Hey guys,
So recently I've been taking a seminar on personal finances and it's really interesting. I thought I'd share it with you guys because this is something everybody needs to know. And not just students either! There are a bunch of different tips one can use to master one's own personal finance, and I present to you Part 1 of the Personal Finance series, right here on AlphaBetaLife.
The Personal Finance Series
Part I: Take Inventory.
The first thing you need to know in order to [re]gain control of your personal finances is to understand where you stand. This can be seen as from the accounting perspective of assets and liabilities. In layman's terms, assets are everything that you own and liabilities are all your debts.
Create a simple balance sheet for yourself, much like a company does every couple months. Write down "Assets" as the heading and hammer out everything that you own on that one sheet. Have a chequing account at the Royal Bank? Then enter a line "Cash - $XXX". Own a house? "Property - $XXX". Got a GIC or buy stocks in your spare time? "Short-term Investments - $XXX". Sum this all up; this is your Total Assets.
Next, sum up all of your liabilities. So put that as a new header under your list of assets, and figure out everything you owe. Owe your friend some money that you expect to pay back? "Loan - $XXX". Credit card bill? "Accounts Payable - $XXX". You can further differentiate these based on time: The "liabilities" heading can be broken down into "current liabilities" to list everything that you expect to pay back within the year. "Non-current" would then be everything you'll pay back later than a year.
All these line items can be named whatever. So instead of "Accounts Payable" feel free to put "Credit-Card Payable" or whatnot. It's just that accountants have a set of predefined account titles that are almost universal.
Now once you have the Total Assets and Total Liabilities, subtract liabilities from assets. Congratulations, you have just found out exactly how much money you are worth. This will be very important later for Part II: Plan Ahead.
So stay tuned!
Saturday, 14 May 2011
Thursday, 12 May 2011
Ethics
Ethics is a huge part of accounting. We all know about the Enron scandal and countless more before it: Management committed accounting fraud. So at Deloitte, we're always on the lookout for these issues, and ethics is the top issue that we must consider.
The terrible thing about ethical code is that it is grey. There is never a right or wrong, it is usually context-dependent. Actually, there are two thoughts on ethics: absolutism and relativism (yes, we had to read this crap as part of our training). Absolutism says that killing a man is immoral and wrong in any and all circumstances. Period. Relativism says that killing a man may be justified if the man was Osama bin Laden.
Pretty straightforward stuff? Nuh uh. Let's see how you do on these questions:
Question 1: If you knew a woman who was pregnant, who had eight children already, three who were deaf, two who were blind, one mentally retarded, and she had syphilis, would you recommend that she have an abortion?
Remember your honest answer and go to question 2.
Question 2: It is time to elect the world leader, and yours is the deciding vote. Here are the facts about the three leading candidates:
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-
-
-
-
-
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Candidate A is Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Candidate B is Sir Winston Churchill
Candidate C is Adolf Hitler
Oh, and if you recommended abortion... You just killed Beethoven. Enjoy :)
The terrible thing about ethical code is that it is grey. There is never a right or wrong, it is usually context-dependent. Actually, there are two thoughts on ethics: absolutism and relativism (yes, we had to read this crap as part of our training). Absolutism says that killing a man is immoral and wrong in any and all circumstances. Period. Relativism says that killing a man may be justified if the man was Osama bin Laden.
Pretty straightforward stuff? Nuh uh. Let's see how you do on these questions:
Question 1: If you knew a woman who was pregnant, who had eight children already, three who were deaf, two who were blind, one mentally retarded, and she had syphilis, would you recommend that she have an abortion?
Remember your honest answer and go to question 2.
Question 2: It is time to elect the world leader, and yours is the deciding vote. Here are the facts about the three leading candidates:
- Candidate A: He associates with crooked politicians, and consults with astrologers. He's had two mistresses. He also chain smokes and drinks up to ten Martinis a day.
- Candidate B: He was ejected from office twice, sleeps until noon, used opium in college and drinks a large amounts of whisky every evening.
- Candidate C: He is a decorated war hero. He's a vegetarian, doesn't smoke, drinks an occasional beer and hasn't had any extra-marital affairs.
-
-
-
-
-
-
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Candidate A is Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Candidate B is Sir Winston Churchill
Candidate C is Adolf Hitler
Oh, and if you recommended abortion... You just killed Beethoven. Enjoy :)
Sunday, 8 May 2011
Update on Accounting Internship
Hey guys,
Just wanted to keep you up to date with my accounting internship. Well really that's all I can talk about, seeing as this is a "school" blog and school is out for 4 months so technically, this internship will be my school for the next little while =).
SO anywho, man accounting is hard work. Especially working for Deloitte... Because those guys will work ya hard. One thing I noticed is that accounting firms have TONS of paperwork to deal with. Like stacks upon stacks of paper to be filled out and stuff, and after that they still need to be filed. Now, most of the stuff is already filed by Document Management System (read more about them here) so can you imagine how difficult it must be to coordinate everything. Unfortunately as the lowly intern, I have to do a lot of the filing... =(
Luckily, that's not all they ask me to do (otherwise I wouldn't be there lol). I still get to do other fun stuff like bookkeeping (yes, us accountants consider this fun!). Debit, credit, debit credit... And so it goes. A cool thing about this position is that I get to talk to a lot of clients and see their financial situations... And damn, what situations some of these people are in.
It's rather hard to believe how people can be so out of touch with their finances... How is managing your money so difficult when that is one of the most daily used things in your life? And damn, the sheer amount of debt that people and companies take on is astounding. Like mindblowing. Given the size of the company and the money they make, you wonder how they're ever going to pay it back... But they do! No question about it. Everytime I see one with a huge debt, I show my mentor but he seems completely unphased. "Typical," was his reply.
Ah, back to work tomorrow, more stories to come!
Just wanted to keep you up to date with my accounting internship. Well really that's all I can talk about, seeing as this is a "school" blog and school is out for 4 months so technically, this internship will be my school for the next little while =).
SO anywho, man accounting is hard work. Especially working for Deloitte... Because those guys will work ya hard. One thing I noticed is that accounting firms have TONS of paperwork to deal with. Like stacks upon stacks of paper to be filled out and stuff, and after that they still need to be filed. Now, most of the stuff is already filed by Document Management System (read more about them here) so can you imagine how difficult it must be to coordinate everything. Unfortunately as the lowly intern, I have to do a lot of the filing... =(
Luckily, that's not all they ask me to do (otherwise I wouldn't be there lol). I still get to do other fun stuff like bookkeeping (yes, us accountants consider this fun!). Debit, credit, debit credit... And so it goes. A cool thing about this position is that I get to talk to a lot of clients and see their financial situations... And damn, what situations some of these people are in.
It's rather hard to believe how people can be so out of touch with their finances... How is managing your money so difficult when that is one of the most daily used things in your life? And damn, the sheer amount of debt that people and companies take on is astounding. Like mindblowing. Given the size of the company and the money they make, you wonder how they're ever going to pay it back... But they do! No question about it. Everytime I see one with a huge debt, I show my mentor but he seems completely unphased. "Typical," was his reply.
Ah, back to work tomorrow, more stories to come!
Saturday, 7 May 2011
I'm Back
Hello everyone,
I do apologize for the absence! I know a lot of you thought I just sorta went MIA... But no, I'm definitely here and going to be contributing actively to the blogosphere.
So where did I go this past week? Well I've mostly been caught up with work... Doing an internship with Deloitte, which is an accounting firm. The firm is great, tons of people work there and they're all willing to help, friendly, and knowledgeable. But that's for another time!
Another thing I've been busy with is the UBC Accounting Club. Good gosh... It's so much work! This week we had to set up a meeting for the executives, and I was in charge of booking us a room for that purpose. But it had to be in downtown, specifically the downtown Robson Square UBC campus. So I had to make like 50 calls just to get a hold of this room... Then I had to deal with the problem of getting catering and everything. Gah.
One last thing I wanted to mention is that I got snapped today! By that I mean I got caught running a yellow light on a traffic camera. It was at the intersection of Garden City and Westminster in Richmond, and I was in a rush to dinner. I also didn't think they had cameras at left turn lanes, but surely enough, snap snap. Two bright flashes.
Damn those two flashes are going to cost me about $75 each.
Letter to the government:
Dear Mister Minister.
I'm just a student damnit, stop trying to make ludicrous amounts off me!
Sincerely,
$150 Poorer
I do apologize for the absence! I know a lot of you thought I just sorta went MIA... But no, I'm definitely here and going to be contributing actively to the blogosphere.
So where did I go this past week? Well I've mostly been caught up with work... Doing an internship with Deloitte, which is an accounting firm. The firm is great, tons of people work there and they're all willing to help, friendly, and knowledgeable. But that's for another time!
Another thing I've been busy with is the UBC Accounting Club. Good gosh... It's so much work! This week we had to set up a meeting for the executives, and I was in charge of booking us a room for that purpose. But it had to be in downtown, specifically the downtown Robson Square UBC campus. So I had to make like 50 calls just to get a hold of this room... Then I had to deal with the problem of getting catering and everything. Gah.
One last thing I wanted to mention is that I got snapped today! By that I mean I got caught running a yellow light on a traffic camera. It was at the intersection of Garden City and Westminster in Richmond, and I was in a rush to dinner. I also didn't think they had cameras at left turn lanes, but surely enough, snap snap. Two bright flashes.
Damn those two flashes are going to cost me about $75 each.
Letter to the government:
Dear Mister Minister.
I'm just a student damnit, stop trying to make ludicrous amounts off me!
Sincerely,
$150 Poorer
Sunday, 1 May 2011
Card Magic Tricks!
Hey guys,
Just recovered from a wicked hangover this morning. Woke up at 10 in the morning with my head pounding and my eyes completely bloodshot... The night before I was out clubbing at Boss Nightclub, probably one of the more popular ones in Vancouver Downtown. Oh lord, I don't remember much but I do remember that my friends and I were seducing everyone in sight from the bartenders to the bouncers and even the cab drivers. I don't know what it was (my amazing charm, maybe?) but the driver agreed to drive 5 of us girls in one car which is apparently a HUGE no-no in Vancouver because none of the cabs (not even vans) take 5 and so all drivers know better than to break the passenger limit. It's almost like a coalition I guess, where if no one takes 5 or over, then large groups will be forced to take 2 cabs which will create more business for them? Oh well. Nothing that a tip and a kiss won't fix =)
So I'm a big fan of magic tricks. When I was small I'd learn card tricks to impress my friends. But then I got bored/lost purpose so I stopped doing it for a while... And today I got a bit nostalgic so I decided to revisit some of my favourite tricks. Turns out I forgot all of them!
This video is beautifully done. All the slights are very cleanly executed... Take a look. I loved it.
Just recovered from a wicked hangover this morning. Woke up at 10 in the morning with my head pounding and my eyes completely bloodshot... The night before I was out clubbing at Boss Nightclub, probably one of the more popular ones in Vancouver Downtown. Oh lord, I don't remember much but I do remember that my friends and I were seducing everyone in sight from the bartenders to the bouncers and even the cab drivers. I don't know what it was (my amazing charm, maybe?) but the driver agreed to drive 5 of us girls in one car which is apparently a HUGE no-no in Vancouver because none of the cabs (not even vans) take 5 and so all drivers know better than to break the passenger limit. It's almost like a coalition I guess, where if no one takes 5 or over, then large groups will be forced to take 2 cabs which will create more business for them? Oh well. Nothing that a tip and a kiss won't fix =)
So I'm a big fan of magic tricks. When I was small I'd learn card tricks to impress my friends. But then I got bored/lost purpose so I stopped doing it for a while... And today I got a bit nostalgic so I decided to revisit some of my favourite tricks. Turns out I forgot all of them!
This video is beautifully done. All the slights are very cleanly executed... Take a look. I loved it.
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