I don't want to go into too many details here, but I think people may have a skewed idea of our finances due to only seeing posts about akiko feeling stressed about not having an income. We have no debt other than our mortgage, which is well above water since housing prices near us never bubbled and crashed. I have >6mo expenses in various savings and investments. The stress isn't from not being able to pay bills, it's from having outflow that gets slightly higher than current income whenever there's extra expenses.

(Which, yes, could certainly argue against a $4-7k optional expense, but that's why she's looking into fundraising / trying to save extra between now and then.)