"Dear Moxie, Welcome to Brokesville. Population: You."

I have a spreadsheet upon which I have tracked monthly balances since 2012. I should really be tracking year-to-year, instead of month-to-month, if I want some meaningful analysis. This month's special expenditures: annual license tabs, insurance for vehicle, oil change for vehicle, IKEA*, back to school supplies, running shoes, child's passport.

My cash reserves are $1000 down from last month.

The spending is not over yet. We donated old clothes that no longer fit us. I will have to buy some new clothes, but probably new-to-us from consignment, unless they are boys' clothes or sleepwear or shoes.

I did very well on food budgeting. Shifting to a 25% meat, 75% plant food plan, with more nuts and seeds for protein, has been good for my energy levels as well. I was bad and had four pops this month, one of them a beguiling Wink Martindale's Orange Passionfruit Guava concoction. On the other hand, I was good and found two local, independent places where my family could eat tasty dinners for under $10/plate.

My anxieties are concentrated around the anticipated expenditures for a child who has waded into the puberty pool. Three-inch vertical growth year-to-year, check; foot size that of mom's, check; passing out in the middle of the day, check; zits, check! Puberty, I relearn, is a time of uneven physical development. The child has a waist circumference probably six inches smaller than his inseam. Food and clothing expenditures will increase. I might have to alter some long pants. I wonder if there's a budget Sudanese or Swedish men's clothing outlet I could order from. Another complexity is our school district's dwindling transportation budget: no bus service unless the student's residence is two miles away from the school. Last year he qualified for bus service without a change in residence or school location. Our proximity to the school is just over one mile, or twenty blocks. Not a problem for an active middle-schooler. 302 ft elevation to 79 ft elevation morning walk: 79 ft to 302 ft elevation climb in the afternoon, about 37 degree grade incline for 2500 ft. His lung capacity will be outstanding.

If someone has experience with a free personal finance management package for Linux, please tell me about it.

*IKEA is furniture pr0n for me. The place where I take my vehicle for oil changes had the 2015 Catalog until the office manager offered to me. How could I refuse? My house-swap adventure of three weeks ago showed me how other people use IKEA to organize their kitchens and bathrooms and my kitchen and bathroom sure could use organizing... I spent only $125 THIS VISIT. We go once a year at the most, because parking is a hassle. My stupid purchase was a solar-powered lamp that gives 3 hours of light after its solar panels absorb 12 hours of sunlight. It's stupid because I live in the northern hemisphere, closer to the Arctic Circle than the Tropic of Cancer. It was portable, pretty, red, half-price, under ten dollars and I didn't know it was solar-powered.