Chartered Accountant & Career Coach | Big 4
One whole year. I am going to start by stating how PROUD I am of myself for everything I have created in this past year. A website, a book, a finance tracker, weekly blog content and much more whilst working full-time as an external auditor, becoming ACA qualified and maintaining my 5-day week gym life. …
This is a blog post I cannot believe I am writing but I am so excited to share this news with you… I have written and published my first book!! It is a pinch me moment for sure but honestly, so much time and energy has gone into this book. If you are starting the …
The time has come in my life where I can no longer do without having a car. Before COVID-19, I would always travel on trains. I did not need a car for work, I could go to the gym in town on the way home from work and I am fortunate enough to have amazing …
Welcome to my secret behind how I manage to make an average saving of 83.71% of my monthly disposable income (after bills) since October 2019. This means I am spending approximately only £204.57 per month after bills. Due to this finance tracking spreadsheet entirely, which I started in December 2018, I have managed to save …
If you are reading this, you are likely to either be at the dreaded moment where your Business Planning: Taxation (BPT) exam is approaching or you are intrigued about the ACA myth itself. Before you read on, just know that I have been in your position in 2019. It is an unsettling time and initially …
As LASIK is the most common procedure, LASEK laser eye surgery recovery experiences are hard to find online. This article is one that is NEEDED on the internet. My LASEK laser eye surgery recovery was one of the most difficult periods in my life. As explained in my previous blog, the surgeon deemed my eyes …
What was my first impression of the ICAEW Case Study? Weird. This exam is completely different to the 14 ACA exams prior which actually have new content to learn. The ICAEW Case Study was completely unknown to me until I came to study for this exam. It was not really an exam that was spoken …
I would say I have sat a LOT of exams in my 25 years, including more recently the 15 ACA exams. With every exam comes exam stress to some extent. To make matters worse, there was even the added pressure with the ACA exams that my job could be on the line if I performed …
Before reading, please note that this is an extremely subjective blog. What I find difficult another person may not and vice versa. Find the details of my academic background here if interested (no prior accounting experience). Therefore, this is my personal opinion on how hard the ICAEW ACA exams are. I will also include ICAEW …
Has anyone else been searching for weights online since the first lockdown? The funny thing is, I always anticipate the next lockdown coming as it will be all over the news. Why I do not look to improve my home workout equipment at the earliest opportunity I do not know. I always leave it until …
My average monthly savings of my disposable income (after bills) since October 2019 is 83.71%. Yes, you read that correctly, 83.71%. My 5 months prior to COVID-19 average savings are 82.30%. Admittedly this is slightly lower as expected due to lockdown but these savings are still huge. In absolute terms, I spend on average just …
It is about time I got round to writing this blog on passing ACA TC, which now completes the set of Professional Level exams. Perhaps I avoided this one on purpose as if you have read my difficulty blog it will be no surprise to you that I found this exam to be the hardest …
It has been one whole year since getting laser eye surgery and I literally have no idea where the time has gone! Hopefully you are familiar with my laser eye journey which started over a year ago and know that it was definitely not an easy ride. To recap, I had LASEK iDesign with Optical …
For those of you who are unfamiliar with busy season, this is essentially the time of year where external auditors are at their busiest. It is the year-end period of an external audit where there can be tight deadlines to be met. This is where you will hear the horror stories about working into the …
I probably sound like a broken record at this point but last Thursday was my first Thursday “off” from posting blogs after 53 weeks! You would think I might have decided to take it easy now that I will only be posting fortnightly but oh no, I instead did my first ever careers talk. Through …
Earlier this year, I came across an internal secondment opportunity within Transaction Services (TS). If you are not familiar with TS or what they do, I will of course be sharing this information with you. This six-month secondment is not something I went out looking for but it did grab my attention. After hearing more, …
This blog is for those of you who are studying for the ACA qualification independently or for those whose employer offers the choice and flexibility over your exams. For me, my exam sittings and exams were predetermined by my employer. However, now that I have sat all 15 ACA exams I am able to provide …
Before starting my role as an external auditor, I did not expect to use Microsoft Excel in my job as much as I do (almost daily). Excel is used to document the majority of testing from the audit side. However, our clients within the finance team also tend to use Excel for their own calculations …
The Audit and Assurance (AA) exam in my opinion is one of the ‘lighter’ exams that is not as content heavy as the other exams. I am therefore not entirely sure if this advice will be as helpful as the other Professional Level blogs. This is largely down to the fact ACA AA is somewhat …
The ACA Advanced Level exams are usually the final hurdle between you and that ICAEW ACA Chartered Accountant status. You can literally almost reach it. With a pass mark of 50% for each exam still comes a lot of stress. Although you have already been through many exams, in most cases with no exemptions 12 …
So far in this blog series, I have mainly covered the factual side of how my skin went out of control. We can now confirm dairy was my enemy. What I did not really touch on is how I dealt with the aesthetic side of things during my final year of university. It is a …
If only becoming ACA qualified was as ‘simple’ as passing all the requirements and automatically receiving the formal certificate. In order to become officially ACA qualified, you must submit your ICAEW training file yourself. Although I had met all requirements of the Level 7 Apprenticeship early in September, it was only a few weeks after …
Part 1 revealed exactly how disastrous my skin had suddenly become. I was diagnosed with disseminated secondary eczema in late 2016 that had no cure. However, as stated, I began to realise that things did not quite add up. If it was triggered by an allergic reaction, why did my skin allergy patch test come …
In all honestly, I have not found balancing studying and working full-time very difficult to manage. To give you some background, I work in audit at a Big 4 firm. I sat the first twelve ACA exams within one year of starting my graduate scheme. This involved sitting three Professional Level exams at a time …
Today is the day I have decided to take you along the very difficult journey I have had in somewhat recent years with my skin. Growing up, I fortunately had never suffered with eczema, psoriasis or anything of the sort. I had only really experienced mild acne on my face. This all changed in March …
