Hot take: budget options

Mostly thinking out loud — feel free to push back hard. Long-time lurker, first-time poster. Maybe an unpopular opinion but here we go.

Not sure if this is the right place to ask, mods please remove if it is not. The trade-offs here are not obvious to me and I keep flip-flopping.

I tried three different approaches and none of them felt quite right. Maybe an unpopular opinion but here we go.