Wow, who knew this was not actually a quote from Darwin?
It reminds me of “I can see Russia from my house”, which most people attribute to Sara Palin, but was actually from a SNL skit (not that anyone remembers what Palin actually said, right?)
In any case, this quote, while not completely accurate, is very much true.
And, while sometimes it can behoove you to stick to your plan and do what you set out to do…
Sometimes you just need to know when to adapt.
It may be that you have to make a payment so that deferred interest from a credit card’s promotional offer does not get added to your total balance…
It may be that paying something in full will give you a large discount…
You get the idea.
This is why I like using my Excel checkbook. It gives me an easy way to move things around to see how it will affect cash flow in the future.
And it helps me ensure nothing falls through the cracks.
Things already scheduled are not highlighted.
Things that need to be scheduled or paid are highlighted in yellow. As I schedule or pay them, I remove the highlight.
I like to highlight final payments in red. There is definitely a lot of satisfaction in that.
Anything that has cleared the bank gets a nice big “X”. Why wait until the end of the month to reconcile?
Because, having a plan, but being able to change on the fly is priceless.
How do you approach your finances? Are you strict? Flexible? Flying by the seat of your pants?