It’s time for another budget review, better late than never! I had all the metrics for this one prepped and I continue to track my spending at the end of each and every month. However, between migrating this website to self-hosting plus redesigning it (more on that in a future post), an early August vacation, and making the most of spending time with my five-month-old baby I just never got around to writing the text for this post in early July like I typically would have. I’m currently using my parental leave to work part-time, which has enabled me to stretch my return to full-time work until November.
During the 2025 year-end wrap up, I had my largest nominal spending ever, where I spent $6,056.14 on average per month during the second half of 2025. While I didn’t explicitly set any goals for myself going forward at that review, I did refactor my budget to include expected child expenses among other adjustments, setting myself an implied goal to try and wrangle my spending down into this new average of $4,880.48 per month.
Let’s take a look at how I did with sticking to my revised budget, sorted highest to lowest by actual spending in each category:
| Expense | Budgeted Amount | Actual Spending, 6 Month Avg |
|---|---|---|
| Mortgage/Utilities | 2,000.00 | 2,042.90 |
| Car Payment | 559.54 | 964.27 |
| Consumer Goods | 150.00 | 466.43 |
| Groceries | 300.00 | 254.87 |
| Add’l Housing Expenses | 300.00 | 204.72 |
| Car/Home Insurance | 150.00 | 172.09 |
| Child Expenses | 500.00 | 158.99 |
| Restaurants | 100.00 | 151.63 |
| Flannelcat | 150.00 | 124.01 |
| Alcohol/Bars | 75.00 | 88.64 |
| Misc. Taxes | 35.00 | 69.64 |
| Medical* | 0.00 | 52.22 |
| Gasoline | 75.00 | 51.15 |
| Coffee/Tea | 50.00 | 32.87 |
| Misc. Entertainment | 35.00 | 25.14 |
| Homebrewing | 50.00 | 22.90 |
| Clothing/Shoes | 75.00 | 17.77 |
| Phone | 15.94 | 15.94 |
| Uncategorized | 10.00 | 6.25 |
| Car Maintenance | 50.00 | 5.40 |
| Travel | 200.00 | 0.00 |
| Total Monthly Expenses | 4,880.48 | 4,927.82 |
| Net Monthly Income | 6,000.00 | 6,534.96 |
| Free Cash Flow/Month | 1,119.52 | 1,607.14 |
Nice, I’m actually really happy with these numbers! I paid over $400/month extra towards my car loan, so excluding those excess payments I would have come in handily 7.3% under budget. And it always helps for income to be higher than expected. I definitely have enough room in the budget to fit a daycare expense starting late this year or early next year when my wife goes back to work.
I overspent in Consumer Goods worst of all due to buying a new laptop to replace my 6 year old one. Other than that, it seems that general slight overspend in some categories canceled out with underspending in others. Luck, or a sign of a budget well-designed?
I realized I never had a budget line item for medical expenses. I’ve been lucky to be pretty healthy in my 20s and 30s, not requiring much medical care. So I added the spending here as a new category. More budget granularity is generally better, I’ve learned over the years.
Budget Update, Net Changes, and Future Goals
I think this was a pretty good budget that I’ll be able to stick to for the 2nd half of the year as well, so there’s only one minor change:
| Expense | Budgeted Amount | Net Change |
|---|---|---|
| Mortgage/Utilities | 2,000.00 | – |
| Car Payment | 559.54 | – |
| Child Expenses | 500.00 | – |
| Add’l Housing Expenses | 300.00 | – |
| Groceries | 300.00 | – |
| Travel | 200.00 | – |
| Car/Rental Insurance | 150.00 | – |
| Flannelcat | 150.00 | – |
| Consumer Goods | 150.00 | – |
| Restaurants | 100.00 | – |
| Gasoline | 75.00 | – |
| Clothing/Shoes | 75.00 | – |
| Alcohol/Bars | 75.00 | – |
| Coffee/Tea | 50.00 | – |
| Car Maintenance | 50.00 | – |
| Homebrewing | 50.00 | – |
| Medical Expenses* | 50.00 | +50 |
| Misc. Entertainment | 35.00 | – |
| Misc. Taxes | 35.00 | – |
| Phone | 15.94 | – |
| Uncategorized | 10.00 | – |
| Total Monthly Expenses | 4,930.48 | +50 |
| Net Monthly Income | 6,000.00 | – |
| Free Cash Flow/Month | 1,069.52 | -50 |
Here’s the rationale for all of the changes I made, in sequential order:
- I’m now tracking withdrawals from my HSA under “Medical Expenses” going forward.
Nothing else is needed for the time being! I’ll re-evaluate my Child Expenses category at the year-end review as it will certainly need a bump up to account for daycare spending. This may be my last chance to spend under $5k per month on average for the forseeable future, so I’m going to do my best to come in on or under budget for the second half of 2026.
Savings Check-up
Let’s take a look at my total cash inflows to savings and investment accounts over the past 6 months:
| Account | 6 Month Contributions ($) |
|---|---|
| Cash Savings | $2,142.84 |
| 401k | $16,755.20 |
| Pension | $2,905.36 |
| HSA | $500.00 |
| Roth IRA | $7,500.00 |
| Taxable Brokerage | $0.00 |
| Total Saved | $29,803.40 |
Looking good! This is over $9k more saved over the course of six months compared to the year-end 2025 review, mostly due to reduced spending! I’m hovering nearly exactly at one dollar saved for every dollar spent when compared to my total spending over the past six months of $29,556.92!
Net Worth Check-up
| December 31, 2025 Net Worth | $713,634 |
| June 30, 2026 Net Worth | $766,116 |
| 6 Month Change | $52,482 |
Nothing new here. I’m still saving more than my investments are earning, so even though stocks are performing excellently, my own labor is still the root of my portfolio growth over most time periods.
It’s crazy to look back at the compounding growth — just two years ago, my net worth was still under half a million, so I’ve added nearly $300k in just two years! It’s crazy to think that I could be looking at joining the “two comma club” with two more years of average or above market performance.