Ok, I'm in for February.
I subscribed to the FW emails this month and definitely made some changes. Probably the biggest one, and the thing I should have done a long time ago, was spending fifteen minutes setting up Personal Capital and then an hour or so categorizing expenditures. Holy moly, that was eye opening and revelatory. I definitely think of myself as a frugal person, but looking at that, not so much. It did show me that our kid expenses have really crept up this past year, swimming, tennis, after school activities, etc. We really need to take a step back to consider carefully what we choose going forward. There are a zillion cool activities, but damn, they add up, resulting in expense and overly burdened kids.
It was also interesting looking at the recent holiday spending. Next Christmas we will set a budget for gifts, and if we decide to go more experience-based presents, be clear about that to kids and budget.
Positives: our food spending was nowhere near as high as I had feared. Our net worth is going up nicely. I have shifted my clothes buying to thrift stores for the most part (ridiculously cheaper).
Things to do: figure out a different cell phone plan for me, either Republic or google FI. Start monthly donations to PP and Sierra Club. Try to arrive at a number for home repairs/maintenance. We sorted out our financial values, but other than hitting our college saving goals, maxing 401K, solo roth, backdoor roth, etc., we haven't really set any other hard savings goals. i would like to do that. I also think we should figure out how much we want to spend on travel, as opposed to cash flowing it.
In many ways, we are in a slightly anomalous place compared to some on this board. If we wanted, we could sell, move to a LCOL, work a couple of days a week, and semi retire right now. But my spouse likes working, we live in a good community with lots of benefits both tangible and intangible, schools are great, stellar farmer's market, good biking, close to family, etc., so we are really in a excellent place now. It does mean, as the person with the bandwidth to deal with playing financial defense and the part time job, it is all on me to shepherd our family forward and be a good steward of our resources while not pursuing FIRE.
Anyway, happy to stay accountable, share my tips/hacks, and support others as we start February.
TLDR: UFJ triggered a hard look at my overall financial picture and I am still sorting out the implications of what to do next.