This post was created in partnership with Chase. Thank you for supporting the companies that support our site!
The entrance of a new year often comes with a renewed focus towards financial goals and a quiet respite after all the holiday spending. Perhaps, you are dreaming of the same thing as me, to be a wiser spender and tracker of funds.
I am curious, as a busy mom, who holds the CFO reigns in your household and if you have found this role has evolved for your family over the years?
My husband and I have been married for sixteen years and I have always had the CFO duties in our house.
There are times where I am nailing it as a diligent tracker, an oh-no-you-didn’t-charge-me-that-much customer service caller, and a fierce barterer on rates.
As our life has gotten busier though, I am ashamed at how poorly I have been keeping up this role on top of every other hat I’m wearing.
I find myself, a negligent CFO who needs to get her ducks back in a row.
It’s not that I lack confidence with money; it is that I often feel like I lack time.
Chase Mastery recently ran a study called the, “Chase Generational Money Talks Study,” to see how this evolution of CFO has shifted through the generations. Much like me, they discovered that 78% of Millennial women agree they are able to make good financial decisions, even if they are new to them, compared to 71% of Gen X and 67% of the Boomer generation.
My Millennial confidence is great, but how can I implement better follow through for my family this year?
This year, as our Household CFO, I would like to focus on four goals with our finances!
Track My Money Better
I can admit that my first instinct is to grab my phone and do a little scrolling. If that instinct is already there, wouldn’t it be great to replace my social media time with a quick analysis of our family finances?
I’m a big fan of Mint as it does a really great job of tracking and helping you visualizes where your money is going, but I had fallen off the bandwagon with my daily tracking.
I am a nerd when it comes to pie charts and graphs so why not geek out a little bit over my morning coffee again? I am hoping this tool can help me to be a better monitor of our funds.
Removing Those Slow Leaks
It is so easy to get caught up in monthly memberships to things from our music to our television watching to our digital consumption to the gym memberships.
I really want to revisit where these slow leaks are happening and be serious about canceling the memberships to things we are not using. We can ALWAYS come back to these subscriptions, should we find we really miss them, but I’m wondering how many of these things we would truly miss.
Embracing No-Spend Weekends
I don’t have a lot of down time during the week, but I do on the weekends. What inevitably happens is that those periods of laziness often gets filled with online shopping, dining out, and boredom busting activities.
I want to start replacing those impulses with commitments to not spend on the weekend. Making dinners together, playing board games, watching documentaries, and really enjoying my kids without spending money needs to be my new jam.
Talking About Our Financial Goals
The “Chase Generational Money Talks Study,” shared that couples often have conflicts regarding their household finances. Three-quarters of Millennials and GenXers have conflicts with their spouses over money, compared to 62% of Baby Boomers, the study found.
Although I believe the CFO roles have changed, I feel like conflict about money is something that has carried on for generations.
I’ve been lucky that we don’t have conflicts about money, but I can remember the difficulties and struggles when we were sinking in $13,000 of debt and how awful it felt to feel our financial future slipping away.
I want to always have an open dialogue with my spouse and I think we need to start talking about our retirement goals and figuring out what we can do now to prepare for our future.
To learn more about the Generational Money Talks series, you can watch it here:
A huge thank you to Chase for sponsoring this conversation today and spurring a much-needed conversation in our own home about our financial future!
Tell me, who holds the CFO reigns in your household and has this role evolved at all for your family? I’d love to hear!
This post was created in partnership with Chase. Thank you for supporting the companies that support our site!