March 2026 Budget Status

[Robin Powell]

This month is weird in every way.

Big items:
- Steph sent me $40k, and I don't need to support her further for the
foreseeable future
- Jen and Claudia refinanced their house, so while I did support them in
March, I won't be supporting them from April on, so I'm diverting that
money to other places, to try to tighten up how we keep going over.
Specifically:
   - $20 more each week to pet food
   - $10 more each week to junk food
   - $20 more each week to JLD takeout, now that we're doing a monthly kid
night
   - $100 more each month to groceries
   - $14 more each month to streaming
   - $200 more on computer stuff
   - $50 more on Frances extra spending
   - $50 more on Kai extra spending
   - $100 more on pet health
   - $50 more per week on Frances therapy
   - New target: $150 per month for Kai therapy
   - TOTAL NEW SPENDING (assuming 4.5 weeks a month): $1,114
   - TOTAL NEW SAVINGS: $2,386
- We have an EV now, so I've dropped Transportation from $500 to $150, so
more savings there too
- The $10,000 new car down payment didn't actually happen until April, but
it's such a big deal I'm mentioning it here

NEW BIT: The overall over budget for March was $2,082.98.  I'll be
reporting this going forward.  For February it was $2,004.51, and for
January it was about $3k if you don't count helping Steph.

The usual list:
- $120 over on streaming due to Paramount+ annual which I guess I didn't
quite account for
- $120 over on pet food, no good reason
- Managed to *not* go significantly over ($3.70) on junk food, woo!
- $80 over on JLD takeout
- $200 UNDER on groceries
- $600 over on car maintenance; includes the costs to evaluate the van and
the big car rental I did to test the EV9
- $30 over on pet health, mostly due to the simparica trio 6 month pack but
also just not having any buffer
- $400 over on computer stuff, mostly due to RA's phone screen breaking but
the annual Dropbox charge is very relevant too
- $40 over on Frances stuff, no good reason
- $110 over on Kai extra spending, limited time merch
- $200 over on Frances Therapy; Dr Hong appt, apparently not properly
accounted for
- Unbudgeted: $350 for Kai Dr kj appt

We got a *bunch* of money; the Steph stuff, reimbursements for psych appts,
tax refunds.

The end result is that we're paid through until July, and about half paid
for August, which is pretty fantastic.
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