being a mom is a distance race. the cpa exams are a sprint. always make sure your kids know how much you love them. never forget that words can hurt and a hug goes a long way. they will be there at your finish line!!!
FAR 7/25/15 76!
AUD 10/30/15 93
BEC 2/27/16 82
REG 5/23/16 88!
Ninja Book and MCQ and the forum - all the way!!!
and a little thing i like to call, time and effort!
if you want things to change, you have to do something different
Dad here. I have a 6 and 4 year old and I just finished after 2 years. I mostly studied from 5-8am every morning. I was able to be home at night and most of the time on the weekends. They were sleeping and off to school at those times so I wasn't missed too much. But I was always very tired late at night. Good luck, it can be done.
Learn how to function without sleep 🙂
My husband is a rock star with helping with the kids.. but he can't hang late at night.. and my littlest isn't a good sleeper yet so I function on minimal sleep.
I get the best of both worlds – he's a teacher so I get a stay at home daddy during the summer, holidays and when the weather is bad. It makes me realize how fortunate people are to have a parent staying home.. it really does make things easier as a working parent.
That being said – life is short.. instead of playing the rat race, pick things you don't like to do and if you can, pay someone else to do it. I.e. I use to wash, line dry and iron all my husbands clothes. We don't have a large home.. the space and time it required was obnoxious. So now I get all his work clothes dry cleaned because I don't want to do it anymore and we have an in office service.
We hired a housekeeper once a week.. she comes in and picks up the entire house, vacuums, dusts, windows, bathrooms.. everything… best money I spend every week.
I spent forever trying to be super mom with cooking, cleaning, kid time etc… now that I got rid of the ancillary things I can spend more time being a super mom directly to my children.
Another dad here. I usually studied from 5am-7am, one hour at lunch, then after the boys (then, 2 and 1) went down to sleep. I agree with gatorbates- anybody that offers help, take it- friends, in laws, family, etc. Basically, any free time you have- study (whether that is audio, mcqs, or reading). It can be done.
CPA, CFE
CISA- Experience will be completed by August 2016
As a Father myself, I would study between 1-1.5 hours every morning before work during the week. I would then study about 6 hours each weekend day, for total of 18-20 hours a week of study. I would take care of kids after work and from about 2pm on during weekends. The key was to keep momentum by rarely taking a day off since I was studying in such small increments. I decided to see how that method worked before electing to spend any more time away from family. Fortunately it worked out. But I would have spent more time away from family if I had not been successful.
short answer? I slept on average 5 hours a night for a year. I run my own business, have a 10 year old and the best husband in the world and it was HARD. really really hard. But its not impossible (obviously)
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