Jesse reads an excerpt from the book The End of Average by Todd Rose. In the late 1940's the Air Force had a dangerous problem on its hands -- aircraft of all kinds were malfunctioning and crashing at alarming rates. The Air Force brought in scientist Lt Gilbert S Daniels to diagnose the problem. Daniels discovered that the Air Force had designed cockpits based on thousands of physical measurements taken from its ranks of pilots, then averaged. Daniels ascertained that despite the rigor and breadth of the measurements, not a single active pilot in the Air Force actually matched up with all the averages. In short, the Air Force had designed their planes around an average pilot that didn't actually exist, causing pilots to have trouble controlling their planes.
We can take a lesson from Lt. Daniels discovery when it comes to our budgets. It's tempting to come up with an average for each line item, and compare your budget to someone else's or perhaps even a regional or national "average." Designing your budget around averages may not actually fit your life, and, going back to Episode 420, may leave your budget rigid and inflexible.
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DIY FTW
Singular Focus on the Shovel and its Size
Testing Rounding Up
Is it Going Up?
It's for the Children
Bonus Episode: Kristy Shen and Bryce Leung Interview
Should You Start Over
The Clothing Credit Card Experiment
The Ideal Budget
A Report on Manual Entry
Bulking and Cutting
A Thin Slice of Cheese
That's Progress
Is Wanting It Enough
Bonus Episode: Ramit Sethi Interview
Oxygen Masks
A Rock and a Hard Place
It's Just Not Working
Investing vs Budgeting
Renting a House is Awesome
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