Hello world, my name is Gwen. I was born and raised in sunny Southern California. I dreamed about becoming a CPA since I was about 8, which at times I also thought was odd since I did not have any family members or friends who were accountants growing up. I knew at a young age that I loved numbers! I asked my dad to buy me a graphing calculator for one of my birthdays as a child so I could do more advanced calculations to see what they looked like. I would sit and play on my calculator for hours like it was a Gameboy. At that point I knew accounting would be my career and I never thought twice about it.
I studied my butt off to get into the University of Southern California so I that I could get into the Accounting School of Leventhal. Getting my acceptance letter from USC was a day I will never forget! I graduated from USC with a BS in Accounting. Go Trojans!
From USC, I started my career at a public accounting firm and since then I have worked at some larger start up companies and mid-size to large Corporations doing their accounting and finance work. Crazy to think I have now been doing accounting and finance work for over 15 years and am now a licensed CPA.
During my career I was also fortunate to have my son. I have been a full custody single-parent with a career since I was 25 years old. I will say managing a career and son has not been easy. Being a full-time single parent, while building my resume and pursing my career goals has been difficult to manage at times. In these years I have grown in my career and in my personal life as a parent. Being a young single parent I found myself struggling to figure out my finances and provide a life for my son that my parents provided for me.
I love going to new places, traveling and exploring. I enjoying hiking and being out in nature.
I am also a lover of coffee! I find myself regularly going to new local coffee shops. I will try any food at least once, so maybe I would also call myself a foodie. I also love to breweries and trying new beer. I have as many coffee and beer pictures as I do all other things, so that must mean I love both!
Enough about me, let me explain why am I starting this blog.
I am here to talk about all things finance for small shops and small business owners in addition to personal finance for everyone. My sister and brother-in-law started their small business a few years ago (Gladracket.com) and I started doing their accounting work from the first year they were in business. Along the way I have kept their books and answered many of the questions they have had related to accounting for their small business. I want to help provide some helpful finance tips to all small shop or small business owners. I also want to provide some helpful tips for the average person or any other single parents on how manage their own personal finances by sharing my own personal experiences. Here to support all single parents and small business owners. My goal is to bring more financial awareness so that everyone can be successful in their financial journey.
