The Importance of Planned vs Actual

As a financial professional (insert your laugh here) - I am constantly reminded of the importance of planned versus actuals. In work mode that tends to be financially driven numbers. If the actual spend is less than we planned, I'm doing my job right. Since they've kept me around this long and I tend to save my company money - I must be good at comparing planned vs. actuals. Now some may think that this knowledge and experience would shadow over into my personal life. And to those folks I'd say - boy are you wrong.

I tried to reason this into my life with my planning to break up with someone I had been seeing. As I spoke to some of you at cooler caddy - you were aware - others were apparently "Shocked" (see Jackie's post below) - which let me tell you - you are NOT the only one.....

However don't feel bad for Boy X just yet. I gave him plenty of warning signs, he just chose to over look them.

Now as far as how the actual event went let me start by providing the best advice I think I've ever received to date, courtesy of Teri:

• "You need to arrive early....order a dirty martini....slam it down....order another dirty martini....now this next step Sarah is so important - PAY YOUR TAB. You do NOT want to break up with him and THEN have to wait for the Tab to arrive. Trust me!!"
  

When I went home that night I thought about what I was going to say....which obviously lead me to think about how he would react...

Compared to how it ACTUALLY went down.....

For those that are chart illiterate (Tara) - I was left at the bar. To which my immediate response was relief and of course uncontrollable laughter. When I got back into my car George Michael's "Freedom" was playing on my radio (no joke) - and I felt as though that was all the closure I needed...