It’s important to always plan ahead- to know when money is scheduled to go out and when its coming in. Your money doesn’t care about arbitrary things like the end of the month. Just because you have enough on April 30 does not mean you’ll have enough on May 1, if you don’t get any money between April 29 and May 13.

I know this seems beyond basic, silly even, to be posting about. Do I think my readers are idiots? No, but I might be one. Because this is a reminder for me.

Normally, I have my “checkbook” filled out 6-8 weeks ahead, so that I can see when all the scheduled money moves are happening and make sure that there’s enough money in the account to meet all of our needs. I even have conditional formatting in the balance column of my spreadsheet so that I can see instantly if there’s not enough money.

But all the conditional formatting in the world won’t help me if I fail to plan. April has been a milestone month in my mind, what with 3 paychecks, a raise, and a bonus. And somehow, I let that milestone idea take over and make me think that I didn’t need to plan beyond April 30.

But if we have $400 in the account on May 1, $500 due on May 4, and no new money until May 5, there’s a problem- a problem that never would have come up if I’d done the proper planning out of money transfers.

Luckily, I filled in the month of May today, and my balance column went all red and yellow on me. I have no rearranged some debt payments so that everything is fine. I’m just annoyed at myself for having to do that.