A Small Input: Smooth Out the Spikes
One adjustment that removes the financial surprises that stress you out most
I didn’t think much about heating bills growing up. Then I moved into a house in college with three roommates and got my first real introduction to what an unpredictable one looks like.
The first cold month of the year came with a huge heating bill. So we lowered the thermostat to 60 and wore layers indoors. Friends who visited thought we were living in a refrigerator.
I even tried lighting thirty candles in my room once hoping they’d generate enough heat to make a difference. The smoke got to be a bit much and the fire hazard potential became pretty obvious pretty quickly.
Still, the heating bills came in shockingly high. We later figured out the heat vent was positioned directly below the attic, which meant the furnace ran constantly without ever really warming the house.
We’d split the bill four ways and still each feel the hit. There wasn't much we could do about the vent or the furnace. We just paid it and hoped the next month would be better. It usually wasn't.
That’s how financial spikes work. You know they’re coming in some abstract sense. But when the bill actually arrives, the amount still lands like a surprise.
Years later my wife and I bought our first townhouse and the same feeling came back. She’d see a bill come in and turn to me, “hey, we have to pay this” and I’d feel that immediate anxiousness. Not panic, just the extra stress of figuring out where the money was coming from and whether anything else needed to move around to cover it.
It wasn’t that we didn’t have the money. It was that the money wasn’t where it needed to be when it needed to be there.
The same thing happened with car insurance, holiday spending, and anything else that hit once or twice a year in amounts that felt larger than a normal monthly expense. The math worked out fine over the course of a year. The timing didn’t.
The fix isn’t complicated. It’s just moving money in smaller, more consistent amounts before the bill arrives instead of scrambling to find it after.
For utility bills, many providers offer average or budget billing—a monthly amount based on your typical usage rather than the prior month’s actual consumption. The amount adjusts slightly over time to true up, but the swings disappear. For anyone in a place where a $300+ heating bill hitting in February creates real stress, it’s worth a phone call or a few minutes online to set it up.
For larger periodic expenses—car insurance, holiday spending, anything that arrives once or twice a year—the same logic applies. Divide the annual amount by twelve and move that amount into a separate account each month. When the bill arrives the money is already there. The surprise is gone.
You don’t need a separate account for every category. One account for irregular expenses covers most of it. The point isn’t the account structure. It’s the monthly habit of moving a small amount before you need it.
My wife and I have had a dedicated travel account for over fifteen years. We both contribute to it monthly. When we travel, I transfer from it. When my wife travels for work and needs to cover expenses before reimbursement comes through, it’s there.
We also use it for things that are part of how we travel. In Florence, I bought a leather jacket I hadn’t planned on. It was more than I’d ever spent on something for myself at that point, but we’d saved specifically for the trip and I wanted something that would mark the occasion, our honeymoon. Having the account meant I could say yes without second-guessing it.
What I’ve noticed over time is that the account does something beyond just covering expenses. The balance tells us what kind of travel year we can have. If it’s grown, we can take on something bigger. If we’ve had an active year, we know to pull back a little on the next one. It turned a recurring source of financial stress into something I actually look forward to managing.
That shift, from reactive to intentional, is what smoothing the spikes actually gives you.
None of these are complicated adjustments. They don’t require a new app, a financial advisor, or a perfect budget. They just require moving money in smaller amounts more consistently so the spikes stop feeling like surprises.
The stress that comes with a big unexpected bill isn’t usually about the money itself. It’s about the timing and the feeling of being caught off guard. Fix the timing and the stress tends to go with it.
What’s the next bill that’s going to catch you off guard? Whatever it is, you probably already know it’s coming.
— Brad
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This is meant to help you think through financial decisions and tradeoffs—not tell you exactly what to do. It’s general in nature and not personalized advice (see full disclaimer).