Science is always looking for the reason why something is the way it is. For now we only know that the energy that controls space is the same energy that controls time, so they trade off, the faster you go the less energy there is for time to move. It's why science now uses the term space-time.

"Why" is still technically unanswered, but you can always go another "why" deeper anyway and get a new question, it's what's so fascinating about science!

Biochemistry and organic chemistry in college! I don't practice chemistry in my job, but I remember enough to text basic concepts. I figured I could give a high level explanation here.

Oh snap I forgot the water. Yes the electron transport chain!

I'll try my best to make this as straightforward as possible.

In each cell in your body, Oxygen comes in in the form of 2 oxygen's doubly bonded, the 2 oxygen atoms are split apart, and combined with a carbon atom bonded to hydrogens. This results in a free hydrogen, which is pushed through some protein machinery to force a phosphate group onto adinosine diphosphate, creating adisonine triphosphate, otherwise known at ATP. ATP is the source of energy in the body, used for everything from moving your muscles to digesting food. The resulting CO2 molecule is expelled through your lungs.

This is why we breathe in oxygen, eat carbon based foods, and breathe out CO2. It's all about creating ATP, which is the source of energy for all biological processes.

Edit: other organisms make ATP differently, using light or non-carbon based processes. This is just what humans and other animals do.

Source: Took organic chemistry and biochemistry in college and I at least remember this intersting chemical process.

long post incoming! But I have a lot of thoughts, this is just my two cents and you can ignore any or all of it if you want haha.

I'll start by saying that this is all preference and your own experience and risk tolerance and all of that are different from mine.

You and I are in a relatively similar position, about the same income and expenses, a kid, etc.

I used to be pretty poor, I used the simple bank to manage my expenses pretty tightly, when they sold and died I went to another bank with very tightly controlled budgeting tools. I would recommend one finance or Ally if you want a little more control over your spending and want to use virtual accounts do that.

That being said, you and I are kind of in a position to be beyond basic budget tracking tools. I kind of felt like I "graduated" when my wife and I finally got to our real careers and started making good money.

Longer thoughts incoming...

I prioritize my money this way, zero: pay all bills on time monthly, one: make sure I have a solid plan for retirement, two: make sure I can help pay for my child's education, three: keep enough money liquid that we can survive in an emergency and go on vacations and stuff on a yearly basis, four: any money left over after that I have, I just used to live my life.

It kind of seems like you're in this boat too, if you want to trim some fat here and there you can. Go to restaurants less, find cheaper meals to make at home, maybe the next time you buy a car go for one that's a bit cheaper. You can try to reduce long-term costs by getting solar for your house if you're in an area with good sun, but all of these things are going to lead to maybe a few hundred dollars total. Your biggest expense that will eventually go away is childcare. Maybe in the meantime you can reduce the amount of child care you need by utilizing family and friends? But that is entirely based on your family/friends dynamics, it's silly to even suggest that because of course you probably already thought about it.

When I was poor, a few hundred dollars was a difference between making rent or not. Nowadays it just depends on how much I put into savings, and when savings gets too big I put more money into my retirement account, or spend a little extra on our vacation. We already put in 30% of our income to our retirement account so it's not a big deal if I don't add extra regularly.

Again it's all about personal preference and risk tolerance and goals, but to me it seems like you have a solid retirement, a healthy emergency fund, enough money to live happily day-to-day, there just isn't much left after that. If you want to free up some funds so that you can add more to retirement, I guess that makes sense, but just know that in the meantime you deserve to live your life too.

If you want to free up funds to invest in other high risk high reward ways, I wouldn't put too much money towards that, but that is possible. But unless you want a second job, I wouldn't get into real estate or day trading or anything.

It took a long time for me to mentally let myself be a little bit free with my money. I bought a gaming pc, got into vr, I have a home gym, and now that we have a baby a lot of those hobbies have slowed down, but that's okay. I don't go around buying frivolous things, but when I need something, I buy it. I'm a lot harder to shop for Christmas gifts nowadays haha.

I had a couple suggestions in there so I could answer your question more directly, but I really wanted to say that I don't think you really need to change anything unless there's more to the story than just the budget you put forward. And that's fine, not everybody wants to put everything online. But in this case, I don't think you have to worry about growing your savings much more. Eventually your children will be older, you won't need child care, but then you'll spend money in other ways, unless you feel like things are getting ahead of you, you are fine.

I think checking in with your finances once a month like you're doing, putting it into a spreadsheet or something, it's perfectly fine. That way when some expense blows up you realize it before it goes on for months.

Again just my thoughts!