IT’S Wednesday as I write this. These past two days, Monday and Tuesday, I saw my retainer fee for the month from a publishing company disappear–in just two days.

First, my desktop computer refused to do anything at all, and so I brought it to the computer shop. It turned out that the power supply is broken and the video card sympathized with it and broke down as well. Since the computer guys were tinkering with the CPU, my son and I figured we might as well add 1 gigabyte of RAM.

Then on Wednesday, it was time for the car to have its 40,000-kilometer check up. This does not come cheap, I realized, especially after I OK’d a rustproofing job, etc.

So there, a whole month’s work pay gone in two days. Why does money “evaporate” so fast?

Parents with school age children may be thinking along the same line at about this time of the year. With tuition fees the way they are now, it’s no joke to send one child to private school. And what now if there is more than one child?

I learned from a financial management talk I attended years ago, that one must prepare for annual expenses by saving for it monthly. Take tuition fees, for instance. See how much the annual fee is for next school year, divide the amount by 12, and begin saving that amount monthly this June. This can be done as well for other annual expenses: car registration fees, annual income taxes (for the self-employed), and insurance premiums. As for repairs and maintenance expenses, saving a little more for this purpose every month will cushion you from the shock of getting your repair bill in the future.

Preparing for big expenses this way will help you avoid panicking when it’s time to pay up. Save, save, save.-Karen Galarpe