entering the working world & figuring out finances

Thursday, August 25th marked the first day of my life as a working pharmacist. It was all around pretty horrible but in the words of Judy, at least I survived. I've been working the last 4 days and it's been a great first week at work besides that first day. I strongly believe that the staff you work with really determines whether you'll have a good or bad day. There was this one technician on my first day of work that was seriously typing random jibberish. Every single prescription I was checking literally had 3 mistakes: drug strength, date written, doctor. There was a prescription for Neurontin that CLEARLY stated 300 and this technician typed it for 600. AND he was off in his corner talking to the other technician while the phone just continued to ring. I had to pick up the phone and then delegate him to answer the call. Honestly, hearing "one pharmacy call" over and over again is not the most pleasant thing on earth. To top it off, I seriously had 5 or more instances where during my final quality assurance, I was checking the drug against the drug image and they did not match AT ALL. The ones I remember from that day were the rx's for Bactrim but the technician put Bactrim DS in the bottle... another one was filled with Vicodin when the prescription was for Vicodin ES. Then I caught a prescription that was written for a completely different patient! The date of birth didn't even match! *le sigh* Makes me appreciate those really good technicians so much more.

I haven't gotten my first paycheck as a pharmacist yet but I've been thinking a lot about the amount that I owe and how I'll be paying it off. I've been using Mint.com to track my finances ever since Judy and Sophie introduced me to it. It's quite useful especially since I don't have that many accounts (well... technically I have around 28 accounts according to my last credit report but I don't use all of them). I know the initial setting up of all your accounts is long and tedious but it is worth it!

My loan totals for grad school and undergrad are posted to the left. I also owe $6,000 for my Federal Perkins Loan from UCLA. I've been trying to figure out how much of the interest of my student loans could be used as a tax deduction since this might be the only year I can use the tax deduction. Anyways, I was talking to Sophie and she sent me a link to a site that was pretty helpful.

So if you're trying to figure out what tax bracket you're in here's the link:
http://www.bargaineering.com/articles/federal-income-irs-tax-brackets.html

From the looks of it, I'll either be in the 15% or the 25%, which is a pretty large difference so I'm counting on my deductions to put me in the 15% tax bracket. 

So I looked into it a little more and found the IRS Page regarding Student Loan Interest Deductions. It's actually quite useful. Here's the jist of it which I updated from this article because the numbers have changed. Basically, if you make less than $75,000 (single filer, post-tax and other adjustments), then you can get a deduction of $2500. If you make between $75,000 and $120,000, then you get a partial deduction which can be calculated by going to the IRS page up to $2500. If you make more than $120,000 then you don't get any deductions for the interest you pay on your student loans. Once again, this is for single filers since most of my friends are not married.

Hopefully this answers some questions you may be having regarding repaying all our debt and how to attempt to not get taxed a crap load.

In an attempt to streamline my expenses vs. income, I came up with a spreadsheet of my bi-weekly income, how much is used to pay each one of my bills and/or loans, how much I will transfer to my savings account, and what is left over. I guess we'll have to see how well this system will work.

Anywhos, I'm working on some catch-up posts for the past month so you'll hear from me soon! Hope this post helps!

last friday night...

Is it just me or is every single Katy Perry single friggin catchy?! Got that stupid T.G.I.F. song stuck in my head. Anywhos, I was about to update about what happened last weekend... hence, last Friday night is somewhat appropriate.

Last weekend I went down to San Diego for one of Tony's cousin's graduation party. Can I just say that these people know how to celebrate every friggin occasion?! It's just crazy how much money people spend on these things. They're almost like mini-weddings! If by now you have not sensed the jealousy in my tone then maybe it's time for me to make it explicit. When I graduated from high school, I didn't get any type of party because according to the parentals, this wasn't a big deal. We'll make a party when you graduate from college. Ok. So I graduate from college and I believe we celebrated afterwards by going to get dim sum. Not bad. I think maybe 3 family members excluding my parents came. For my graduation from grad school, we celebrated afterwards by going to eat pho. I think people are now celebrating their kid's graduations from like kindergarten and I'm like are you kidding me?! I think these kid's celebrations are wayyyy more extravagant than any celebration I've ever had. Anyway, enough with me ranting away. Here's some pictures!

Have a great weekend everyone!!

finally time to blog!

Howdies ya'lls!

I'm finally back!! I'm so happy to be done with studying at least for now. I took NAPLEX on July 22nd and then CPJE on July 29th. After getting home on the 29th and washing my car and packing all my stuff to go down to San Diego, I got my NAPLEX results and I passed! It was seriously the best surprise because I had been so worried since taking that exam that I failed. Every day after taking NAPLEX I would be studying for CPJE and I would look over material that was on the exam and then realize I made a horrible mistake on the exam. But fortunately, I didn't do as horribly as I thought.

As my graduation present, Tony bought me the little penguin pendant I had posted on Facebook and he said that he'd take me on a cruise since I was always talking about how great they are. So we're leaving this Sunday for a 7 night cruise to Cabo San Lucas & Puerto Vallarta! I'm so excited to just go on vacay. Everyone and their mom's have been going on vacations since pharmacy school is over and I really didn't have the money or the time to go so I figure I better go now while I can still work anytime I want. So this last weekend I went crazy shopping all over San Diego. I also brought out some of my older summery items that I'll be taking on the cruise so I'll be posting those on here as well.

Anywhos, I'll hopefully be able to update before I go. I've been working full-time lately and my goodness it's tiring on my old ragged body lol.

Hope everyone is having an awesome hump day!!

so egg-cited!

So it seems like I've been studying for FOREVER! This Friday will be the end of all the studying... at least for 3 months (until I can take the boards again... if I f-a-i-l.... which I'm hoping and praying every night that I didn't :/).

Anywhos, I can't wait for August! As soon as this Friday comes, I will be going SHOPPING! lol. Me and Tony are going on a cruise in a couple of weeks and I definitely need to update this "study" wardrobe I've been wearing everyday. I've been bookmarking a lot of things I want. I also need to purchase some stuff for the cruise as well. I'll be updating with some planned outfits and hopefully ya'lls can tell me whatcha think!

Miss ya'lls since I've been in hibernation mode (sorta haha).

Hang out with ya'lls soon!

randomness while studying

So during one of my rotations, one of my preceptors asked me to find some palindrome drugs and since I was studying one of them today, I thought I'd list them here in case anyone ever wants to know!

Palindrome Drugs:

• Merrem
• Ketek
• Xanax
• Lozol

These won't really help you on the boards, unfortunately but nice to know :)

g'luck studying ya'lls!

wedges... like!

photo: express.com - covered wedge ankle boot

What isn't there to like about wedges?! They give every short girl the height they need and they aren't a complete pain in the arse to walk in! Every morning before I roll out (like an autobot) of bed, I open up my email and go through the bajillion emails from Gilt, Rue La La, Express, Ann Taylor, Off 5th... the list goes on and on. This wedge from Express definitely caught my eye. Why you ask? The heel is concealed! Does this mean its finally ok to wear heals in the pharmacy without looking like pretentious dozo?! (Dr. Deguire being the only exception to that rule since she can actually rock regular stilettos at work. That lady must have feet of steel!). I mean for $60 (plus express always has coupons), I'm pretty sure these are a steal! After I figure out how to budget these into my shopping fund, they will be mine *evil laugh* *thunder strikes* :) jay-kay.

**side note, if you haven't noticed, studying for the boards has pretty  much made me delirious and a shopping fiend. putting things in an online shopping cart is about all I can do to keep from going insane. Thanks for bearing with me!**

Love ya'lls! 9 more days!!!! AHHHH!!!

kate middleton style

Photo: Celebrity-gossip.net courtesy of Getty Images

Ever since Kate Middleton's been in the news with the Royal Wedding and everything, my mom just goes on and on about how Diana was so much prettier and had better bone structure... yada yada yada... I think one thing is for sure though and that is... Kate Middleton has a great sense of style (I mean who wouldn't if they had a whole style crew waiting on them hand and foot... **side note: when I typed out hand and foot, all I could think of was hand-foot syndrome aka redness & soreness on your palms and soles of feet caused by methotrexate**). I especially like the business suit she wore in Canada. Classy as Nam would say (except not sarcastically lol).

Links to her North American Tour Outfits:
http://thegrindstone.com/attire/kate-middletons-canada-style-what-we-can-learn-about-business-travel-attire/

http://thegrindstone.com/attire/kate-middletons-california-style-what-we-can-learn-about-business-travel-attire/

Nice little study break from studying my life away... never thought I'd have to say FML again but seriously... the next 3 weeks will be filled with daily FMLs.

Hope everyone's studying is going well! And if you're done with boards (like someone!!! you lucky duck!) have fun relaxing wherever you may be :) lol.