Meet Me, Meet Plan B: A Real-Life Financial Experiment
Introduction — learn what / why / how Plan B came to be
Who I Am
I’m Travis — husband, father of two, work in Quality Control (Compliance), and the imaginative mind behind Plan B. With support from AI (shoutout to Copilot), I’ve become a financial system-builder.
This blog documents our AI-assisted financial planning journey, starting with short-term goals. If it works, I’ll adapt it to include long-term goals too. It’s built on real-life data, powered by AI, and guided by a modular (I’ll define modular later on 🙂) system called Plan B — designed to help my family take control of our finances.
We live in Southern California (so yes, we live paycheck to paycheck 😅). My wife’s a teacher, my kids are in school, and tuition just got real. My daughter started high school this past August — and her school costs money. While we can afford her monthly tuition, I realized my son will start the same school next August. Paying for both will be nearly impossible with our current finances.
That’s what pushed me to give AI a try. I wasn’t looking for a budget to follow — I needed a system that could adapt to real life, track every transaction, identify potential surpluses, target debt efficiently, and help us prepare for what’s expected… and all the surprises that lie ahead.
Why I Started This Blog
I didn’t want to post hypotheticals. I wanted to share real numbers (without compromising privacy), real decisions, and real stress tests — like when the kids needed Halloween pumpkins, or when birthdays and holidays hit back-to-back, and tuition costs became very real.
Plan B started as a way to navigate my daughter’s new tuition. It evolved into a living system that tracks bills, savings, debt, and emotional spending — all mapped to real deposits and due dates. Or simply put: an experiment.
This blog is my way of documenting that experiment with full transparency and accuracy — refining the system as needed, adapting to new goals or emergencies, analyzing real-life data, and maybe helping someone else build their own version along the way.
What You’ll Find Here
- Real transactions — not estimates, not predictions
- System refinements — every correction logged and explained
- Stress tests — family events, unexpected costs, emotional decisions
- Visual modules — dashboards, trackers, and logic maps
- My voice — not AI-generated fluff, but real-life commentary
I use AI to help draft and organize posts, but I review everything and revise wherever my personal touch is needed. I make sure it reflects our actual life, and all documentation will be accurate (I want to see if this experiment works as much as you do).
If it’s about a family decision, a personal moment, or a financial stress test — I’m the author. So if you’re looking for a human voice, you’ll find me there. If you’re more interested in the execution of Plan B and the data outcomes, then the posts are for you.
How Plan B Works
Plan B is built on timing logic, category caps, and modular savings.
Modular saving, as defined by Copilot: breaking your savings strategy into distinct, purpose-driven components — each with its own role, rules, and logic. Instead of one big pile of money labeled “savings,” you create modules that reflect real-life needs.
It’s designed to be audit-friendly, privacy-first, and future-proof by being adaptable.
We track every deposit, map every bill, and reconcile every transaction. My wife and I both contribute (dual income is required for us to live in California), align payments to paychecks, and use color-coded dashboards to stay on track. Dashboards will be used frequently and added as needed.
It’s not perfect — but it’s real. And it’s working.
What’s Next
Post #1 is already live: Finalizing Plan B Before the First Deposit.
It shows how we built the system before the money arrived — and why that matters.
From here, I’ll post every two weeks (aligned with our paydays), plus any time a stress test hits or a system refinement is worth sharing.
Thanks for being here. Let’s see where this goes.
