April was supposed to be a Hawaii month. We had the trip planned, the budget accounted for, the kids excited. Then, in the middle of planning it, we also decided to buy a puppy. And then we got the main level of our house painted. And then came the medical bills. By the end of the month I had four budget categories in the red and one large unbudgeted expense sitting on top — and somehow I’m sitting here telling you that April was one of our better months.

That probably tells you something about the difference between a budget and a life.

The Numbers

Here’s April by category — budget versus actual, with the overages highlighted:

That $1,463 overage is the official story. The unofficial story has one more line: Home Improvement, $4,955 — for having our entire main level professionally painted. That’s a large number that doesn’t live in the monthly budget, which is partly a feature and partly a dodge, and I will address it below.

Theodore the Bear Has Entered the Chat

We are getting a puppy.

His name is Teddy — Theodore the Bear, formally — and he is a havapoo who will be coming home with us in mid-May. He is adorable, and the entire family is obsessed with him already. The kids have been counting down the days since we put down the deposit.

The $3,851 in our Pets subcategory this month covers the purchase price plus some initial supplies and deposits — the things you buy before the puppy is even home, because you want to be ready. Crate. Leash. A very large bag of puppy food. The kind of purchases that feel exciting when you’re making them.

Is this the most financially prudent thing we’ve done? No. Did we plan it in advance? Also no — this was a decision that came together faster than most of our large purchases. But it is the kind of thing that happens, and it will absolutely be showing up in the budget for months to come. May will have vet visits. Probably more supplies. Puppies, as it turns out, are not a one-time expense.

We are fully aware. We are choosing joy.

Hawaii: The Trip Was Worth It. Getting There Was Chaos.

We went to Hawaii for spring break, and it was genuinely wonderful. Adventures, good food, family time — the kind of trip you plan for months and then are glad you went on. I’ll probably write a proper travel post about it at some point, because there is a lot to say and a lot of good pictures.

What I’ll say here is about the money — and about the getting there, which was not simple.

The day we flew out, severe storms were hammering the Chicago area. We’d planned to fly out of a regional airport to connect through Chicago, but every single flight out was cancelled. So we drove to Chicago. And then all the flights out of Chicago were also cancelled. We were stranded.

We found what was genuinely the last available hotel room within 15 miles of O’Hare — not a great room, not a great price. American Airlines couldn’t get us to Hawaii on a reasonable timeline the next day, so I cancelled and rebooked on United at the last minute. Expensive, stressful, not what anyone needed at the start of a vacation. American Airlines ended up giving us all of our flight credit back, which was the right call. I’m still working with my Chase Sapphire Reserve travel insurance on the hotel situation — I’ll report back when that resolves.

We did eventually get to Hawaii. And it was worth it.

Here’s where the $4,579 went:

The $1,062 on food tells you exactly what kind of trip it was: a food trip. We ate extremely well — and it’s worth noting that everything in Hawaii is expensive, food very much included. A casual lunch out is a different number than a casual lunch out anywhere else. We knew that going in and leaned into it rather than fought it. The $633 on activities reflects the fact that Hawaii is not a sit-on-the-beach-and-do-nothing destination for us. We did things. Worth every dollar.

The $168 lodging number deserves a footnote: it’s not what it looks like. It’s actually a net figure — the overpriced Chicago emergency hotel ($345) minus a refund on a Phoenix hotel ($177) we’d booked as part of our original itinerary and never got to use because we were stuck in the Midwest. The actual Hawaii lodging doesn’t appear in this table at all, because we stayed at the Grand Hyatt Kauai entirely on points — Chase Ultimate Rewards transferred to Hyatt. Worth every single one. If you’re not already using a Chase Sapphire Reserve to accumulate points, this is your sign.

The budget for vacation is $3,333 per month, which gives us $40,000 annually to work with across all trips. Hawaii was always going to run over that single-month figure — it’s a $4,000–$5,000 trip and always has been. The way to think about it is against the annual total, not one month’s line item. More on where we stand for the year below.

The Last Home Improvement Project (We Actually Mean It This Time)

We have been doing home improvement projects since we moved into this house in 2018. It was a new build when we moved in, so the early projects were the big structural ones: finishing the basement, landscaping, adding a pool. More recently it’s been cosmetic — getting rid of the builder-grade finishes that come standard in every new construction and replacing them with things we actually chose. Floors, fireplace stone, lighting. And now, finally, paint. I’ll write a proper post about the full home improvement arc at some point, because there is a lot to say and a lot of money behind it. It has been a journey. A long, expensive, occasionally argument-inducing journey.

In April, we had our entire main level professionally painted. $4,955. Every wall. Fresh and clean and finally exactly the color we wanted.

This is the last project. We are done. The house is complete. We have said this before, and I want to be clear that this time it is true and not a lie we’re telling ourselves to feel better.

Because this is a large but one-off expense — not a recurring monthly cost — it lives outside the standard monthly budget. It’s real money that left our account in April, but treating it as a category overage in the same way as, say, a restaurant habit would be misleading. Home improvement is lumpy by nature, and tracking it separately lets me see what’s actually going on in the operating budget.

Medical: The High-Deductible Tax

We have a high-deductible health insurance plan, which is a choice that makes financial sense for our family on average but hurts in specific months when the bills land. April was one of those months.

$914 against a $475 budget, so $439 over. No surprises about what we owe — just the nature of our plan. When you carry a high deductible, some months are free and some months are expensive, and April was an expensive one. I track this carefully because it’s one of the more volatile categories in our budget, and this month it ran hot.

Recreation: Buying Next Winter Now

$1,514 against a $350 budget. The number looks alarming. The reason is completely rational.

We purchased ski lift passes for the whole family — all four of us — for next winter. We do this every spring, because buying early means significantly better prices. The passes that cost X in April would cost noticeably more in December. So we buy them now, they show up as a spike in April’s Recreation line, and then recreation spending drops back to normal for the rest of the year.

This is one of those cases where a monthly budget category doesn’t tell the whole story. The spend is front-loaded, but the value is spread across an entire ski season. Across a full year, we’re not over budget on recreation — we’re just paying for winter in spring. There was also a small amount of other recreation spending in April beyond the passes.

What Had a Very Good Month

With four categories over budget and a large unbudgeted expense, it might look like April was a runaway month. It wasn’t — partly because several categories came in well under budget and helped absorb the damage.

Auto was $174 against a $720 budget — a $546 swing in our favor. Just fuel this month, no service visits, no surprises. Cars cooperated.

Gifts came in at $130 against a $700 budget. Quiet month for gift-giving. $570 saved relative to budget — the most of any category.

Insurance was $0. Our insurance premiums don’t bill every single month evenly, so some months are zero and others are higher. April was a zero month, saving $340 against budget. It evens out over the year.

Kids, Meals, and Groceries were all meaningfully under budget — $250, $253, and $310 respectively. With a week-plus in Hawaii, we naturally spent less on local groceries and dining than a typical month.

Those categories added up to roughly $2,349 in savings against budget. That doesn’t erase the overages, but it meaningfully softens them.

Where We Stand Year-to-Date

Four months in, our standard budget categories are running $5,891 over pace — against a $60,768 YTD budget, we’ve spent $66,659.

Vacation is doing almost all of that work. Hawaii is an expensive trip, and the charges have spread across February (when a lot was booked) and April (the actual trip month). YTD vacation spending is $22,814 against a $13,332 four-month budget — a $9,482 gap that is entirely accounted for by one trip. Take vacation out of the equation, and the rest of our budget through April is actually running slightly under pace.

The Household category is also running over YTD — $14,904 against a $12,000 four-month budget — driven by some larger purchases in January and now Teddy in April. That number will bear watching as puppy costs continue into May and beyond.

One more item that sits outside the monthly budget: YTD Home Improvement spending through April is $4,985 — a $30 item in March plus April’s $4,955 painting project. That’s done now. We’re done.

May brings a puppy home and should otherwise be quieter than April. Famous last words.