A 1-step magic trick for my "trial-and-error" budgeters

[Tedra Trimm]

Hello Region 5,

Let’s be honest for a second. About 95% of you probably have your grant budgets perfectly balanced in a flawless spreadsheet on the very first try. This email is not for you. This email is for my people. The ones who find themselves sitting in front of the budget, entering random numbers, increasing the amount by $5, then decreasing it by $2, just trying to get the indirect costs and the spending amounts to perfectly align.

Now, I know the rookies today can just plug their numbers into an AI and get the answer in two seconds. But when I started doing this 20 years ago, that wasn't an option! (Cue, "walking in the snow, uphill, both ways." 😂)

Just the other day, having a total foggy-brain moment, I caught myself trying to multiply the entire grant amount by the indirect percentage to find the total. (Spoiler alert: the math did not math, and the system laughed at me). I almost didn't send this email out of pure embarrassment, but I figured if this confession helps even one person save an hour of typing numbers into a system until they fit, it’s worth it. So, on the down low, here is the one-step math cheat code to find your exact spending limit without the guessing game.

The 1-Step Cheat Code 
Whenever you need to figure out how much money you can actually spend, just do this:

1. Take your indirect rate and turn it into a decimal (e.g., 6.3% becomes 0.063).
2. Slap a 1 in front of it (so it becomes 1.063).
3. Divide your total grant by that number.

That's it. That gives you your exact spending amount.

Tedra

Tedra Trimm

WorkAbility I, Region 5 | Mentor Representative

ttr...@riversideunified.org | ttrim...@WorkabilityCentral.com