Last Year on the Green · June: The Rainy Day
The idea: surprises are not rare, so plan for them; a small pot kept only for the unexpected stops a surprise from eating the plan.
Read it
Who is in this book
- Marcus A budget is a plan for what the money is for, before it arrives from LedgerQuest
- Danya a child of the Green Asks "how do we know?"
- Cyrus The cost of borrowing is the total you pay back, not the size of each payment from LedgerQuest
- Sofia The spread matters as much as the average — every team has high and low days from InferForge
- Tara a child of the Green Listens longest, speaks last
Every recurring character has a short tune, so you can tell who is on stage before a word is said. The tunes play only when you tap, and the Reading Access sound switch turns them off.
The Honest Page
Which parts of this story are true, stretched or made up?
True
- An emergency fund is money kept aside only for unexpected costs, such as a repair or losing some income, so that a surprise does not have to be paid for by borrowing or by spending money meant for something else. Source
- People often treat money differently depending on which 'pot' they think it is in, even though money is the same wherever it is kept. The economist Richard Thaler called this mental accounting. Source
- In the case, nine months of £127.50 is £1,147.50; paying back £108 for £90 costs £18, which is 20%; the five surprises came to £100, about £11 a month over nine months.
Stretched
- In the case, Tara's surprises fit neatly into a list of five. What we simplified: Real surprise costs are harder to list, because some are forgotten and some are large and rare, like a broken boiler. Many money guides suggest building an emergency fund slowly, a little each month, until it can cover a few weeks or months of essentials.
Made up
- Tara's phone, Mr Lee's repair shop, the banking app's offer, Priyanka and Tara's mum are made up. Emergency funds and mental accounting are real.
Tara’s sentence
The case stops where Tara speaks. Write the sentence you would have said. It stays on this device.
Kept.
Your sentence lives on this device. Nothing is sent anywhere.
Ring the hammer for someone
Pick this book for someone younger. The link carries only the book, and it will wait for them on the Green.