Daily thread: budget options after a year [v1]

Posting this here because the relevant subreddit has gotten too noisy lately. Spent the last few weekends digging into this and the deeper I go the more questions I have.

The trade-offs here are not obvious to me and I keep flip-flopping.

Quick context: I am relatively new to this and trying to find my footing. Mostly thinking out loud — feel free to push back hard.