Thin months · 3 June 2026
A school-fee calendar for a thin rubber season
The school has one calendar. The plot has another.
A term bill does not wait for the week the latex sells. Households around Tak Bai know this, and still get caught, because the strong months feel generous enough to absorb a fee, a uniform, and a cousin's wedding in the same breath. Then the rains stall the tapping and the next invoice is already printed.
Write the school's dates down one side of a page. Down the other side, write the months your money actually arrives: a rubber cheque, a fishing stretch, a high season at the market, a salary on the first. The gaps between those columns are the months that need money set aside early.
Every cost that belongs to the child, named once
Fees are only the loud part. Add the van or the bus, shoes, the exam that appears in March, and the extra the school asks for at the start of a year. If a son or daughter may leave for Hat Yai or Bangkok later, keep that year in its own column. A city year estimated inside this year's term fee will eat the money you needed for the shoes.
Estimates stay marked as estimates. A bill you have held in your hand is a different kind of number from a relative's memory of what university cost five years ago.
Which envelope stays shut
When a thin month and a school bill arrive together, the household needs a rule made on a calm day. Medicine for a parent, the plot's own costs, and rent or a loan repayment are poor places to borrow from, because they come back as a larger hole. A feast gift you have not yet promised is an easier place to pause.
The education funding plan we write in the office is this page, built from your invoices and your earning months, with the shut envelopes named in a sentence you can repeat when someone asks for the school money early.