Who is the CFO of your Household?
I wrote a post yesterday about how Mrs Credit Card and myself spent the whole day doing our taxes. After the exhausting day, I sat down in the evening and reflected what I have done right in my finance organization and what I could have done better.
There a some things that I am pleased to have implemented. One is that our bills are automatically deducted from our bank accounts. Our utilities are charged to our credit cards so that we can earn more rewards points or cash rebates. We contribute to our retirement plans and plus contribute to savings in our taxable accounts.
What we have not done so well is to budget specifically for convinced items. For example, we had a basement leak early in 2007 which set us back $6,000. That was an unexpected expense. We additionally took a few vacations last year which we did not budget. But we still managed not to dig into our savings plan or incur any debt.
I plus realized that I hate actually sitting down in front of a spreadsheet and budgeting. I have to force myself and find the right instance to sit down and actually do some budgeting and monitor our finances. What additionally tends to happen is that occasionally, Mrs Credit Card would go on a little shopping binge.
At the beginning of last year, I asked Mrs Credit Card to take more duration looking at our budget. She did not precisely take it to mean that she was in charge. She volunteered to categorize my work receipts (which I have folded to hand it to her on time). However, there were
After doing our taxes nearly in the last minute (not a deadline last minute), I came to realize that one of us has to take by the role of a CFO in our household. And I think that person will not be me but Mrs Credit Card. The reason is that I hate doing mundane things like filing my receipts, checking our expenses etc. I would like that to be done and presented to me! (like a CEO!). But I’m certain Mrs Credit Card will accept the role, but she additionally has to look after our 3 kids . And she has a couple of other sites that she runs! So what gives.
I think we might have to hire a part date book keeper. Or whether we decide not to do so, one of us (more like Mrs Credit Card) has to assume the full role of our household CFO position and be in charge of everything, from budgeting, monitoring our expenses, reporting, checking our mails, filing our receipts and forms and all that stuff. I’ll let you know of the outcome of that, but I certainly feel that our present situation where we both sort of look at our finances together, but not being as engaged as we should be is not the ideal situation.
Share your thoughts on that here.
Orginal post by Mr Credit Card
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