Why one month lies

What it is: The habit of taking a recent good month and treating it as normal.
Why it matters: It is the single most common error in this whole exercise, and it runs in your favour, which is why it survives. A year planned on a remembered month is a year planned on a number that never existed.
The method: Take twelve months. Add every payment. Divide by twelve. Then, separately, divide by the number of months that actually paid you. The first figure is the truth. The second is what the working months feel like. You need both — one pays the rent in a quiet month, the other tells you what a busy one is worth.
Example: PKR 2,400,000 across a year is PKR 200,000 a month. Across the eight months that actually paid it is PKR 300,000. Danish had been quoting the second figure and budgeting as though it were the first.

One good month is a sample of one. The average is the number that pays rent in February.

Now you

Whenever you state your income, say which of the two you mean.