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 also contribute to savings in our taxable accounts.

What we have not done so well is to budget specifically for certain items. For example, we had a basement leak early in 2007 which set us back $6,000. That was an unexpected expense. We also 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 also realized that I hate actually sitting down in front of a spreadsheet and budgeting. I have to force myself and find the right time to sit down and actually do some budgeting and monitor our finances. What also 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 time looking at our budget. She did not exactly take it to mean that she was in charge. She volunteered to categorize my work receipts (which I have failed to hand it to her on time). However, there were many times when she expected me to sort out our mails and I wondered my she couldn’t do it. There were also other times when I asked her how we were on the budget and she said she has not looked at it for while!

After doing our taxes almost in the last minute (not a deadline last minute), I came to realize that one of us has to take over 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 sure Mrs Credit Card will accept the role, but she also 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 time book keeper. Or if 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 this, 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 this here.