One of the interesting search terms that led someone to my blog was “life as an accountant”. This has been floating around the edge of my mind and I thought perhaps it was a way for me to write down my experiences being a CPA or Certified Public Accountant (Non-Practising) in Singapore.

How I ended up earning my daily bread

My path towards becoming a CPA was conventional in some ways and unconventional in others.

It was conventional in that I studied my way from the Primary School Leaving Examinations (PSLE), GCE ‘O’ Levels and GCE ‘A’ Levels before getting myself into the School of Accountancy and Business in Nanyang Technological University and finally graduating with a Bachelor of Accountancy.

What was unconventional was that I studied humanities in Junior College, i.e. Literature, Geography, Mathematics C and Economics were my ‘A’ Level subjects and I scored well enough in them to qualify for Accountancy. My classmates ended up as lawyers, bankers and foreign service officers but I only managed to know of one other classmate who is in Corporate Finance though I don’t think she took the accounting route, likely the finance route.

A word from the wise

Why did I choose accounting? That question has been with me for quite some time and I realise if I pinpoint the exact time when the idea struck me to go for accounting was some sage advice from my elder brother. He told me that a friend of his took accountancy because it was a direct honours course, i.e. you could graduate with honours without doing an additional year and it was relatively easy to find a job as an accountant.

Thus, it was the practical aspect of accountancy that triggered my journey towards this path of becoming a CPA. It was not that I wanted to uncover fraud, make tonnes of money or that I loved numbers.

It was about the quickest path to a marketable degree.

Having spent 14 years in the profession and looking back with hindsight, I must admit it was a move that has led me to where I am today. My home is fully paid up. I only have a small outstanding car loan and have a decent job that supports my family’s lifestyle. Accountancy is a recognised profession and it’s not too bad to tell people that you are an accountant as opposed to drug dealer or some other less recognised profession.

Your career and financial freedom

What does my little story about being an accountant have to do with financial freedom? Financial freedom is achieved when your passive income from investments, royalties, interest, dividends etc. exceed your lifestyle expenses. To reach this stage, you have to live within your means, save and invest and grow as well as protect your means.

The primary means of growing your income and to live within your means is to generate income that is decent enough to pay the bills and allow you to enjoy life a bit. Your choice of career does impact on how much you get paid. Some careers pay better than others but some careers are more satisfying than others.

Looking back, being a CPA has allowed me to achieve some of my financial goals and allowed me to embark on my own journey towards being financially free. I count myself fortunate to be gainfully employed in the current recession.

When I was 19 years old and thinking of what course to apply for in NUS and NTU, I really didn’t know what I was in for at that point in time. Hindsight shows me that accountancy is a path that offers multiple advantages. Firstly, accountants are generally in demand for audit jobs, finance and accounting jobs as well as jobs that require some degree of analytical abilities and number crunching/scenario planning using statistics.

Secondly, it is useful to know how to read financial statements as an investor and to understand about balance sheets and income statements. Such knowledge can be picked up by most people but you are trained to do so as a profession so you don’t have to pick it up as an additional skill. Though accountants tend to get the reputation of being not good at public speaking which is unwarranted in many instances.

What’s Your Line?

Your choice of career does have an impact on your financial freedom. Tell Panzer what career you are in or intend to be in and why.

Be well and prosper.