# Accounting/finance Dopers, do you think of your personal finance the same way you think of your job work?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/accounting-finance-dopers-do-you-think-of-your-personal-finance-the-same-way-you-think-of-your-job-work/977310>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [December 29, 2022, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/accounting-finance-dopers-do-you-think-of-your-personal-finance-the-same-way-you-think-of-your-job-work/977310 "2022-12-29T23:52:07Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\
**Post date:** [December 29, 2022, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/accounting-finance-dopers-do-you-think-of-your-personal-finance-the-same-way-you-think-of-your-job-work/977310/1 "2022-12-29T23:52:07Z")

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I’ve been curious, do accountants think about their own personal money, possessions, etc. the same way they would about their line of work? (i.e., _here are my assets, liabilities, cash flow, depreciation_)

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**Author:** ![epbrown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e47774/32.png) [@epbrown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/epbrown)\
**Post date:** [December 30, 2022, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/accounting-finance-dopers-do-you-think-of-your-personal-finance-the-same-way-you-think-of-your-job-work/977310/2 "2022-12-30T16:10:19Z")

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Yep. I think more people should, as it helps filter a lot of nonsense you hear from employers nowadays, especially high-profile billionaires demanding employees be “hard core.”

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**Author:** ![Mighty\_Mouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mighty_mouse/32/7776_2.png) [@Mighty\_Mouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mighty_Mouse)\
**Post date:** [December 30, 2022, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/accounting-finance-dopers-do-you-think-of-your-personal-finance-the-same-way-you-think-of-your-job-work/977310/3 "2022-12-30T21:43:45Z")

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I have mostly worked for investor owned companies (i.e. the managers are mostly agents of the stockholders or PE investors).

I often have to remind my colleagues that they wouldn’t do XYZ if it was their own money they were using. A VERY unpopular position to take as resource allocation in a large enterprise is very political, not simply a numbers game.

The biggest assumption underpinning many decisions is that we have some secret sauce that will enable us to make a profit out of an enterprise even if we overpay up from for the resources.