Go ahead. You can’t make a soufflé sandwich until it’s flat enough. Time is something we are in a great big hairy rush to spend, and yet it’s a societal construct.

Let’s say you’ve found yourself in a slight financial rut. Maybe it’s January and your credit cards are shopped out, or you had to take time off work to get through a bout of Covid. Either way, your bank balance needs a serious dose of spices, and you’re suitably bummed. Then, out of the blue, you get a surprise payment, not yet another bill! That overdue rebate for your heating fuel, or a delayed tax refund. Maybe prize money from when you won the vegetarian Beef Bourgignon contest at the fall fair.

Whatever it’s from, and regardless of how much it is, sit on it. For at least 24 hours, longer if it’s a greater amount.

Why wait? It could make that credit card payment or top up the pantry. Just shut up and wait. Priorities change. Maybe today, it’s the hydro bill that looms large, but if your pet iguana suddenly gets a cupcake stuck in its throat, your priorities change instantly. Found money even if it’s expected and merely late, is not quite the same as your regular paycheque, and needs to be revered. Okay, so different stroganoff if it’s a lottery win or a huge inheritance, or the like, but given that those are as rare as a yartsa gunbu (look it up!), give it time. You get a pass if it’s a large amount and you take, say, 5% of it and blow it, but hang on to the other 95% for a day or three. It’s shocking what becomes your greatest need from hour to hour. If all is equal a day from now, go ahead and pay it toward what you initially chose.

The other option, if you’re really drowning in thick pea soup, is divide and conquer. If you have five overdue bills, pay a little toward each, rather than paying two off completely and leaving three in the bottom of the soup pot.