One of the reasons one doesn't do this thing they call personal finance budgeting and all this Excel tracking of expenses is because there is always going to be significant variation in the plan, which renders the plan useless. For example, April is still in second week and

personal travel expenses had already overshot by over N200k. A 15 minute lateness to airport made @OverlandAirways charge extra N27k on top of a N93k earlier paid for a short one night local return trip. An extra day caused by the rescheduling means N20k for an additional night

..in a hotel. That's N47k overrun for 15 minutes lateness to a local airport, not adding extra cost of ride hailing and feeding.

Then while quietly lamenting that cost overrun after returning to hotel, remember Madam had an upcoming trip to a neighboring West African capital

...and tried to send a ticket bought 2 weeks ago for N161k to her. Only to see "pending" in the email notification received after booking almost 2 weeks ago. Pen-what? Less than 24 hours to a trip? A phone call to @Wakanowdotcom only to hear it wasn't confirmed and booking had

..reversed. For no fault of yours. Been using Wakanow for personal booking for over 8 years and usually go to bed after booking, no hassles. But because one chose to pay via transfer option rather than card (which was a valid option they put on the booking portal with account #

and ref put there). All their declared procedure in using the transfer option followed & reference generated quoted as transfer reference. Went to bed after that. Only to hear few 24 hours to the trip that @Wakanowdotcom did not confirm the booking which was paid for immediately

Enraged, called Wakanow and told one should have called? As in, after following your procedure on transfer option and quoting the procedure stated on your portal, you said one should have called. There is nothing in their pay-by-transfer procedure that says "call after paying"

It only says "quote your reference". Wakanow did not confirm the booking 12 days after receiving payment. After a long fierce phone conversation, there is an extra N147k to pay if the trip must continue or postponed to next day. Offered that the extra cost should be shared by

them and one since the fault was their. "Beyond me", said the customer care. Given the importance of the trip for Madam, an extra N147k to be shelled for Wakanow's inefficiency. And covid test done on Monday for a Thursday trip may have expired if travel is delayed by 1 more day

Covid test is N50k.

If one can blame oneself for the N47k for the 15 minute delay that caused the local trip overrun, the minimum of N200k extra for the regional trip was purely Wakanow's fault

An unexpected N250k overrun in travel budget for the month if there is anything like that. Makes a mess of planning - or possibly justifies why some of us don't do this Excel personal budgeting thing! It doesn't work. Some things are beyond you.

That's the rant!