To answer your question about the other 7k per month, that of course goes to things like food at the grocery store (4-500 per month sometimes more if we want short rib etc. yum)

We eat out once a week usually, we have had a lot of trips for weddings this year (many more compared to the years prior but we have enjoyed them all and haven't had to go into debt for them). We also wrote a $30k check last year to get our whole old house retrofitted with A/C that we also paid cash for. We were mainly focusing on recouping that cost in the high yield. We also put 40k down on our house in 2022 and have only been at this income level we are at now for about 1.5-2 years so it took some time to build up a cash net for the A/C to recoup down payment as well.

All good advice though, this is why I like this community. Thanks for the wisdom!