Kitty's Scratch Pad

Studying

Today I received my official "Executive Certificate in Financial Planning".  Cool.  A piece of paper that represents the last nine grueling and expensive months...  Unfortunately, all that matters is what I actually get on the exam which is less than four weeks away.  I will be taking my second round of the Live Review this weekend. 

The first round covered Taxation, Retirement Planning & Estate Planning.  Those happen to be the three weak topics for me.  I spent the week following the review on Retirements and got my scores up from around 50% to high 70%'s.  I am working through Taxation right now and will be diving into Estates next week.  As well, I am planning to start going through the case exams and another set of questions called "cognitive thinking" which helps you identify topics you should clue in to by reading questions and cases.

This weekend will be Fundamentals, Insurance & Investments.  Luckily these are my three strongest topics so I hope to feel more confident than I did leaving the last class. 

Here is an interesting article explaining (or trying to) the method for grading the CFP.  It is totally beyond me...  I would just like to pass!

Live Review Eve

I just finished the diagnostic test for the CFP.  My score was 61% which barely fell into the "Adequate" category.  Once you complete the diagnostic you can review your score and then they determine how many more hours you should study - for me it will be 40-50 more hours.  I am at exactly five weeks until my test so I calculate somewhere between 2 and 3 hours every day should do it.  The exam did break down my weak categories - all could do some improvement but Retirement Planning and Taxation are my worst...oh goodie!  The best part is our schedule for the weekend is Tax, Retirement Planning and Estates.  There are no amount of words that can describe how happy I will be when this is all over.  This is by far one of the more grueling undertakings of my life. 

El Bulli

Here is the response to my email for reservations...

Apreciados Señores,

The demand for next year is extraordinary and will be impossible to find a solution for the most of requests. We have explained to all the interested people that we will start the management on October 15^th. You can send your request at that time and we will answer you as soon as possible because we will need time to organize all the requests.

We thank you for all your interest.

Atentamente,

Luis García

I am not getting my hopes up although I plan to do everything short of begging (nicely) on October 15th.

Spain

I finalized our tickets using our AA miles.  We are still waiting for Fen and Stacy's to open up for miles - otherwise we will have to pay for them out of pocket.  We will be flying out April 5th and returning the 16th.  The itinerary is looking like we will spend two nights in Granada, three nights in Ronda and then five nights in Barcelona.  I happen to find the Feb, 2005 issue of Food & Wine and what do you know.... it's all about Spain.  Along with a great article on Ferran Adria of El Bulli (we are hoping to get reservations - not sure if it is possible) there are some great suggestions on places to see, stay and eat.  Some ideas I would like to explore are:

- Cooking class - possibly in Sevilla

- Cheese, cheese and more cheese!  Sounds like there are some great spots in Barcelona

- Ham - need I say more?

- Staying at Camper Hotel :-)  I am totally obsessed with this place.  Probably so much that it may be a huge let-down but my hope is it will live up to the cool and ultra hip website

The one thing I would still like to find is information on traveling with children.  I will have to do some more research on this.  I am sure there are great things in Spain for kids.  From everything that I have read, it is an awesome country that is very accepting of children.

A few other things to think about...  Wine - I am sure Alex will do plenty of research here.  Phones - we will need to research costs for renting/purchasing cell phones.