From Accidental Accountant to Entrepreneur
My Unconventional Journey
The path to your dreams is rarely the one you envisioned, but always worth pursuing.
The Unexpected Beginning
I knew I wanted to be an accountant from the 11th grade. Not because I had some grand vision of running a firm or revolutionizing the industry, but because I had a scheduling conflict.
Third period was empty, and my choices were library aide or Accounting I. If I’d had that same choice today, I’d probably pick library aide and watch shows on my phone for 45 minutes. But this was 2002.
Eminem’s Lose Yourself and JLo’s Jenny from the Block were on the radio and The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter movies were battling it out on the bigscreen. We still had Blockbusters back then.
Please tell me you know what a Blockbuster is. I’m really not that old.
It was a time before streaming. Before social media. Before you could pretend to be busy while actually scrolling through memes. No one came to the library during third period and I was already good at math. So I took Accounting I.
That one decision changed everything.
I loved it. The logic. The balance. The T accounts.
The satisfaction of everything clicking into place.
But what truly sold me on it was my teacher, Mrs. Wyland - an absolute legend of a woman whose enthusiasm rivaled even Ms. Frizzle’s. She made debits and credits fun. By the end of my junior year, I knew: This is what I’m going to do with my life.
I took Accounting II as a self-study course my senior year (because not enough other students were nerdy enough to sign up to make it a whole class - their loss). I was planning to head straight to college to study accounting.
I was going to be an accountant.
But life doesn’t always follow the plan.
There is no way to tell the story of my career path without telling you about my daughter because most of the last two decades have revolved around her.
One month after turning 18, I found out I was pregnant.
I’ve never understood by people always say they “found out” they were pregnant like they don’t know how babies are made.
Anyway, I had just turned 18, and suddenly, my carefully laid-out plans didn’t seem so simple anymore. My parents weren’t thrilled, to put it mildly. But they were determined to support me in finishing my education, which now felt even more critical. I wasn’t just getting a degree for me anymore.
I had someone else depending on me.
So, I hustled. I had taken college credits and AP courses in high school, which enabled me to earn my associate’s degree in business administration in only one year, just one month before my daughter was born. Then I transferred to the University of Maryland University College (UMUC, now UMGC) and completed my bachelor’s in accounting in two years, taking a mix of online and night classes while figuring out how to be a mom.
By 2007, at 21 years old, I had a four-year degree, a toddler, a new house, and a husband.
And absolutely zero job prospects.
Because as it turns out, “entry-level” accounting positions still wanted two years of experience. I sent out resume after resume, only to hear crickets. Finally, a small firm - over an hour away from where I lived - gave me a shot. They actually liked that I didn’t have prior experience because it meant I wouldn’t come in saying, “Well, that’s not how we did it at my last firm”, which was apparently an ongoing issue.
That job became my proving ground. I had a female partner mentor me, telling me she saw my potential and that someday, I’d be a CPA and a partner, too. Inspired by her confidence in me, I started chipping away at my CPA requirements, determined to make it happen.
Until my life imploded.
In my fifth year at the firm, my husband decided he no longer wanted to be married.
Just like that, my marriage was over. Suddenly I was a single mom with a five-year-old daughter, an hour-long commute, and a paycheck that wasn’t cutting it anymore.
I needed something closer to home, something stable, and something that paid more. So I took a government contractor position with NAVSEA.
What they didn’t tell me is that my job was temporary. I was hired to clean up the accounting system before they transitioned to a new one in just six short months. Meaning, after I’d been working there for four months and found out the position was only six months long, I was going to be unemployed again in less than 60 days.
Scrambling for stability yet again, I found a job as a staff auditor at a local accounting firm. No offense to auditors, but it was not for me.
The real gut-punch came when my then soon-to-be-ex-husband took me to court for full custody of our daughter. While he didn’t get it, all of the court nonsense drained my time, my energy, and my finances. I had to put my master’s degree on hold. I was constantly fighting just to stay afloat.
I lasted eight months in that staff auditor role before moving into an accounting role at a law firm. That was a great job, and it even came with a 25% raise, better benefits and the chance to build a new life.
But there was a catch. The two hour commute each way was brutal. So I made arrangements for my daughter and I to pack up and leave my small town behind. My soon-to-be-ex-husband, however, had other plans.
The Legal Battle That Changed Everything
Despite my offer for 50/50 custody and generous visitation, my soon-to-be-ex-husband sued me, again, for sole custody.
I should’ve just taken it - the opportunity to leave with my daughter. I already had everything picked out - the new daycare, the great school, the great apartment, the family support. All of it.
Instead, I listened to my lawyer, who told me to wait for the court’s blessing. So I waited in limbo for about three months. And then judge ruled against me moving two hours away with my daughter. He then gave me a choice about retaining primary custody of her.
His words were “Your job or your daughter. I’ll give you two minutes to choose.”
The hardest decision I ever made in my life was leaving her behind with her father.
But at 27 years old, I couldn’t quit my job and move back in with my parents to raise my daughter. At least, that’s what I told myself at the time. I had to work in order to provide for her.
I spent the next decade stuck in a cycle of legal battles, financial stress, and personal exhaustion. It took three long years just to get divorced. Every time I tried to move forward, there was another hurdle.
The master’s degree? One class short before they told me I’d have to start over due to expiring credits. If I wanted to complete my degree, I’d have to retake Accounting I in addition to my capstone, at $1,500 per class. I had enough credits for the 150-hour requirement, but I had to give up on the Master’s degree because I couldn’t afford it.
The CPA? Couldn’t study for the exams. I was drowning in legal fees and barely surviving emotionally. Even with the increase in pay at my new job, it wasn’t enough.
But then the path shifted.
After one year with the law firm, I was recruited by a lobbying firm to be their Director of Finance. Slightly better pay, way better benefits, including quite a bit of downtime in between my responsibilities.
I wish I had spent the free time studying for the CPA, but instead, I was focused on paying my attorney. So I started doing bookkeeping on the side. At first, it was just extra cash to cover legal bills. And before I even realized what was happening, it turned into a full blown side hustle.
For seven years, I ran that side hustle alongside my full-time job.
I took on any client who would pay me - even advertised on Craigslist (0/10, do not recommend). I underpriced myself. I gave away free advice. I dealt with clients who ghosted me after I’d already done the work.
I even had one woman take an hour-long free consultation, only to find her on social media later, bragging about how you could get accountants and lawyers to answer all your questions without ever paying them. Real winner, that one.
I learned so much about business, albeit mostly the hard way.
And then, 2020 happened.
I lost my day job. Just like that, my so-called “job security” was gone.
But something else happened that year - I made more money in my business than I had at my day job. In fact, I doubled it. And for the first time, I realized that real job security wasn’t about working for someone else. It was in building something for myself. It only took me until 34 to realize it.
In 2021, my daughter turned 16, and after years of court battles, she finally told her father she wanted to live with me. For most of her last two years of high school, she was with me and I will always cherish that time.
Just a few years before, I had been so broke I couldn’t even afford to go out to eat. But for two years, I paid for two homes so my daughter and I could live together and she could finish at her current high school, two hours away from where I owned my home.
This journey hasn’t been easy.
I’m now 38 and there have been plenty of days where I’ve thought, Should I just shut this down and go back to a regular 9-to-5 job?
But just the other day I overheard my daughter, who is now 19, in college, and studying entrepreneurial management, tell someone that she wants to open her own bakery.
When they asked what made her think she could do that, she didn’t even hesitate.
"My mom owns her own business. So I know I can do it. It’s in my blood.”
And that’s when I knew: every struggle, every late night, every setback - it had all been worth it.
Because I didn’t just build a business.
I built a legacy.
Takeaways for Business Owners:
Your path doesn’t have to look like anyone else’s.
Obstacles don’t mean you’re off track—sometimes, the obstacles are the track.
The best business lessons often come from the hardest experiences.
This isn’t just about becoming an accountant. It’s about taking risks, making tough choices, and proving that success isn’t a straight line but rather a series of pivots, setbacks, and comebacks.