How Do You Absorb a $4,010 Air Handler Bill? (Sep. 2026)

Our little home wants to show it’s turning a century old by continuing to award us with repair bills. This month: over $4K on a new attic air handler. Chris’s braces have begun their monthly payment plan—which will eventually close in on that air handler cost. But, we used plenty of little tricks to cut our costs where we could this month.

For our monthly donation, our theme is meal delivery charities. You can read more about the three charities we’re considering and vote for your favorite in the poll below!

We track our income, spending, and savings each month to stay on our FIRE path and share it with you. Keep reading to see our monthly updates, tips, and charity reviews.

Quick Scorecard

Budget Update

We’re trying some new formatting this month—if you’re a frequent reader, let us know in the comments what you think so far. Onto the budget update: money in, money out, and savings balance to zero.

Where the money went

Category	Amount	% of expenses
Home	$5,342	74.65%
Taxes	$303	4.23%
Food & Dining	$360	5.03%
Health & Fitness	$457	6.38%
Bills & Utilities	$205	2.87%
Auto & Transport	$72	1.00%
Gifts & Donations	$265	3.71%
Shopping	$44	0.62%
Entertainment	$30	0.42%
Childcare	$42	0.59%
Fees & Charges	$36	0.50%
Total	$7,156	100.00%

Total expenses are 149.5% of the $4,787/month FIRE budget anchor from 2022. That figure alone is misleading: excluding the one-off air handler ($4,010), recurring/typical living spend was $3,147, which is 65.7% of that FIRE budget.

Income Summary

Income was mostly paychecks, with dividends and a small set of credits and cashback on top.

Paychecks: Chris’s consulting work and Jenni’s pharmacy paychecks.

Dividends: Vanguard dividends that weren’t reinvested. Plus reinvested dividends (DRIP) net to zero and aren’t counted as cash income.

Credits: Anthem health insurance annual overpayment rebates—this is when the insurer itself didn’t payout enough for claims and rebates a small amount to insureds.

Cashback: 3% Bank of America “online shopping” and One Pay Rewards cashback credited this month.

Chris has been experimenting with sportsbook apps to earn their signup bonuses and sneakily liquidate various gift cards. We’ll have future post commentary once he’s closed out some of the account balances. You can earn a nice little chunk of bonus dollars at low risk.

Expense Summary

Our new card summary for the important expense categories is below. Hopefully this is a little more readable than text walls but still delivers the numbers.

Home—$5,342

The month’s big spend was a full HVAC attic air-handler remove and replacement. We recently replaced the outside condenser unit which slightly limited our indoor choices, but did allow for a (relatively) inexpensive replacement total.

We cut some of the cost by using discounted gift cards to make payments. Chris worked through a few dozen GiftCards.com $100/$200 Visa cards that were all bought at roughly 7% off. Using credit to pay for the underlying gift cards effectively gave us a free short term loan to help smooth out and prep for this huge expense without getting into financing.

Of course, the big savings was in the project itself. We received regional HVAC agency quotes ranging in $12-15K which involved replacing the outdoor unit (which is already quite new). After a lot of back and forth with different local agencies, we found a well-run, well-rated small team that was willing to install a new attic air handler compatible with our existing outdoor unit at a steep savings.

Everything else in Home was routine.

Health & Fitness—$457

Chris’s first braces payment (about $217) was in July and then nothing in August—apparently they give you a little break after the pain of the install. Ha. Now, he’s onto what will be an ongoing $292 a month for about a year. Dental insurance was unchanged for both of us (private with Anthem). After Lukas’s birth, all three of us now—at least currently—fall under health plans with no monthly premium. We’ll see how long that lasts.

Food & Dining—$360

Groceries continue their trend quite low compared to recent months and years. That really doesn’t align with everyone else’s inflationary experience—and we recognize that. In the meantime, we’re going to keep maximizing our Instacart and DoorDash deals that make this possible. They keep coming and we keep saying “thank you, we’ll take your 50% offer!”

Our only restaurant visit—a classic Mexican joint—came while we were on one of our first trips out of our home city with Lukas. We had the little man dancing on the table before the night was over, well worth the $33!

Bills & Utilities—$205

Utilities were routine. Electric is prepaid with discounted gift cards and drawn down each month. Comcast continues to offer a somewhat hidden “low” speed plan (still about 90mbps; plenty fast) which we remain on. Our pair of $6/month Tello plans with 2GB of data feed our phones just fine.

Auto & Transport—$72

Gas was routine transit spend—up with higher prices and more driving now that Lukas tolerates short trips better. The service line was Jenni’s state inspection. Better than a flat tire replacement like last month!

Other Expenses

Besides all the big expenses above, we had plenty of smaller entries still sometimes interesting to note. Together they total $720.

Taxes—$303: Our monthly share ($293) of our semi-annual real estate tax bills, plus a $10 Virginia Mileage Choice top-up (Jenni’s mileage-based road-use account).

Gifts & Donations—$265: Donations: Direct Relief (our matching donation last month) and Smile Train, plus Jenni’s giving. A St Jude/Domino’s loop netted to zero against Paze credits. No gifts this month, after $129 in August.

Shopping—$44: Personal Care: Jenni treated herself to a proper hair appointment, the only shopping this month.

Entertainment—$30: Amusement: Oktoberfest at Maymont; a lovely local event festival style.

Childcare—$42: Baby Supplies: Once Upon A Child clothing for Lukas, plus baby wash.

Fees & Charges—$36: Service Fee: banking fees mostly necessary to earn bank bonuses (to appear in later months).

Expense Conclusion

One-off: $4,010 (air handler). Recurring: $3,147. Excluded, as usual: Evergreen gutters (already in August), the $960 internal transfer, gambling, and business inventory.

Curious about some of the other expenses that we didn’t address? Ask in the comments below!

Your Call

How Much We Work

We like to keep track of how much time we spend doing work that is paid. Let’s add this month to the list… September: Jenni 17, Chris 12, Total 29. That’s a little more than August’s 25.

History of Monthly “Hours Worked”

Month	Jenni	Chris	Total
August 2026	13	12	25
September 2026	17	12	29

Years of history are shown last in the August 2026 post.

Our hourly labor remains low—about 29 hours.

Net Worth Update

Net worth is not our primary measurement; it is tracked for context.

Account breakdown

Account	Combined
Bank accounts	$41,603.49
Credit card debt	($9,592.36)
401k	$1,402,269.08
Brokerage	$1,187,448.83
Roth IRA	$368,484.97
IRA	$59,458.03
HSA	$74,160.57
House	$459,700.00
Mortgage	($125,094.12)
Physical Assets	$25,000.00
Combined net worth, September 30, 2026	$3,483,438.49

Last month: $3,514,354.
Change: ($30,916).

That’s driven mainly by market moves (401k -$18,198, Brokerage -$12,281, Roth -$3,420, House -$2,100), and partly offset by bank accounts +$4,500 and card debt down +$2,158.

The S&P 500 was about -0.5% for the month; we moved about -0.88%. Our investment changes are still filtering through our accounts, but nearly settled. Transfers were still moving, throwing a few numbers off, but we mostly followed the market.

Net Worth History

Month	Combined net worth
August 2026	$3,514,354.17
September 2026	$3,483,438.49

Years of history are shown last in the August 2026 post.

Previous Donation Winner

TBD: Last month’s ends on last day of the current month.

Our Reader’s Fund seeks to leverage the principles of FIRE to build a lifetime of giving.

Thank you for your participation in our polls over the last 5 years. We’ve given over $10,000 to deserving charities with your help in deciding which organizations to donate to.

Polls are now open for our next round of candidates: Meal Delivery Charities.

Charity Round-Up

As we start to think about gathering with our family and friends to share a delicious hot Thanksgiving meal next month, we’d like to review charities providing meals to those in need. When disaster hits or food insecurity lingers, food can provide more than just nutrients. A good meal warms the soul and brings comfort, especially when your world has been turned upside down.

Each of these organizations provides meals to those in need of all ages during disasters or when away from school. They each have great charity ratings. We invite you to learn more about great work around the world and join us in donating to one of them by casting your vote.

Summaries below include the impact metrics and a link to their Candid profile, which details the nonprofit’s operations and transparency.

1)​​ Mercy Chefs

Why? Being stuck with low quality relief food post Hurricane Katrina, Gary founded Mercy Chefs, providing hot chef-prepared delicious meals to disaster relief victims and workers. 

Where? United States, Globally.

Our Notes: Mercy Chefs is a nonprofit organization preparing and distributing high quality and chef-prepared meals to disaster relief areas, community kitchens, and those with food-insecurities. In 2025, 6.5 million meals, across 8 U.S. deployments and 20 global responses, were delivered to feed those hungry mouths. 

[Candid] [About]

2) Blessings in a Backpack Inc.

Why? No kid should have to stretch Friday’s school lunch all the way to Monday morning.

Where? United States

Our Notes: Blessings in a Backpack Inc. is a nonprofit organization that provides weekend meals for school children. Food insecurity affects one out of every eight school aged children in the United States. Their backpacks full of food fills the gap between Friday’s lunch and Monday’s breakfast for elementary kids who rely on school meals. For $175, a child can be fed for an entire school year. Since 2009, they’ve provided 30 million hunger-free weekends for more than one million children nationwide. 

[Candid] [About]

3) World Central Kitchen

Why? When you need food to arrive at the speed of a kitchen rather than a committee, choose World Central Kitchen to have local chefs cooking fresh meals on the front lines.

Where? Globally

Our Notes: World Central Kitchen is a nonprofit organization feeding the world healthy and delicious meals when they need it most. When disaster hits, the powers off and victims may be displaced without access to a kitchen or food. That is where World Central Kitchen steps in to make fresh meals, cooked by local restaurants and chefs, for families in need. They have a fleet of mobile kitchens, food trucks, and even vehicles capable of traverse flooded areas. They will go anywhere to deliver their meals, even if they have to use donkeys to get there.

[Candid] [About]

Nonprofit poll

After reviewing the list above, please take a moment to vote for which nonprofit you think will put funds to use in the best way.

(Have trouble using or seeing the poll above? Some reader tools or apps may not display it. View this page in a browser or use this link to our Reader Fund page, which has a copy of the poll!)

Thank you for taking the time to vote!

One of our primary goals with TicTocLife is building a stream of giving within the FIRE community, and that starts with knowledge.

What’s Next

October will likely be a planning month. We’re looking at Thanksgiving as an opportunity to put Lukas on his first flight. Probably close, probably Florida since it’s direct. We’re a little nervous about him handling the flight well, but, we parents have to take our first little steps too!

Aside from that, we’re working on long term Christmas plans to the west coast and spring plans to—gasp—Europe! Phew, this little guy, we hope, handles flights well.

But before all that, he’ll have his first big train ride in October—a little leaf peeping in the Shenandoah valley. Lukas continues to soak up all our time, but surprisingly, isn’t really moving our budget much. So far!

---

Got a baby? What was your first flight like with them? Tell us your parent horror (or wonder) stories!

What do you think of the new monthly budget layout?

Let us know in the comments or on Threads and X (Twitter)!