Monthly Update – February 2026
Time for the monthly update on how I’m doing.
Nothing major is going on at the moment, but I wanted to share where I’m at — and honestly, hold myself accountable for the BAD spending I did last month 😂 Let’s begin.
Spending
As you can see above, that’s all my spending down to the penny. I balance my checkbook (aka update my budget) every single day so I always know where I stand.
In my opinion, controlling your spending is the #1 priority when it comes to saving money. You can’t fix what you don’t track. That said…
I didn’t do a great job this month.
Where I Slipped:
Eating Out
Way too high. No excuses here. Just convenience + being tired. This is something I need to tighten up immediately.
Groceries
Groceries were higher than usual, but there’s a small story here. I invested in things to make meal prep easier — new containers, mason jars, etc. So I’m expecting March to look much better since those were one-time purchases.
Archon Games
This category was over because I have a couple of contractors helping me build a game — for my kids and potentially commercially. They ended up doing more work this month than I anticipated. I likely have one more month of full-time development with them before this expense drops significantly.
Stock Deposit
There’s a $30 overage because I did an ACATS transfer to consolidate investments. That fee was expected — just annoying.
Plans on how to do better:
Eating Out
I’ve planned several meals ahead of time by checking my calendar so I’m not making last-minute decisions, and I know I’ll be eating out at least once this month for a good friend’s birthday — but I’m budgeting for it intentionally. The plan is to only have a drink and cover half of their meal (I’m pretty sure my other friend will cover the other half), so I can celebrate without turning it into an expensive night. The rest of the month, I’ll be cooking my kids’ favorite foods at home to remove the temptation of takeout. The goal isn’t perfection — it’s being intentional. But I still need to take the kid’s out every once in a while as a personal thing… maybe though instead of restaurant's trips - we can go to the grocery market and get their favorite ice creams. I’ll let you know how it goes.
Groceries
This should naturally fall off since this is only my second month of consistent meal planning. I usually prep my meals a week ahead of time, and right now I already have six days ready to go — 🌮 are next week all week (pork and steak). The grocery spike came from setting up the system properly: I bought 36-ounce containers for my OMAD intermittent fasting and mason jars for sauces so everything stays organized and portioned correctly. Those were one-time investments to make meal prep sustainable, so moving forward groceries should normalize now that the infrastructure is in place.
Archon Games
Not much I can do here. I’ve always wanted to build a kids’ educational game company because my kids love playing games, and I have great memories of the ones I grew up with. I want that same old-school feel — no ads, no nonsense, just good gameplay and real learning built in. This is something I’ve wanted to bring back to life for a long time, and while it costs money upfront, it’s intentional. We’ll see where it goes, but building something meaningful for my kids (and maybe other families) is worth the investment to me. Remember those days of just buying a complete game once… Let’s bring that back.
Stock Deposit
Since everything has been consolidated now, there shouldn’t be anything out of the ordinary here going forward. The transfer fee was a one-time cost to clean things up and simplify my investments, so this category should now stay consistent with the usual deposits and nothing unexpected. (Update - March 9, 2026: At the time I transferred a brokerage account to Ally, they gave a promise to pay $75 for ACATs transfer fees that the other bank charged. Well I received that, without any real fight just sent in documentation and that ‘refund’ was applied to me - kudos to Ally for giving me my promised $75 dollars without to much trouble :))
Net Worth
Despite overspending a little bit, I somehow still made some progress along the way. I think part of the reason is that some of the gains weren’t reflected in the last net worth calculation because of the ACATS transfer timing, so things looked lower than they actually were during the consolidation process. Now that everything has settled and is properly accounted for, as of the end of February 2026 my net worth stands at $156,594.91. Not perfect execution this month, but still moving in the right direction — and that’s what matters.