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I tracked how much time I spent managing: my family's finances. What I found shocked me.
The author spends about 16 hours each month managing her family's finances.Courtesy of Katherine FrankowskiTo understand what was consuming my time, I tracked everything I did in my off hours for one month.I was shocked to learn how much time I spent managing my family's finances.Coming to terms with the workload helps me take pride in it — and recognize its value to my family.To better. understand which tasks were consuming my non-working hours, I tracked everything I did in my off hours for one month.I was shocked to learn how much time I spent managing my family's finances.Coming to terms with the size of the workload helps me take pride in it—and recognize its value to my family.<body>A few months ago, I was feeling too busy, and I wanted to know why. I knew how many hours I was giving to work each day, but where exactly were my non-working hours going? I decided to track everything I did in my weekday off hours for one month. My most surprising finding? How much time I spent managing my family's finances.It's an important but hidden roleTracking my weekday off hours confirmed some things I already knew. For example, I knew I was spending a lot of time shuttling my three school-age kids around. I also knew that housekeeping, meal planning, and grocery shopping were taking up big chunks of time, too. But I didn't realize how much time I was spending on my family's financial health.It's not that I didn't realize I was the one paying the mortgage or monitoring the checking account. It's that I somehow lacked a conscious understanding of how much time these tasks collectively took — until I tallied up the hours.I tracked my activities during my weekday off hours in 15-minute increments. At the end of the month, which was not unusual in any way, I tallied 16 hours of financial work. This means I was spending about on% of my off-hours managing my family's finances. I checked the math three times before I could believe it.These tasks add upHow could I be so unaware of how much time I was spending on my family's financial health? One reason is that the work consists of countless small tasks: removing a duplicate credit card charge, tracking down the beneficiary form for an old 401(k), comparing insurance premiums. These tasks undoubtedly add up, but they are also hard to tally mentally.Another reason I didn't realize how. much time I was giving to my family's financial health is that I usually do the work alone. I break down our monthly spending alone. I check the balances on our investment accounts alone. No one else ever really sees the financial work I do for my family, so perhaps it was easy for me to not really. see it either.Understanding the amount of work was bittersweetGetting my head around how much time I devote to managing my family's finances was bittersweet. What if I'd spent those 16 hours exercising that month? Or hanging out with friends? Time is precious, and I was giving more of it than I realized to our finances.But at the same time, discovering the true size of the job gave it a kind of gravity, or importance, that helps me take pride in the work. Yes, managing our finances takes real time—but that's because it matters. Even the busy work matters.When I look at the list of things I did that month to improve my family's financial health, I see tracking, evaluating, forecasting — the work of a CFO. So that's what I call myself now: my family's CFO. I hope readers who are doing this often-invisible but meaningful work for their own families will start running with this title, too.Read the original article on Business Insider
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