Dealing with a Bad Roommate

Do you have the roommate from hell? You have come to the right place! I have put up with numerous intolerable roommates over the years, and have developed the techniques to tolerate, infuriate, and eventually prevent situations like this from arising.

Tolerate
So your roommate is bugging the crap out of you with his loud music, late nights, and poor cleaning habits? You've talked with him and he still hasn't changed? Try some of these ideas:

• Buy a box of ear plugs to drown out his loud music, talking, etc. Make sure that he knows that you are using them, so that if you still have a disturbance after this then it is obvious you are not overreacting.
• Get out of the house as much as possible. If you aren't there to be bothered, then problem solved. This could have a positive impact on your social life also.
• Stop cleaning up after him, only cleaning up after yourself. After a while, he will notice the mess and realize it is his. With any luck, he will clean this up out of courtesy - this may take patience on your part.
  

Infuriate
Before purposely pissing off your roommates, you should make sure you exhaust every other option and are willing to take the consequences of what might happen.

• Start doing what the same inconsiderate things. If he stays up late making noise on nights you have important things to do the next day, do the same.
• Report them to the landlord for violations of the lease or local ordinances, such as noise complaints.
  

Prevent
They say an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

• Create a list of must-have qualities in roommates, and make sure that you communicate these to them. You will have to make sure to live up to the same standards you demand.
  
• Make sure to screen your roommates very carefully before moving in. Get to know them and spend time before making the commitment. This could be as simple as a few meals. If you can't handle them in social settings, how will you be living with them?
• Move in with people of similar background, age, and values. Most problems occur surrounding these.

The benefits of having a roommate are many but they come with added responsibility. Use these tips for dealing with bad roommates, or preventing getting them in the first place, in order to reap the rewards without the crisis.

Pass the CPA Exam - Financial versus Cost versus Management Accounting

When you are studying for the CPA, you have to keep in mind the different types of accounting that are out there and keep them separate in your mind. There are three areas of accounting to consider in modern day accountancy for business. These three areas are cost, finance and management accounting.

Financial accounting, is used mainly for discerning the results of any such business on a periodic basis, such as every year. This should help the company determine the future goals and plans in the long term. From an economic perspective, financial accounting treats money as a factor of production.

Management and cost accounting are basis of accountancy used to help the management of a company make decisions on a day to day basis. These are widely tested in the Business section of the CPA exam, and include efficiency and productivity. Is the business meeting budgeted goals? How much of a variance from stated goals and standards (in a positive or negative way) is there? Cost accounting's purpose is to measure the value of direct and indirect costs involved in production. From this information, management can make an informed decision on improvement in production performance. From an economic perspective, cost accounting measures economic performance. Thus, this information gives management a clearer indication of the performance of the product resources in the business.

Costing also helps the sales manage in setting the correct price. But, because costing is solely a measurement of economic performance, it can not be considered as an accurate basis for setting prices. This is because selling prices is more of an economic decision. It would not be wrong for me to mention that pricing is basically determined by market factors. Prices are influenced mainly by demand, supply and competition, less on costs. For i.e. high demanded plus lack of competition would result in the business charging higher prices for its product, well above the costs.

The third area is management accounting, which is related closely to cost accounting. Although it has essentially evolved from cost accounting, management accounting plays a much broader role in management decisions. It measures the performance, economically, of the whole business, vis-à-vis the economic environment that the business operates in. This area of accounting, seeks to combine both financial and cost information into a much broader function.

Lastly, management accounting, this area is instrumental in advising and assisting management in making vitally important business decisions. It essentially makes management more self aware of the economic implications and consequences of decisions made. From an economic perspective, it looks at the study of money as an economic resource, while at the same time, treating it as a measure of economic performance. This allows the management to measure it as an economic factor of production, for i.e. the rate of return on capital employment.

It is then seen that accounting plays a vital role in three distinct areas, which are equally as important for those wanting to pursue a career in accounting. With the advent of computerised accounting, it has made it much easy for management to monitor the accounting information. Financial accounting software, allows you to make financial statements and various cost and MIS statements almost instantly with just one push of a button, the only laborious aspect of accounting is data entry. A financial manager must bring it upon himself or herself to make sure that meaningful data is input into the system. Proper categorisation must be done and all key based errors avoided, in order to ensure management is receiving accurate financial information.

Pass the CPA Exam - Why? Firms Provide Bonuses

With staggering pass rates of the CPA exam in the 40% range on individual exams, and as low as 10% for all candidates passing the first time through, many people lack motivation to stand up to this kind of punishment. The study material is expensive, time consuming, and generally not very fun. So why does anyone put themselves up against this exam? Other than the obvious long term benefit of career advancement, many firms provide short-term incentives for their employees to pass the exam either before they start or in the first few years at the firm.

Positive thinking and reward psychology is what gets many through. How much does the firm you are working at, will be working at, or want to work at offer? One employee for a major accounting firm reported a $5,000 bonus for entering the firm with a CPA license. If you break this down, that is $1,250 per section of the exam. He told me that he stays motivated by reminding himself exactly how much money he is making for each section, and treats it like a job.

Reminding yourself with positive thinking techniques is important while studying for long hours. Several candidates preparing for the exam come down with common cold-like symptoms because of negative stress. Positive thinking can prevent these, giving you more up time for the exam preparation. Some of these can be:

• This exam is only temporary, but the benefits of passing will be lasting.
• I will make more money with my CPA
• I will get more respect from those in my profession
• And the list goes on... see my list of reasons to pass the exam now!
  

Wake Up Early and Study | Study Tips for Students

When trying to get ahead and get better grades, it is always good to have a few techniques to help yourself get the edge. After all, school is competitive and you need to do anything (positive) you can do to get the grade. So why is waking up so beneficial to not only studying but life in general?

Waking up early gives you more time to prepare. The more prepared we are for any given thing, the better we generally do with less effort. Sure, it is possible to prepare the night before, however our brains need time to wake up as well. Getting a jump start on things is a great idea.

Arriving early places looks good. Have you ever wondered how come you never get the good seats in the class? Why your teachers look at other students in a more positive light? Part of it is because you didn't show up early enough to beat them there - the early bird gets the worm. Fashionably late is no longer fashionable.

More time to plan your day. Instead of just rushing into your day without any type of idea what you are doing half asleep, get up a little early and set out a plan for yourself and what you hope to accomplish. If you already have your day or week planned out, review it and work out the details. After you build up some confidence executing these plans, you might decide you want to get a masters degree in accounting.

Less distractions. In the morning most everyone is either asleep, working or getting ready to leave for work. There aren't any good TV shows on (unless you count the news), friends going out to movies, sporting events, etc. Your neighbors and/or roommates more than likely aren't blaring music either!

Get more done. People that wake early always talk about how addicting it is because of much they get done. I'm not exactly sure how it happens, but my experiences and observations hold this to be true. Perhaps you could use this extra time to get involved in a leadership role on campus?

Pay more attention. Have you ever noticed that when you wake up early, grab a shower, eat breakfast, and pick out a nice outfit for school then you are more alert in class?

Beat them to the punch. If you can get to a limited resource before other people, then you have the opportunity to get it instead of them. For example, if you show up to the breakfast line before they run out of eggs, then you managed to beat the other late risers. Think about it, what if you had a mortal enemy out there in this world, would you want them to be awake before you taking your eggs?

Older people get up early. Crazy thought, I know, but older people usually wake up early. Why does this matter? Think about it! Older people have much more experience in life than us, hopefully have learned from it. You will likely encounter more of them in the early morning, in which you will have the opportunity to inquire advice. Also, these people tend to have much more money than young people do, and you will likely have the opportunity to find out why.

But what about the night life? If you think about it, staying up late isn't really that enjoyable of a thing. Some college students get used to staying up late partying, causing negative side-effects of drinking, spending excessive amounts of money, and making poor decisions which lead to real consequences. Staying up late studying, cramming for a test isn't always bad as long as it is not the night before the test. However, a friend of mine who gets great grades and has fun told me his secret - wake up early and get all your studying out of the way, that way you can go out and have fun drinking with all your friends and not be stuck inside all night studying. For him, it is his chance to take his mind off the books and socialize a bit.