December 2025 Budget Status

[Robin Powell]

Overall not bad; we didn't hugely blow the budget anywhere except me
helping my family and the Gifts category.

Importantly, we're starting to get money back for the kids' psych and
therapy stuff, which is pretty substantial.

- Streaming: ~$10 over because we switch AppleTV+ plans in the middle of
the month; future target now $96/month because I'm paying for the combined
plan
- Internet: ~$20 over because that's just what they're charging now; need
to start on getting a cheaper plan
- Pet food: way over (like $100 over), but part of that is buying *a lot*
when they had a BOGO.  It may also be that the target is wrong.
- Junk food: ~$20 over, not sure what happened but just failed at checking
the amount properly probably
- Eating out with Jen: ~$40 under since she was gone for some of it
- Groceries: ~$200 over, but that's mostly because I assigned the 300 in
cash I took out to this category since it mostly gets used at the farmer's
market
- Eating out R3ALM: ~$30 under; :thumbsup:
- Transportation: ~$100 under, hoping we can just do better than $500/month
but we'll see
- Pet Health: Blew through what I'd built up in the last couple of months
but did not go over
- Comp/Tech Maintenance: ~$20 over but there were two annual things in
there; target may need adjusting
- Home Maintenance: ~$140 over, because we had Lynette fix the light and
the down payment for RA's chair in the same month
- Gifts: Yeaaaaah.  More than $400 over.  This is largely because I have
$100/month assigned and it's supposed to build up over time but it didn't
get a chance to do so.
- I added a $50/month "Kai Hobbies" target because I pay for whatever Kai
wants as a parallel to horsing.  Obviously there's no fairness here in
terms of the amount of money, but it still seemed worthwhile to formalize
"Kai gets hobby money since I pay for Frances's big hobby"
- Kai extra spending: ~$30 over but much of that was crafting stuff which I
don't have a budget for but pay
- Helping Josh and Steph totalled about $8k but I expect to get that all
back.  Eventually.
- Horsing: ~$550 under but that needs to build to pay for events so that's
good
- Donations: $80 over, I think the target is probably just wrong but not
fixing it right this second
- Entertainment: $56 over, which is almost exactly the cost of the two PS5
controller batteries

We are currently paid through to the end of February, with $20k in the
emergency fund.  I get an ESPP payout at the end of January and I can do my
taxes (and get a huge refund) mid-to-late February.

Things might get dicey some time in late March if Steph hasn't been able to
get any of my money back, but we're certainly fine until then.
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