Family Money11 posts

How we built an emergency fund on a Bay Area budget with small automatic transfers every payday, plus our real month-by-month progress.

Rent, childcare, groceries, the car and what's left over. Our actual monthly numbers as a family of four renting in Oakland, plus what we cut.

We left our big-carrier family plan for a prepaid-style plan on the same network and went from $148 to $70 a month. Here are the numbers.

We opened college savings accounts for Theo and June with $25 a month each. Here is how we set it up and why small still counts.

How we sized our term life coverage, picked a term length, compared quotes, and got through the medical exam, with our actual premiums.

Our minivan premium had crept up for two years. Here's how quotes, bundling, a higher deductible and a mileage discount brought it down.

Our upstairs neighbor's water heater gave out and rained into our unit. Here's what our cheap renters policy paid for, and what it didn't.

Our rules for a family no-spend January with toddler twins, plus an update at the end of the month with the real numbers and where we slipped.

What two kids in Bay Area daycare actually costs, what a part-time hygienist takes home, and the spreadsheet that made the call for us.

Dan's employer plans versus Covered California: how we compared premiums, deductibles and out-of-pocket maximums for our family of four.

I tracked every twin expense from April 2024 to April 2025 in my spreadsheet. Here is the real total by category, and where we overspent.