A November to Remember

As you all may recall-I left my longtime job as a public accountant/financial statement auditor in September to join the private world of accounting and try my legs as a controller for a local construction company. Well - my legs did not fair well. Last Wednesday was my last day in this role and I am a little embarrassed to say, I am unemployed (I like home engineer a little better!). The embarrassment comes not from being unemployed or losing this particular job - it is merely strange for a person like me, who has worked so many hours and put forth so much effort into her career to wake up one day and not have one anymore.

Nick and I fully intended on having me stay home when we had kids, so it is not like we had planned on me working forever, but we weren't really expecting for me to stay home before the kids came into the picture. So with that, I guess I have finally come out and said it - I have joined the ranks of the statistical unemployed.

Now, before you start feeling too horrible for me - know that while I wasn't planning on leaving the new job that I started quite this soon, I did plan on leaving it eventually. Quite frankly, the environment was not good for me. There was no training and while I am usually a self starter, I had never done 90% of what I was supposed to be doing, so I spent much of my time being very frustrated trying to figure out what I was expected to be doing and learning what to do but having no direction to know what I was supposed to be learning in the first place - confused? Me too. I didn't particularly bond or connect with the people I was working with, a stark contrast to my previous job where I made and have remained friends with many of my fellow co-workers. I tend to describe the environment that I just left as toxic. It had a deep effect on me, my husband and our happy home life. I spent my days in this toxic, confusing and frustrating environment and inadvertently brought the frustration home with me. These past few months were and interesting anomaly and blip in our otherwise happy life together.


Deep breath - I finally came out and said it, albeit a week late - but there - I am currently a domestic engineer. Between sending in applications (which by the way, there are no jobs out there right now) and cleaning our house / taking care of our family, I have stayed very busy. The first thing I did when I lost my job was sit down and make a budget. I have never really set up a serious budget for us, I never really had to - and yea, I know, and accountant with out a budget *gasp* but whatever, I like to live on the edge.

Thankfully, we had taken a look at our finances a few months back when we decided it was time to start trying for a family. We were able to identify places to make improvements to so that eventually, I could stay home. Thankfully the second - we have always lived rather under our means and been very serious savers/pay down our debt types. And thankfully the third, with my increase in income that my (now gone) job brought, we were very focused on paying things off. In those 2 months, we eradicated our credit card debt, paid off my very last student loan, massively paid down my car, massively paid down our house and airstream trailer and re-financed our house. All I can say is, thankfully, we did all of this! It makes the loss of my income a whole lot easier to swallow and a whole lot easier to deal with!