Sat Apr 22, 2017 11:32 pm
If I had found ERE earlier on in life I would've skipped college for an electrician apprenticeship
I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that a lot of us would have made different decisions in life had we found ERE earlier. I certainly would have. The great thing about it is that you're never more than a few years away from ERE style independence. Which maybe argues for the Big City job option. If the pay minus COL is going to be significantly more than staying rural, then you get to FI sooner. If the tax prep business is part of your long term plan, then there's no time like the present. Just do it. But if thats not your "passion," then its just a very risky means to an end and might not be worth pusuing at all.

Five years from right now, do you wanna be living on dividends, or running a tax prep business? Or something else?

ba199
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Re: Just Fired - What should my next move be?

Post by ba199 »

My goal is to have the ability to live off of dividends by age 35. I still would like to work 3-4 months of the year in my own tax practice for various reasons - to act as an external motivator, cover all of my yearly expenses so my investments keep growing, and help out family and friends.

Riggerjack
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Re: Just Fired - What should my next move be?

Post by Riggerjack »

I've canned about 100 people in my career. Some were just in the wrong place, wrong time, others were just in the wrong jobs.

Which are you? Let go right after tax season, could be timing.

But when I was making personnel decisions, it was always with the goal of long term team development. Even when I was staffing up, I was deciding who was going to be first to go.

Now you have expressed doubts about whether you are on the right path. As long as the journey has been to be where you are, I think that is the wrong question. I'll get back to that in a minute.

I used to run cabling crews, adding cat 5 and fiber to workplaces in the 90-00's. I saw lots of people working lots of jobs, and was always amazed at how varied the same job title could be, from place to place. (Still to this day, the floor of former small bank Presidents WAMU kept as caged animals was most depressing.)

So. I suggest you look around at what you like to do, involving the CPA. Spend some time getting your certificate, and find a job doing that part of the work.

You already have a low COL, stay where you are to get your cert, then go job shopping. You probably won't be there long, so where doesn't matter as much as what you will be doing. Get that part right, the rest will fall in place.

Just my $0.02.

tradfgh
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Re: Just Fired - What should my next move be?

Post by tradfgh »

My condolences.

Can't help but look at the date of your post...

It seems like they fired you, right after tax time, is that common?

My first step would be to file for unenemployment (even if they "fired" you "for cause"), and then apply for tons of government jobs in accounting.

California counties, and state government pay that salary to people with no knowledge or experience in accounting!

It is easy work, most of the job is done by showing up, and you get a nice pension + a 4-3 day work week.

I knew a guy who had a two-three day work week (he did 10 hour days, and was help desk who came in before the employees did).

tradfgh
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Re: Just Fired - What should my next move be?

Post by tradfgh »

My condolences.

Can't help but look at the date of your post...

It seems like they fired you, right after tax time, is that common?

My first step would be to file for unenemployment (even if they "fired" you "for cause"), and then apply for tons of government jobs in accounting.

California counties, and state government pay that salary to people with no knowledge or experience in accounting!

It is easy work, most of the job is done by showing up, and you get a nice pension + and 30-45 days vacation a year.

After you get hired, try to get 10 hour work days, then you only have to come in 4 days a week.

ba199
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Joined: Sun Dec 13, 2015 7:34 pm

Re: Just Fired - What should my next move be?

Post by ba199 »

Thanks tradfgh. Salaries are likely lower in my area because the cost of living is so much lower plus staff accountants are usually underpaid because the experience the positions provide. Im guessing a similar entry level government accounting job around here would pay $40k - $42k. I would likely go crazy with the bureaucracy involved with government work however.

I have an exciting update. I ended up filing for unemployment and was approved this week. Who knows what the payout is but it's better than nothing (I'm not expecting too much). I've been applying for higher paying jobs in the mean time $80k+ and haven't gotten any bites however a big opportunity opened up. The company I used to work for 6 months ago vacated their lease on a satellite office and sold off their client list affiliated with the building at the same time. This 1000 sq ft building was put up for sale and I just bought it today for $80k. So I'll have a built in client base to work from in a pretty good location if they're willing to stick with me. I'll also plan to secretly live in the office which means my expenses won't increase too much. I'll have to figure out a kitchen and shower but I can install that myself.

Thanks for the advice everyone. This decision may delay retirement but it'll mean I'm self employed while building up to it which after thinking things through seems a worthwhile tradeoff to me.

JamesR
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Re: Just Fired - What should my next move be?

Post by JamesR »

Going the route of a small biz owner, that's definitely going to be quite a different beast. Hopefully you can have the right mindset around developing your customer base, as a service-based company I hope you're good at service, and marketing, and paperwork :P

For living in the office, no idea how big it is, but you could perhaps get away with a sponge bath setup rather than a shower?

Good luck.

ba199
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Joined: Sun Dec 13, 2015 7:34 pm

Re: Just Fired - What should my next move be?

Post by ba199 »

The paperwork and service side I think I'll be alright with. Marketing will have to be something I learn as I go. I've been at three small CPA firms where I reported directly to the main partner so I have a good idea of what to expect but I know I'm not completely prepared for this.

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