Weddingbee Blog

I like to think of myself as our little family’s CFO (that’s Chief Financial Officer). Giving myself a title frees me to be detailed and business-like about our finances, helps put me in the right frame of mind to update my guy, and makes me a little less grumpy about the time I spend paying bills, calling the stupid cable company because they’ve screwed up my bill yet again, and keeping track of mountains of paperwork.

And I even have an office with a view (oh, and it IS in the corner of the house!). Now if only I was cool enough for an assistant…

Anyway, I see my role as the family CFO as extremely important. Not only do I handle the tactical stuff (paying bills, checking balances, filing records), I help frame and recommend strategic decisions. Do we want to take a yearly vacation? What’s more important to us, eating out or keeping the Home Depot stock afloat? Should we rent or sell our extra house?

Today, for example, I will update our net worth spreadsheet (which feels like a facetious title right now, but won’t always be that way!), look at our list of projects and wants to see what will fit into the budget, and then meet my guy for lunch to do a quick review. If anything weird shows up on our statements, our balances hit a fun target (we watch our mortgage closely), or I pay something big off, I’m sure to share.

See, I’ve always done this - well, at least since early in our relationship. But during one of our arguments, it was mentioned that one of us did everything around the house and the other did not.

I realized he had no idea that I put a couple of hours into our family’s budget every couple of weeks because I’m on my laptop, and he assumes I’m either web surfing, blogging, or working. It was a silent contribution, and I was getting no credit!

Showing him our current situation and future goals also helps in discussions about new projects. Before, he’d suggest some big project (well, to me it was big; to him everything “shouldn’t be that hard”) and I’d start running numbers in my head and trying to figure out how to fund it. Now, he’ll suggest a project, we’ll talk about a few details, and then he’ll ask me to put it on the list. Relief!

Plus, financial experts tell us over and over that one partner should never be in the dark about the family’s finances, even if they’re not the partner dealing with it every day. I’ve gone so far as to print a list of every account, username, password, and account number we have. If I’m suddenly unable to deal with stuff — for whatever reason — he’ll at least have a starting point. At his request, I deleted the electronic copy for security reasons.

Our work environments are very, very different. Mine is very business-like while his is very, very casual. Presenting to him — even in such a casual way — gives him a little peek into my skills, which makes me feel good, and helps him understand our situation. In turn, that allows me to listen to his ideas without freaking out about the money.

It works. (And no, I don’t do a PowerPoint, but I have been known to bring out my laptop. Most of the time, I give a verbal update and then show him the documents because he likes to look at them.)

Who will be your family’s CFO?