Prioritizing Family Life & Business: An Interview with Anneke Stender

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Top Ways to Handle Family Life and Business with a Busy Lifestyle

Several responsibilities can cause stress and anxiety in family life and business.  It can be hard to find the right balance between organizing family life events and getting year-end ready with clients and other commitments at work.

Here is a list of reminders and quick tips to keep things in perspective in your busy life:

  • Schedule: Plan smaller tasks and meetings than normal.  Time management is key and keeping a clear overview of due dates on your calendar.
  • Disconnect: When spending time with your family, make it a priority to unplug from work emails and calls.  Keep everyone informed ahead of time about your unavailability or absence, and let them know when you’ll be reconnecting.
  • Plan time for yourself: It can be exhausting to keep everything going, so taking time for yourself will rejuvenate you later.
  • Avoid talking business with family or friends when they do not ask.  However, it can be helpful to discuss certain topics and events with the most important people in your life to let them know what’s going on.
  • Clear communication: Set fixed times for family and work, so both sides can count on you.  Be fully present during those time blocks, so you’re focusing on one thing at a time.
  • Work when everyone is sleeping: getting up before the family wakes up or staying up after they go to sleep, so it doesn’t conflict with family time.
  • Delegate and trust others: bring in additional resources who can help you avoid stress.

An Interview with Anneke Stender

 

With all your responsibilities at Plumb, how do you deal with upcoming family events and all the organization and planning?

Planning ahead and calendaring everything is essential for me.  I plan out the weeks and month very detailed in my corporate calendar, so nothing gets lost and everyone knows if I’m free or not. I always mark events or tasks that are not negotiable in red, so my assistant can plan and schedule meetings around those times.

Overall, the less time I have available, the more efficient I can be.  I focus on the really important things and delegate the rest to others.  I am thankful to have a great team at Plumb behind me that I count on, so I have enough time for my family.

How do you handle work during the days you are spending time with your family?  Are there any rules you set?

When I spend time with my family, I turn off my email notifications.  I want to avoid pop-up messages on my phone, so I am fully present to focus that time with my girls and my husband. I dedicate 100% to one thing at a time.

When I visit my family in Germany, I am totally unplugged from work for the duration of the trip.  Sometimes I feel that going overseas makes it easier to enjoy the time off, because I am distancing myself from work with different time zones.

Clear communication upfront towards everyone at work and from my family is the key for making this work. By setting fixed times, my availability for family and work is clear, so both sides can count on me.

What is your favorite time and place for getting work done?

My most productive time is early in the morning.  I usually wake up at 4:30AM and start checking and responding to emails in bed, then I start getting ready for work.  When the children are sleeping, I have time to work without distraction.  However, I mostly spend working time in the office in La Jolla or Orange County.

What do you do to avoid stress and how do you boost your energy levels this time of year?

Even if I only have an hour a day, I block it off in my calendar.  Pilates helps me to relax from time to time, however, I still struggle on getting better to take time for myself.  In addition, it’s always helpful to seek outside help, such as a nanny on special occasions or counting on someone to help with recurring tasks.

As a successful business leader and mother, who inspires you?

Sheryl Sandberg.  I just finished reading her second book, “Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy. I have so much respect and admiration for her and how she handles her life.

How Plumb Family Office Accounting Can Help with your Family Life + Business Throughout the Year

Recurring tasks like bill payment or handling with taxes at the end of the year, and general organization and planning take an immense amount of valuable time. Save this time and effort with the help from additional resources to spend it with your family and friends or use to refueling your energy.

Plumb Family Office Accounting excels at high-net-worth accounting and financial consulting by applying a controller-level’s financial insight to managing personal finances.

Schedule a Consultation to Learn More:



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Plumb’s 2021 Year-End Roundup: Key Takeaways for HNW Clients

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Personal Family Offices & Bill Pay Services for the High Net Worth

Plumb is an outsourced accounting firm, focusing on bill pay and family office accounting services for high-net-worth (HNW), ultra-high-net-worth (UHNW), individuals, and family offices. In this post, we highlight our most popular articles covering how our services bring structure, security, and peace of mind to financially complex households.

#1 Why Use a Personal Family Office and Bill Pay Service Firm?

Are you a good candidate for outsourcing your personal accounting or bill pay needs? If you’re managing complex finances or feeling overwhelmed by the volume of monthly bills, a personal CFO and bill pay service can offer time savings and peace of mind. Plumb outlines the top 5 reasons why high-net-worth individuals and families choose to outsource their personal bill pay and accounting functions.

Read the full article here: Why Use a Personal Bill Pay Service Firm?

#2 Five Signs You Need Back-Office Family Office Accounting

What is a back-office Family Office Accounting? Are you missing due dates with your bills and incurring late payments? Are you having trouble keeping track of your investments that could include entities, personal bill pay firm rental properties, trusts, etc.? Do you have a clear picture of your wealth? Is your financial paperwork organized for tax season? How much time are you devoting to handling household finances, compared to actually enjoying your wealth? Think about your answers, then read about how a back office CFO can help.

Read the full article here: Five Signs You Need a Back-Office Family CFO

#3 Retaining Family Wealth with Smarter Reporting and Cash Flow Management

In order to make better decisions and retain your family wealth, it is important to have accurate, up-to-date financial information. Plumb Family Office Accounting offers outsourced accounting services to wealthy family services the high-net-worth and provides consolidated financial reporting with real-time data for a holistic view of family wealth. Unlike wealth management firms, Plumb Family Office Accounting does not manage money or recommend investment strategies. They work together with their client and their client’s personal financial team in a strategic manner to leverage their total expertise.

Read the full article here: Retaining Family Wealth with Smarter Reporting and Cash Flow Management

#4 Top Signs You Should Hire a Personal Bill Payer

Who is the typical client of Plumb Family Office Accounting? Not all clients are alike, but the one thing they all have in common is: personal financial complexity. They own multiple homes, have household employees on their staff and have investment accounts, entities, trusts and even personal foundations. Most importantly, they are paying up to 100+ bills per month and using a few different credit cards and bank accounts to manage their spending.

Read the full article here: Top Signs You Should Hire a Personal Bill Payer

Are you ready to simplify your personal financial life and take true control of your wealth?

Top Signs That You Should Hire a Personal Bill Payer

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A personal bill payer can help manage your complex financial affairs

Could your family benefit from a personal bill payer? At Plumb Family Office Accounting, we are a reliable firm with a team of accounting and personal bill payment experts who understand the needs of the high-net-worth.

If much of your free time is spent paying bills, tracking income and expenses, or worrying about deadlines and paperwork, you should consider hiring a personal bill payer.  Once you accumulate wealth, you should have the freedom to enjoy it and feel secure knowing you have a financial plan in place for your future.

Not all Personal Bill Payer Experts are the Same.

What makes Plumb Family Office Accounting different?

We work with over 150 HNW families across the globe and also support family offices to provide high-touch bill payment services.  As an outsourced solution, bill pay by Plumb is a customizable, high-touch and reliable service for those who are looking to offload the payment of their expenses and vendor management. Our team of bill pay experts work through a segregation of duties with multiple levels of review and bank security access and account protection.  Click here to see our 7-phase bill pay cycle >> 

Snapshot of a Typical Client:

Not all clients are alike, but the one thing they all have in common is: personal financial complexity.  They own multiple homes, have household employees on their staff, and have investment accounts, entities, trusts and even personal foundations.  Most importantly, they are paying up to 100 bills per month and using a few different credit cards and bank accounts to manage their spending.  Here is a look at an average client of Plumb Family Office Accounting who is using bill pay services.

Here are 5 averages of a typical Plumb bill pay client:

  1. Bills Paid Per Month – 50-100
  2. Wires Capital Calls Per Month – 10-20
  3. Credit Card Transactions – 250-500
  4. Monthly Reconciliations – 2-5 Credit Cards | 2-3 Bank Accounts
  5. Average Numbers Per Family – 3-5 Entities | 3-5 Homes | 2-3 Household Employees

Can you relate to this type of personal financial life? Many of our clients are busy professionals, people who like to travel, or retired and do not want the burden of tracking income, expenses and paying bills.

We make it easy to put together a pricing proposal for our bill pay services.  We setup a fixed fee price, based on the number of transactions required and cash flow reporting.  Please fill out this questionnaire or contact Plumb at Sales@thinkPlumb.com for more information.