Anticipating Unanticipated Costs

I am frequently reminded of the parable of the man planning to build a tower. In Luke 14:28, we read "For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it?" This can be tricky. People are not typically perfectly accurate when it comes to predicting the future, including when it comes to predicting future costs. Often, unanticipated expenses arise, leading to the project costing more than one had originally anticipated. Yet, I suppose we can plan for that, too. We may not know what additional expenses may arise, but we can anticipate that unanticipated expenses will arise, and we can set aside some funds to cover the unanticipated costs. For example, if we think that building a tower would cost $1000, we could budget in an additional $200, to cover the costs we didn't predict.

Naturally, this advice is not merely financial. We can budget our time and energy in similar ways. For example, there are items on my weekly schedule that take about 45 minutes, but I allot them an hour each on my schedule, in case setbacks occur. This gives me some amount of flexibility with my time, rather than leaving me vulnerable to being late if anything takes slightly longer than expected. Similarly, we can budget our energy in regards to upcoming projects and errands. It's difficult to estimate how much we can do and how much juice we'll have left after we've done it, but if we plan projects that are well within our abilities, and/or if we plan more breaks than we think we'll need, we can hopefully avoid the risk of running out of steam before the project is done.

Granted, even when we account for issues we didn't anticipate, we can sometimes be caught underprepared. It's difficult to anticipate how far our unanticipated setbacks will set us back. We might budget $1200 for a tower that we think will only cost $1000, but if it actually ends up costing $1500, we might still be in trouble. Still, it's good to try to anticipate unanticipated costs, so we can reduce the likelihood of running into that kind of trouble, and we can reduce the amount of trouble we'll find ourselves in. It's less bad to be $300 over budget than to be $500 over budget, especially since it can also be calculated as being 25% over budget as opposed to 50% over budget. And when it comes to time and energy, one can burn the midnight oil when one has to, so long as one doesn't burn too much of it too often. We can't take the time we need to rest to regain our energy when we are instead spending that time and energy biting off more than we can chew.

So, when you anticipate anything that'll take up some of your resources, try to anticipate it taking up more of those resources than you think it actually will. Likely, either you'll be blissfully underbudget, with your original estimates having been close to correct, or you'll be glad you planned ahead enough to anticipate the unanticipated costs that inevitably unexpectedly came up.