Family cash flow and decisions
See the past clearly. Build a realistic normal month. Then explore changes without losing sight of what matters to your family.
Spending reviewed through August 19, 2026.
Broad spending buckets reconciled to the prior cash-flow analysis. Select a category or a month to look closer.
Categories are mutually exclusive. Card purchases are represented through their payoffs, not added to those payoffs a second time.
The default period is August 2025 through July 2026: 12 complete months, totaling $223,282. The longer view covers December 2024 through July 2026. Partial August 2026 is shown separately below and is never annualized.
The earlier $19,840 headline was a typical-month estimate from a broader, differently grouped analysis. This report uses the later category-corrected monthly series and a consistent 12-month mean, not a sum of category medians. A different result does not mean the family made new cuts.
Card payoffs provide the broad cash-flow total because cards are paid in full. Merchant detail identifies exclusions and examples but is incomplete across cards. School payment timing was reconstructed in the prior analysis. Some Redbud adjustments in June and July 2026 were estimated at $636.20 per month; the forecast is therefore an estimate, not an audited ledger.
Historical card totals still include the identified one-time vehicle costs and the $3,962 state extension payment. Those are removed explicitly in the forward bridge. Investment transfers, business funding, the $41,776 vehicle-purchase item, and direct federal extension payments were already excluded from this spending series.
Select a bar to see that month's breakdown above.
Not a full-month run rate. The August 18 Ashgrove charges were still authorized in the new card activity and are not treated as settled spending.
The May 21 to August 19 bank activity shows $92,000 received from Kestrel Capital and $112,000 paid to Larkspur Labs, plus other transfers. These totals are not household consumption and do not establish the source of each outgoing dollar.
A partial merchant sample from the cash-back card, May 21 through August 18, 2026. Settled purchases only. It is not the full household spending total and is not added to the historical chart.
| Purchase | Date | Category | Amount |
|---|
Payments, rewards, authorizations, declines, voids and failures are excluded. The Scribd dispute and adjustment are not presented as new purchases or automatic future savings.
Next, separate costs that continue from costs that should not repeat.
Before any optional cuts, replace old schooling, remove identified one-offs, and make room for future vehicle needs.
Net of school credits, including vehicle reserves. Before HSA funding and new savings goals.
The $1,446.74 EV service purchase on July 29, 2026 is not separately subtracted from this payoff-based 12-month baseline because its payoff timing is not confirmed. That vehicle purchase was already outside the baseline. The model deliberately avoids deducting either amount twice.
An illustrative gross-to-net paycheck using the 2025 structure and the assumed current take-home average.
Reported 2x match assumption. Not deducted from take-home and not shown on the supplied stub.
HSA funding based on the $6,840 historical annual contribution. Deducted once from available checking cash.
Payroll gross, Roth savings and loan repayment use August 2025 values. That check had already reached the Social Security wage cap. The $16,320 net-pay input is a provisional annual monthly average, not the August check annualized. The 2025 return reports $352,715 of household W-2 wages; the single Cortland stub is not a full reconciliation of that household total. Retirement amounts shown here are carried-forward planning assumptions, not verified current-year contribution limits.
Cash currently funds other businesses. The optional cash-release input above is an explicit scenario, not profit automatically added to household income. The historical $15,104 SEP contribution is not assumed to repeat in this household cash budget.
The return reports $108,441 gross rents and $19,087 depreciation. It does not prove $48,000 of annual household distributions. The report provisionally treats the stated $4,000 as available after property costs and debt service. The low-Redbud test in the next section shows the sensitivity.
Baseline adjustments are not spending cuts. Now explore choices the family controls.
Nothing is selected by default. These are exploratory choices, not instructions to cancel services or move money.
After planned spending, vehicle reserves, HSA funding and any additional goal contribution.
Subscription cancellations, delivery savings and the separate discretionary target reduce the cleaned card-purchase baseline. Yard and household-help changes reduce their own category. Combined reductions are capped at the remaining amount in each category, so no category becomes negative.
Delivery savings are net of replacement meals, not the entire price of a cancelled order. The discretionary target must exclude savings already entered under subscriptions or delivery. Do not count the same change twice.
Tuition, mortgage, insurance and retirement contributions are not automatically cut. Smaller investment transfers are not labeled as spending cuts. A loan payoff changes cash flow but is not a lifestyle cut.
Select only if the charge still exists and the family no longer values it.
These are observed charges, not verified current cancellations. App store services need identification first. The meal-kit service is not automatically counted as a $118 monthly cut: it sometimes billed twice in a month and replacing meals has a cost.
Replace selected orders with meals that cost less.
Less unplanned shopping or convenience spending, separate from the changes above.
This is a family-selected target within remaining card spending, not a claim that a specific $1,600 category has been verified.
Change frequency or scope only if the time and convenience trade-off feels worthwhile.
This bucket averaged $854 per month in the trailing year. It includes more than the named recurring services, so start with an achievable service change, not a blanket percentage.
A monthly change becomes more meaningful when you can see it accumulate.
Projected cumulative cash available after spending, vehicle reserves and HSA funding, before new goal contributions. Starts at zero, not at your account balances.
Projection starts September 2026. Growth steps occur each September. Mortgage cash payments are held flat. Redbud, Kestrel Capital cash release, investment distributions, school credits, retirement contributions and HSA funding are held flat unless an input changes. Existing school costs and Owen's starting amount rise with school inflation. Optional cuts rise with general spending inflation. No investment returns or future account values are projected.
School costs and credits are smoothed into monthly equivalents, not a prediction of actual invoice or reimbursement dates. Existing lifestyle irregularities remain in the historical average unless specifically removed. The extra-project input is for spending beyond the reserves and recurring allowances already included.
An additional college or other savings contribution is a destination for money, not an expense cut.
$1,800 per month equals the previously discussed $21,600 annual college-funding target. This is a scenario, not an existing commitment.
Use the reported amount, a lower cash-flow case, or no Redbud cash. Payroll withholding is held unchanged in this test.
The $4,000 amount remains a net-cash assumption. The tax return's profit and depreciation cannot establish distributable cash without principal payments, capital needs and reserve information.
| Planning year | No-cut cash available | With your cuts | Goal contributions | Cash left after goals |
|---|
Annual cash flows, not cumulative balances. Both cash-available columns include the same income, inflation, loan-payoff and school assumptions. Goal contributions reduce checking cash but remain savings. Negative cash left means other funding or further changes are needed.
Changes are exploratory and remain in this open display. They do not update accounts, cancel services or commit the family to a plan.
Return to choices to adjust the trade-offs.
Spending series: Household Budget Breakdown by Category, updated August 19, 2026, using Harbor Bank card payoffs and direct spending from December 2024 through August 2026. This report calculates a consistent trailing-year mean from the underlying monthly series. It does not pretend every merchant category has complete coverage.
Transactions reviewed: Rewards-card purchases from May 22, 2025 through May 14, 2026; cash-back card purchases from September 2025 through August 18, 2026; and new Harbor Bank activity from May 21 through August 19, 2026. The new files overlap prior data and are not added a second time. Other cards have less recent merchant detail.
One-time adjustments: Auto detail settled charges of $6,566.04, $3,670.80 and $497; EV service settled charges of $1,009.54 and $1,561.36; and the previously identified $1,404 direct vehicle repair. Together, $14,708.54 is removed under the family's instruction to normalize past vehicle costs. The $3,962 state extension payment is also removed. Monthly placement within payoffs is approximate, but these older charges fall within the 12-month baseline period.
Forward school costs: $14,400 Ashgrove plus $15,200 Linden Hall annual tuition. Combined fees default to $960 as an explicit placeholder. The family reports $4,000 in credits for each of Nora and Claire; $8,000 is deducted once from annual school costs. Continuing credits and future tuition are planning assumptions. Owen's Year 4 cost defaults to $14,400 in starting-dollar terms and is not a school quote.
Paycheck and savings: Cortland paystub for August 1-31, 2025, paid August 29: gross $28,694.06; Roth 401(k) $1,566.66; loan repayment $1,198.83; net $18,657.46; employee taxes $7,271.10. Provisional current annual-average take-home is $16,320 monthly. Employer match is a reported 2x assumption, not verified on the stub. HSA funding uses the $6,840 historical annual contribution. The 2025 SEP deduction was $15,104; repeating it is not assumed here.
2025 tax return: W-2 wages $352,715; Kestrel Capital Schedule C profit $76,578; Redbud gross rents $108,441; rental taxable profit $19,746 after $19,087 depreciation; Cedar Hollow partnership income $3,200; interest $5,343 and dividends $51. Taxable income is not automatically available cash. Base-case Kestrel Capital and investment distributions to the household are $0; Redbud uses the stated $4,000 monthly figure as a provisional net-distribution assumption.
Tax treatment: The family confirms that aggressive Cortland withholding covers outside income and that no quarterly estimated payments are made. Printed quarterly vouchers in the tax package are therefore not modeled as additional cash outflows. The $27,385 federal extension payment was already outside the household spending series. No claim is made that the current withholding will equal the final tax liability.
Forecast: Uses monthly averages, not invoice-level timing. Vehicle reserves default to $600 per month as an editable allowance for repairs and replacement; routine small vehicle costs remain in card spending. This reserve is a future-spending allocation, not long-term retirement saving. Other new transfers are excluded unless entered. Projections exclude market returns and are not net-worth or retirement forecasts.