Budget
Met with the budget person today. She’s great at getting the budget details all down. It’s an art of when to start the budget – you don’t want to go too soon, but you don’t want to go too late, either. If you go too soon, you end up making lots of changes in the budget and using the time of your budget people inappropriately. On the other hand, a hastily put together budget at the end leaves you really open to making mistakes. I like to go when I have made my decisions about sample size, basic data collection points, and most of my procedures (well, at least 98% of my decisions about the procedures). Doing a budget about a month before a grant goes out is also a reality check on the feasibility and allows some time for you to revisit some of the costs that you had put into the study. Note: if you want to go over the $500,000 yearly limit in direct costs on a budget, you need to get program officer permission to do this 6 weeks in advance. (Not that I would advise going over this limit – it should be rarely done and few people other than seasoned investigators can really get this permission.)
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