I clicked through eighteen months of statements. I did not need to do it because I already knew, but knowing in your bones and proving on paper are different kinds of power. I downloaded transactions. I sorted categories. I opened a spreadsheet and began organizing our life the way I had organized medication schedules, shift rotations, discharge instructions, and everything else people assumed women simply remembered.
Mortgage: $2,180.
Electric, water, gas: average $430.
Internet and phones: $210.
Childcare: $1,150.
Groceries: average $900, sometimes more when prices climbed and Ellie decided strawberries were the only acceptable fruit.
Health insurance premiums through my hospital plan: $640.
Car insurance: $190.
School supplies, clothes, medications, copays, birthday gifts, household repairs: average $300 or more.
Total: a little over $6,000 every month before emergencies, holidays, or Jason’s spontaneous purchases disguised as investments in his career.
Then I pulled Jason’s contributions.
Transfers to the joint account: irregular, average $1,200 a month over the last twelve months.
Payments made directly: his truck.